One Stupid Thing

1:2:8

Later that day, the rest of my family went to help a neighbor with some damage caused by the hurricane. I had received a message from Kie saying that John B and JJ had some news regarding the compass. There is no way that I am going to go snuff it with some stuck-up Kooks and miss out on something as revolutionary as this.

It took some convincing, but eventually Dad let me stay home. I just told him that I needed to catch up on some laundry that I had been putting off. Miraculously, he believed it.

So, as soon as the rest of the family had left the house, I laid out my skateboard and rode towards John B's house, the Château. The whole group was waiting on the front porch when I arrived.

"Hey, guys. Sorry, my family took forever to leave." I say as I walk through the screen door.

"It's all good. You're gonna wanna take a seat for this, Stella, because boy, do we have a story to tell," JJ exclaims.

I nod and take a seat at the grey couch in front of me. Pope is seated next to me on my right, Kiara is lounging in a teal, whicker chair across from me, and John B is standing on her left. JJ is leaning against the backside of a red-brick fireplace. He claps his hands and rubs them together in anticipation.

"Alright JJ, go ahead," Kiara says.

"Okay, so, John B and I drove over to Lana Grubbs' place earlier today, and—"

John B interrupts him. "I needed to find out if she knew anything about the compass, or even why Scooter had it."

"That's right. Well, we get there and as we walk up to the house, we hear this commotion coming from inside. And, we we're right outside like this." He presses himself up against the brick in a quick demonstration. "And all we hear is just, Bam! Bam! Bam! Knocking paint off the wall, G. From the inside! All right? And I'm just looking at him, like—"

I look across at Kie. She glances back at me quickly, but I can't read her expression.

JJ shifts his weight off the wall and walks over to us. "Wait, first off, look at this shit. Look at it." He bends over and ruffles his hair with his hands. A bunch of powder-like stuff falls from his head and all over the couch where Pope and I sit.

"The couch—" Pope interjects.

"That's dandruff, disgusting." Kie's face screws up into a grimace.

"Okay, thank you," Pope says sarcastically and pushes JJ's head away from the couch.

"Look at all that. All right?" JJ stands back up. "That's paint. At that point, I was just like... I'm waiting for death," he says dramatically.

"Oh, okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?" Pope asks him.

"Yeah."

"Did you get a good description of them? What did they look like?"

Why does this guy always have to think about such tedious things?

"Yeah, anything. Anything's helpful," Kie puts in.

"Anything we can bring to a police report?" Pope continues with the questions. Okay, maybe he did have a good idea with this one.

JJ stares through the screen and out into the yard as he finds the right words. "Burly," he finally says.

"Burly?" Pope confirms sharply.

"Yeah. You know like—"

"That's not very helpful," Kie sighs.

"Okay, well, no, like the type of guy at my dad's garage. I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers."

"Yeah. Yes. No, we know," Kiara says impatiently.