"Aw, come on!" Sanji had to yell to be heard over the blaring radio. "That's the tenth time I've lost!"
"I'm just really good," Nami said, boasting.
"One more round!" Usopp said.
"No, I think I'm done for now," Nami said, yawning. "I'm kinda tired."
"Oh, fine." Usopp pouted.
"Can we play again later?" Chopper asked.
"I guess…if you want to lose again!" Nami said. Then she rotated her seat to face the front, where she put her feet up on the seat and laid her head back.
The motley crew behind her was jabbering about something or other, Luffy was humming along to the radio, and Zoro was staring out the window. After a while, she started to get drowsy, and her eyes closed. A minute later, she was asleep.
-x-x-x-x-x-
Nami was awakened by a voice talking.
"Aw, how cute! Somebody take a picture!" Sanji was saying.
Nami opened her eyes to see what he was talking about. She was still sitting with her feet up on the seat, but her head wasn't on the back of the seat anymore. It had shifted sideways, probably when the van had turned or something, and now her head was resting against Luffy's shoulder.
Noticing this, she jerked her head away and sat up. Looking at Luffy, she noticed a small frown cross his features, then fade away.
Zoro was chuckling.
"What?" Nami said.
"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking how cute you two looked together."
Nami raised her eyebrows and shook her head. "Boys."
"Are we there yet?" she asked.
"Almost," Luffy said. "You were only asleep for about a half hour, so we still have about….oh, 25 miles to go. We'll be there in about thirty minutes."
"Oh. Um, thanks," Nami said, somewhat awkwardly.
Luffy smiled. "You're welcome."
Deciding she needed to get away from Luffy for a while, she rotated her chair around to face the back. But, seeing their faces, she wished she hadn't.
Sanji was staring at her with a mix of wonder and disgust.
"What?" she asked him.
"How do you do it?" he asked. "You manage to attract all the boys, and yet you pick the most disgusting and stupid one to be your boyfriend."
"Shut up!" Nami yelled, just as Luffy was heard laughing.
Tearing her gaze away from Sanji, she noticed that Chopper was asleep, Robin was reading a magazine, and Usopp was just…staring at her.
"What do you want?" she asked him.
He shook his head suddenly, as if he had been in a daze. "Uh…can we play more cards?"
"No."
"Oh. Uh, okay." He said, turning to look out the window.
Frustrated, Nami turned her seat back around and tried to talk to Zoro.
"Hey, Zoro," she said.
Zoro grunted. He was getting seriously annoyed with how long this trip was taking. Plus, Nami was bothering him way too much.
"Umm…are you still mad at me?"
"Of course!" he said, angrily. "But I'm not deathly mad anymore. Although I'm still planning on how to get revenge."
Nami just stared. "Uh, that's…good, I guess." So much for having a decent conversation with Zoro.
-x-x-x-x-x-
"WE'RE HERE!" Luffy shouted.
"Dude! Chill down!" Zoro said, rubbing his left ear. "I think you just burst my eardrum."
Luffy grinned. "Oops," he said.
"Anyway," Zoro said, "Where's the house? All I see is a big field with nothing in it."
"That's the yard!" Luffy said excitedly. "The house is another half-mile down the driveway."
Robin gaped. "That's the yard? It looks like a farm! Wait…we're not living on a farm, are we? I hate farms. They make me sneeze."
"No, we're not living on a farm," Luffy answered.
"So what are we living in?" she asked.
"A house."
"What kind of house?"
But Luffy was not going to tell. He wanted it to be a surprise. He wanted everyone to know that he could actually do something right.
He turned the volume down on the radio. "Hey, Zoro," he said, "Did you bring the volleyball net or anything?"
"What kind of question is that? Of course not! Do you see a big net in the trunk or on the roof? And there's no way it would fit in my suitcase."
Luffy frowned. "Hopefully there's one in the garage or the pool shed," he murmured.
"We have a pool?" Nami exclaimed, momentarily forgetting the awkward moment earlier.
Luffy grinned. "Yup."
"Is there a diving board? Because I'm really good at diving."
"Yup!" Luffy said.
Nami smiled. A real smile, not just one of the little ones she so often showed. "As soon as I unpack, I'm going swimming," she announced. Then, as a second thought, she added, "If there's any water in the pool."
"Yeah, there's water," Luffy answered. "I called ahead three days ago and told the housekeeper to make sure everything was ready for us."
"We have a housekeeper?" Robin asked.
"No, not like that. The housekeeper was just assigned to the house to keep it nice until someone moved in."
"Oh." Robin was disappointed.
A minute later, the house came into view. There were a chorus of gasps.
"It's so pretty!" Nami said, amazed.
Luffy just smiled.
"I love it!" Usopp said, even though he couldn't see it from where he was sitting.
"Usopp, you can't even see it," Chopper said. He had just woken up and was really cranky.
"So? Everyone else thinks it's pretty!"
Chopper just sighed and shook his head.
A few seconds later, they pulled up in front of the house. It was a three story house that was painted a light blue. The shutters were a darker blue, matching the garage and the pool shed, which were also dark blue. The chimney was brick, as was the porch. The driveway was paved with asphalt and had a basketball court painted on, complete with two basketball hoops.
Then there was the pool. The cover was off, and the clear blue water reflected onto the deck. At one end, it was a depth of four feet. Then there was a gentle slope down to the other end, which totaled ten feet.
Nami gasped. "The pool is so cool!"
Even Zoro was impressed. He didn't think his captain was capable of getting something so amazing. And when he noticed the full basketball court, he grinned. He was going to have fun with that.
The second the car stopped, all the doors were flung open. Nami practically crawled over top of Zoro to get out.
"Calm down!" Zoro said.
"Sorry, but I'm excited!" Nami said, already going to the back to get her luggage. She pulled open the trunk and dragged her suitcase out. Then she opened the handle and ran for the door.
"You do realize that it's locked, right?" Luffy called.
Nami stopped and turned back to Luffy to see him holding up a shining key. She frowned and walked more slowly.
By this time everyone had gotten out of the van and was getting their luggage. Usopp was complaining about his luggage being on the roof and him not being able to reach it.
"Please, Zoro!" he was saying. "I can't reach it!"
"Why are you asking me? I'm not going to get it for you. Why don't you ask Luffy? He's the one who put it there."
"Oh, yeah, hey Luffy!" he called.
"Yeah?"
"Can you get my luggage off the roof?"
"It already is, if you haven't noticed."
Usopp looked around, confused. Then he saw his luggage sitting on the ground next to the van. Apparently Luffy had heard Usopp complain to Zoro and had gotten it down himself. Usopp went over to it and rolled it up to the door.
Meanwhile, Chopper was anxious. Not because it was a new house and town and everything, either. While he had been asleep in the van on the way here, he had had another dream, and it was making him really worried.
It was Sanji who noticed. "Hey, Chopper!" he called from the back of the van. "What's bringing you down?"
"Oh, nothing," he said. "Just tired, is all."
Zoro knew that wasn't true, but he didn't say anything. He knew that Chopper had had another dream.
When Luffy had gotten his luggage, he walked up to the front door of the house. He put the key in the lock, twisted it, and pushed on the door. "Welcome to our new home!" he said, as the door swung open.
This chapter was really short. Sorry about that. It's getting harder for me to write this... unfortunately.
