Ghostly Plea

Ashlyn

Some people love road trips, while others, mostly me, do not. Being stuck in the back of Whintle's 10 passenger Chevrolet Suburban is not fun. When he first got the beast of a car, I thought it was a great idea. No more having to take two cars to go somewhere with all our friends. But being the shortest and tiniest person in the group I got stuck in the back, squished between everyone's luggage. At least the car is brand new and has great air conditioning; the perks of having a rich friend.

At the beginning of the long car ride, it was actually pretty fun, we played Egyptian RatScrew and Go-fish. The basic staple card games. But when three hours rolled by, being stuck in a cramped car primarily by teenage girls got old quick. Poor Arthur is stuck in the back with us, while Whintle is driving, with Finn in the passenger seat. Whintle made it up to Arthur by seating him by Audrey saying Arthur always needs a window seat in case he gets car sick. I'm pretty sure that just made it worse for Arthur.

Currently Charlie is snoozing away on Riley's shoulder while Riley is watching Vampire Diaries. Arthur's reading a comic book next to Audrey who is listening to her own music and singing terribly off key. For the first few hours Arthur would try to talk to her but then give up and continued to read his comic. Poor love-struck little boy. Bella, Poppy, and I are sitting close enough together that we can talk about books.

"Oh my gosh! I know, and then when Sofie got together with Brookes, even though she loved Nick I was like, honey, stop!" I gush about the latest book we read called, The Middle-Class Popular Democracy. It was all about this friend group who were slowly climbing the social scale in high school. The latest drama in the book was about my favorite character Sofie and her love triangle.

"I love the part when Sofie tells Nick that she loves him in the library, but still loves Brookes even though he cheated on her," Bella says delightedly, "...then Brookes shows up and gives her flowers begging for forgiveness, and Nick gets all protective saying Sofie was his! It was so romantic!"

"I love that part too!" Poppy replies.

"Really? I mean, I gotta admit the scene was romantic, but I hated that Sofie took Brooke back. If he cheated once he could cheat again," I say.

"Wait, who cheated?!" Audrey says.

"A character in our book." Poppy tells her.

"Oh, boring!" She puts her ear bud back in and continues to sing off key.

The three of us look at each other and giggle. Whintle turns the volume up on his 80's music to drown out our girly chatter. An hour later Whintle got tired of driving and switched seats with Riley.

"Everybody wants to steal my girl; everybody wants to steal her heart away!!" All the girls sing in unison. Riley turned on all our favorite One Direction songs when she took over the wheel.

"Can you guys turn the music down? I'm trying to talk to Dorothy!" Whintle yells over the noise.

Audrey rolls her eyes and starts to sing louder. "A COUPLE BILLION IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!"

Whintle reaches across the seat and turns down the volume. "Everyone say hi to Dorothy!"

"Hi." We all say, put out. Audrey flips the birdie as a hello and starts to play on her phone.

"You silly gooses sound like you're having a blast!" We hear Dorothy say over the phone.

"Hey Whintle, is this the town the mansion is in?" Riley says from the front.

"Oh, uh, gotta go Shrub, love you!" He sings into the phone, meanwhile Audrey is making choking faces. He hangs up the phone and looks out the window as we pass the "Welcome to Sidneyville" sign.