Hey! Sorry for not updating, I've been busy with a playing-video-games-watching-movies-and-eating-nac hos-and-pizza styled life. Hopefully this chapter meets expectations… or even goes beyond it. Enough ranting, here's the newest hot-off-the-press chapter of Familiar Strangers!
Chapter Seven
"Okay, okay," I muttered, holding my head in my hands.
"We have to get out of here, he might come back… and with company." Alex said stoically, making us all clamber in the van and drive off. No one talked until I was about to turn on the street I lived on.
"We can't go back home." Nick said quietly. "They know where we live."
"We have to." I replied. "We need supplies and Squishy needs food."
"I have a better idea," Ron said, yanking his wand out of the sleeve of his robe. "What do we need?" He asked.
"Mine and Nick's clothes, Squishy's food, my laptop and printer, and all of my books." I replied quickly.
"Why do we need all that?" Nick asked.
"If my books can do what the Villains think they can, then we have the power here, if I print something out it should come into play." I said softly. "If it doesn't, we need my books… uh, their stories, so that we can know what we're up against."
In ten long minutes we had all that I asked for piled in the back of the minivan. "Ron, how far does that spell reach?" Alex asked.
"Pretty far, I don't know exactly." Ron answered.
"Get our stuff while you're at it." Alex nearly commanded.
"And a large peperoni pizza," Darren joked shamelessly.
"Oh, shove off, Darren." Ron huffed as he started twirling his wand in the air. In another ten minutes the back of the van was so packed that I almost couldn't see out of the rear view window.
"We have to find your parents before we do anything," Alex said. "We can't attack until we know they're safe."
"Attack?" Darren screeched. "Our only plan is staying alive!"
"We'll have to make a move sooner or later!" Alex argued.
"Hello? Does anyone live up there?" Darren rapped his knuckles on Alex's head. "We're kids! We can't attack Villains!"
"You guys have done it before." Nick mumbled.
"Not all of them, not all at once." Darren said softly.
"We'll tell Dumbledore—" Ron started but I cut him off.
"No! If we tell anyone my parents are dead!" I yelled. "We're on our own," I sighed. "We can't let anyone know and we can't raise suspicions."
"A building exploded, we're way past trying to stay incognito." Alex mumbled dryly.
"We didn't blow it up though," I mumbled quietly.
"It caused disturbances, no doubt." Alex said. He turned to Ron. "Bring out that map again."
Ron sighed heavily but opened up the Marauder's Map after reciting 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.' "There's no sign of your parents or the other Villains in town, they're either on the outskirts or underground."
"I guess this would be a good time to be friends with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…" Nick sighed.
"Yeah, and we could eat so much pizza." Darren muttered dreamily. Nick nodded and Squishy whined.
"Will you two stop fooling around?" Alex yelled.
"We have to come up with a plan before nightfall." I said. "Night is going to be when they act."
"I'm stronger at night too; we're not at a total disadvantage." Darren said.
"We, as a team, are." Alex pointed out. Darren mumbled some crude words then scooted away from Alex. "And Destiny's right, we need a plan before nightfall, and we need a place we can stay when it is nightfall."
"We can't leave the van, it's our getaway car!" Nick immediately protested.
"He's right, and we can't all go check into a hotel on a school night, we can't raise suspicions." Ron mumbled, still studying the map.
"Well, whip up some blankets, Magic Man." Alex huffed.
"I'll tell you what I can whip up, Rider!" Ron yelled raising his wand in the air.
"Oh stop it!" I yelled. "All of you!" I pulled over to the side of the road. We were a few miles from the town limits. "We can't be arguing like this!" I huffed. "We need a safe place to park the van and to get things organized. I don't think we should leave town."
"We definitely shouldn't leave town…" Alex mumbled.
"We have two and a half hours until sundown." Darren announced.
"Your parents still haven't shown up on the map." Ron said softly.
"We won't have enough time, even if they did show up on the map now to go and save them. We don't have a plan." Nick said. He surprised me, in the last three hours he had matured immensely. "We have to wait until tomorrow."
"We—" I sighed, knowing he was right. "Okay, but we still need a safe place we can put the van."
"What about my parent's yard?" Ron brought up.
"Inconspicuous, Ron." I deadpanned. "Does that mean nothing to you?" He frowned, and lowered his eyes. "What I meant was, no one should know what we're doing; having my 'muggle' van in your parent's yard is the antonym of inconspicuous."
"And incognito." I shot Alex a glare.
Our arguing was stopped instantly by someone knocking on my driver's side window. "You know, the hospital your mom's supposed to be in is about twenty miles in the opposite direction."
"Uh oh," Nick mumbled.
