We all got up early that morning and went to the truck. We agreed Earl would drive while Grady and I sat in the passenger seats. Earl was looking at the seismograph and driving at the same time for a little bit and Grady was letting the wind blow in his face. I kind of admired him without anyone noticing.

"OK, so, uh, that's us." Earl spoke up, snapping me out of my thoughts, pointing to the little blue square on the screen. "That's our truck."

"My truck." I muttered.

"It looks like everything's working ok." Earl ignored me.

"Well sure it is, Earl." Grady smiles. "This is high-tect professional operation here."

"Those are some pretty big words for ya, aren't they Grady?" I tease.

He laughs and shoulder bumps me. "Hey, we got a good plan going. 50,000 apiece, baby. HO!" He turns away; looking out the window then quickly turns back to us. "You know, I'm gonna get mine all in one. Just…STACKED!"

"Well if I make any money this time, I'll invest it. Conservative ably."

"I'm gonna save it until I know I need it." I say, shaking my head at the two.

Grady starts looking around until his eyes stop on Earl's face. "Hey, you shaved!"

"What?" Earl asked, clearly confused.

"No, it's just I realized you shaved."

"So what? A man can shave, can't he?"

Grady stares at Earl with a knowing look on his face. "No, of course. Your right…she's a babe."

Earl just shook his head and I look down. Men are so stupid sometimes. I keep my head down and start picking at my fingers. It was an old habit I used to do when I was younger. Val and Earl always tried to get me to stop, but I never did. We keep driving in silence.

I didn't now Grady was watching me the whole time until he started laughing. "What the hell are you doing? I've never seen anyone do that with their fingers. It looks like your trying to rip them off!"

My face goes red cuz of how embarrassed I am. Val and Earl would always tell me that I have to stop cuz someone would laugh at me for it. Well looks like someone finally did. And sadly, it was Grady.

Earl got protective and snapped, "Shut up, Grady. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just a habit for her."

Grady looks over at me and sees my upset face. He looks down, ashamed. He muttered a 'Sorry, I didn't mean to' but I don't think he thought I heard it. I shrug it off, just like I did with everything in life. I just ignore it. But whatever Grady says, I can't ignore it. No matter what, it always draws my attention to him, if it's good or bad, I still want to hear it from him.

We pull up next to an old abandoned little shack, in the middle of nowhere. Earl snatched up the map to see where we are and I can hear all the different kind of birds. Sometimes I wish I could live somewhere like this, without graboids, of course.

"Man, look at that country, huh?" Grady says, amazed.

"Yea, nothing but rocks and boulders out there." Earl comments. "We'll have to climb one, if we don't wanna get slurped."

"There are mountains all around us. I thought you said they can't get through mountains." Grady yells as he hops out of the truck, me following.

"I said they can't go through rock. These rocks are alluvial."

"Oh, 'alluvial.'" He throws the chains out of the bed of the truck while I just sit in the back, keeping an eye out. "Wait a minute, that's the little dingle berry in the back of your throat, right?"

"You want to hunt graboids, you better know geology. Here, you drive. I'm keeping my eye on this seismo-jigger."

"Good idea." Grady, being a smart ass.

"No offense Earl, but uh, you're as nervous as a Chihuahua."

"I'm not nervous. I'm alert."

"…Whatever."

We start driving around, Grady driving while Earl watches the screen and I keep a look out from behind us, in case of any surprise attacks. Earl opens the little window but Grady didn't know so he starts talking. "So, uh, Earl. What, what's Charlie like? You seem to know her pretty well."

"Well, I hope so. I practically raised her along with her older brother Valentine. She's usually kind of quiet; it's hard for her to open up to new people for her, she's been burned a lot when she was a kid. She's real funny, random and all when you take the time to know her. But once she trusts you, she would almost do anything for that person. If you do her wrong, she'll never forget it. Just a heads up." Earl describes. Personally I think that was a good description.

"Good to know." Grady says, with a smile, nodding his head.

I smile too, knowing that Grady was wondering about me. Maybe this really was a good decision to come down here. I might start a new life with a new person, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

Grady is getting upset that no graboids are coming after us yet. He makes sure that we keep hitting the bumpy parts of the ground and sticks his head out the window, making some kind of Indian scream.

It feels like I'm about to fall out of the truck when I see something coming up from behind us. I start banging on the window, trying to get their attention. I don't think they heard me but they stopped and looked at the screen.

They both hop out, and I help trying to get the tarp off the explosives. "OK, time for the secret weapon!" Earl yells. Grady grabs something and holds it the wrong way. "Careful of that detonator. Set it like I showed you."

Grady starts to set it, correctly saying, "How dumb do you think I am?"

Earl just looks at him for a moment before he answers. "Catch me later on that one."

I try my hardest not to laugh but I let out a giggle. Grady immediately turns around once he is done setting the bomb, smiling. "Did I just hear you giggle?"

My face turns red, knowing that is probably the most girlish things to do around a boy. I quickly start to shake my head, denying it. He has a devilish smile on his face as he starts to nod. "No, I think you did. You can't deny it! Hahahaha!"

Before it can be taken any further, Earl jumps in. "Enough fooling around, you two. Get ready before we lose him."

We get in our positions. Earl driving the little toy truck around, Grady watching it with binoculars, and me watching the seismograph. Grady keeps getting excited, "He's coming in. I think he's following it."

"Course he is."

"I can't see it, Earl. Earl, I can't see it! Left. Left. Left!"

"Ok, ok"

"Hey, guys make sure it stays far away from us, alright?" I make sure.

"Yea, we got it!" I hear both the boys say.

Grady spots it and sees the graboid eat it. He starts freaking out again, jumping around. He's yelling at Earl to hit the button to make it explode. Once he does, I jump in the bed of the truck with the boys, grabbing my umbrella along with Earl, covering ourselves. Grady forgot his and once he realizes it, he jumps to grab his.

The pieces of the graboid came flying at us; Earl and I were under out umbrellas, smirking at Grady as tried to cover himself with his cute little hat he always wears. Once everything in the sky was done falling, we look at Grady and say, "Told ya."

"I forgot."

I start laughing my ass off and he pushes me off the truck, jumping down next to me. I get up and we both start 'fighting' each other, tackling the other on the ground. Earl, of course had to ruin the moment. "Guys, come on. We need to get going. Or do you two want to get eaten up off the ground?"

Before I knew it, the rest of the day was gone and we got ten graboids. We listened to the radio when we were driving and when we were cleaning the truck from all the guts of the graboid. The song that was playing was T-R-O-U-B-L-E by Travis Tritt and it was a really good song.

We were listening to that when we were cleaning the last of it for today and Earl decided to give Grady a hard time. "Hey, don't forget to wash off that antenna."

Grady and I both look at it and see a huge piece of a gut, lying on top on the antenna. It was gross. But of course, Grady still got it. After we were done, we were all pretty hungry so we set up lunch on a high ground rock.

We were listening to the radio once more but we didn't pay attention to where it was. It was talking nothing but Spanish that I didn't understand but all of a sudden, I could barely hear it. We all look where it was and see a hole and a cloud of dust, like it got sucked down.

We both look at Grady, accusingly and Earl asks, "You put the radio on the ground?"

"Sorry, I forgot." Grady says, with a shocked expression on his face, trying to save his sorry ass.

I shake my head. "Oh my god, what am I going to do with you boys?" I exaggerate.

"Well, I don't know. You'll have to figure that one out by yourself, Lee." Grady challenges.

"Lee? Where did you get that one?" I laugh.

"Well, you know. Char-lie. There is Char and Lee so I called you Lee. Is that ok?"

I smile and say, "It's perfect. I never thought of that. I like it. It's different."

We kept driving around the country, trying to find a better rock to fall asleep on. Of course it was freezing at night so I snuggled up to the person closest to me. It turned out to be Grady. He threw his arm around my waist, pulling me closer.

"You ok?" he asks, worried.

"Yea, I'm fine. I'm just really cold. I can move if I'm bothering you." I respond, about to get up.

He quickly starts to object, pulling my closer. "No, no it's fine. I was just wondering if you were scared or anything."

"No, I've dealt with them before but when we went against the graboids, we never had these kinds of weapons."

"You two want to shut your mouths so we can go to sleep."

We all chuckle and start to fall asleep. Right when I'm almost out, I hear a wolf howling in the distance. Grady pulls away and rolls over, leaving me to freeze.

"Is that a coyote?" Grady wonders.

"Yup."

The wolf keeps howling and Grady says, while yawning, "Man, he better keep quiet." The next moment we hear him yelp and the howling stopped.

"Yup."

I tried to go back asleep, but shivering while doing so. Grady noticed this and he gave me half his blankets, pulling me next to him. I smile and grab a hold of his arm as he makes sure he has a strong hold on me, like a graboid is going to come and take me from him.

"Night, Grady."

"Night, Lee. Sleep well."

I can't help but think with a smile on my face, 'Believe me, I will.'