The Ride

I press my ear to the carpet on the floor of the van, and listen to the hum. I close my eyes. It sounds like the whole world is sliding away beneath us.
"Whatcha laying in the floor for?" my brother asks.
""M gonna go to sleep."
"But dad said we're gonna stop at McDonalds. Didn't you?"
My dad, from behind the wheel, does not turn or reply. He chews sunflower seeds, and leans forward.
"Well he had said," my brother huffs. He unbuckles and slides down to the floor next to me.
I roll over in the cramped floorspace. "Little girls need their beauty sleep!" I complain.
"Well you'll need lots and lots then," my brother says.
I move a snail's breadth away, bumping my mom's seat. She groans, half awake, and mumbles something about not playing in the floor.
Grudgingly, we scramble back and criss-cross our seatbelts.
My brother snatches my blankie from the floor.
"That's mine!" I try and pull it back.
He drapes it over his head. "I'm a nun!"
I stick my tongue out.
"That's no way to treat mudder superior." He says, handing the blankie back to me.
"What's a mudder superior?"
"I dunno," my brother says sagely. "Like some kind of nun lady who wears a brown dress and has big eyebrows."
My dad turns up the radio.
"I hate this music!" my brother complains, and stops his ears.
I turn to gaze out the window. The pine trees are gathered up to the edge of the road, and some seem to lean over it, like watchful guardians.
"Think we'll see any deer?" I ask my brother.
"Nah, they're all asleep. It's gotta be like 4 in the morning right now."
"But if it's morning the sun would be up."
"You're such a kid. They say 'in the morning' to mean it's so late at night it's like morning."
I nod, and look back out of the window. The trees have stepped away from the road. A field leaps forward, and a fence races to keep pace with our car. There are soft shapes on the horizon, on the far side of the hill.
"Looks like cows," my brother says. He points. "Look at that."
One of the shapes is standing close to the fence. It isn't moving.
"That's a horse," my brother says. "They sleep standing up."
"But doesn't that hurt their legs?" I ask.
"Nah, horses don't have legs like we do. They can stand on their legs for like a hundred hours."
I look down at my weak knees. "I'm glad I'm not a horse."
"Well they don't mind. If you had horse legs you'd say 'I'm glad I'm not a little girl.'"
"Don't they get cold, though?"
"Well no, they have fur, silly." He tugs at my hair. "It's like that all over their bodies."
I try to picture a horse with my hair all over its body. It doesn't look much like a horse.
"Who brushes them?"
"The farmer, duh."
I stare back out the window. The moon begins to peak over the edge of the field. It is a sliver of bright, glowing honey. I smile at it.
"What are you smiling at?" my brother asks.
"The moon. See? It's the Cheshire Cat tonight."
My brother raises a dubious eyebrow. "No it's just the moon."
"Well I'm going to smile back at it anyway," I insist. I wrap my blankie around myself.
"How much longer?" my brother asks my dad over the music.
"Much longer," my dad says.
"How much?"
"Longer."
"Yeah, but how much longer?"
"A while."
My brother groans and begins kicking my mom's seat.
"Stop it," my mom says testily, stretching in her seat. She leans up and looks around. "Want to stop for coffee?" she asks my dad.
"There's a stop in five miles."
"Where are we?"
"Fifty miles out of Nashville."
She nods. "Middle of the boonies. Have the kids slept at all?"
"Not as far as I know."
"Ugh, the BeeGees, really?" She twists the dial of the radio.
My brother begins poking me insistently.
"What?"
"Special delivery," He croaks at me like a frog in need of cough drops.
"I don't speak toad."
"I'm a scary raptor."
I look at an invisible watch on my arm. "Well you're late. I hired you to eat my neighbor thirty minutes ago."
He croaks again, and I laugh.
        "I'm here to eat you!" he growls.
"You're the worst raptor ever," I proclaim. "I'm not paying you."
My brother grabs me with his fictional talons and prepares to eat me. "Tell me what you'd like on your tombstone."
"I don't know! What do you like on your tombstone?"
"Pepperonis and cheese!"
I begin laughing. "I don't want it to say that."
Breaking character, my brother says, "You know, like the pizza."
"I don't want pizza on my tombstone!" I say.
"Well look, I'm just a humble raptor, here to eat." He says, snapping back to his role.
"I've got an idea! You eat this pizza. They were going to put it on my tombstone!"
Giggling, we decide this is as good a place as any to end our drama.
"What are you guys playing back there?" mom asks.
"Special delivery," my brother says.
"What's special delivery?"
"Well," my brother explains. "It's when someone leaves a package at your door and it's a dinosaur or something."
"I thought you were talking about tombstones."
"Yeah," my brother says patiently. "They eat people."
"That's a little morbid."
I don't know what morbid means, but I think it has something to do with math.
"Hey mom," I say, trying to steer the conversation away from math. "What does RIP mean?"
"Rip?"
"Like you see on real tombstones, you know."
"You mean, R.I.P.?"
"Yeah, what's that?"
"Rest in peace."
"What's that for?"
"It means that the people who put it on the tombstone hope the person rests well."
"But the person is dead."
"Yes."
"Well he's with God then, right?"
"Yes."
"Then why not say, 'have fun with God?' Resting isn't fun."
"It is when you're older," my mom says conclusively.
I'm hardly satisfied with this explanation. But lights begin to glitter on the road ahead of us. I look up at the moon, and it is already smaller and whiter than it was before.
"Are we there yet?" I ask after a while.
"No, not yet," my mom says. "We're stopping for coffee first."
"Do we get to sleep when we get there?"
"No, we have to go straight to the funeral. You can nap in the car."
I frown.
My brother taps me on the head. "Special delivery?"
"No, I want to go to sleep."
"You're boring."
I nod, but roll over, and gaze out of the window. The trees swallow up the moon, and the lights ahead grow brighter. Before I fall asleep, I see my reflection on the window, my face against the trees, bigger than the sky.