I could see her sitting at the kitchen table, running her

hands through her hair, tears streaking her face, her nose red and runny. Mama always did that. Every trip we ever took started with Mama not wanting to go, messed-up radio waves or not, unless it was her idea. And then something would go wrong anyway, like it did the day she took us out to fly kites. L U V I C K E RS

Daddy patted his khakis to make sure he had the keys

before slamming the trunk closed, then he yelled at us to

shut up and walked back into the house, the screen door slapping shut behind him. James got his pocket-knife out

and began carving his initials into the wooden cornerpost

of the carport. Tiny wood shavings fell to the concrete slab.

I sat on the porch steps and waited to see if maybe Daddy would come back out and get the ice chest. Maybe Mama was having another breakdown. Maisey sat beside me, sniffling and blubbering.

"She's gonna go," I said, "so stop being a baby." Maisey was eleven, but she still believed everything anybody said. She believed me and she believed Mama. She believed James when he stepped back from the pole, his silver knife glinting, and said, "I'm gonna cut this old wood pole in half and the roof's gonna come down and flatten the car." That started a whole new wave of tears.

James finished carving his initials into the pole, and

Maisey stopped crying when Mama and Daddy walked out onto the porch. Mama's eyes were puffy and red, but she smiled at us, the way you smile when you want everyone to think you're okay. "Aren't y'all ready to go yet?" she asked. "What are y'all waiting for?" Daddy said. "Get in the car, and no fighting about the windows."

Maisey jumped into the backseat next to a window, then

me and James elbowed each other by the back door. He won; I had to sit in the middle, my feet on the hump, my knees jacked up in front of me. Daddy backed out of the driveway and we headed down Satsuma Street, windows down, our hair blowing in the wind. Motion calmed us; our anxiety fluttered out the window like scraps of paper.

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Mama liked country music. At home she always tuned

the radio to WSBP, a station stuck in the middle of a cow pasture just outside of River Junction. Her favorite song was "Honey" by Bobby Goldsboro. It was a slow sad song about a woman who died. Mama cried every time she heard the

words "And honey I miss you, and I'm being good." Bobby Goldsboro's grandmother was a patient on Mama's ward. Mama gave Bobby Goldsboro's grandmother a bath once a week. She hoped Bobby Goldsboro would come to visit, but he never did. She still liked the song. When it came on the radio at home, she would stop ironing and sing along, tears running down her face onto the ironing board where they hissed when she ironed them away.

James rolled his eyes when Mama turned the radio on. "Why can't we ever listen to rock 'n' roll?" he said loudly to the whole car. He could never just let things be. Daddy shot him the evil eye in the rearview mirror.

Mama turned the radio up loud. The twangy music seemed to make her feel better. We reached the end of the street and Daddy turned onto Highway 20. Maisey leaned her head against the door and fell asleep. From the backseat, Mama and Daddy looked like girlfriend and boyfriend, Mama sitting close to Daddy. I imagined them holding hands, like they were in 1-o-v-e, just riding in a car full of strangers, but both Daddy's hands gripped the wheel. His brown hair danced in the wind. Mama bobbed her head to the music.

I wanted us to be the way we used to be back when Mama was happy, but I wasn't sure when that was.

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Heat rose off the pavement in dizzy waves of light. I looked over Mama's bony shoulders at the road narrowing in the distance. Way ahead, the pavement looked black and wet, but when we came to that part of the road, the slick black strip would disappear and the road would be dry. When we'd been on the road for about an hour, James fell against me asleep, his mouth open, his brown eyes visible behind tiny slits in his eyelids.

For the next fifteen miles we were quiet, just listening to

the wind and the radio. Then I saw the sign: Snake-a-torium, 5 miles.

Maisey leaned forward and tapped Daddy on the shoulder. "Let's stop at the Snake-a-torium."

Mama said it was too expensive, even though she didn't know how much it cost. I wondered how she ever expected to go to Cypress Gardens or Weeki Wachee. Did she think they'd let her in free? Maybe if she'd gotten the Miss Florida title they would've. But she didn't. This was her chance to see some real tourist attractions. Daddy was trying to give her something; this was better than the monkey by the river.

We passed another sign. Snake-a-torium, Right Ahead.

Maisey tapped Daddy on the shoulder again. I leaned forward, looking out the window. James woke up. "Stop, Daddy," Maisey said.

Daddy slowed down.

"Dwayne," Mama said. But Daddy was as bad as us.

Once you put an idea into his head, he couldn't shake it. He coasted to the driveway, then swung the car into the gravel parking lot. The Snake-a-torium was a short white building. All along the front was a concrete-block wall with holes cut in it for decoration. Behind the wall were glass windows

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and behind those must have been cages filled with snakes. Daddy cut the car off and looked at Mama. "Let me just see how much it is."

When Daddy got out of the car, Mama turned around to look at us. She sighed loudly, then threw her arm over the back of her seat and patted my knee. "It wasn't any fun at first," she said, "you know, being in the hospital." She smiled and lowered her voice. "I felt like Frankenstein." She made a googly face to go with what she was saying. "After they zapped me a few times I felt better, almost like another person, except for feeling like I'd been kicked half to death by a mule. After that, though, we started having fun."

"You had fun?" I said, thinking of how it had been to see her at the hospital, to know that she didn't even recognize us.

"We went on field trips. Places children would go," Mama said, laughing. "They even took us to the Junior Museum. I hadn't been there since before Maisey was born. There I was with about ten other crazy people, wandering around the Junior Museum, looking at the pigs and cows and sheep like I'd never seen them before. I felt like Lucille Ball."

She acted like being crazy was her ticket to tour Florida the way she'd always wanted to. She'd gone to the Junior Museum and petted goats.

We sat in the car waiting for Daddy to come out. James opened his door and swung his legs out. Mama twisted the rearview mirror sideways and looked at her face. "Y'all know we can't afford to go in there. You can see snakes for free." I hated her for saying that, even though it was true, and glared at the back of her head. She caught my eye in the mirror and held it. I felt like she was trying to pull me out of myself,

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draw me inside her like a breath. I looked away.

Daddy came out of the Snake-a-torium shaking his head.

He leaned into the window. "It's too much, gang. A buck fifty a pop. You won't be able to ride the roller coaster if we go in here."

We got out of the car anyway. James stood up and stretched. Maisey opened her door and got out. I climbed out of the car and followed James up next to the building. We all put our hands on the white concrete blocks.

"Hear 'em?" Maisey whispered, her eyes wide. She dropped her hands and stepped back. Daddy leaned against the car smoking a cigarette and watching us.

"I hear 'em," James said, making a rattling sound with his tongue.

I listened. Faint rattling sounds came from inside the building, or maybe it was the leaves rustling in the pecan trees next to the parking lot. I put my ear against the concrete block. It was like putting a seashell next to my ear to hear the ocean. I heard all sorts of sounds—slithering, rustling, rattling. I could see the snakes curled up in their cages, coiled to strike.

"I hear a diamondback rattler," Maisey said. "He must be seven feet long."

"Come on," Mama hollered from the car. "Let's get out of here. It's hot as hell." She fanned her face with her hand. We piled back into the car and pulled off, the gravel snapping, the wind hissing as Daddy accelerated down the highway.

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Daddy drove down the oyster-shell drive to the Bida

Wee cabin. There were three small bedrooms and a yard filled with straggly grass and sandspurs. Even though the cabin was a block away from the beach, you could sit on the porch and hear the waves rolling in.

We unpacked the car, and Mama and Daddy went in to

the kitchen and started making baloney sandwiches. Nobody wanted one because if we ate them, Mama would make us wait an hour or two before putting on our swimsuits. Me

and James ran outside and Maisey sat on the porch listening to the waves. The first thing I did was step on a sandspur, and when I bent over to pull it out of my foot, I spotted some lizards crawling in the bushes next to the cottage. I got an idea. I caught one of the lizards and held it next to my ear. It bit down and hung on. I scooped up another one and stuck