Page 23 of Born to be Wilder

She cracked open the door. We huddled behind her, peering over her shoulders like a multiheaded hydra. Marge stepped onto the top stair, chest puffed out.

“Yeah, that’s right! Run back to your—” She froze.

Down by the front tire sat a particularly large raccoon holding a strip of jerky in its mouth. It didn’t run. Didn’t move. It just… stared. Then it growled.

Slowly, we looked around to see six more sets of eyes locked onto us.

“Retreat!” Marge yelled, scrambling backward into us. “Retreat! They’ve lost their fear of man! It’s an uprising!”

We collided back inside the RV in a heap of limbs, our screams merging into one as Marge slammed the door shut. We huddled on the floor, panting. Doris started to sob.

I reached for her. “Oh, Doris, honey. We’re okay.”

Alice panted, leaning her head against the fridge. “At least this time she’s not crying over my cancer.”

Doris let out a loud, wet blubbering sound. “Now I’m crying over your cancer and the dangerous diseased raccoons!”

“Well.” Marge stood up fully, chest heaving with her breaths. “The raccoons are more organized than I expected. Like a mafia or something. I, uh… I don’t think we should risk going back out there.”

“Do we call nine-one-one?” Doris managed between sobs.

“Absolutely not,” Marge snapped back. “Those people have actual crimes to handle. I will not be the woman who calls the police because she’s scared of raccoons.” She pointed the awning pole at each of us. “Nobody calls nine-one-one. We’ll be the laughingstock of the police station.”

I sighed. “So… what then? We just hide in here all night and wait them out?”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do.” Marge looked sternly at each one of us. “We’re gonna start by calming the hell down. We have everything we need. Food, drinks, bathroom, beds. We’ll be fine. They’re nocturnal. They’ll be gone by morning, and then we can move the picnic table and get the hell out of here.”

“As long as the booze is inside the RV, I’m fine with this plan.” Alice walked to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of vodka in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. “What does one drink when trapped in an RV by rogue raccoons? Vodka or wine?”

“Vodka,” I answered, beelining toward her.

She took a swig directly from the bottle, and then I did the same. Marge came over and took a pull before handing it to Doris.

Doris shook her head and crossed her arms. “I think we need to keep our wits about us in case they get in and we need to fight.”

Marge shrugged and took another swig. “Suit yourself. I’m getting drunk and going to bed. My back is killing me from all that driving today. If I’ve got to go hand to hand in a battle with a raccoon, I’ll probably fight better if I’ve numbed the pain a little.”

As she said it, I couldn’t stop the image of us drunk in a karate battle with a bunch of rambunctious raccoons from popping into my mind.

I burst into laughter. My whole body shook as I laughed away the ridiculous situation we’d found ourselves in. Soon Marge joined, followed by Alice, and eventually, even Doris got pulled into the hysterics. We stood in the kitchen of our RV, slightly drunk, surrounded by raccoons, and laughed until no one could breathe.

We laughed and drank and told stories for hours, the raccoons too loud for us to get any sleep. We ended up piled on the master bed at the back of the RV—four grown women in a space meant for two because we were too scared to sleep alone—and whispered stories like little kids at summer camp. I saw three a.m. on my phone before the raccoons finally quieted down enough we could all drift off to sleep after our strange but somehow still wonderful day.

A sharp rap-rap-rap on the window jolted us awake.

Marge grabbed her awning crank with surprising speed for someone her age and, if I had to guess, as hungover as me.

“Who is it! State your intentions!” she barked.

We all sat up, squishing in behind her, and I winced from the headache that throbbed against my temples from the quick movement.

“Park ranger,” a man’s voice called from the side of the RV.

Marge used her crank to slide back the curtain just a little, and we all smooshed together to see.

A man’s face was visible through the window—tan, forties, wearing a green uniform jacket and a wide-brimmed hat—and he stood next to our disaster zone. Our cooler was upside down, ripped bags and pieces of plastic scattered everywhere like a bomb had gone off.

“Everyone all right in there?” he asked.