Bonjour! Comment allez-vous? Je regrette, ah, forget it, I'm sorry it's been so dang long. Like a year. And a half. Almost. Anyway, I've been busy. Sort of. Maybe just lazy. Anyway, I was looking at that last chapter I put up, and I'm really sorry there's so many typos. I should probably read over what I've typed, but it's the lazy thing showing again.

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. It is, regrettably, the creation and possession of Tamora Pierce, or whatever other weird references I might have made. It's been about three years since I wrote this (how's that for procrastination?) and I don't remember what I've written. I'll find out as I type it!

Chapter Four

Rhia looked out the window and saw that it was getting late. "Oh, crap. We need to get dinner stuff, Carra. Hey, Myles, where do you live?"

"In Tortall"

"Oh, yeah. Would you like to stay at our place for a few days, since you have no place to go?"

"Sure, I guess."

"Come, then." Rhia stood and started toward the door, pausing to throw her cup and spoon away. Carra stood, put the picture away and followed. I went with them outside. I noticed that the air had cooled slightly once the sun had started to set. Rhia and Carra got in their car. When she noticed I was just standing there staring at it, Rhia got out and opened a door for me. I sat as she got back in her seat and pulled the door shut. I was startled to hear a rumbling noise and feel the car vibrate beneath my feet. Cool air started circulating slowly through the car. Rhia turned around to face me. "Buckle up."

"What?"

She pointed to a strap with a buckle on it by my head and demonstrated how to buckle it, pulling her own buckle down to the counterpart on the seat. Rhia and Carra waved to Sarah, who had been relieved, and the car started to move backward! I gasped and grabbed onto the seat. Rhia started laughing.

"Just what is so funny?" I demanded.

"You!" She giggled. "Being afraid of the car!"

"Come on, Rhia." Carra said. "It wasn't so long ago that you were afraid of driving yourself." Rhia growled threateningly at her friend.

"Why was she afraid of cars?" I said, more to keep the peace than of real interest.

"A couple years ago, her older sister was driving her somewhere and they were hit by another car. She was scared of cars for a long time after that."

The car stopped in front of a large store with a sign, "Albertsons." (Disclaimer: Albertsons belongs to, guess who, the Albertsons company! Bet you really thought I had created it, didn't you? Sorry, the constant need for disclaimers bothers me.)

"These things can hit each other!" I exclaimed as we got out. "Is it dangerous?"

"Yeah, people die from accidents all the time." Carra said.

"I am never getting in one again." I said fervently.

They laughed. "Yes, you will." Carra said as we went inside. "Unless you want to walk every where." Rhia got a basket on wheels, which she called a 'cart' from the front of the store and started to push it up and down the aisles, putting things in it.

"By the way, what's for supper?" Carra asked.

"Stir fry."

"Oh, good."

"What's stir fry?"

"You'll see," Rhia said, a little too mischievously for my comfort.

"I don't like the sound of that."

"Don't worry, it's really good."

We had reached a section that had vegetables stacked in displays. I remembered a question I'd had for a while. "Hey, how are these places kept so cold when it's so hot outside?"

"Air conditioning. They're machines that cool off the air and blow it into the building." Carra explained.

"How?"

"Don't know. Grapes?" Rhia asked.

"Oh, yes." Carra replied.

"Okay, let's go." Rhia turned the cart around and headed back to the front of the store. Carra and Rhia started putting the things they had gotten on a counter.

"Don't say anything," Carra said quietly.

"Why?" I didn't know why I was ordered to silence.

"I'll explain later."

I started slightly in surprise as the counter top started moving. The woman behind the counter moved each item under something that beeped with each one.

"Thirty five sixty is your total."

Rhia wrote the amount on a piece of paper and handed it to the woman. A teen-aged boy had been putting the items in paper sacks and placing the bags in the cart. Carra took the cart and wheeled it back outside. Rhia and I followed. She opened the back of the car and started putting the stuff in it. "So, why couldn't I talk?" I asked.

Carra explained as Rhia took the cart back inside. "Checking out, what we were just doing, is so common that they would have asked uncomfortable questions if you had acted like you didn't know what was going on." Rhia returned and we got back in the care and drove a few minutes in silence.

"Where are we going?" I asked as we went past the ice cream shop we had been in earlier.

"Home." Carra replied as she stopped the car on the side of the street a short way from the ice cream shop.

I'm reading what I wrote three years ago and I'm noticing that I used to have pretty nice handwriting. Nothing like mine is now. It actually used to be legible. Amazing.

Looky, looky, I wrote a chapy! Okay, that was bad. I'm going to stop now. I'm hoping I won't drop off the face of the earth again, but if you think I've been too long between updates, send me a really nasty review telling me to get off my lazy butt and type a few pages and I'll either give you a good reason why I haven't done it yet (like my tyrannical teachers have given me three essays in a week. That's only a slight exageration. It's actually more like eight days.) or put another chapter up in order to appease my wonderful readers.