Hello everyone! I'm smartbrainmonkey (formerly known as Showtunes4life) and… I guess I'm trying to write fanfiction again. Please critique!
Your name is Dave Strider, and you're honestly still wondering how you agreed to this.
Standing in line for thirty minutes for a two-minute ride isn't exactly your idea of a perfect Saturday morning. But he wanted it to be a 'friend trip to the amusement park', so instead of using your weekend wisely and drinking apple juice on the couch while listening to rap music spilling out of your headphones, you're here.
Wonderful.
Said 'friend trip' also includes your twin sister, who can be as sarcastic as you can (same DNA, different last names: long story) and his cousin, who's a bouncier, female replica of him, right down to the untidy black hairs on their heads.
Needless to say, you're the biggest bunch of nerds you've ever seen.
Anyway, you fork over your ten dollars (for a rollercoaster? Really?) and take your place at the front of the car. Your roommate plops down next to you with an expression of utmost excitement, endlessly jabbering on about some movie he'd probably seen a million times. You know the one: the parapsychologist who escapes from the burning airplane only to find out he's a Ghostbuster and ends up reuniting with his daughter the Stay Puff Marshmallow Girl. You think. You hadn't paid enough attention to care because, quite honestly, his taste in movies sucks. Anything with Nicholas Cage, excessive CGI ghosts or Matthew Mcconaughey sucks in your book; girls are just too polite to say anything bad about them.
Halfway through your rant on movies, the attendant comes over and makes sure your seatbelts are tight enough to cut off your circulation. You both grab the large metal bar and pull it down over yourselves and oh God.
There's a fucking piece of gum on your part of the bar.
You decide you won't hold the bar, then. You glance over at your seatmate, who is still bouncing in his seat, making the cart rattle unnervingly. But that doesn't matter anymore.
Now the cart is moving up, up the cliché gigantic hill they always start these coasters with, and all you're concentrating on is not looking over the side and losing your lunch. You have no problem with heights (living in a top-floor Texan apartment for most of your life will do that to you), but the combination of a high up place and the banging sounds of the cars are starting to get to you. Add the fact that the gum on your cart is probably not the only foul-smelling object on this ride and you've got a one-way ticket to Barf City. Population: you.
This entire hill is taking extremely too long and some little kid behind you is crying and your friend still won't stop bouncing in his oh my God now we're moving faster, Jesus fucking-!
You don't care about the gum on the bar. You're holding on for dear life as you speed down the colossal metal hill. Turning at a ninety degree angle, the car hurdles down the line, jiggling like an out-of-control bucking bull. You're not freaking out, nope; you're too cool for that. Way too cool for-!
You were not aware this thing had loopdiloops. Frick.
Is your seatmate freaking out? Nope. He's got his hands way up in the air and is screaming at the top of his lungs like the freaking goober he is. You chance a look behind you and find his cousin almost a perfect mirror of him, while your sister is just sitting there. Cool as a freaking cucumber. She's gonna have to teach you how to do that one of these day. If you though your poker face was good, hers was excellent.
This is the third loopdiloop in a row and you still seem to be no closer in completing the track-
Oh god. No no no no no-!
As nausea overcame your stomach, you forgot to adjust your shades so they wouldn't fall off.
You further screwed up by not noticing they were slowly sliding off, and suddenly your shades, your thirteenth birthday present from the dorky boy sitting next to you, are ripped from your face by a combination of wind, gravity, and bad luck.
Instinctively you close your eyes. You're so accustomed to wearing shades wherever you go (even in the dark) that you aren't sure what would happen if your eyes touched the world unprotected. You try desperately to feel the air around you to attempt to catch them, but you only succeed in burying your fingers in warm, sticky ABC gum.
And you didn't want to come today because…?
Your bad mood is about to actually show on your face and you're wondering how long you can survive without your vision until you get back to your dorm when you feel a tap on your shoulder. You squint your eyes in your seatmate's direction and oh god.
He's got your shades.
You knew you loved this kid for a reason.
You grab your eyewear back with the hand that isn't currently covered in gum while he screams something about being more careful with your things. You send a quick nod and a thumbs (thumb) up in his general direction and slip your shades back on. Eyes fully open, you can make out the end of the ride coming up fast.
You cannot get off the ride fast enough as it screeches to a halt. Legs shaking like a marionette on an unattended string, you stagger over to the nearest exit, which happens to be the gift shop. Leaning up against a shelf of shot glasses with the amusement park logo in bright neon letters, you breathe. In and out. It's fine.
You can hear nerdy laughing coming from your left, so you look over and see your friends giggling over something in your sister's hand. You make your way over (careful not to trip and knock over a rack of T-shirts) and look over her shoulder. It's a picture of the four of you on the torturous rollercoaster you just exited: your sister has a Mona Lisa-inspired smile on her face, your brunette friends have matching expressions of pure terror and excitement, and you… have your face covered with one hand, the other wedged in that terrible gum, and, altogether, you look pretty miserable.
No, you honestly look like you're about to cry. So much for taking home happy memories.
The others can't stop laughing about it, especially your best friend, who decides to take advantage of a 4-for-$5 photo sale and get everyone a copy. Now it's not only an embarrassing photo, but it can be used as embarrassing blackmail. This day would need a miracle of Godzilla-sized proportions to make you feel better.
Fortunately your sister notices the strained look on your face and, with a soft smile, suggests you head to some of the less motion-sickness-inducing rides, where you spend the day stuffing your face with overpriced food, playing games and ruling everyone on the bumper cars. You're feeling a lot better about your day too before it's time to go back to your dorm, and Lady Luck decides to make it up to you for the rollarcoaster ride by sticking your nerdy best friend next to you on the ride home. As soon as you make it out of the parking lot, he yawns and, using the stuffed bunny you won him as a pillow, falls asleep. On your shoulder.
You shoot him a smile, ignoring the smirk clearly visible from the rearview mirror and the giggles and camera sounds from the passenger seat. You just can't bring yourself to care right now, and snake a careful arm around his shoulders. It's to reduce jiggling, obviously. From here, you end up falling asleep to the clicking of car wheels and the shouts of city life, dreaming of a rollarcoaster that maybe, just maybe, wasn't all that bad.