A/N edited version of chapter 3.

Stella's thoughts

Disclaimer: I don't own Grown Ups


Chapter 3

"I spy with my little eye..." Andre began.

I sighed boredly. "Is it a tree?" I said as I rested my head against my
window.
I knew Andre was thinking of a tree (and had been for the past hour now); I was only playing the game to humor him, and because, quite frankly, I couldn't think of anything better to do at the moment.

"Dang it Stella, you're good!"
I swallowed the bubble of laughter that had wormed its way up my throat, and
tried to readjust myself.

However, the fact that Charlie was currently conked
out on my shoulder pretty much bombed any chance of that happening. You know
she drools in her sleep? Well, obviously I know - I just happened to find out the hard way, and I now had a cream puff-sized wet spot on my shoulder.

LOVELY.

"Alright Stella, you'll NEVER guess
this one."

"It's a tree, Andre. The next one's a tree, and the one after that - A TREE."

"Man, how do you know that?"

I shrugged. "Girl's gut feeling. That's how I know."

All of a sudden, Kurt chirped, "We're here!"

Andre and I immediately stopped what we were doing, and looked out the front window.

There was the lake house, set in front of the lake, but set back slightly into the trees encircling it.

I'll be honest, it was a pretty big
house.

As soon as the car had come to a stop, I undid my seatbelt, got out, and gawked in awe at the insanely beautiful sight before me. I suddenly found it hard to believe that I was staying HERE for the entire weekend.

"Charlie, you seeing this?" I breathed.

No answer.

Andre, who'd found a spot beside me, exhaled through his nose slowly.

"I'll wake her up," he sighed. He then climbed into the backseat, and started poking
his sister's cheek.

"Charlotte...CCChhhaaarrrlllooottteee...Charlotte, I'll
tell Jason Evers you like him if you don't wake up right now."

That did it; the moment Andre mentioned Jason Evers (whoever the heck he was),

Charlie jolted awake, and stared at her brother in wide-eyed shock.
"How do you know that?"

Andre simply grinned. "I have my ways."

Well, okay then. - italicized

"So, who's Jason Evers?" I asked Charlie with a sly grin as she crawled sleepily out of the car.

Her face turned red. "Nobody," she said quickly. "C'mon."

By now, the others had parked their cars next to the MacKenzies, and four of the adults were hassling Rob.

"It's nice you drove your piggy bank here!" Lenny snickered as he climbed out of his Yukon.

Looking behind my back, I suddenly found it hard not to laugh. Rob's car happened to be one of those Smart cars that was practically the size of a postage stamp. It honest-to-god looked like an oversized blue piggy bank.

Marcus made note of that, too, and added with a laugh, "Hey, Rob's car's an Oompa Loompa, too!"

I shook my head. Oh, Marcus...the man was pure evil sometimes.

"Seriously Stella, isn't this cool or what?"

I was brought out of my trance-like thoughts, and back into the real world. I grinned, and nodded. "Yeah, it really is."

"This is cool?" Greg asked skeptically as he walked up beside me.

Huh...was it me, or did this kid happen to find a way to stand next to me every time I looked? Good grief...

Irritably, I responded, "Well, GREG FEDER, not all of us have the money to go
to Hawaii every summer."

"I go to Colorado during the summer," he corrected me haughtily.

I groaned in exasperation. "Whatever!"

We continued walking towards the front entrance - well, until me, Donna, and Charlie had the crap scared out of us by the gonzo-sized bug zapper on the front porch.

Startled, we jumped back; Charlie towards her brother, Donna towards Keith, and me towards - yep, you guessed it - Greg. Of all the people

I could've gone to for a little distance from that bug zapper, I had to go to
the Hollywood brat.

Surprisingly, his gut instincts kicked
in, and he somehow managed to catch me
by the waist with one arm. He then proceeded to hold me captive for a couple of seconds in his one arm, which, truth be told, I didn't mind at all.

Marcus coughed then, and immediately ended that "magic" moment between me and
Greg. Both of our faces turned a lovely shade of strawberry red, and I hastily pried his arm off my waist.

He swallowed uncomfortably, and brushed his tux
jacket off.

JEEZ, that was awkward... - italicized

Lucky for me, Becky turned everybody's attention to her by asking

Lenny what the bug zapper for.
"It's getting rid of moths, honey."

She cocked her head to one side, and stared at the machine curiously. "Where's
it taking them?"

"Hell," Marcus told her flatly.

"Don't say that." I then gave him a don't-argue-with-me look.

He nodded quickly. "I'm sorry. Not hell, Mexico."

I smacked my forehead. Eesh, he was dense.

Lenny tried to give his daughter a better - and more appropriate, for that matter - explanation of what the bug zapper was for. "It's giving them electricity so they fall asleep, uh...electrically."

"It's electrocuting them?"

"No, sweetheart, no!"
Another zap from the machine told Becky differently.

She looked absolutely horrified now. "But daddy, they're dying!" she cried.

Charlie and Donna had the same look of horror on their faces now. "IT'S KILLING THEM?"

I quirked an eyebrow. "You honestly didn't know that?"

Charlie shook her head. "No!"

Yet another zap, and yet another cry of "Daddy, no!" from Becky.

By then,Lenny couldn't take his daughter's protests anymore, so with a sigh, he went up, and unplugged the bug zapper.

"Look, they're alright, I promise you."

Just to humor her, he plucked a moth off the zapper, and tossed it in the air. It immediately dropped to the ground. Lenny bit his lip. "See? Still sleeping."

Greg rolled his eyes. "It's dead, dad."
For that, Roxanne pinched his bicep.

Ooh, you got powned..

"Ooh, a porch swing!" Mama Ronzoni gushed from the back of our group before making a break for it, and knocking Keith over in the process. "I know what I'm doing this weekend!"

She stepped directly on the moth Lenny had tossed in the air, which elicited an oh-well look from him.

"It's dead now," he said under his breath.

Just then, Rob appeared behind the front doors, and threw them open in a very dramatic fashion. "Welcome back to 1978, everybody - the lake house!"

We all walked in, and just stared; there was a huge kitchen with a fully stocked fridge, a big living room with a big fireplace, and an
Adirondacks-inspired dining room. I'll be honest, the place was just flat-out
GORGEOUS.

Greg and Keith, on the other hand, thought otherwise.

"Is this like an Outward Bound thing?" Greg said, his nose scrunched up in slight disgust.

"Yeah, this is like an episode of Lost."Added Keith

I looked at the two of them. They honestly had to be kidding with this crap.

God, I'll be surprised if you two make it through the night alive. -
italicized

"Alright, so who's getting what room?"

"Actually, I made a map of who gets which room," Rob explained to everybody.

"I took the liberty of reserving the room with the water bed for Gloria and myself."

"Ooh, you're gonna do the backstroke tonight!"

It took every single ounce of self-control in me not to to just barf; and from
the looks of it, Charlie was having the same issue.

Donna suddenly looked excited. "I wanna go swimming with you guys!"

It got EXTREMELY quiet all of a sudden. The kid honestly had no idea that they
were talking about something COMPLETELY different.

"Oh honey, we're not really going swimming," Gloria smiled. "What I mean is-"

Me and Charlie got to covering the little kids' ears. Mrs. Lamansoff made like
us, and clapped her hands over Donna's ears.

"It's okay, she doesn't need to know what that means. I don't even know what you mean."

"Oh, I do," Marcus piped up before he made a barfing noise.

"Uh...can we go back to picking rooms, please?" I asked uneasily.

Lenny nodded. "Yeah, that would be good."

"Rob, could you take us on a tour?" Mrs. Lamansoff added."Oh yes, I'd love to. Gloria was just trying to be cool." He then got out of
his seat, and started walking. Like sheep, we followed closely behind.

"Alright, I need a room close to the bathroom!" Eric piped up.

Pretty soon, everybody was chipping in room requests. "I want a room FARTHEST
away from Stella," Greg said, who was - AGAIN - standing right next to me.

Okay, this is really getting on my nerves.

I glared at him. He glared right back at me.

Oh, two can play at this game, buddy.

Knowing that this would just tick him off, I declared, "I want the room CLOSEST to Greg." I smirked triumphantly, enjoying the way his name alone rolled off my tongue.

Whoa, wait - did I say that? Yep, I did. You know what, forget I even said that.

"I KNEW you liked me," Greg snickered.

I sent him another smirk. "In your dreams, Hollywood."

"I'm counting on it."

I rolled my eyes, and continued on with the others.

"Okay, here's the big daddy," Rob stated as he opened a door on our right. "The master bedroom."

I'll be honest, it was beautiful; there was a big iron-wrought bed positioned on the right, and a bay window with a large seat on the left. It had hardwood
floors, and the walls were this soft, baby-ish pink. I suddenly envied whoever was lucky enough to stake a claim in it.

Eric lightly stroked his beard. "You know what? Lenny should have
that. Lenny should have the room."

"I second that," I said. I might hate both his sons (Greg, in particular), but Lenny was a nice guy, and he had, after all, rented out the lake house. If anyone deserved the master bedroom, it was him.

Roxanne seized the opportunity, and started strutting towards the room. Lenny quickly stopped her though. "Honey, honey - c'mon, let the kids have it. It's
a fun time for kids to be together and to do kid things."

She silently - albeit reluctantly - stepped to the side, and let us run into the room. I made sure I was as far ahead of Greg as humanly possible, and he
made sure he was far behind me.
I heard Marcus chuckle outside.

"You might wanna keep Stella and Greg away from each other," he mumbled in a voice just loud enough for me to hear.

I mentally facepalmed myself. He was gonna have a ball with this, I just knew it.

I watched Greg and Keith stare at the TV by the window. It was your average tube TV, but the way they were looking at it, you'd think it was a Commodore 64.

"Hey dad, what's the big box on the back of the TV?"

"Well, that's the rest of the TV," Lenny told Greg. "They didn't always have flat-screens back then, sport."

Keith snorted. "Wow, that is some stone-age SHIZNIT."

I looked at Charlie. "Shiznit?" I mouthed.

She only shrugged.

Lenny scratched the back of his neck. "Uh, yeah...that's wack." He then left us to our business, as did the other adults.

As soon as the adults had disappeared from our fields of vision, I panned the
room. "Alright, we're gonna need some sorta' sleeping arrangement."

"Girls get floor, guys get bed!"

I stared at Greg, and shook my head. "Please, spare me. There's no way that's happening."

"'Sides, there are more boys than there are girls," Donna wisely pointed out.

"So, girls should get the bed, and guys should get the floor."

"No, GUYS get the bed."

"No, GIRLS get it," I insisted.

"Guys."

"Girls."

"Guys!"

"Girls!"

It took us both a second to realize that our faces were separated by a space of only three inches.

The moment we did, I'm pretty sure about fifty billion
butterflies cut loose in our stomachs.

I looked into Greg's eyes - they were green, and they had small brown flecks in them. I then looked at him as he licked his lips, then as he looked at me.

All of a sudden, the four-year old with the faux-hawk bolted into the room, screaming at the top of his lungs. He then wrapped himself around my legs, and
clung to them tightly.

I stooped down to look at him. "What's wrong?"

"There's a monster outside!" he cried.

Monster? Okay...

Now curious to see what this "monster" was, I gently pried the kid off my legs, and stuck my head into the hallway.

Everybody was gawking at Mama Ronzoni, who looked just fine - well, until I got down to her feet. THEN, I saw what had freaked the kid out so badly.

Good God, the woman had a bunion on her right toe the size of a flippin' football.

Oh, GROSS!

I shuddered intensely, and ducked back into the safety of the kids bedroom.

Boy, this was gonna be a LONG Fourth of July weekend.


A/N So it's now summer for me! So updates should be quicker (Hopefully) unless i have writers block or go on a trip. Next week from Wedsday-Saturday don't expect updates i going on a trip so yeah thats it.