Look What The Cat Dragged In

Chapter 8

We drove silently in the car, the only noise coming from the whoosh of the windows, or a stray chirp from a cricket. And then Rose turned the music on.

I'M A BARBIE GIRL, IN A BARBIE WORLD blared through the speaker at full volume. It was so loud, I almost slammed the car into a tree, I jumped that hard. I heard a loud thump, as Hannah, in the back seat, smacked her head on the roof.

"Jesus Rose, what are you six?" I teasingly asked. Mental note to self, never let Rose choose the music.

Rose looked sheepishly at me, "What, it's a good song. I like it."

By that time, I had already turned the song into low volume, and as the radio pumped out Barbie Girl softly, Hannah lent forward and changed the song. She was a rock and metal fan, so it was no surprise when ACDC's Dirty Deeds came on. Hannah was jumping up and down in the back seat. Until she hit her head again that is.

"Why is your car so small?" Hannah whined, rubbing her head.

"Well it is about 100 years old, and over time people have grown bigger, " I said, looking at Hannah's stomach.

Hannah looked down and lifted her top slightly. "I'm not fat," she whispered to herself.

Yikes, probably shouldn't have gone down that path. Hannah has had some trouble with her body before, past boyfriends and all that. Too much to really going into detail. But you get the point......well you should anyway.

From my place, it's an 30 minute drive to Rebecca's house in the wealthier part of town. It's not even that far, but at this time of night on a Saturday, you may say the gates of hell have been opened and people are pouring from them. The roads are jammed packed, with cars going to and from town and then the cars with teenagers in them, much like us, going to one party or another. Probably Rebecca's

To get away from the traffic, I take a left from Main Street onto a bush track. There's a little known shortcut that takes you from one side of the town to another in less that 10 minutes. It's well worn, probably from all the times I've driven down here. I mean, and everyone else who knows about it of course.

Not long before we're two hundred or so metres down the road, the car sputters at me. She's slowly slowing down. I was doing a solid 80kms an hour not 30 seconds ago, but now we're down to 30kms. Then there's another sputter as she slows down even more. And then another. After the fifth sputter the old Mustang has finally caught up on itself. She's long dead I reckon. I don't know much about cars, so when I opened the bonnet, I had no idea what was wrong.

When I got back in the car, Hannah asked me, "What's wrong?"

"To tell the truth, I'm not too sure."

Hannah looked at me and said, "Maybe we can call someone for help." But when she got out her phone, there was no service down here. Which is pretty strange because I've been out here plenty of times with enough service to make and receive calls.

"I guess we're gonna have to wait for someone to come through. It's not like they can go around anyway," I said doubtfully.

"Maybe we should walk back up to Main Street?" Rose offered.

"It's getting dark and who knows what out there though," Hannah shivered, looking around into the forest on either side of us.

"Guess we sit tight then," I said relaxing in my chair.

But i only had a few moments as I saw two bright lights pulling up behind me. "We're saved," I hear Rose yell me I the passenger seat. But I wasn't too sure.

I was trying to make out the model and colour of the car. And that's when I saw it. When the car was not 10 metres away from mine, I saw a glint of red from the bonnet. And then I saw the Jeep symbol. Who owns a red Jeep? Austin Sparrow, that's who. But then again, I guess many other people in Jacksonville own Red Jeeps too.