Out on a Limb

5

Everyone kept quiet for the first few moments that we were in the car. One factor that added up to that was us being indecisive on where we wanted to sit. First, Jarvis wanted to ride shotgun but then decided that he couldn’t stretch his freakishly long legs while sitting up front, so he made do the back while Braxton went up front. So it was Jarvis, Dawn, and I from left to right. Then, Dawn threw a fit and complained that she didn’t want to be sandwiched by “two loonies”, so she told me to switch places with Braxton, so I would be riding shotgun. We wasted another couple minutes and we were losing dark. If anyone caught us in broad daylight, God knew what the officials would do to punish us.

When I got in my final – it had to be final – seat, Lexus was impatiently tapping her fingers on the wheel. She raised an eyebrow at me irritatingly.

“Done?”

“Done.”

“Good.” She turned around to face the others. “Jarvis, where’s the nearest gate?”

He didn’t seem to be listening. He was resting his elbow by the window, one eye closed.

“Jarvis!” Lexus barked.

“Huh, wuh? Oh yeah, uh…South. That’s the one I’ve been to before.”

Not wanting to waste any more time, Lexus stepped on the gas, maybe a little too forcefully. I adjusted myself in my seat as the engine started humming a little louder and became more vibrant. I learned the hard way that you should always rest your head on the headrest and not the window. The headaches that followed were tangible consequences.

The car began moving at the fastest we could go: 10 miles per hour. I sighed and watched as it took half a minute to overtake a single tree. I read that cars used to go up to 200 miles per hour, but they were all taken out of circulation to avoid accidents from speeding. This was one of the historical facts that I actually didn’t mind being changed. Let it be ten or ten thousand miles per hour, I just plain sucked at driving and if the law on maximum speed was ever to be changed, it wouldn’t affect me at all.

We were all sitting in awkward silence, and I knew everyone felt awkward because seeing the rearview mirror, no one was even budging. Lexus’ car was pretty small, so the guys at the back were squished against one another. I wondered how Dawn getting on, since she was being pressed against two guys. I wasn’t being apprehensive or anything, but these two particular guys, I was fascinated at how Dawn managed to tolerate them so well, considering that one of them was her bestest friend (hint: the one that isn’t my bestest friend).

I took a deep breath and sighed. This was going to take a while, a long one. If it weren’t for my dumb attitude we could’ve been there already; maybe we would’ve already gotten it over with.

The car’s digital clock read 5:02. Sunrise was in less than an hour, at exactly six in the morning every day. Brilliant. In less than an hour, we would be dead meat.

My eyes darted around the car, trying to find anything interesting. Some little things could tell entire stories. Say a juice stain on the floor, or year-old bird shit on the window. They made me wonder: Now, how did it come to this?

I asked myself that exact question the moment I laid my eyes on a familiar pebble.

“Todd?” I said way too suddenly. Lexus, startled, jerked the wheel a little towards the left, causing the car to change direction a little too quickly, causing all of us to be thrown to the right (bless our seatbelts), causing me, if not the others as well, to feel like retching. It was funny how I could say one word and cause a chain reaction such as this. Words were, really powerful, eh?