Chapter 6.
It was finally Christmas. Phil awoke early to prepare his surprise for Dan. Grabbing the sheet of paper he printed yesterday, he made his way to the kitchen with ultimate stealth and started to attempt the task of making pancakes.
***
A sweet and just the right amount of sickly sent wafted slowly into Dan’s room. Sensing the presence of the essence, Dan rose in a sleepwalker fashion and sniffed about, trying to find the source of the lovely sent. His hunt took him to the kitchen where Phil was waiting with a covered platter. He smiled and gestured for Dan to take a seat and as he did, Phil took one himself and removed the dish that he was using as a cover. It revealed a stack of pancakes, covered in maple syrup, sugar, lemon juice, melted chocolate, icing and what was that? Coco-pops? Dan’s jaw went slack when he saw the effort that had gone into his breakfast and smiled from ear to ear and began to tuck in.
“thifs ish delishuf pfil!” Dan smiled as he stuffed more pancake into his already full mouth, littering the table with crumbs. Phil laughed lightly as his stack had long since been demolished and he began to brief Dan about his plans for the day. “Okay, Dan, hurry the lions up! You need to get dressed and all that funk because we are leaving in-“ Phil took out his phone “About 25 minutes.” Dan looked horrified and swallowed the half masticated food in his mouth. “But what about the presents?” He said innocently and looked like a kicked puppy with his eyes growing huge and looking slightly teary. Phil patted Dan on the head and said “Don’t worry, Danny-poohs, there’s time for presents later. Now eat up and get dressed.”
***
At 9:30am precisely, just as Phil had planned, the two boys left the house with Phil in his trademark Lion tee-shirt and Superdry hoodie with black skinnies and chequered vans because he’s indie like that. Dan on the other hand was wearing a Danosaur top and a plain black zip up hoodie and black skinnies with black converse. As they exited their house and made their way towards Phil’s car down the road, some passerby started shouting ‘Die emo scum!!!’ to the pair before running off.
“Can you believe that!?” Dan huffed as they climbed into the tin can also known as a car. Phil just muttered an incoherent “Yeah” as he started up the car and turned the heating up to full. They began their journey and it wasn’t long before Dan was questioning their destination. On occasion, Dan would poke Phil in the arm and ask “Are we there yet?” and of course Phil would reply “I don’t know.” This went on for some time until Phil turned off of the main road and down a small country lane. “Phil, seriously, where are we going exactly?” Dan asked slowly as he was starting to worry. His friend just laughed and simply answered “We are almost there.” His somewhat informative answer mollified Dan for a while.
He leaned against the cool glass of the window and switched on his Ipod and shoved headphones over his head. Turning up the volume and selected his favourite playlist when he felt a tapping on his shoulder. “I’ll put it through the speakers if you like?” Phil asked and Dan agreed. The headphones dug into his head uncomfortably at times...
Phil took the device and hooked it up to the car’s stereo. He pressed play and laughed instantly as the Llama Song came on. Dan blushed and muttered something about him needing to learn it for a video, even though they both knew he had already done that... The next song was Ghost of You by My Chemical Romance and they agreed to settle on that. Dan leant against the window once more and closed his eyes wishing Phil would just tell him where they were going already....
