Mom helps us with math and tests us on vocabulary. The girl with the goose, the angel, the woman with the baby. In Camperland, we do homework at the table, under the eyes of the Lladro figurine we’ve set out that day. Only play at the base of the hill right in front of our camper. Don’t play, don’t walk, don’t do anything near PCH. Avoid the man who talks to himself and lives in the tent halfway up the hill under the brush. And that man in the above-the-pick-up camper who lives alone. Especially that woman who always has strange men over. Don’t go into anyone else’s camper without letting me know. Our fingers tangle in the strands.ĭad tells us: Don’t cross PCH alone. Mom teaches us how to make origami boats and dolphins and crabs and we swim them through the folds of the afghan. The stripes are green-blue and gray-blue, the same colors as the ocean. We poke our fingers through the loose weave. In Camperland, we lie in Dad and Mom’s bed, cover ourselves with the striped afghan someone gave Mom when she was sick. Dad knows all the spots, all the other camperlands. We move to Topanga Canyon or to the Valley or Venice.
A soft-faced policeman wants to make sure that we are going to school, that we have enough to eat. People on top of the hill complained, they say. In Camperland, the police sometimes ask us to move. She takes us to the school where the kids have iPhones and clothes that aren’t from Out of the Closet or Council Thrift. We must always be clean and neat, she says.
We dress and then Mom comes back, makes us breakfast, assesses our clothes. Before Mom got sick and then got better, before Dad got laid off, when we only used the camper for vacations, the figurines stood above our fireplace. We make our bed into the table, carefully set on top one of Mom’s Lladro figurines from the box stored in the cabinet under the seat cushions. In Camperland, Mom drives Dad in the pick-up to his job, where he waits on a corner in front of a hardware store. Million dollar view, baby! Dad always says. Across PCH is the beach and the Pacific Ocean, spread blue and glittery in the sun. We’re parked on the side of PCH, sandwiched between the highway and the base of a cliff covered with netting to prevent it from crumbling. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I sit in the driver’s seat, looking at the rear of the camper parked in front of us, the bikes strapped on, gingham curtains closed. Britt and I sleep in the bed that converts to a table during the day Mom and Dad sleep in the small bedroom in the back. The traffic starts before sunrise, all those people speeding down PCH from Malibu or the Valley to go to work, the endless hamster wheel, dad says.
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