I haven't updated in sooo long. . . I'm so sorry. I was on a week long vacation and TOTALLY forgot to tell anyone. Apparently a couple people thought that was the end. . . God, people! I'd NEVER leave you hanging like that! Review more! I heart reviews!

Chapter 9
Two weeks passed. September loomed ahead of everyone, but school was the last thing on Gordie's mind.
He seemed to drift away from everyone and everything. People would speak to him, and he'd look up ten minutes later, asking them to repeat their long-forgotten query.
"Are you all right, son?" Mrs. Lachance asked over dinner every night. Gordie would always nod, or mumble, or sometimes, if he was feeling strong, try to smile. And Mrs. Lachance, though not looking reassured at all, would return to her dinner.
Chris had never forgotten Gordie's birthday. Every August 29, he had always gotten a present from Chris, and this year was no exception.
"Gordie!" his mother screamed up the stairs one morning. "You've got a package!"
Gordie inched his way downstairs. He didn't do anything fast anymore.
When he reached his mother, she was holding a small package wrapped with brown paper. She handed it to him and silently left the room.
He wasn't sure whether to be happy or not when he looked at the postmark and saw that the package was from Chris. He knew exactly what it was- the date was the 29th. Leave it to Chris.
Pulling the string from around the box and wondering what Chris would have bought him, a note fell out of the folds, and he realized it was a book.
"Dear Gordie," he read out loud, "this is for you, always the bookworm. It's gotten great reviews here in the city, and I wanted you to be the first in Castle Rock to read it. For what I paid for it, it had damned better be good. I hope you haven't forgotten me. Chris." Was that last part supposed to be some sick sort of joke, he wondered to himself, shaking his head. Sliding his thumb under the paper, he shifted the wrapping to read the title: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Over the next few days, Gordie attached himself to the book. He'd read it all in one night, of course, staying up later than he ever had before because he didn't want to put Chris's present down. He supposed it was some sort of psychological disease, that he was trying to make it seem like Chris had never left through the book, but he really didn't care. This particular afternoon, Gordie, Teddy, Vern, and Justi were up in the tree house, playing cards. After Gordie lost the eighth hand in a row, Teddy threw down his cards furiously.
"That is it," he announced. "That is absolutely the fuck it."
Gordie looked up at his friend in wordless surprise.
"You mope worse than anyone I've ever seen, Lachance."
"Sincerely," Vern added. Justi swatted him.
"You want Chris back, don't you?" Teddy asked matter-of-factly.
"Well, yeah," Gordie said slowly, as if explaining to a toddler. "Duh."
"Well then we have to go get him," Teddy replied, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "An idea occurs to me. . . " he continued, looking around for the full effect, ". . . ROAD TRIP!"
The response was everything he could have expected and more. Vern whooped, Justi hollered, and even Gordie smiled a little.
"We'll leave tomorrow," Teddy said, his face flushing with excitement, "and we can make it to New York in five days. We'll spend four days there, head home- another five- and that's two weeks! We'll be back in time for school!"
"Yeah!" Justi cried, standing up. "Did you hear him, Gordie? We're going to get Chris back!" She frowned. He was just sitting there, not doing anything but smiling.
"I'm going to see Chris," he repeated.
"You bet, man," Teddy said jubilantly, slapping Gordie on the back. "And don't bother taking a fucking picture. We'll bring him home!"
Suddenly, Justi wasn't smiling anymore. "Teddy's the only one with a car." she began, "and he won't let anyone else drive it," she continued slowly. "We'll be dead before we get out of Oregon."
"Lies all lies!" Teddy screeched. "I'm a good driver!"
Now, every single person in that tree house had had at least one mailbox taken out by Teddy and his city tour bus, now the most feared vehicle in the entire town. So listening to Teddy protest about his driving skills was less than convincing.
"Plus I'll be the only girl!" Justi continued. "No way am I going on a trip with all of you! No way in hell! I get to bring a girl."
"Hey, that's cool," Teddy said, licking his lips. "Bring your sister."
"My sister is eleven years old. You stay away from her, Theodore Louis Duchamp."
"She's fucking hot."
"She's my sister! And she's eleven!"
"Edgar Allen Poe married his thirteen year old cousin."
"Well, if you marry my eleven year old sister, I'll knock your non- existent balls off." She turned to Gordie. "Who should I bring?"
He shrugged indifferently. "Bring Cara," he suggested. "I kinda like her."
Justi nodded. "Okay, I'll ask her."
"Is she the stacked one?" Teddy inquired. "Cuz if she's the one I'm thinking about, man, no shit, she's stacked."
"That's Karen," Justi corrected absently.

"This is way too early. This is ungodly. This cannot go unpunished," Justi was mumbling sleepily the next morning when Teddy picked her up at six. They climbed into the back of the bus, where Gordie and Vern had already made themselves comfortable and fallen asleep.
Teddy's car was unlike anything else in the world. A red bus, Teddy had bought it for five hundred dollars upon realizing that the color was the closest he'd ever get to a sports car. He'd also paid ten dollars extra for a license plate reading "Pimp-mobile". The vehicle was referred to as his "Love Shack." There were two seats in the front: a driver's seat and a passenger's. Other than that, Teddy and Chris had ripped out all of the seats so it resembled a motel room on wheels. Teddy had bolted an unbelievable five cots to the carpeted floor for the trip, and towards the front there was a table, chairs, and a cupboard full of snacks and gas ("Just in case we feel the need to blow something up by the side of the road." "Thank you, Teddy. . . that was. . . reassuring. . . ").
"Where's Cara?" Gordie asked, raising his head and opening one sleepy eye to look at Justi. She'd set her bag down underneath the cot and had already spread her sleeping bag out and snuggled in. "She couldn't come," Justi replied, stifling a yawn. "She said she had something to do with her family this week."
"You like the remodeling?" Teddy asked from the front, looking in the rearview mirror at the newest passenger.
"Yeah! This is incredible!" The Pimpmobile had just undergone the renovations performed by Teddy and Chris. Since the remodeling, it hadn't yet been on a drive this long. The cots, a new addition, had never been tested before. ("Yeah, I'm not sure if the bolts will hold. . . holler if anyone dies back there and I'll pull over at the next exit." "Again, Teddy. . . you know, you're a very reassuring guy.")
"Ha ha ha!" Teddy screamed in glee, jerking the wheel around as the people in the back of the bus rattled around.
"Teddy, there are no seat belts back here!" Vern yelled, raising his head from the sleeping bag he'd strewn over the cot. "Keep in mind that when you turn like that, we go flying!"
It soon became clear that that was the wrong thing to say to Teddy, as he swerved like a maniac all the way out of Oregon for four hours, relishing his friends' screaming.
At about noon, the swerving stopped and the bus came to a halt.
"Do you think he drove it off the road?" Vern asked in a hushed tone.
"Nah," Gordie said, looking out the window next to his cot. "We're at a diner."
"Lunch!" Teddy announced, jumping out of the vehicle with a shout. Gordie, Vern, and Justi slunk in behind Teddy, giving strangers who stared at them looks that plainly said "We're not with him- we've never seen him before in our lives."
"Hey, this diner has music!" Teddy realized out loud. "And I love this song!"
Gordie and Justi exchanged looks, knowing exactly what was coming.
"Oh ah-ah-ah'll. . . tell you so-o-o-methin'. . . . I think you'll un- der-sta-a-a-and. . . yeah ah-ah-ah'll. . . say that so-o-o-methin'. . . " and here Teddy threw back his head, "I wanna hold your ha-a-a-a-a-and!"
Justi buried her face in embarrassment watching several people point, whisper, and laugh.
"Can I. . . . uh, can I help you?" a waitress asked, coming over to their table with a notepad in hand. A perfectly penciled eyebrow was arched almost to her perfect hairline.
"Hey, baby, what's your sign?" Teddy inquired, leaning over Gordie to look at her. He had transformed instantly from a falsetto singing McCartney wanna-be to a suave, sexy Prince Charming.
The waitress rolled her eyes and pulled a piece of paper with the words "Get the hell out of my face, loser" printed on it from her apron pocket. "That's my sign," she said dryly.
Several people in adjacent booths who had been hanging onto every word laughed at this. Teddy turned around and flipped them the bird.
"Watch it," the waitress said in a bored tone. "What do you want?"
"Four cheeseburgers, four orders of French fries, and four root beers," Gordie said hurriedly, in an effort to separate Teddy and the waitress as soon as possible. The waitress rolled her eyes and left into the kitchen.
"That must be Jello, cuz pudding don't shake like that!" Teddy called after her, watching her retreat to the kitchen.
"God, Teddy," Justi said, the hands covering her face muffling her voice. "I try to get friends and you scare them all off. No wonder Cara didn't come. Family matters, my ass. She's scared of you."
"I don't blame her," Vern said, sipping the water the busboy had brought when they sat down. "I'm still scared of Teddy."
"Hey." The five of them turned to see a fat man with a baseball cap approaching them. "You know what I suggest?" They shook their heads. The man pointed at Teddy and said, "Get that kid a muzzle."
Vern, Gordie, and Justi laughed, but Teddy frowned.

"If you think for one second," Justi began that night, "that I am sleeping here with Teddy right there, you are sadly mistaken."
"Yeah, she's right," Vern said, eyeing his girlfriend-on-hiatus's curves. "One of us should like keep watch or something. Guard her from Teddy with a gun."
"I'll guard," Teddy volunteered.
"You're the one they're guarding me from, Teddy."
"I'll guard," Gordie said. Justi looked at him oddly. "I'm gay, you freak!" he exclaimed. "I'm not going to make a move on you!"
"Well, he might, but he'd be imagining you were Chris the whole time," Teddy added. "That does bring some interesting pictures to mind, you know."
"Sick," Justi said, shaking her head. "Teddy, you have no decency."
"I like it that way," Teddy said, pulling over to the side of the highway and driving off the road into a patch of ground. "We'll camp here for the night."
And so began Gordie's insanely long night guarding Justi from Teddy.

"We're here," an extraordinarily fatigued Teddy called from the front of the bus four days later. "Look out your windows, and to the left you will see New York City."
Everyone made a mad dash from their cots (because it was two in the morning) to the left side of the bus and looked out the windows.
"Wow," Vern said in awe. "It's huge." He turned around to look at Gordie fearfully. "What if we get here and can't find him?"
"Vern, could you be less encouraging?" Justi asked irritably. "Of course we'll find him. We've got his address, don't we?"
"Well, yeah, but. . . "
"But nothing! We're gonna find him and bring him back, dammit!"
"And we are stopping at all new restaurants on the way home," Gordie added. "If was get recognized at any one of the diners where Teddy hit on the waitress, I will die of embarrassment."
"Because you're jealous of me and my mysterious power over women," Teddy called from the front.
"Oh, yeah," Gordie said, shaking his head. "Me, the gay one in the car. I'm totally in envy over your power over women. It must have something to do with your pants, Teddy."
"Hey, leave my pants out of this," Teddy yelled back, looking down at his tight leather pants. "They're SEXY!"
"Yeah, women find it really sexy when guys get stuck in their pants at rest stop bathrooms and have to waddle out and get their gay best friend to help them yank up the pants," Justi added. "I know the whole sight turned me on."
"I'm sure it did," Teddy agreed. "It turned me on, that's for sure."
"Ugh!" all three of the passengers in the back yelled at the same time.

End of Chapter 9