Road Trip [#Wattys2015]

Chapter 9

We hung around in the hotel room for quite some time. Half of this time we were trying to convince Jackson to go to some talent shows or up load some mix tapes or basically do anything it took to not let his talent fade with his age. The other half we watched TV.

"I'm going out, who's in?" I said after we watched the How I Met Your Mother marathon.

"I'm in!" Said Maia, raising her hand as if we were in class.

"I'm... oh wait..." Jackson cut himself off, "I wanna catch up with Law and Order they're showing the episode I missed in like five minutes. I'll call you when it's done and come find you okay?" "Okay."

Before we left the hotel room we stopped at Sidney's office to ask for some directions around the neighborhood and were surprised to find that all the good places were at the opposite side of the karaoke bar. "There is also this place that makes the best milkshakes so you should go there and then just take a walk. There aren't many things to do in this neighborhood anyway."

"Milkshake and walk it is." I said to Maia as we walked out of the hotel room. "Wait did we even get any money?" I asked nervously.

"Yeah, I got the credit card." Maia calmed me.

"Great, you're genius!" I congratulated her and she laughed.

"You never give me any credit for getting perfect scores in every science test but call me a genius for not forgetting to get the credit card?"

"Your science skills can't get me a milkshake though, can they?"

"No but it's the reason we have the equipment to produce these beverages anyway." She said and I let out a cough with the word 'nerd' in it just to let her know how I felt about her sophisticated science words. She pushed my arm playfully. Maia had always been the child prodigy of the Everson family, she was accepted in our school on full scholarship because of her exceptionally high IQ score and was always trying to prove things with scientific terms nobody understood. I never gave her credit for it, as she said, simply because everybody else did. Her parents were always bragging about it, her teachers were always calling her up to the board to solve problems, half the people in our school only knew her as science girl.

But I never cared for any of that stuff, I wasn't hanging out with her cause I needed a math tutor -even though that was a big bonus- and although she complained about how I congratulated her for the stupidest things and never for her science skills I know that she actually likes that I did that. To me she wasn't science girl, she was just my delusional best friend.

The milkshake shop wasn't hard to find, we walked in and found a cornered table with two red chairs on the left side and a red couch on the right side. Of course we both went for the couch. The waiter came to give us the menus but we ordered two chocolate shakes before even looking at them.

"Why did you and Jackson skip school today? Was the road trip planned?" Maia asked.

"No it wasn't. We just skipped because we were going to write all the hard tests we missed if we went in." I was getting anxious just by thinking about actually going in there but she just laughed.

"You know you're gonna have to write them someday." She replayed with exactly what I had said to Jackson this morning.

"And that day will be after the holydays." I reminded her.

"You're trying to tell me that you're actually going to study during the holydays?" She did have a point.

"Yes." I said but my voice didn't come out neither steady nor convincing, that only made her laugh again.