We were all soaked and had no shoes on. Adrenaline was coursing through our body's from the car chase before. I had a slight puke stain on my outfit. Thankfully, it was barely noticeable.
Kai looked over to Violet and for the first time, he actually looked serious.
"Well, kids, we are officially out of gas."
Violet groaned in agony. "Why are you so forgetful?"
"Well, I don't see you reminding me about it either," His words dripping with irritation.
"Oh, so now it's my fault?"
While they were bickering, I looked around to check out the surroundings. We appeared to be in a gated community. Beautiful houses lined the roads. They had huge ass backyards with huge ass swimming pools in the middle. One backyard in particular looked like it was hosting a birthday party.
"Uh, you guys?" I tapped on Kai's shoulder frantically.
They finally looked up to the sight of little kids jumping on bouncy castles, cake and other food on a big table, and piñatas being beaten with rage.
"Looks like heaven."
We got out of the car as we stared in amazement.
Kai and Violet started walking to the house. I stood behind them.
"Are you crazy? We can't just crash a little kid's birthday party."
"Who said anything about crashing?" Violet let out a slightly evil chuckle.
"We're simply going to ring the doorbell and ask for sanctuary."
I knew this was a bad idea, but apparently I'm always wrong about my instincts.
Kai stepped onto the "welcome" mat and rang the doorbell. They were silently snickering while I was frozen like a sad snowball stuck in the freezer long after Winter.
A blonde lady, maybe in her 30's, opened the door holding a baby with a cigarette in her mouth. She looked totally wasted just like Violet that one time at that carnival. She looked us over about three times. "What do you little punks want?"
"I believe we got off on a bad note," Kai cleared his throat. "I am the head of the group. My name is Kai."
Kai elbowed Violet in the ribs. "I am Violet. I'm the fun one."
They all turned their necks to stare at me. I gave an awkward wave. "Hi, um, I'm Emmy. I'm the one that wants to run away screaming."
"I'm Mandy. I'm the one who doesn't give a fuck." The lady flicked her cigarette ashes at Kai. "Now, get your punk asses off my property."
"But the mat says 'Welcome'", Violet pointed out while wearing a cocky grin.
"I fucking hate that mat."
Suddenly, a good-looking man came up behind her. His shoulder was holding his phone. "How many times have I told you to not hold Grayson while smoking?" The man grabbed the baby off of Mandy and balanced him in the other arm. "That can't be possible. I do understand the mix up, but I still need a comedy act tody."
Without thinking, Violet spoke up. "We can be the comedy act."
"We can definitely be the comedy act," Kai agreed eagerly. "They are getting paid though, right?"
The handsome man lets out a laugh. "You guys sure are funny. Follow me to the back."
The man hangs up the phone and slides it into his pocket. He sets Grayson down in a play chair.
We pushed past Mandy and followed behind him.
We all stood on a stage-like patio. The sun was burning my eyes. I looked out to a bunch of kids sitting on the grass, ready to be entertained.
"Alright kiddos. We are proud to announce our comedy act for the day! Meet the..."He trailed off to look at us. "The Hippies!"
The kids started clapping and chanting loudly.
"I just need to hear you say we're getting paid."
"Good luck," He muttered, running back into the house.
We were frozen. We obviously had no idea how to be funny.
Suddenly, a bee flew onto Violet's nose. "Ew! Get off of me, you sicko!" She trashed her arms all over the place trying to get the bee to go away.
I heard a chuckle from the audience. This was working. "Keep going," I mouthed to Violet. She didn't notice me, but Kai did. He quickly grabbed a party flyer off the ground, rolled it up, and jumped up and down trying to kill the bee.
As I heard more chuckles, I ran over to Kai to get another flyer, but when I did, I slipped on some red liquid and fell hard on my back. It ached, but I guess it was worth it because the whole crowd of kids were standing up chanting. "Encore! Encore!"
Violet was starting to get dizzy. "Now kids, wouldn't you like to start opening gifts instead?"
"No!" One little kid shouted. "I came here to laugh, barbie bitch!"
Violet scoffed. "You can't talk to me like that!"
"It's called freedom of speech!" Another girl yelled.
We all looked at each other in shock. Surely these kids were raised better than this.
"Okay, how about we compromise a little here?" I tried to reason with them. "How about we all go plant some flowers over there?
"NO!"
"Well, you don't have to yell," Kai muttered to himself.
"FOOD FIGHT!"
Before we knew it, we were being assaulted with cupcakes. We couldn't see where we were going. Kai ended up slipping on frosting and fell on his ass.
"Ow!" He started rubbing said area as he winced.
"How do you like that, you little shit?" Violet said while angrily bombing the kid that called her a bitch.
"I think this is getting out of hand..."
A shout sent waves of anger through everybody's ears. Everyone stopped throwing things to look over to see some older ginger wearing pigtail braids in a lime green dress. "Enough! All of you better start cleaning this mess up now!"
Quiet murmurs echoed from the crowd. Kai was finally able to stand up. We all looked at each other and started laughing. We were all covered in frosting and cupcake foils.
The man comes out with a microphone and gently swerves between us. "Well, that concludes the comedy act for today. Now, if all of you could head down to the pool area so we can open some gifts!"
All of those little brats collectively ran down the hill.
He turned to us and clasped his hands together. None of us knew what he was going to say next, but we were all hoping it was something about money.
"You guys," He started. "Were fantastic!"
Kai raised his eyebrow. "We were?"
"Yes!"
"So, how much are we talking?" Violet asked, rubbing her hands together.
The man pulled out his wallet. It was finally coming, our payment. We all reached our hands out in anticipation, but we suddenly started to realize we weren't get paid in money.
"Um, what the fuck is this?" Violet vocalized.
"Are these, Chuck E. Cheese coins?" Kai looked down to his hands and started examining the coins. "And they're all expired!"
We all threw the coins at him and began walking out of his house.
What a lousy day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
