Cross Country: Chapter 4
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Two pairs of eyes snapped open only moments after Kim closed the door. Even in the dim light coming from the open bathroom door it was easy to see just how bright blue one or those sets of eyes were.
"Are you sure about this?" Amethyst whispered.
"Shhhhh." CJ hopped out of the bed the two girls were sharing and tiptoed over to the wall.
The smaller, very slightly younger girl slipped out of the bed as well, mimicking her best friend and roommate's stealth, putting her own ear against the wall.
"Uncle Ron is going to turn both of us over his knee if he catches us."
"Not if Kim's around. She doesn't believe in spanking."
"No, her punishments are worse. I'd rather be spanked by Uncle Ron than grounded by Aunt Kim."
"Won't matter. If they catch us it's prolly going to be both."
Amethyst wrinkled her button nose. If it weren't for the limits placed by their guardians, CJ would be on a computer almost every waking minute of her life chatting with her online friends, to the point she would sometimes speak in net-speak instead of proper English. One word she disliked in particular was prolly, whether it was spoken or written.
Satisfied with something Amethyst couldn't detect, CJ made her way back across the room. They weren't being quiet so much because of Kim and Ron, but because of the youngster sleeping soundly in the other bed.
Very few people believed her when she said the little boy was actually her nephew and not her brother, especially since the two of them had practically been raised together. Not long after GJ was born, something happened to CJ's father. As she got older, she learned it had to do with his heart, which never had been good, but since her brother and his wife were already taking care of a girl her age, they offered to take her in until he could get better. By the time he did recover enough to take care of her again, she had started school and it was decided since they only lived about ten minutes away she would still live with them full time so she wouldn't have to change elementary schools. Over time, her relationship with her parents had become much more like grandparents, especially since they were so much older than most parents of kids her age. For all intents and purposes, Kim and Ron were her parents, and legal documents had been drawn up making them co-guardians of her. The only difference was the fact she called them by their first names, as was proper for a brother and sister-in-law.
What nobody figured on was the effect being four years and nine months older than her nephew would have on her. Legal and biological definitions aside, GJ was more like a brother than Ron was. That being the case, she was no longer the baby, but the older sister, starting at precisely the age when she could understand things like jealousy when not only one, but two sets of grandparents doted over the new addition to their strange little mixed family.
Take a little girl who was both a tomboy and a little princess, throw in a dash of sibling rivalry and what you got was a little royal stinker.
Alone, Amethyst was the exact opposite. She was highly intelligent and intensely curious, but a very quiet child. Just like CJ, she would spend every second she was allowed on the computer, but instead of constantly IM-ing her friends, she spent most of her time learning everything she could on a wide variety of topics. Of special interest to her was astronomy, partly because her mother and step-father lived on another planet, but mostly because she was beginning to learn how her powers actually worked.
She had the ability to open portals, or lenses as the Arkonians called them. Some of the adepts of that distant planet could use what appeared to be magic stones to open a lens, but she needed no such device. The drawbacks of the power were that she had to know precisely where she was going. Not only did she open a portal near herself, but she opened one at her destination. When she was very small she transported herself from Kim's parent's house to a spaceship traveling to Arkonia. It worked that time because she could sense her mother on that craft and used her like a homing beacon. If she didn't have an exact destination, the power simply did not work. The second problem with the power was one of minimum distance. She simply could not transport herself from one point on the planet to another, it had to be much further than that. If she wanted to go from, say, the motel room back to her bedroom in Middleton, she would first have to go to a safe spot on a distant planet, then transport back again. It only appeared that she could teleport over small distances since it really only took a few seconds to complete.
The problem was her lack of safe intermediate points. Basically, so far she had only found a nice hidden spot in the Master's Palace on Arkonia she could blink in and out of. Either that, or home in on her mother. She had learned the hard way that was not always the wisest course.
She could also hurl bolts of energy like her mother did, though with considerably less power. Nobody knew if that was a function of her age, or just a differential caused by her other powers. There was also the fact her 'glow' powers were purple, like her uncle Mervin/Mego, though she most definitely could not shrink like he could. Sometimes she wondered if she got her name for that reason. It was that, or the fact the little purple stones with that name were her official birthstone.
Amethyst wasn't a perfect little angel, however. She took after her mother in many ways, including a short temper. Several boys in her class the year before learned very quickly that the waif-like girl was not one to be picked on. There were several occasions when either Kim or Ron were called to the school because she had blackened an eye. Fortunately, she only relied on her fists instead of using her powers, though it might have been possible that her speed and strength were actually related to that.
A loud snort brought the girls' attention back to the matter at hand. GJ rolled over in his bed, balling the covers up over him. They froze in place, worried that he would wake up and start squealing, alerting his parents in the adjacent room. Amethyst especially did not want to disturb them. Being very intellectually advanced for her age, she already knew a lot about the 'birds and the bees,' having accidentally interrupted both her parents and her guardians on several occasions. Ron was normally quite laid back, but that sort of thing had the tendency to make Kim quite angry, and when she got angry, her husband did too. The last thing she wanted was for either one of them to come through the door joining the two rooms and discover what they were about.
CJ inclined her head, motioning for her friend to follow. Amethyst was a little hesitant, worried that the boy was actually awake. She calmed slightly once he started snoring. Both of them had to stifle their giggles; GJ was truly his mother's son – both of them were prone to loud snoring when they were deeply asleep. What was even funnier was that Kim was utterly in denial about it, even when somebody managed to record her doing it. Ammie had the hardest time keeping quiet, remembering the stories Kim told about her Aunt Bonnie keeping her awake by snoring all night at cheer camp one year.
Even though it was a double, the room was quite nice. If they were doing any more than spending one night, they would have unpacked, using the plain, but well-made furniture. Instead, they had simply piled their luggage on the table and counter, unpacking only their pajamas for the night. The suit-bags with their dresses and GJ's little shorts-suit was left in the SUV, since they wouldn't need it until the wedding they were going to several days later. CJ grabbed a nylon duffle bag and motioned for Amethyst to follow her. She carried it into the bathroom and shut the door quietly before turning on the light.
"We're going to get in so much trouble for this." Ammie said, eyeing the purple suitcase dubiously. Even though the Stoppables were quite well-off financially, they had a tendency to hang onto old things. The bag belonged to Kim when she was in high-school, though it had now been relegated to carrying GJ's clothes.
"Nobody's going to know any better." CJ explained, unzipping it slowly so it wouldn't make any noise.
"Okay." Ammie whispered dubiously. She held her hands out in front of her. Amethyst knew she didn't really have to do that. Her powers were completely controlled by her mind, though sometimes she would even go so far as to say some fake magic words when she did it, just to make it seem more like she was working some kind of magic than employing a power that science had yet to completely quantify. Somehow, though, the hand gestures helped her concentrate, especially when she was trying to be sneaky about it.
If she opened a lens all at once, there would be a popping and crackling sound as energy flared in the room. There was also a singular loud pop as the distortion effect displaced the air around it. Instead, she started small, creating a lens only a couple inches across. At first it was just a shimmering disk of light that was actually kind of hard to see against all the white tile of the bathroom.
With extreme care, she made the disk grow until it was about two feet across. It gave off a bluish light and was partially transparent. In that form she could communicate with a person on the other end of the portal. Sometimes she was able to contact her mother that way, but because of a growing resentment due to feelings of abandonment, she no longer did so as often as she had before. Fortunately, there was nobody on the other end to witness the communication lens effect.
Extending her power further, the disk darkened slightly, changing in appearance from a pool of light into something more coherent, until it looked like a pool of mercury floating about two feet over the floor. In that form, she could physically transport herself, other, or objects to a distant location. The lens she created wasn't large enough for a person, but it would work for what the two girls had in mind.
Grinning wickedly, CJ dug into her nephew's suitcase.
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Kim scowled as she stood at the counter in the kids' room. She was already in a bad mood when she woke up that morning, and things were already starting to go downhill from there. She did get a good night's sleep, but her back was stiff when she woke up. In addition to that, her hormones had flipped the other way around, making her crankier than usual. Knowing that was the cause, she did her best to keep it to herself. Intellectually, she knew nobody, especially Ron, had done anything wrong, and it wouldn't be fair to them for her to act that way.
She wished she could have a huge cup of strong, black coffee instead of that pathetic decaf she was forced to drink. It wasn't so much the flavor of the drink she craved, but the heady pick-me-up of the caffeine in it. Oddly enough, she was also craving the one and only beer she could stand, that dark, rich Irish beer with foam so thick you could float a bottle cap on it. Unfortunately, both of those were completely out of the question in her condition. The fact she could have neither was adding to the tweak.
Growling slightly, she unzipped the main compartment of the purple bag once more, digging past the shorts and t-shirts inside. Realizing she wasn't finding what she was looking for there, she opened the side pockets and looked there.
"Ron?"
A blonde mop of unruly hair popped out of the bathroom door, where he was giving his son a bath. The girls had already taken their baths and were waiting patiently at the table. It didn't help Kim's mood that both of them were already begging to go swimming at the hotel pool, though they were supposed to be on the road long before it would open for the day. The concept of just how many miles they needed to go that day simply did not register with them.
"What's up, KP?"
"Honey, you packed for GJ, didn't you?"
"Well, yeah. Not like I'm going to help the girls pack, if you know what I mean."
"Then why didn't you pack him any underwear?"
"What do ya mean? Of course I packed 'em. I made sure to pack way more than he would need."
Kim picked up the suitcase and carried it to the bathroom, holding it open. "Does it look like there's any underwear in here? Baby, you of all people should know that no male Stoppable should ever go commando."
Ron put the rag down and dried his hands on a towel. "Let me see that." He proceeded to search the bag just as Kim had just done. "Huh. I don't get it. I remember grabbing most of his drawer full." He turned back to his son, who was busy splashing water onto his reddish-blonde hair. "Don't mess with anything, GJ. I'll be right back." He carried the bag out and put it on the sink counter.
Muttering to himself, Ron went back into their room and put on his cargo shorts before heading out the door. A few minutes later he came back in. "I don't see them in any of the bags. I'm sure I packed them with his regular clothes, I swear."
Kim pulled her son out of the tub and started drying him off, while he struggled mightily, not liking having either of his parents bathe him. He was a big boy and knew how to do so himself! "Ron, it's as simple as they're not there. We're just going to have to stop and find him some. Go back down to the SUV and check the navigation system, see if there's a Bullseye store nearby. There has to be one, they're supposed to be all over the place."
"We passed a Smarty Mart…"
Kim shook her head emphatically. "We are so not going into one of those places if we can help it. If there's a Smarty Mart here, there's bound to be a Bullseye somewhere close by."
"KP, I thought you got past this. Both stores carry the same brands, and Smarty Mart's cheaper."
"I don't care. It's not like we're going to go broke buying a couple packs of tidy-whities for Little Gene."
Ron tapped his wrist where his watch normally would be. "It's probably a quarter after six. Bullseye stores tend to open at eight. You sure you want to wait around until then? We've got more than thirteen hours in the truck ahead of us if we're going to make it to Durham tonight."
"Fine, you and GJ can go in the Smarty Mart if the other place is going to open that late. We've still got to get breakfast and if I say we're going to stop for another night, then we're going to stop for another night. That's the whole reason we gave ourselves and extra travel day if we needed it."
Kim pulled a pair of shorts out and handed them to her son, who glared back at her, holding them as if they were covered in something yucky. "Where's my unda-wear?"
"Looks like Daddy forgot to pack it for you, sweetie."
"But you said I can't ever wear anything but my swimmin' trucks without unda-wear."
Kim smiled, casting another glance at her husband. "This is a special occasion. Just be sure you button them up tight. You don't want to lose them."
Rolling his eyes, Ron headed for the door. "Look, I'll just drive over there right now and pick up some. Can you handle getting the kids ready?"
Kim pulled a shirt over GJ's head. "Oh, the 'I can do anything' motto still applies."
"Kay, be right back."
She led her son out to the bed so she could strap his sandals back on. She eyed the girls suspiciously as they giggled over at the table.
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Ron was still muttering to himself as he climbed up into his truck. Smarty Mart never bothered Kim when she was little. Then it was just another store her parents sometimes took her to. It wasn't until about the time they started Junior High that she suddenly turned her nose up at the place. Fashion became critically important to her, something he just couldn't understand. Even when they took Frugal Lucre down the first time some twelve years earlier she couldn't stand wearing pants she bought purely to wear back home, even though the only visible difference was they were slightly darker blue (periwinkle, Kim would correct him, not blue) and they didn't have an embroidered Club Banana logo on the back pocket. Like anybody but him was supposed to be closely examining her back pocket.
Scratch that. He wasn't supposed to be doing that then himself. That was more than a year before they realized they actually had much stronger feelings for each other than just being best friends. Still, he was a guy and Kim was an incredibly gorgeous girl and her derrière was one of the best looking parts of her, especially when viewed from be…
He stopped himself as he pulled out of the parking lot. Somehow, even after being married over five years and having been together more than a decade as a couple, thinking of her that way during their 'just friends' time seemed very slightly sick and wrong. It was as if that Kim and the one who married him almost seven years later were two completely different people. Of course, they really weren't, but it still felt like he was overstepping his bounds whenever he considered the possibility of them dating earlier than they started.
Her snobbery concerning the discount retailers was just plain unfathomable to him. The two stores carried almost the same thing, though Smarty Mart was cheaper and had a better selection. They were also open twenty-four/seven, while the Bullseye stores mostly opened from eight in the morning to ten at night. There was also the fact there were only about half as many of the number two discount store as his personal favorite, but the fact remained it would take an act of congress to get her into one outside of an official Team Possible mission.
The Evansville Smarty Mart was a carbon copy of just about every store he had ever been in. That was another thing that made his life easy. The children's clothing section was always in the same place, cutting down on searching time. Bullseye stores liked to experiment with their layout. To him going into those stores was like going to Chihuahua Taco instead of Bueno Nacho. It wasn't just sick and wrong, it was wrongsick.
Just to be on the safe side, he grabbed three packs. For half a moment he considered getting his son a pack of boxer shorts, but for some strange reason Kim thought that was something that should wait until the boy was actually older. Until such time as she pronounced him ready, he was going to wear plain white briefs. Maybe it was the fact there was a particular reason he wore boxers himself, and had since he was about ten, that she thought along those lines. He hovered over the selection for a moment, then decided it wasn't worth a battle. He knew she was just on the verge of being set off that morning. She was the same way when she was pregnant with GJ.
By the time he got to the front of the store, he recalled another reason Kim hated the place. Since it was a super-center, there were over thirty cash registers at the front, and, as usual, only one of them was open.
Maybe they could be forgiven, considering it was only around six-thirty in the morning, but it seemed that at any given hour of the day, there would only be a couple registers open, no matter how busy the store was. The worst of it that particular morning, though, was the fact the register was an express lane, with a much smaller counter, and at least half of the people in line had full buggies. Getting in the end of the line, he pondered the possibility of finding the manager in charge and asking him to open more lanes.
He kept checking his watch. The girl at the checkout seemed to be half-asleep herself. Shift change was likely only half an hour off and she had probably been there most of the night. As it was, she was slow. Very slow. Slow enough her shift might end before half the line was dealt with, slowing things down even further.
Ron wanted to be on the road. They should have been able to check out in about ten minutes once GJ was dressed and they could hit the drive-thru at the Bueno Nacho for some breakfast Nacos and be on their way. Just like his father, he wanted to make good time, getting to the hotel in Durham at a reasonable hour. If they were too late getting on the road, there was the possibility (no, probability) that Kim would simply point to an off-ramp and call the day's travel over, setting them behind schedule. There were thing to accomplish, like spending a day with Felix proving just who had become better at the latest version of Zombie Mayhem.
Fifteen minutes slowly ticked by. He was finally understanding Kim's frustration with the place. He had three items, three identical items and he could pay with his check-card faster than he could count out cash. All they had to do was open one more register and he would be gone.
Almost an eternity later, he put the packs down on the counter, just behind a woman with a whole buggy full of groceries. He rolled his eyes upwards, thinking that particular woman would have been better served hitting the sporting goods section instead of the food. Either that, or the clothing section. Some people simply should not be allowed to wear spandex.
While he was waiting for the woman to write out an old-fashioned check, his cell-phone went off in his pocket, playing the first few bars of Could It Be, meaning it was Kim calling him.
"You're kidding…no, I didn't hear a thing…Ammie did it? Oh, come on…I can believe CJ, but Ammie. Okay, I'm on my way back…don't kill them…yet."
As he made his way back to the children's section, he pondered exactly what he was getting into with another girl on the way.
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