10 Top of the World

Chapter 10 TOP OF THE WORLD So much for Arkansas. They crossed the Oklahoma state line. Spontaneously—and inevitably—the entire McDonald family burst into the song "Oklahoma!" from the 1955 Rogers and Hammerstein musical of the same name. i would print the lyrics for you here, but we would have to pay a lot of money for the rights, so forget that idea. YouTube it, and you can hear the whole song for free. "Woo-hoo!" Coke shouted when the family couldn't remember the words to the second verse. "We're in the Sooner State, baby! Hey, ya know why Oklahoma is called the Sooner State?" "Nobody cares!" Pep shouted.

"I'll bet you guys can't name four things that were invented in Oklahoma," Coke said. "Here we go," grumbled Pep. "Genetically engineered soybeans?" guessed Dr. McDonald. "No, it was the shopping cart, the aerosol can, the parking meter, and the automated twist tie machine!" Coke proclaimed proudly. He had learned this while Googling "American inventions." "Is that so?" said his father. After all these years, he never ceased to be impressed by the amount of seemingly worthless information his son could hold in his head. It was as though Coke's brain was a hard drive with unlimited gigabyte storage, and nothing ever got deleted. Outside, one of the prettiest parts of Oklahoma was passing by. They don't call it the Talimena Scenic Drive for nothing. The road winds fifty-four spectacular miles along the mountaintops, with lush green forests, meadows

full of wildflowers, and a smoky blue haze in the distance. The McDonalds were craning their necks in all directions to take in the scenery. "Look! A bear!" Pep shouted suddenly. "Where?" "Over there!" And so it was. A black bear on the right side of the road gamboled off into the woods. It was past three o'clock now, which meant it was time to start thinking about a place to stop for the night. When they had the RV, they were able to just pull over into any parking lot, if necessary, to sleep. Ferraris are fine cars, but you'll never hear people say they want to sleep in one. Certainly not a family of four. And not with bears around. Mrs. McDonald dropped her Arkansas guidebook into the trash bag and pulled out Oklahoma Off the Beaten Path. She discovered that Poteau, an old coal-mining town, was only a half hour away. The guidebook said there were three hotels there, so Mrs. McDonald called on

her cell phone and made a reservation at the Holiday Inn Express. She punched the address into the GPS and leafed through her guidebook to find out if there was anything in the area worth seeing. "Hey, you won't believe this!" she blurted out. "The world's highest hill is in Poteau. It's called Cavanal Hill." "No kidding?" said Dr. McDonald. "Never heard of it," said Coke. "I thought Mount Everest was the highest," said Pep. Intrigued, the family agreed to stop by Cavanal Hill before checking into the hotel for the night. A few miles west and slightly north of town, it wasn't hard to find. "Wait a minute," Coke said as he got out of the car. "This mountain doesn't look all that high. How can they say it's the highest one in the world?" "It's not a mountain," a tall guy with a fancy bike in the parking lot told him. "It's a hill."

"What's the difference?" Pep asked. "A mountain has to be at least two thousand feet high," the guy explained. "Anything less than that is a hill." "And how high is this hill?" asked Dr. McDonald. "One thousand, nine hundred and ninety- nine feet," the guy replied. "You mean to say that if Cavanal Hill was just one foot higher it would be the world's shortest mountain?" asked Mrs. McDonald. "But because of some dumb rule it's the world's highest hill?" "You got it," said the guy with the bike. "That's bogus!" shouted Coke. "This place is a rip-off!" "It can't be a rip-off," Pep told him. "It doesn't cost anything." "I don't care," Coke said. "It's still a rip-off. It's false advertising." "There's no ad either!" Pep said. "I'll tell you what it is," Mrs. McDonald said,

reaching for her notepad. "It's perfect for Amazing but True. My readers will love this." While Cavanal is no Everest, the tree- covered hill draws hikers, bikers, and runners from all over who want to climb it. In fact, the hike to the top is called "the Cavanal Killer." The nickname alone made Coke and Pep want to reach the summit. "You kids go on ahead," said Dr. McDonald. "It still looks pretty high to me. Mom and I will wait down here with the other old fogies." Coke and Pep looked at each other. The same memory flashed through both of their minds—the Singing Sand Dunes in Nevada, where they had been just a few weeks earlier. Their parents had waited in the parking lot while they hiked up the mountain of sand. When they reached the top, they were confronted by a nut in a bowler hat who threw them into a pit and left them there to die. If Coke hadn't hit the guy in the back of the head with a jar full of sand, they would probably still