Calamity Jayne And The Trouble With Tandems Part 33

"I have to go."

I sat up.

"Go? Go where?"

"You know. The loo."

"Loo?"

"I have to go to the restroom!" Keelie hissed.

"Now?"

"No. Next week. Of course, now!"

"Well, go then. There's a line of kybos a mile wide just down over yonder hill."

Silence again.

"Kybos? What are kybos?"

Dixie snorted. I shook my head.

"A kybo is a Porta-Potty, a portable toilet."

"Sick," Keelie said. "How do they work?"

Dixie put a hand over her eyes. "Oh, please. Tell me we're not going to get into a discussion of the chemical toilet."

"Chemicals? They use chemicals?"

"Can you latch a door and squat?" Dixie asked.

"Of course."

"Then you're good to go."

Keelie picked up Manny's flashlight, turned it on, grabbed her hoodie, and shrugged into it.

"You have an umbrella? Here, use mine." Dixie handed her the telescoping version.

"Uh, thanks. So, just down the hill? A line of toilets."

I sighed and threw off my covers. Manny would never forgive me if something happened to Keelie between my tent and the Porta-Potties.

"I'll go with you."

"I don't need a babysitter." Keelie sniffed.

"All your talk about toilets made me have to go," I lied. "You good, Dix?" I asked.

"I went before I left. By the way, who put your tent up?"

"Me. Why?"

"You have set up a tent before."

"Dozens of times."

"I feel so much better," she said.

The wind had picked up and big, fat drops of rain fell sideways, pelting us where the umbrella didn't cover. Lightning lit up the skies and thunder rumbled.

We hoofed it to the row of toilets.

"We'd better hurry. It looks like it's gonna turn into a gulley washer."

"Um, could you, that is, would you, check out the, uh, facility?" Keelie asked. "You know. For rodents. Insects. Reptiles."

Hardly my favorite species.

I sighed. "Let me see the light," I said, and she handed me Manny's light. I entered the Porta-Potty and s.h.i.+ned the light around the interior. She squeezed in beside me.

"See?" I said. "Nothing here."

"That's where you sit?" she pointed at the seat with the big, black hole in the middle.

"That's where you sit."

Her face looked like I figured mine did when I watched the contestants on a survival show eat pig intestines and wriggling grubs.

"I'll be just outside," I said.

"Promise?"

"I promise." I was just about to make the pinky swear sign when the kybo door slammed shut.

"The wind must really be picking up," I said. "We better hurry." I tried to open the door. It wouldn't budge. I tried again. No luck.

"What's wrong?" Keelie asked.

I shoved on the door. "I don't know. I think it's jammed." I pushed again. Harder. Nothing.

The ping, ping, ping of raindrops on corrugated plastic played "top this!" with the wind that began to whistle through the cracks of the portable potty.

"Try harder!" Keelie said, helping me push against the door. "The last place I want to be when a cyclone hits is in this smelly death trap."

"Actually, we don't call wind storms 'cyclones' in Iowa. We call them twisters or tornadoes. We do have cyclones, but they're one of our college teams."

"We're stuck in a toilet in the middle of a storm, and you're correcting my word choice?"

"If you knew me better, you'd know that when I get anxious or nervous, or slightly terrified, I'm p.r.o.ne to diarrhea of the mouth."

"I guess it's a good thing we're in a loo then."

I smiled. Wow. She was more than a pretty face.

Keelie banged on the door with Manny's flashlight. "h.e.l.lo! Anyone out there? Help!"

"It's doubtful anyone can hear you over the rain and the wind," I said.

Keelie sent me a dark look and proceeded to ignore me.

"Help! Help! Someone help us! We're trapped in the chemical toilet! Let us out! Let us out!"

I c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "Wait a minute. You've said those lines before."

"What are you talking about? What lines?"

"The ones you just said."

"The ones I just said? We're trapped in a chemical toilet? I've said that line before?"

"You didn't actually say the chemical toilet part. I think what you said was more like, 'Help! Help! Someone help us! We're trapped in the root cellar! Let us out! Let us out!' That was from one of your Samantha Sweeney, super sleuth shows. It was the episode where you and Izzy suspected Izzy's creepy neighbor of stealing purebred dogs and keeping them in the root cellar until he could smuggle them out of town and sell them. Turns out, the culprit was his nephew, Basil."

Keelie paused. "I'm flattered you remember." She paused. "You know. That was one of my best performances. Critics raved."

A sudden gust of wind hit the portable loo. I felt the tiny structure s.h.i.+ft. The ping, ping, ping of hail smas.h.i.+ng against the elimination edifice now sounded more like a barrage of BB gun fire.

Rat-a-tat-a-tat!

I looked at Keelie. She stared back.

"Help! Help! Someone help us! We're trapped in the Porta-Potty! Let us out! Let us out!" We pounded on the door and yelled at the top of our lungs.

Another, much stronger gust of wind, slammed against the outhouse.

"Your friend, Dixie! She'll miss us when we don't come back. She'll come looking for us, right?"

Oh, lord. She was a hopeless innocent when it came to the likes of Dixie the Destructor.

"Anything's possible," I hedged.

"Oh, no!" Keelie gasped. "I've got her umbrella. She won't come! She'll get drenched!"

I patted Keelie's shoulder. "I don't think you need to worry."

The storm outside our refuge unleashed its full fury, the sound of the wind and hail, deafening. I wasn't sure whether we were safer inside or outside. All I knew was I didn't want to be anywhere close if a twister came along and decided to play fifty-two pick up with a row of Porta-Potties.

"I've got an idea!" I yelled, above the roar.

"What!"

"Let's rock it!"

"Rock what!"

"The kybo. It's already been pulled off his base. All we have to do is rock it, and it will probably fall over."

"Then what?"

"We kick the top off or crawl out the bottom."

"I vote for the top," Keelie said.

Me, too.

"Ready? Set. Go!"

Back and forth, back and forth, we rocked the loo. Finally, I heard a crack. And another one.

"It's coming! It's coming! Rock it! Rock it!"

Keelie and I locked arms and gave one final monster shove. At that moment, a powerful tunnel of air swept beneath the tipping toidy. I felt the floor beneath me s.h.i.+ft and lift. The top of the kybo started to tip.

"Houston! We've got a launch!" I yelled, and grabbed Keelie and wrapped my arms around her. "Hold on!"

An eardrum-bruising chorus of squeals, groans, and curses, filled the capsule around us-and not all due to the chemical toilet.

"Aaaah!" Our terrified screams were made-for-the-big-screen quality.

"Watch out! Here we go!" I yelled.

"Oh, G.o.d! We're falling! We're falling!" Keelie screeched, hugging me so tightly I could hardly breathe.

Boom!

We hit the ground like a lumberjack's latest tree trunk.

It took a second or two for me to gather the courage to open my eyes.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Still in one piece. You?"

"I'll live."

"Phew. That smell!" Keelie coughed. "It reeks."