teenage nightmare ² ━━ amour

59.

59.
chapter fifty-nine:
four teens,
three documents,
two options,
one car,
and a lot of trouble.

The engines revved lowly before going completely silent. I turned on the indicators and looked at Bonnie in the mirror. "I didn't get my license."

Clemont took in a sharp breath. "Do you have the international permit for the vehicle?"

"That, I hope I do. Could you check the dashboard?" I turned to Serena. The girl nodded, not meeting my eye, then opened the compartment and started rummaging through the documents inside. She handed the fitness certificate and the international permit to Clemont.

"These are perfect, but you aren't supposed to be driving without your license."

I exhaled and doubled over the steering wheel in exasperation. "Isn't there any way to avoid clashing with the police?" I mumbled, hopelessness tugging at me.

"They're standing near the heart of the city, the Prism Tower!" Bonnie exclaimed. "We can't take any more detours."

"Nor can we afford the time for it. We're already running into the lunch break right now. We gotta get back in two hours!" Serena exclaimed. The sound of her voice gave me a tiny idea.

"Girl, why don't you just drive past the police, and I'll take over as soon as we're out of sight?" I turned to her, but she pointedly looked straight ahead.

"I can't handle the gears of your car," she whispered. "It looks infuriating."

Clemont piped in, clawing at the carpets he was holding. "Why don't you handle the gears, Ash? All Serena would have to do is accelerate and brake if they do stop us."

I peered at him. "What are the chances?"

"Well, we look the part of teenagers, and we're supposed to be in college right now. Not to mention we're zooming through the streets of Lumiose in a Kantonian car. The odds are against us by a landslide. I would say Officer Jenny is bound to call us in, and it's a ninety percent chance."

"Damn."

"Come on, Serena! All you have to do is accelerate!" Bonnie encouraged the older girl. However, she simply shook her head.

I straightened up and turned on the engine. "We're wasting time."

"What are you going to do?!" the siblings exclaimed in unison. I shrugged and concentrated on the GPS. The dot showing where the police were located was faintly glowing blue. The road beside it was supposed to be the path we had to take.

"I'm going to, as you put it, zoom past them. If they're fining me by tracking the nameplate, I can't help it. We can't just sit here all day."

Switching off the indicators, the engine revved to life. "Wait!" Serena interjected, and my gaze slid off the road again. "I'll drive, but..." she paused as I turned off the ignition again. "But you gotta control the gears. Just put it in the lowest one. One?"

"Six," I chuckled. The girl looked gobsmacked before recomposing herself and opening the door. I was briefly thrown back to the time in Vaniville when we were still friends and talking, and she couldn't even open the door because the handle was situated in an inverse way, according to her.

I got out as well and held the door open until she could get into the driver's seat before taking the passenger seat. The situation turned hilarious when she started panicking the moment she faced the steering wheel. "I thought we were supposed to rotate the key to the right to make it start!"

"The left," I supplied.

"This is all too confusing!" She scratched her head in puzzlement. Clemont looked equally bewildered, but Bonnie sent me a wink; for what reason, I had no clue. "Which of these three is the accelerator?!"

"The one on the extreme left!"

"This one?"

"Girl, to your extreme left, not to the police's—"

"Okay? And this one is the clutch, right?"

"Er, no, it's the brakes."

"Okay. If anyone's crossing, I hit the brakes."

"I honestly can't believe you can drive—"

"Shut it and turn the ignition on."

A smile played on my lips. Even if we weren't referring to each other by our names, it felt like a part of the way we exchanged words had returned.

I leaned over her to switch it on. When we were buckled up in our seats—my seatbelt being held loosely by Bonnie for the sake of the police's sanity, should I find the need to intervene and take control of the car—I spotted the girl sporting more than just a flush across her face.

"Chill," I whispered. Serena took a deep breath, and with a few more words of encouragement from the siblings, she got back to the road. The vehicle moved very slowly, its competitors whirring past us. Serena's face was contorted with concentration as she looked back and forth between the road, the mirror, and the gear.

The entrance to the Prism Tower came into view, and Bonnie squealed in delight at the picture of her home. I leaned back, feeling some of the tension seep away from my body when Serena took the diversion to South Avenue. She couldn't complete it, though, as Officer Jenny signaled for us to pull over, just as Clemont had anticipated.

"Okay, keep calm!" Clemont instructed, and it looked more like he was comforting himself than us as Serena pulled up. I immediately changed the gears to stop. For all I knew, they could take away my big baby, and I might as well go on a rampage like a blind Garchomp.

With the windows rolled down, Officer Jenny looked at us, examining each of us. The blue-haired woman had a stoic air of responsibility around her. Her eyes lingered on me longer than anybody else's, and I fought the urge to gulp.

"Four teenagers? Where's your license and the international permit for this automobile? I don't recognize this as Kalos-made."

Serena fidgeted as she rummaged through the dashboard for the said documents. We planned to put them back so it didn't seem like we had already been aware of what was coming. "Here," she said, handing over the international permit that Gary and I had struggled to make weeks before arriving in Kalos. She then withdrew her license from her purse.

We held our breath as Officer Jenny's sharp eyes scanned through both documents. Her eyebrows arched, and I was already fearing the worst. "This international permit says the owner of this car is Ketchum, but your license doesn't have that name? You're Serena Y, right?" She peered at the honey blonde, and I tensed.

"That would be me, ma'am. Y, as in Yvonne, is my middle name, and... Ketchum is my last."

My heart skipped a beat as Officer Jenny nodded, took one more look at the car, then handed the documents back. "Aren't you all supposed to be in college?"

"We're running errands, ma'am," Serena spoke sharply, and I could make out the underlying nervousness masked by her confidence. Clemont handed the officer our permission slip, and the lady let us pass, even offering help, which we were eager to decline. Boy, was Kalos messed up!