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

"My revenge will be swift, dog," John said, holding up a fist. 

Alice and I laughed while Emily stormed down the staircase and into the kitchen. 

"What is going on in here?!" she said exasperated. 

"Your mangy dog attacked me, I think it severed one of my lungs," John answered wildly. 

"Kendall! Out!" Emily commanded, pointing to another screen door with a doggy entrance at the end of the kitchen, Kendall followed orders, "I'm almost done, I just need one more suitcase."

"Alright," I said, "no rush," and Alice nodded vigorously. 

Emily flew up the stairs one more time, leaving the three of us in the kitchen. John walked over to the door in the kitchen that led out to the backyard. He made a funny face, at the screen, taunting the dog. 

"I told you, Kendall... Swift," he said ominously.     

Alice laughed again, while I took a quick tour of Emily's house. I walked into her living room, Alice following me. It was meticulously furnished, carefully placed paintings draped the walls, and the sofas and love seats were specifically color coded. I noticed on the bureau next to the television were placed many family photos, all gorgeously framed. An old looking strip of pictures of Emily's teenage parents was placed in the back, while in the front was a younger looking Emily holding her newborn baby brother. This family was obviously close, they all clearly loved each other, very unlike my own. My family was distant, not physically, but mentally. None of us talked as much as we should, and we never said "I love you" enough, not that I particularly complained.     

"Oooo! Cantaloupe!" John exclaimed from inside the kitchen.

I smiled at Alice, who returned a smirk to me.  Emily came bounding down the stairs once more, this time heaving three large suitcases. I immediately went to help her, taking two cases while she handled one. 

"Thank you," she said, out of breath. 

"No problem," I replied, "so is everything ready?"

"Yeah, I think that's it," she wiped a couple beads of sweat away from her forehead. 

"So let's go, to John's house!" Alice cried as she opened the front door and pranced down the front steps. 

"Okay," I said curiously, "what has gotten into her?" 

"It's the first stage: denial," Emily explained to me as she followed Alice to the car. 

"Girls," I mouthed to John as he walked out of the kitchen with a mouthful of cantaloupe.     

He took a suitcase from my hand and walked with me out to the car, Emily had already popped the trunk and was attempting to shove her suitcase into the car. She had it at the wrong angle, so I took it from her and put it away deep inside the small car. 

"I don't think these are all gonna fit," I said scratching my head and trying to come up with a solution. 

Emily threw up her arms in annoyance, "great! What do I have to leave?!"

"Relax," John said, stowing a large piece of fruit in his mouth, "just put them in the backseat with me and Alice."

"Are you sure? It's gonna get uncomfortable," Emily said earnestly. 

"Yeah, I think we'll make it," John replied tactfully, "besides it's not that far."

"Okay," I started, placing another case into the trunk, "it'll just be one with you guys."

No answer. John had already gotten into the car, leaving the door wide open so I could give him the suitcase. 

"Thank you, again," Emily said smiling, as I finished the business. 

"Don't tell anyone I'm this nice," I said jokingly. 

She giggled as she got into the car, I followed suit and once more the engine roared to life. 

"So, John, where do you live?" Emily asked looking back to see if there were any oncoming cars. 

"Don't you remember?" John said, "you came to my birthday party," he sounded taken aback. 

"I'm sorry, I don't remember that..." she said slowly. 

"Well I guess it's acceptable, considering I never invited you to any of my birthday parties," John said, this was followed by a loud holler of triumph. 

I laughed and so did Emily and Alice, John took another bite of his fruit. 

"How did you even get that open?" Alice asked.

"Yeah, my house didn't have any clean knives..." Emily stated. 

"I went like this," John replied, making a smashing motion with his fist. 

We all laughed again, John was acting very silly today, perhaps it was the anticipation of tomorrow's events. 

"So you smashed it open?" Alice asked still giggling. 

"Like a grape," John replied darkly. 

"So really, John, where do you live?" Emily asked again. 

"Take this left," I said as we approached an intersection of downtown Townsend.

I had been to John's house plenty of times to know how to get there from the next town over. We all lived in Pepperell, Massachusetts, except for Alice and Emily, who both lived in the neighboring town, the one we were in now. 

"Actually, I just remembered," Alice began, "I'm going to need my things too!"

"Ugh," I released. 

"It's fine, Caleb," Emily assured me, "we can just drop my things off at johns and then come back for Alice's."

"Are you sure, I don't want to be a bother," Alice said politely. 

"What, are you not gonna wear clothes on the trip, of course we'll come back for your stuff," I said. 

"I vote we don't get her stuff," said John foolishly, this earned him a hard slap on the arm. 

"Dammit! You made me drop my cantaloupe!" John exclaimed. 

"Oh no!" Alice said sarcastically. 

John pressed a button on the side of his door, and the window rolled down automatically. He reached down, picked up his cantaloupe and chucked it out the window. 

"Are you crazy!" Emily screamed, nearly swerving the car. 

"What?! They're biodegradable, right?" he said nonchalantly, and shrugging his shoulders. 

"You could have killed the guy behind us!" I said turning around to look out the back window. 

The man driving the car behind us was making very obscene motions with his hands, and his wife had a paper back over her mouth, it was very comical. The rest of the car ride to John's house was fun, loud, and quick. We had all taken to singing a song that was playing on the radio together. John the loudest and worst, Emily, gently swaying back and forth, Alice, bouncing up and down, and I was bobbing my head. We reached John's house alive, no thanks to him. His home was painted bright yellow, with white shutters on the windows, which were curtained neatly. A mailbox was nailed into the ground at the foot of his driveway, and it read, "The Barry's, 22". I lived only a couple houses from him, and so did Chris, the three of us all living on the same street.     

John exited the car first, galloping towards his home, he took a ring full of keys out from his pocket and unlocked the front door. He then came back to help me with Emily's suitcases. John and I placed the cases at the bottom of a  staircase, which led into the basement. His cat pranced over to investigate. We walked back up the stairs and out the front door. Both Emily and Alice were waiting outside the car, and when they saw us they got back inside, the engine turned on. I took my spot in the passenger seat, and John next to Alice. Emily slowly backed out of John's driveway. 

"So which way is the fastest to get to Townsend?" Emily asked as we reached John's mailbox again. 

I pointed to the right, and she turned the wheel in the informed way.  "I live on the Harbour, so it's not that far from here," Alice said smartly.     

Alice's house was shabby looking. It's windows were dirty, and the white paint was chipping away. There were no shutters, or wreath on the door, and the doorbell didn't work. It was small and shack-like, the roof only reaching fifteen feet. 

"You guys wait here," Alice said, as she got out of the car and walked up to her house. 

To be completely honest I felt bad for her. She was such a delicate, pretty, and a genuinely nice girl. It wasn't bad that she came from a modest home, it was just that I felt bad because came from a relatively well-to-do family myself. Alice arrived at the car, ten minutes later, with two suitcases of her own. I got out to help her, but she only told me to get back in the car, after a minute of trying to help her, I obeyed. When she finally got back into the car again, Emily started it up. 

She looked at all of us before saying, "now, do we need anything else, before we go?"

I thought about it, racking my brain, "Do we need any food for the RV?" I asked. 

"Oh yeah! I forgot about that," John said lazily. 

"There's a supermarket up the street, we can go there," Emily suggested. 

"Sounds good," I said, tapping my leg to the rhythm of the song on the radio. 

She put the car into gear and tore up the street. We passed a variety of restaurants, gas stations, ice cream shoppes, and barber shoppes. Finally, we arrived at a plaza where a local super market was located. We parked in the the lot closest to it, and exited the car, Alice's door the last to slam shut.

The sliding doors to the market automatically slid open for us as we approached it. Emily took a shopping cart from the several stuck together. 

"Any ideas anyone?" she asked as we progressed into the store. 

"Cantaloupe! Lots of cantaloupe! I plan on spending lots of money on cantaloupe!" John exclaimed. 

I laughed, while Emily and Alice rolled their eyes. 

"We should get cereal, and easy-to-cook food," Alice said intelligently. 

"Good idea," Emily said. 

We found the isle that had easy-to-cook foods in stock. We picked up things like chips, varieties of crackers and snacks, peanut butter and jelly ingredients, popcorn, pasta and different kinds of sauces. John had explained that the RV had a microwave and a stove and oven, and also a mini-fridge, which made our search all the more easier. 

"We should get Ice-Cream," Emily breathed, as she pushed the cart to the frozen foods section. 

We picked up about seven or eight different ice cream selections, also frozen TV dinners. Finally, we reached the fruits section. John threw a very large amount of cantaloupes into the shopping cart, Emily's eyebrows raised to dangerous heights. 

"Don't worry, I'll pay for it," John said assuringly. 

"You better," Alice threatened. 

The lady at the cash register was very nice, she didn't even ask about our selection of fruit. John payed for a majority of all the food, Emily also helped. I promised that when we got back to John's house I would pay them back. Trying to fit all the groceries in with Alice's suitcases proved a difficult task indeed. After many do-overs and retries we finally figured out the solution: John and Alice were to sit with the groceries.     

The road home was easy, Emily had remembered the way back, so she no longer asked for directions. She yawned loudly, and looked at the clock on her dashboard, and read aloud that it was six forty-two. 

"I'm kinda tired," she said, "I haven't had a coffee all day, does anyone mind if I make a stop a Dunkin Donuts?" 

We all agreed that it was okay for her to do whatever she pleased with her own car. We were just along for the ride, John pointed out. The next Dunkin Donuts was down the street, and it was the same one that John, Chris and I all went to this morning. Now that I remembered it, I left my Iced Tea in Chris's truck.      Emily's car pulled into the Drive-thru lane and rolled it's way up to the familiar speaker box. 

"Does anyone want anything," Emily asked. 

"No," we all answered at once.

"Alright then," she said slightly frowning, "hi, can I please have a hazelnut iced coffee?" she said to the box. 

"Of course," the box voiced, "just pull