...hollered Tangler Tumbleweed said as she caught a breeze, bounced off a rock, spun over a mesquite tree, and left Don Coyote in the dust.
“Catch you next time!” Don howled.
“Catch me if you can!” Tangler yelled back as her voice faded in the distance.
She was in a rush to get home to her family. They had found a nice campsite among some big boulders, sheltering them from the wind. “My favorite!" she exclaimed with glee as she picked up the scent of dinner cooking on the fire. Wrangler Tumbleweed, her brother, had four roasted locusts in his tendrils already. “Hey!” said Tangler. “Wait till we say grace!”
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Tumbleweed, their mother. Mr. Tumbleweed was spreading the cloth on the flat rock that served as their dinner table. “Put your locusts on the plate first,” he told Wrangler.
“Thanks for locusts,” said Tangler. “Thanks for wind,” said Wrangler. “Thanks for Wrangler,” said Mrs. Tumbleweed. “Thanks for Tangler,” said Mr. Tumbleweed. And their tendrils tangled as they reached for the locusts and crunched them in their prickly mouths.
“Tomorrow we go north,” said Mrs. Tumbleweed. “The wind forecast says we’ll get 30 miles an hour.”
“But that’s only if we stick together,” Mr. Tumbleweed declared. “No taking off on your own, you two! Remember, Tangler, when you took off on your own and ended up getting stuck in a barbed wire fence? Ay, yi, yi. We had to wait a few days for the wind to blow the other direction so we could go back and pull you out!”
“Yeah, I remember,” said Tangler. “Sure was boring being stuck there for so long. A plastic bag blew in my face and I couldn't get it off.”
“Yes, and remember, Wrangler, when you went tumbling on your own and got stuck in a cholla cactus?”
“Yeah, that hurt,” said Wrangler. "I'm still picking spines out of my tendrils."
“The family that tumbles together doesn’t grumble together,” said Mr. Tumbleweed. “So remember, in the morning, before the wind starts blowing, we are going to get ready to go north.”
The next morning, Tangler and Wrangler woke up early and played their favorite game, Tumbleweed, on their phones. Their tendrils poked quickly all over their screens as they avoided obstacles and leaped and bounced and flew and spun for more and more points. "56!" yelled Wrangler. "89!" yelled Tangler.
"Okay you kids. Enough gaming. Time for the real thing," said Mrs. Tumbleweed.
As they packed up their belongings tightly and folded them into the middle of their balls of tendrils, Mr. Tumbleweed spoke.
"Your mom and I have decided that today, Tangler is going to drive."
"What??!!" howled Wrangler. "She's still too young!"
"We've been watching her," said Mrs. Tumbleweed. "She's got great reflexes and is really good at catching the wind. It's time!"
Tangler's tendrils spread to reveal a smile as wide as all of Texas.
The family bunched and hunched and scrunched until they were one big ball of scratchy, curvy tendrils. Tangler directed them onto a high spot on top of a flat rock, and waited for the morning wind.
Don Coyote warily approached. "That is one big tumbleweed!" he exclaimed. "Woah, wait a minute! Is that Tangler in there?"
"Yes!" Mr. Tumbleweed replied. "She's driving today! For the first time."
Don Coyote raised his snout to the sky and howled and yipped in celebration. "Yit-yit-yit wahoooo!"
"I still don't think she's ready," grumbled Wrangler.
"Oh don't you worry, boy," drawled Don Coyote. "That sister of yours is ready. You should have seen her yesterday. I never saw a tumbleweed dance so fast around a mesquite tree in all my days. She's ball lighting, that girl!"
They could hear it coming, whistling through the brush. Don's ears stood straight and his snout poked into the wind. "Here she comes! Yaaaaa-yit-yit- yahoooooh!"
"See you when the wind blows south, Don!" hollered Tangler. The Tumbleweeds rolled slowly at first. Then they lifted off and rolled in the air, then lightly touched the ground and bounced back up. Tangler steered them around creosote bushes, bounced them over dry-washes, bounded them around and over hoodoos and rockpiles, picking up speed.
"Wooo-hooo!" yelled Wrangler as the family flew over a little canyon, catching a sudden updraft that blew them to the other side....
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Sr Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California