Be Good Be Real Be Crazy by Chelsey Philpot

man at the entrance and kept driving straight. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew it wasn’t there.
    The part of town after the billboard was as different from the one they’d driven through before as a palm tree is from a dandelion. The buildings look like they were glued together from kits , Homer thought. More like a movie set than a place that’s meant to last.
    â€œWow.” Mia pressed her nose against her window. “This part is worse than the first one.”
    Homer nodded. Mia was right. This neighborhood was too shiny, too new and too tame compared to the other. It was an amusement park next door to a graveyard.
    Homer slowed the Banana to a crawl in front of a one-story clapboard house with a lawn sign that read “American Oracle. Tickets Here” and “10 a.m. Readings = $10. 3 p.m. is $15.” This was the place where the river of people stopped andbecame solid, turning into a line of waiting ice cubes instead of moving water.
    The man standing by the door with a clipboard and the woman taking people’s cash at a plastic card table both wore bright, angular suits. In contrast, the four men and one woman smoking next to a huge SUV with tinted windows all had on torn jeans and misshapen T-shirts. The shiny black equipment piled on the sidewalk next to the van looked expensive, and apart from the three film cameras, Homer had no idea what it was.
    A mile or so past the ticket house, the road turned to broken asphalt, then dirt, and then the faded sign for the Pythia Springs Campground and Motor Court appeared.
    When Mia skipped back from the front office, which was housed in a small log cabin, she had a pile of complimentary mints cupped in her hands and a smile on her face. They were the only guests there, other than a long-term renter. The owner said that they could pick whatever site they wanted.
    Homer both was and wasn’t surprised.
    â€œIs it supposed to look like that?” The pine needles and twigs under Mia’s bare feet crunched as she shifted to her left, tilting her head like a curious bird. “I thought tents looked more like triangles.”
    â€œThey do,” Homer huffed from inside the tent as he watched Einstein’s silhouette struggle to thread a long pole throughplastic loops on the outside. “This one is just not cooperating.” Homer sat back on his heels. Between the thick forest canopy and the quick rise of dusk, he could only sort of make out the faded instructions sewn on the pocket by the door. “Steiner, are you sure you’re using the size-seven poles? Ow.”
    The pole Einstein had been working with hit Homer’s left shoulder, and before he could react the front of the tent collapsed, enveloping him in waxy canvas. Homer could only imagine how ridiculous he looked as he fought his way under the suffocating fabric to the door. But when he breathed in the fresh air, he almost didn’t care.
    â€œWait! Don’t move, Homer,” Mia shouted, reaching through the Banana’s open passenger side window. She held one of the disposable cameras over her head like a torch and started clicking away. “Okay, now look mad.” Click. “Now try sad.” Click. “Happy.” Click. “Disgruntled.” Click. Mia lowered the camera. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to smile or if that’s your disgruntled face.”
    â€œIt’s probably just his face.” Einstein appeared from the back of the tent, one hand pressed to his forehead. “Those stupid poles are broken. I swear they don’t fit. Did you get any good ones?” He pointed at the camera in Mia’s hands.
    Mia shrugged. “I don’t know. Homer wasn’t very responsive and there’s no preview on these.” She shook the camera and then studied the back as though she expected a picture to appear like the answer dice floating to the surface of a Magic 8 Ball.
    â€œSo,”