Chapter 2
Have you ever felt like you don't belong in your family? If so, welcome to my world. Here I am. And here are my parents:
"That dude cut in front of me," My Father muttered. Immediately, he slammed his fist on the horn, and kept it there resulting in one long continuous beep:
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
"Butch!" My mother reacted. He looked up at her casually without moving his hand. "Lay off the horn!" She cried.
"Hey, I can lay on the horn if I want to." He lifted his fist and banged it against the steering wheel.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
"Quit it! You're gonna make people think that we're insane!" My Mother lifted out her arms to stop him.
"I'm insane," Beau broke in.
"No they won't. They'll just think you're insane."
"Why me?"
"Because your nagging is louder then the horn."
"Boo," I jeered while pointing my 'thumb' downward.
"Lame come-back, Dad," Bell mocked.
"Yeah, and you're just jealous because I beat you at that arm-wrestling contest."
"I LET YOU WIN!"
"You're gonna drive off the highway," my Mom complained while grabbing the wheel. Instinctively, she drove the car away from the grass alongside the road.
"Well, if I did…"
"Keep your eyes on the road, you…." She sighed suddenly, and closed her eyes, "…ding-dong."
"I like ding-dongs," Beau added again.
"Well, maybe if you would—"
"Road!"
Thankfully, that got my Dad's attention. After swerving back onto the road, things quieted down a little bit. It didn't last though…
"I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm HUUUUNNNNGRRRY!"
"Beau, be quiet," my Mother answered him.
"Mommy, can we go to Taco Bell?"
"Yeah, I wanna go to Taco Bell," Bell agreed.
"No, I wanna go to Sonic now," Beau responded.
"No, let's go to Dairy Queen." Bari interjected.
"No, let's go to China Buffet," Bell said.
"I thought you hated Chinese food," I accused.
Bell gasped, "I know what's even better! We can go to MacDonald's, then we can go to Wendy's, then we can go to Hardy's, and then Popeye's Chicken..."
"No!" Beau screamed. Bell jumped. It was silent for a few brief seconds. Suddenly, Beau leaned his head over my seat and brought his head next to mine. I heard him whispering: "Let's go to Arby'ssss."
"Will someone feed the child before he kills me?" I bleated in a S.O.S sort of tone. Personally, I was kind of in the mood for KFC. But, that wouldn't have helped the situation much.
"Ok, fine! We'll stop. Where do you want to go?"
All three of my siblings yelled at once. Unfortunately, they all yelled something different. In conclusion, everybody in my family lack communication skills and are unintelligible.
"Daddy," Bell whined. "I want pizza."
"But I want French fries!" Beau objected.
"My opinion outranks all of yours!..I want fried chicken," I decided with comical tranquility. Yeah, I'm just awesome like that, because I used the word tranquility.
"If you guys aren't quiet, then we're all gonna sit in the parking lot and eat baloney." Dad snapped.
"NOOOOOO!" Beau shouted.
"Boy, you're the first one on my list. Don't make it worse for yourself!" I grinned a little.
"Ok, you better go on the next exit," my mom said.
"Yeah, it looks like we're a little low on gas," I piped in.
"Alright, fine. Buttercup, you call the others."
"M'k." My mom instantly whipped out her cell phone from her purse. Yeah, I know what you're thinking: Buttercup has a purse? No way. Guess it's that "Mom-syndrome" that affects people sometimes.
"Oh wait, I forgot we have to turn north at this point," Dad exclaimed.
"Wait," Bari broke in. "Where are we anyways?"
"Well, we're supposed to be in Kansas right now, Bari." She turned to the driver, "What do you mean we were supposed to turn north?"
"Like, right now! We're in Oklahoma. And Kansas is like…above Oklahoma. In other words we need to be going…north!"
"No, honey we're in Michigan," she said sarcastically. "Of course we need to go north! Just pull over in this exit and we'll figure out where we are there."
"Ok, well call Bubbles and Boomer, and tell them what we're doing."
"Oh, they'll figure it out," Mom responded.
"Ummm….no, you need to call them."
"Why? I mean, it's kind of obvious we're supposed to be going north."
"N-no, honey, Boomer is driving. You need to call them," my dad said calmly.
"But I'm sure everyone knows where Kansas is..."
"No…no, listen: this is Boomer. You need to call them." His voice got more intense and urgent.
"But…"
"No, Buttercup, it's...Boomer. Please, ju-just call them." Sighing reluctantly, I heard the phone flip up and the number was dialed.
It took a while, but we finally got the message through my uncle's head.
"Are we in Kansas yet?' Beau asked loudly.
"We will be in a minute," My dad answered. I felt the car shift a little. Looking out my side window, I watched the exit sign fade away behind us. The whole place looked barren. I mean literally; there was nothing around us, except some dry dirt and dead things…I think.
"Where are we? The desert?"
"It looks scary."
"What the heck? When was the last time it rained here?"
"I bet this place is cursed," someone commented.
"I think the Bread Basket of America just turned into crumbs. Where are we gonna stop anyways?" I asked.
"I dunno; Butch, where the heck are we?"
"Ummm…Kansas?" My Mom turned her head over to him with a disapproving glare. "What?" He asked defensively.
"Just wait, I'm gonna get calls from everyone asking where we are…and I'm supposed to answer, "umm…Kansas?"
"Yup."
"This is a depressing place," I continued. "It makes me want to cry." My voice was monotone the whole time. "Is anyone brave enough to even live here?"
"Here dear, you get the GPS," my dad ordered. While digging through the glove compartment, my mom began another rampage.
"You know we probably should have used this to begin with, but somebody decided to use a map. Ben, fly outside and see if you can see anything up ahead."
"What do you want me to look for?"
"Just somewhere to stop," my father answered. He turned to his wife. "And we were doing pretty well with the map. At least I knew when to turn north."
"Yeah, an hour ago," she counteracted. I rolled down the window and unbuckled my seatbelt as they continued to bicker. While grabbing the sill of the car, I launched myself out of the window into the dry Kansas air. Of all my powers, flying is probably my favorite.
"Go, Spiderman, go!" Beau cheered at me as I jumped out of the car. His voice got quieter and quieter as I flashed away, leaving a dark green streak trailing behind me. Since when can Spiderman fly? I thought to myself.
It felt good to get out of the car again. The wind was really dry, but it still felt nice. Just the many joys of flying.
After stretching a little bit, I found it hard to resist racing across the sky, just to get it out of my system. I warn you; doing the Superman fist thing is a lot harder then it looks. It's surprisingly really hard to balance that way. I can't even count how many times I've almost fallen out of the sky from attempting it. Well, after a while, you get used to it I guess.
Anyways, I zoomed around a little bit just to knock out as much energy as I could. It usually feels pretty good, but this air was so dry, I felt like my lips were about to chap.
A did a few letter-patterns and stuff ahead of the car…come on; I'm not that much of a show-off. It's just fun doing the loop-de-loops. Although I must admit: it's pretty cool when you're flying and all the people below you can see is dark green color-streaks in the sky.
So, I whooshed across the Kansas 'plain.' All I saw was sky, dirt, sky, and…more dirt. You know those little pictures in the books? It makes Kansas look like a big quilt of farms and stuff. Haha, No! Exact opposite of what I experienced. What do I mean? I repeat, dirt, sky, and more dirt. Really sad if you ask me.
Apparently, some people can survive here. As I crossed the plain, I saw a few small buildings jumbled together. Let's see, there was a fast-food restaurant, a general store, a doctor's office, a quilting shop, a mattress store, and a couple more things. You don't think you find such a variety of stores and buildings slam dab in the middle of NOWHERE!
Oh-well, mission complete. I better report back. I paused in the middle of the sky, and turned around. After about seven minutes of watching the road, I spotted our green SUV glimmering down on the old broken highway. See, even the streets had some effect from the air!
Well, I waved my hands above my head to signal life up ahead. I really wish I had fingers. After I made sure the others caught my signal, I dived down towards the car. Now for the tricky part: getting back in the car through the window. Yeah, the laws of physics still apply for super-people…or, whatever.
