Cale met up with the guys in the parking lot, a big smile on her face.
"Feel better?" Teddy asked her.
"Yeah, I feel about five pounds lighter," she said, and then turned to Chris. "If I get a kidney infection from having to hold it for like, six hours, I'm sending you my medical bills."
Chris grinned in return. "Go ahead and try. You could've went in the bushes like Teddy."
It was barely morning, but everyone was wide-awake. Chris had been forced to stop at a Texaco station by Cale, the chronic pee-er. During the middle of the night, he had pulled over to the side of the road for Teddy, but Cale was strongly against relieving herself in some bushes. So she'd had to wait until they reached a dinky little town so she could go. Presently, they were all standing around in the parking lot, their bladders emptied and food in their hands.
"So, Christopher," Cale began, hopping onto the hood of the truck. "Have you figured out where we're going yet?"
"I vote for Canada!" Vern offered.
"Not Canada," Teddy whined. "That's lame. I don't even know where it is."
"It's North above Montana," Gordie said.
"Listen, I'm not going to Igloo-Land."
"I'm driving in a straight line," Chris said, shrugging. "I'm not taking us anywhere in particular really, I'm just driving."
"Well, then let's drive," Teddy said impatiently. "We're not getting anywhere standing out here."
"So break it, break another little piece of my heaaaart," Teddy caterwauled.
"Stop singing!" Gordie yelled. "You don't even know the words!"
"Well the damn radio's blowing fuzz! We need some tunes!"
"That wasn't a TUNE you were singing," Claire told him helpfully. "It was more like provocation for suicide."
Chris, Gordie and Cale laughed. Vern, however, jabbed his sister in the side. "You purposely use big words like that so that I can't understand the damn joke."
"That's right," she teased, ruffling up his hair.
Teddy sat up straight. "Can we pick up that hitch hiker?"
"I don't think that's such a good idea," Vern said, worry creasing his brow. "She could be an escapee from a mental institution, hungry for human flesh."
"Yeah, but she could also be a hooker, hungry for teenage boys. Come on, Chris!"
"I don't want hooker prints in my truck," Chris said firmly. "Besides, there's no room."
"She can have my lap."
"We don't need anymore hookers, Teddy," Chris told him. "We already have Claire."
"Ha ha, that was clever," Claire grumbled.
"Yeah, I thought so," he said.
"Good job, we passed her," Teddy said irritably. "You just blew your chance at a free hooker, Chambers."
"Uh, Teddy, hookers don't come for free," Chris said helpfully.
"Whatever!"
"Don't argue," Cale said.
"I'm pissed off," Teddy told her.
"Okay, well, uh…let's play a game. I spy with my little eye something that starts with…umm…C."
"Good for freaking you."
"Who pissed in your Cornflakes?"
"Chris."
Cale smiled up at Chris. "Chris, how many times do we have to tell you? Cornflakes: Not a urinal."
"I'll try to remember that, thank you." He returned the smile.
Claire cleared her throat obviously to show Chris that she'd noticed the little exchange.
"Stop that," Chris warned her.
"Stop what?" she asked innocently.
Lack of sleep and boredom was hovering over the passengers like a black cloud of annoying-ness. Everyone was doing their best to piss everyone else off. So far, it was hard to tell which pair was winning; Chris vs. Claire, or Teddy vs. Vern.
While Chris and Claire simmered, both equally irritated with the other over their latest fight and both trying equally as hard to come up with shocking new insults for each other, Vern was sprinkling left over sugar from his bag of Sugar Puffs in Teddy's hair while Teddy slept.
"Teddy," Vern cried, shaking him awake. "It's urgent! Wake up!"
"What's wrong?" Teddy slurred.
"You have a lot of dandruff!"
Raking his hands through his hair, Teddy was alarmed to see the amount of white powdery-looking stuff come out of his hair. "What the hell?"
Claire sighed. "Teddy, it's sugar. Vern put it in your hair."
"Do you SEE a shower out here?" Teddy yelled. "Now my head is going to be sticky!"
"I didn't do it! I didn't do it!"
Teddy lunged at Vern. Vern screamed and kicked him in the nuts. Teddy howled, put him in a headlock and slowly tightened his arm around Vern's neck.
"Is it funny now!" he demanded.
"Let me go, ass breath!"
"Teddy! Don't make me pull this car over!" Chris ordered.
"He started it!"
"It's not MY fault you have a shitty sense of HUMOUR!" Vern yelled.
"Claire, you sit between them," Chris said.
"Get bent!" she snapped. "I don't want to!"
"Why not?"
"Because Teddy's still got hookers on his mind and I don't want to be sitting next to him!"
"All he's gotta do is just take a look at your face and he'll forget all about any sort of pleasure!"
"Oh yeah, that's gonna make me wanna do what you told me to, you asshole."
Vern, who was trying to struggle out of Teddy's death grip, kicked Gordie in the back of the head. "Chris, we're going to get into an accident," Gordie said.
"Claire, just do it," Chris said.
"Eat me."
Screaming, Vern threw himself on Claire, and then tried to shove her at Teddy. "Take my sister, take my sister! Stop killing me!"
Grumbling obscenities to herself, she sat between the two boys. When Teddy tried to reach around her for Vern, she glared at him. "Teddy, I'll hike up my skirt if you settle down and shut up."
"Why thank you, Claire," he said. "That would be nice of you."
