Backseat Drivers

Star Train

Finally, once they'd reached the Eurostar, Sean revelled in unveiling to them their destination, as chosen by 'a Miss Aika Takanashi' - turning around in the car as it slowly chugged towards passport control. Cindy had been the first to actually question what they were doing on the border of the country.

"Amsterdam," he said proudly. There was a moment as this sunk in, and half delighted - half confused expressions arose on the other three's faces.

"You're taking us to Amsterdam?" Cindy confirmed, holding her hand to her heart in disbelief.

"Yes, I am. So I hope you lot have your passports with you or we're leaving you here."

Aika sat in the front, a smile stretched across her face.  

"How can you afford that?!" Cindy exclaimed; Roy still seemed to be in the stage of thinking this was some sort of wind-up. 

"As long as we sleep in the car for a couple days, the cost pretty much adds up."

"Bullshit," Cindy replied in amusement, hitting his shoulder lightly; he laughed, and then shrugged it off.

"Look - I said it to Aika last night; this trip is sort of a one-off thing, so there's no point fucking about. We're going to do it properly. Even if that means spending all the money I have."

"What about the shrooms and weed and shit?" Roy asked, hesitation in his words.

"That's why we're on the train - they don't care about that shit. They just care about knives and stuff. As long as it doesn't send their scanner into a blipping frenzy, you're all good, man."

Calum leant forwards to clasp a hand on Sean's shoulder, as if confirming for a final time, what they were about to do.

"We sure about this, Sean-o?"

Sean looked back at the road ahead,  and then across at Calum.

"We are."

Calum grinned.

"Brilliant."

-

Aika had only been on the Eurostar once with her parents to France a few years ago, but she remembered the general principle of it - her dad had taken great joy in drawing her out a full diagram explaining how it travelled under the channel tunnel - or 'The Chunnel'. Really, this was going to be their only opportunity to sleep for quite a while, though the prospect of Amsterdam had energised them all, and Roy was strolling up and down the carriage, waving through the car window every time he passed it. Calum had disappeared to the toilet about twenty minutes ago, and about five minutes later Cindy had followed - though the others were seemingly oblivious to this fact as Sean and Aika lounged care-free in the front of the car. The fourth or fifth time Roy passed them, he reached in to grab his colourful hiking rucksack, ambushed as Sean stuck his head out the front window of the car.

"Do I see Mr King reaching for his rucksack?"

Aika, in the seat next to him, looked across with her eyebrows raised. 

"I think, Mr Kiersey, that's exactly what he's doing."

"Okay, let's calm down," Roy said flippantly, waving away their suggestive faces. "I'm just getting a jumper."

He rooted around in his bag, then paused, before bringing up a clear, sealed plastic bag filled with brownish stalks, his eyes wide as if he'd never seen such a thing before.

"Yo ... hold up - what's this doing in my bag?"

Sean laughed at his feigned alarm, and waved him in, jerking his head. 

"Get in the fucking car, man."

Roy grinned, and then jumped in the back, shuffling across to the middle seat so that he could speak to Sean and Aika equally. He lifted up his small fish-tank that had been laid on the leather, and carefully placed it on top of his hiking bag for protection.

"I can't believe you're just waving that around outside," Sean said, as Roy leant across to shut the car door. 

"Who cares? We're en route to Amsterdam, my friend! Anything goes in Amsterdam."

Roy leant forwards, lowering his voice to a creepy, darkly humorous voice. 

"Anything."

"Shut up," Sean and Aika laughed, the latter pushing Roy's head away from her ear. As a personal rule, she'd promised to only begin with that pass-time once they reached Amsterdam - but Sean and Roy were diving straight into it, enthusiastic. And why shouldn't they be? Like Sean said - something about a conceptual journey - she couldn't really remember, but it probably applied to this. She smiled with a content sigh, and stretched back in her seat in tranquil anticipation. It would be about twenty minutes later that Roy would be complaining of the walls 'crawling with blue', and Sean heartily agreeing:

"They sure are man - they sure are."