Escapade

Chapter Three: The Gang

"Your uncle is a creep."

Liz and I were lying on her bed later that day, flipping through pages of a pamphlet of a local rock band, ThreeBamTwo. Like Liz's personality, the room was creatively painted in splashes of random colors, and plastered with even more posters of famous rock bands and singers, the most of which, and what Liz admittedly said was her favorite, Simple Plan. 'Before they went all preppy,' Liz had said. I had never been in her room before, since she always seemed to be mortally embarrassed by her family and tried to stay away from that house as much as possible. Now that I'd run away and was possibly living with her, she didn't seem to mind as much.

Liz laughed, her husky voice making it sound unique. Whenever she talked she sounded like she screamed too much, which is what she probably did do, actually. That girl practically lived in concerts. "Oh, so you met the Pedo, huh? What a perfect pair: the Zit and the Pedo."

 I hit her with a pillow. "It's not funny. He really is a pedophile. He was rubbing my knee and giving me this weird smile, and he even hinted that he was one." I shivered, remembering the event that happened earlier. "It was freaking me out."

 "Aw, don't worry about him. He is creepy, but other than that he's a real nice guy. You just gotta remember to keep your door locked at night," Liz said, leafing through the pamphlet. "Hey, look at this, ThreeBamTwo has a hot bassist. He kind of looks like Joe Jonas, don't you think?"

I let it go and argued with Liz about Joe Jonas's hotness, explaining that I didn't like his eyebrows. Pretending to be offended, she took the pamphlet away until I showed interest in the guitarist. We spent an hour looking at other flyers and talking about nothing in particular, making me feel comfortable for the first time in a long while.

"Hey," I said. "Why don't we go hang out somewhere tomorrow? I want to know what the neighborhood here is like."

"Why tomorrow? Let's do it now," Liz said, getting up. "This neighborhood is pretty boring, but I'll show you so that you could see it for yourself. Come on."

 "Are really going to apologize to Olivia?"

 "Who said I was going to apologize? We'll go out without telling her," she said, going for the door.

 I crossed my arms. "They're right out the door, though."

"Oh, yeah," she said, disappointed. "Oh, well. I was going to show you those gang guys I was talking about earlier."

I looked out the window at the sky, realizing that it was already sunset. I was waiting in Liz's room for Olivia to get the key to my new apartment, but Olivia was taking her time. I really wanted to snub her and show her what it was like be kept waiting, and actually wanted to see what her new home would look like. Then, I had an idea.

"Hey, Liz, let's just use the fire escape," I said, already opening the window.

"Oh, yeah, I have a fire escape! I didn't know that. Great, let's go," Liz said gleefully, pulling down her headphones and letting them rest on her neck.

 She helped me open the window and we climbed out, me first, and carefully went down the stairs. We climbed down it swiftly and jumped down the 6 foot gap to the ground, Liz landing in a cat-like pose and me on my own two feet.

"Whoa," Liz said, watching me brush my shorts from imaginary dust. "Cool. Okay, now for the tour. Let's see, those two buildings over there, you know, the ones that look exactly like this one? They're my uncle's, too. And they're apartments. The only other interesting thing here is that gang I met yesterday. If we cross the street and walk a couple of blocks I'll show you them. They hung out in this alley last night, so they'll probably be there too. I can't wait to show you them...and the hot one too, of course."