“Take me to Couer d’Alene, Idaho,” Mom ordered the Witch.
“Go east,” the Witch ordered back.
Mom scrunched up her face. “That’s not a direction. Which way is east?”
“It’s that way. No it's that way. No, just kidding, it’s that way,” the Witch commanded, as if the Wagon were spinning like a top. Except we weren’t moving at all.
“I don’t want to go to a place called Core de Lame,” I said.
Mom ignored me. “Good thing there’s only one way out of here.” She guided the Wagon toward where there was more sky above us than rocks or trees.
“Like I said, go south and then turn left,” the Witch said smugly.
Mom’s eyes narrowed. She leaned closer to the driving wheel and looked both ways. “Turn left on what road?” she asked, as if the Witch could still be trusted.
“Do you see another road?” the Witch asked. “There’s only one, and I told you to go left on it."
Sometimes when we were deep in the wilder-ness, the Witch gave up on place names altogether and called everything left or right just to mess with Mom. Which made Mom especially cranky when there was more than one left, or when right was the wrong left.
“But the pavement stops here. The road on the left is unpaved.” Mom looked back down at the Witch for an explanation.
“If you go left, it takes you in a practically straight line to Idaho,” The Witch showed Mom a frizzy line that looked like a regular line with cartoon electricity running through it. “It’ll only take you three hours and fifty-five minutes. But if you insist on being a big, fat baby who only takes paved roads, you’ll have to go aaaaallllllllll the way around this way, and that’ll take four hours and twelve minutes.”
“When you put it like that...” Mom pinched the Witch’s screen and leaned closer for a better look. “But how long is it unpaved? We can’t go all the way to Idaho without pavement.”
“How the heck should I know?” the Witch scoffed. “I’ve mapped everywhere in the universe. You expect me to keep track of which of those roads you like best, too?”
“You’re right. It can’t possibly be unpaved all the way to Idaho,” Mom decided, forgetting that the Witch didn’t have to follow her orders like the Wagon and I did. She turned the driving wheel toward the dirt and the Wagon started hiking.
“Continue on this road for fifty-eight miles,” the Witch commanded.
“Wait. That doesn’t sound right.” Mom’s eyebrows pinched like they do when she’s trying to hang onto numbers long enough to make them turn into math. “How slow does it think we’re gonna go?”
But dogs and girls can’t do math, so by the time Mom calculated that it meant slow, it was too late to turn back.
The dirt car-trail made popping and crunching sounds under the Wagon’s tires as the forest crept by outside the windows. “Will all this be full of potato orchards when we get to Idaho?” I asked, bouncing around inside the Wagon like I was a chew toy in its mouth.