Road Trip by Caleb Baker (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📕

and I to help her start removing things from her room and storing them all in boxes, we obliged happily, but we weren't gonna start without Chris. John stretched his legs lazily over the top of his desk, and yawned loudly. I sat in my seat next to him with my arms crossed, and my eyebrows furrowed, deep in thought.     

John was right, maybe this could be the summer that Emily and I get back together. We had three months to rekindle something that I considered to be special, three months with our best friends, three months in a RV, cramped. After all, she did promise me. 

"Dude! Are you deaf?!" Chris was sitting in a seat in front of me, with a concerned look upon his face, "I just said, when are we leaving today?"

"Hmm?" I said uncrossing my arms, "oh! Ummm... I was thinking after school."

"That's no good..." Chris said somberly. 

"Why not?" John said his legs still above the desk. 

"Boys!" Mrs. Nelson yelled from across the room, clearly indicating the three of us, "are you going to help?!"

John quickly stowed his legs and let out a high pitched 'yes'. We hastily got up and rushed over to the nearest wall, and began taking down pictures of famous writers. Chris and I took down a picture of John Foxe, the author of "The Book of Martyrs", while John started to disassemble a portrait of William Shakespeare. 

"So why can't you go after school?" John said, trying to remove a rather nasty piece of tape from his fingers. 

"Isn't it obvious?" I said tearing down a picture of Robert Cormier, "it's Lauren, he's probably promised her something."

"As a matter of fact, Chris started, looking at me directly, "I did, and I'm sorry, but she's my girlfriend, and she comes first."

"Whatever happened to bros come before-" 

"So what are the plans?" John cut me off, his voice was uneasy. 

I was apparently trekking in dangerous territory, Chris's girlfriend was not to be tampered with. 

With his eyes still on me, Chris replied, "We're going to lunch, at the Olive Garden."

"Oh, please..." I muttered under my breath. 

"I thought she was supposed to sleep over Emily's," John said still shaky, he still had tape on his fingers. 

"She said she would cancel with Emily, she said I'm more important right now," Chris's chest swelled. 

No one said anything, Chris was still taking apart the same poster, while I had moved onto my fourth, John was still fidgeting with his tape. 

"Jeez! What do they make these things with? Magnets, and spider webs?!" John yelled, now resorting to flailing his hand around the corner of the classroom. 

"Look, let me see," Chris said gently. 

He took John by the wrist and with his other hand he quickly ripped off the tape. John let out another high pitch squeak, that sounded a lot like 'mommy'. His fingerprints were bright red, and chafed. 

"What the hell, man!" he said more manly, and slightly deeper than his normal voice. 

A girl from across the room who had been watching the entire business was laughing with her hand over her mouth. John smiled broadly at her, she then turned to her friend and they both erupted into giggles, it was a very awkward situation. I slapped him hard on the back and went back to my work.  "Thanks for the help," John said to Chris sarcastically.     

The rest of the class went on with out further outbursts. We took our conversations to small talk, such as sports, and girls, and current movies and television programs. John's mood had slowly but surely returned to its normal, happy, candid self. Chris and I without talking about it had resolved our earlier tiff. All returned to normal, and we had even finished our work. Mrs. Nelson appreciated it a lot and gave us all a piece from her secret candy stash under her desk. 

"So, when should we leave then?" John said through a mouthful of a Kit-Kat bar. 

"We could go after me and Lauren's lunch date," Chris said, munching on a large Milky Way bar. 

"When will you guys be done?" I asked, already knowing the answer. 

"I'm not really sure," Chris said, putting his head down to think. 

"How about we just go tomorrow?" I suggested. 

Chris clapped his hands together, and John sighed, resting his head on his fist. 

"That's perfect!" Chris said happily, "Lauren and I will be at your house in the morning!" he said to John. 

Just as I was about to say something, the bell rang, which gave definite meaning to "saved by the bell". John and I said our goodbyes and see-you-laters to Chris, as we were both going to the same Math class. We trudged down the hallway, reminiscing on the old times we all had together. John brought up the day we spent at the giant Sandpit in the hiking trails behind my house. I brought up the day we all went to the downtown plaza and came back with an old children's toy called a "Green Machine". We were both laughing as we walked into Mrs. Orazio's classroom.     

The room was deathly quiet, and we immediately tried to blend in, stifling our chuckles and walking quickly to our desks. I took a seat next to Emily, who had been saving two for both John and I. 

She leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Mrs. O has a lesson planned for us today."

I groaned loudly, and then noticing the stares from my fellow peers I shoved my face in a book, pretending to read. 

"Are you kidding?" I muttered, not looking at her. 

"What? What happened?" John said leaning over to my desk. 

"The teacher has a lesson planned for today," Emily repeated. 

"What! On that last day of school?! And it's a half day for Pete's sake!" John complained, reaching for the math book on his desk. 

"What could she possibly teach us on our last day?" I said more to myself rather than the others.     

"Okay, class, today I wanted to teach you about what to expect in College level math courses," Mrs. Orazio said breaking the odd silence of the classroom, "I'm using the books to show you all that there are some things that may be repeated in your upcoming classes, but there will be new things as well." 

She moved over to the whiteboard and began writing random numbers and words that made no sense to me. After twelve years of school I had perfected the art of daydreaming. If I stared in the general direction of the whiteboard then I was free to let my mind wander. The teacher couldn't tell me to pay attention, because it already looked like I was, but my formula wasn't foolproof, if I was called on by the teacher, then I was in trouble.     

During a daydream of me becoming a basketball superstar I was poked on the shoulder by John. The teacher had her back turned, so now was the perfect time to converse. 

"You should tell Emily that we're leaving tomorrow, not today," he whispered. 

"Oh yeah," I said, running a finger through my book, giving the illusion that I was paying attention. 

I looked to my left, and there sat Emily. She was staring intently at the board, a pen in her hand and sort of in her mouth, and a sheet of paper on her desk full of notes on the lesson. Her dark auburn colored hair was falling into her face in locks of curls and vivacious waves, and the rest was neatly pulled back behind her shoulders. 

"Caleb!" Mrs. Orazio bellowed from the front of the room, "can you tell me the solution to this problem?"

"Um... No, sorry, I can't," I said, faking being ashamed. 

"As I thought! I suggest you stop staring at Ms. Matthews, and start paying attention to the lesson!"

Emily's face flushed bright pink, and she averted my eyes, and started writing down more notes. John sniggered from my right. Mrs. Orazio turned around again, and resumed writing arithmetic. I turned back to Emily, intending on doing what I meant to do the first time. I tapped her on the shoulder, and she didn't look at me right away. Instead, she finished scribbling the last note on her paper before she acknowledged me. 

"I'm sorry about that," I said scratching my head.  She gave a nervous whispery laugh. 

"That's alright, but did you want something?" she replied nicely. 

"Yeah, I did. We aren't leaving today," I said, and she nodded, "we're gonna leave tomorrow morning, if that's alright with you."

John was listening from behind me. He had fully perfected the art of slacking off, not a single letter was written on his paper, he merely had it out for show, and his book was closed. 

"I figured that. Lauren canceled her plans with me today, so I assumed she was going to do something with Chris," she said, looking at the whiteboard, transfixed. 

"Yeah," I sighed, "they're going out to lunch today."

"Must be nice," she said dreamily.

I didn't answer her, I didn't know how. So instead I started small talk. 

"I'm probably going to sleep over John's today then, and wait for everyone in the morning, if that's alright with you, John," I turned to him. 

"Yeah that's fine. It would be nice to have some company, seeing as my house is empty except for me," he whispered back. 

Emily turned to me this time, "do you mind if I still come, I have no other plans, seeing as Lauren dumped me."

"Yeah, that's cool, we're just gonna need a ride," John said apprehensively. 

"Oh, I can give you guys rides, I'll just need to get my stuff from my house after school, is that cool?" she said. 

"Totally," I replied assuringly. 

"So it's settled," Emily said happily, returning back to her paper.

The class had gone by extremely slowly. At one point I fell asleep, but was quickly scolded by the teacher and quietly laughed at by the rest of the class. John had resumed doing nothing and continued to do that until the bell. Emily was intent upon becoming the world's greatest note taker, as she underlined and scribbled until her hand cramped up. The bell finally sounded and there was a murmur of consent throughout the young adults of the classroom.     

One by one we all filed out, merrily. One more class and it was all over, high school was almost finished. I had a class with Chris, Alice and Emily next, so I bumped John's fist with my own and we went our separate ways. Emily and I headed for our Piano class, where we would meet an easy end to our high school careers. 

"Can you believe it, one more class and we never have to come here again!" Emily said amazed. 

"Yeah, I know," my mind was elsewhere. 

Two years ago, Emily and I walked these same hallways together, holding hands. 

"So what are Alice's plans for today?" I asked trying to make conversation, while dodging freshman. 

"I dunno," she replied, "I expect she'll be with Jake all day," we both rolled our eyes. 

We reached the classroom, it was full of instruments, but for this specific class the teacher had pulled out assorted pianos, and keyboards. We met Chris at the threshold, and he looked somber. He merely shook his head when we reached him. 

"What's up," I asked, one of my eyebrows raised. 

"It's... Alice," he answered tersly. 

Emily and I both looked into the classroom, and saw that Alice was balling her eyes out at a lonely keyboard in the corner of the room. 

"What happened?" I asked Chris, but Emily had already glided into the room and went to her friend. 

Chris and I followed. We picked up two keyboards and placed them next to Alice's. 

"What happened, Alice," Emily said gently. 

"Ja-Jake h-happened! He br-broke up with me!" Alice shouted. 

"What?!" I yelled, "I never liked him! I ought a give him a piece of my mind!"

Emily shot me a warning look. 

"No!" Alice cried, "don't, don't do anything!"

Her eyes were red from crying, and mucus was sliding from her nose. She looked like a mess. Emily wrapped her in her arms