The Coyote and what happened after

Chapter 19

~~The Next Morning~~

Breakfast was a muted affair. Everyone except Texas and California had packed and was ready to leave after they finished eating. Dixie was frowning and glaring at Alfred all through breakfast, and Alfred himself was smiling. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Alfred had found a way to pass off all of his work to Dixie.

After breakfast had been cleaned up Illinois and Kentucky set out to leave. Kentucky would be driving them both to his place, where he would stop and Illinois would keep going up to his home. They had done the same thing on the way down, Illinois had driven himself to Kentucky, and Kentucky had driven them to Alfred's place.

Leaving is a very long process, mostly because Alfred is sentimental. So to say goodbye you give a round of hugs to everyone, even the people you don't like. And the hugs are not some slipshod hugs either. It's the whole shebang, complete with clinging and crying. After everyone's tears have been dried and the hugs are finished, whoever is departing has to promise to call Alfred once they get home. If they don't they get an emotional voicemail the next day and a stern lecture the next time they see Alfred. And nobody wants that.

Soon after they left Colorado and Massachusetts left as well. Massachusetts was going to drive Colorado to the airport where she would catch a flight to Denver. They too went through the same rigmarole as Illinois and Kentucky, with the hugs and promised phone calls, before they left.

Finally, the house descended into quiet. This was rather unusual, as most of the people who spent any amount of time there usually wanted to be heard and refused to listen. However today all of the occupants were occupied with their own business. Dixie went grudgingly to Alfred's paperwork. California went scrounging through a stack of books, and upon finding a copy of Steinbeck, went out to the back porch to read. Texas took a guitar and holed himself in his room. Alfred didn't quite know what to do. Playing video games and reading things (like boring paperwork) were out of the question. He deliberated a bit before deciding to pour himself another cup of coffee.

Just as he was settling down to his cup of joe, the phone rang. By the ringtone, Who Are You, Alfred knew it was Mattie calling him. Alfred sighed quietly, put down his coffee and answered the phone.

"Why hello good sir. What can I do for you today?"

"Shush Alfred. I want you to explain, please. We were kinda rushed yesterday, eh?"

"Well all right then, way to cut to the chase, bro. What exactly did you want me to explain?"

"Just, I don't know, go through everything that happened. Precisely and chronologically, without embellishments."

"My PoV or a 3rd omniscient PoV?"

"Yours, I guess. How would you even do 3rd omniscient?"

"Hell if I know. So essentially, I was at the meeting while the regions were hashing out domestic policy. Horribly scheduled, but what can you do? So Confederacy was in charge kinda. He was there because I don't want them to try and kill each other. California and Texas were there, which probably wasn't the best decision. Anyways so I get the phone call from them at the meeting, you heard it. And then they all show up and freak out the secretary lady. I'll probably have to reprimand him for that. And you're kind enough to distract the rest of the G8. So I gather my crew and we split up so everything goes ok. I have the rest of the states deal with the internal stuff so they won't be in the line of fire. And then I assembled my team. Since we had to go down south and kick ass I chose myself as the leader, Dixie was second in command because even if he's a traitor, he's still American. Then General and Iggy just came along for the ride. And we went over to my place to find clues to where Cali and Tex went. England did some weird magic stuff with chalk and turned one of Tex's guns into a map. We followed the map south into Mexico. Wonderful trip, it was long and everyone was grumpy. But I got to awe everyone with my awesome singing, so it was alright. Umm. Once we got to the border I managed to secure passage across and back without too much inspection. And then we arrived to this really swank and out-of-date mansion. And I had Iggy sit outside with a sniper rifle to cover everything while I went and had a real nice conversation with Mexico. Dixie and General went in back to retrieve Tex and Cali. And once they were out we all ran like the dickens back home. We stopped in Houston and took a plane back to DC. And yeah. That was all about 5 days worth. Satisfied?"