Watching the countryside pass was interesting for only a little while. Soon it become boring and Luann drifted asleep. She awoke as the car rose high into the sky as it crossed over the Mississippi into St. Louis. This, she thought, marked the real start of their mission to find Quill. So she was surprised when Tiffany turned off the freeway and headed down to the surface streets. "What's going on?" Luann asked, anxiously.

"We all took a vote while you were sleeping. We couldn't drive pass St. Louis without seeing the Arch." Tiffany informed her.

"But - But, we can't stop here. We've got a schedule to keep."

"What do you mean," Tiffany said. "Quill's not going to slip out of our fingers if we stop here for an hour. You haven't told us where he is, anyway."

"But if we stop here we'll end up stopping at every giant peanut and corn palace along the way. Then we'll never get anywhere."

"The only giant nut around here is in the back seat. I don't think any of us want to stop and admire you."

Luann smarted under Tiffany's dig but couldn't think of a good come-back, and in any case they were pulling into a space in the large parking lot near the chrome steel structure. The matter was out of her hands. Still Luann sulked in the car while the others run up to the monument, took photos of themselves next to it, rode the tram to the top and looked in awe at the colored lights of St. Louis spread out before them.

Luann was in an ever fouler mood by the time they got back, largely because ten minutes after the others had left she'd realized she wanted to see the Arch as well.

The others got back in the car after a while and insisted on showing Luann all the pictures they'd taken there, which only made her feel worse. Luann's mood only started to lighten as they left the city and spotted the motel outside of St. Louis where she'd reserved a room. She was further amazed that her (T.J.'s) magic credit card was accepted without complaint. However it turned out that they needed to rent a second room for the boys. The proprietor wasn't willing to allow a mixed group of teen-agers stay in the same room. Luann winced a little at that. She hadn't counted on needing to get two rooms every night. That was going to eat into the card's limit a lot faster than she expected.

The girl's room, though, was neat and clean. There were two queen-size beds, a dresser and a large flat-screen TV. The bathroom was at the back of the room with a sink and vanity next to it out in the open. The A/C had been running so it was pleasantly cool inside. Knute and Gunther helped the girls drag their bags inside then disappeared to their room.

While planning the trip Luann had thought how this might turn into a sort of serial sleep-over party for the girls, with them sitting around munching popcorn or potato chips at night, gossiping about the boys in school, or their ambitions in life, favorite boy bands or whatever. Luann had never been popular enough to have been invited to many sleep-overs as a kid so she thought she might have a chance to catch up on what she missed. Except she hadn't counted on Tiffany.

Tiffany and Crystal were already cliche - and made it clear that Luann and Bernice weren't invited. Luann should have seen that coming since that was normal for the former beauty pageant winner and self-declared hottest girl in school. Still it was a disappointment to Luann. Bernice, who never expected any different from Tiffany was neither surprise or disappointed that half the room wasn't talking to the other half.

Motels generally rent to traveling families and not four separate girls with four separate suitcases so there wasn't nearly enough room for each of the girls to lay open their bags. Luann was squabbling with Crystal over the dresser top. Crystal had already dumped a half dozen things from her suitcase on top, taking up the whole dresser. Luann argued that she had to give up half of that so she could set down her bag there as well. While they were arguing Tiffany slipped in the bathroom and locked the door. A moment later they could hear the shower start.

Angrily Luann shoved her bag onto the dresser top, pushing Crystal's stuff out of the way. As the goth girl fumed Luann marched to the bathroom door and pounded on it. "Ten minutes, Tiff!" She shouted through the door. "The rest of us need to shower, too!"

It was more like fifteen minutes before Tiffany came out. She had a towel wrapped around her and another wrapped around her hair. Her left arm was surprisingly pink, sunburned from hanging out the car's window all day. There must have been some telepathy going on between the two girls because hardly had Tiffany left the bath then Crystal slid in.

With sigh Luann sat back down on the bed she and Bernice would share. She watched as Tiffany dug through her suitcase, coming up with a hair-drier. The whine of the drier soon joined the 'shhhh' of the shower. Besides the noising getting on her nerves, it came to Luann that if everyone was going to be using two towels that night (and she certainly would need at least two since her hair was every bit as long as Tiffany's) there wouldn't be enough towels to go around.

"I'm going to get more towels," she announced, though only Bernice was listening.

Coming back with an armload of towels Luann didn't see Knute and Gunther fall in step behind her. She opened the door with an old fashioned key and stepped in. Crystal, out of the shower was dropping her towel to pull on panties, Bernice, in her underwear, was heading for the shower. Tiffany was still drying her hair.

"What's for supper?" Knute boomed right behind Luann. She jumped in alarm, dropping the pile of towels. Bernice screamed and dashed into the bathroom. Crystal snatched up her towel and yelled, "Out!" Only Tiffany seemed unaffected. Either she didn't hear Knute come in or didn't mind what he saw.

Luann spun around and started pushing Knute towards the door. He backed up slowly, obviously transfixed by what he saw. After a couple steps Gunther reached around the door frame, grabbed Knute by the shirt and hauled him the rest of the way of out the room.

"I told you you can't just barrage in like that!" he was hear to say as Luann slammed the door closed and bolted it.

Leaning against the door she could hear Knute rerply, "Did you see them? I think I've died and gone to heaven."

"Your nose is bleeding," Gunther said

][

According to the manager the only place open at that time of night was a MacDonalds and even then only the drive-thru. Tiffany was not in the mood to get back into her car and drive but she was hungry, too, and so they went. She made it abundantly clear, though, that there would be no eating in her car. So they drove back and eat sitting on the car's bumper. The boys were expressly not allowed into the girl's room to eat there as a group.

Since there is nothing quite to tiring as sitting in a car all day the six kids were ready for bed at a comparatively early hour. Luann told them she wanted to hit the road by 8 the next morning since they still had a long ways to go.

As they were getting ready for bed Luann was fascinated by how differently each one went about. She just shimmied out of clothes to put on a large t-shirt and shorts. Bernice, on the other hand crept into the bathroom to change into long-sleeved pajamas. Luann could imagine Gunther doing the same time, only his pajamas would be plaid.

Going to bed for Tiffany was a production, but one to be expected from a person who felt her life was in her face. First she washed her face with special moisturizing soap, then rubbed in a lanolin rich mosturizing cream before tying on a facial mask. she topped that off with a sleeping mask to cover her eyes. Laying down on the bed Luann thought she looked like one of those monsters from cheap drive-in movies.

Crystal was interesting for entirely different reasons. because first she filled a small plastic cup half full of water and add a couple drops of what must be soap and then start removing her various earrings She had about five per ear, two small rings in one eyebrow brow and a nose stud on the opposite side of her face. As she removed each one she would rub it down with an alcohol wipe and drop it into the soapy water. Then she screwed down the lid to the cup and shook it vigorously for a minute. She drained off the soapy water, rinse the cup a couple times with tap water then partially fill the cup with hydrogen peroxide, screw the cap on loosely and set them aside on the nightstand of her side of the bed.

She noticed Luann watching her and scowled back. "You have to clean them regularly to prevent infection, OK?" She said half angrily, half defensively.

"Seems like a lot of work," Luann replied in what she hoped was a neutral sounding voice.

"It takes a lot of work to look good," Crystal said with more of a condescending tone. From the open kit where she'd pulled the cup, soap and peroxide, Crystal now took out some more alcohol wipes and swabbed at each of her piercing.

Luann sat back in bed and opened a small beaded purse she had brought along. She'd gotten it, she couldn't remember when, it might have been a hand-me-down from her mother. It was about the size of a business envelope, had a red rose design in colored beads on one side and was otherwise all black. Inside it Luann had stuffed all the bills she'd paid for today with T. J.'s magic card. She flattened these out and wrote down the totals onto a 3 by 5 notecard, along with the date and totaled up the amount. She intended to keep a running total of how much of T. J.'s money she was spending so she'd know just how deeply in debt she was to him.

By the time she had everything totally up she realized she was the last person up. She turned out the light over the bed and slide under the covers.

][

The next morning Luann assumed the day would go a lot better than the day before had.

She was wrong.

First Tiffany took a lot longer to get out of bed and dressed than expected. Every day was a beauty pageant for her with all the preparations that go with it. Then she complained about being sore from all the driving the day before but would not consider letting anyone else drive her precious caddy. But the big mistake of the morning was sitting next to Gunther.

Crystal, of course, took a seat next to Tiffany and Knute quickly piled in beside Crystal. They exchanged quips from Three Stoogies films and settled in. That left Luann, Bernice and Gunther in the back seat. Gunther had sat at the window the day before, today he slide to the middle and gave Bernice the window seat. Luann had the window behind the driver's seat.

Luann had known Gunther for so long that she couldn't remember when they actually first met. It was probably back when she was crushing on Aaron Hill and didn't really notice any other boys in her class. Gunther had always been there - friendly, helpful, eager to be her friend, and more than a friend. But that was never going to happen. Gunther had extremely curly hair which he kept cut short, wore heavy glasses which caused him to squirt. Even after he switched to contacts he still had a tendency to squint, which with his receding chin and chronic wearing of plaid shirts made him look like the proverbial nerd.

Today Gunther had an artist's sketchpad on his knees and a handful of pencils stuck in his shirt pocket.

"What'cha got?" Luann asked in a friendly manner.

"I - uh - thought I'd maybe work on - uh - some ideas I've had for - uh - some costumes." He hesitantly explained.

"Costume for Halloween? Or some cosplay thing?" Luann asked. "I still remember that witch's dress you made for me for the library reading club. That was so nice."

"I like how it can out, too. But you forgot to wear the panel I'd put in behind the corset lacing. Everyone could see you weren't wearing uh - uh - uh - a bra."

"How did you know that? You weren't there when I gave the reading."

"Timothy Archer took a picture of you while you were reading. All the kids in the group got copies of it. And he sent one to me when I asked because I really wanted to see how you looked in the dress."

"Timothy Archer? He's like, six. What a little pervert!"

Gunther shrugged. "Anyway I've been sketching ideas for dresses in this book. Wanna look?"

"Sure."

He opened the sketchbook to the first page and Luann saw preliminary sketches for for the black Witch's gown Gunther had made for her. It was interesting to see how that dress had evolved from kind of sack like thing into the elegant gown it ended up as. He turned the page and there were several more designs that Luann didn't find very interesting. Another page and she was looking at a horrible monstrosity. The dress was a slender sheath and ended with a pile of flounce at the feet, while another mound of ruffles buried the head of the model. A heavy seam of ruffles run down one side connecting the bundles. The dress looked so lop-sided than Luann felt off-balanced just looking at it. She grunted a "hmmmm?" not knowing what else to say.

Gunther turned a couple more pages of equally ill conceived dresses before reaching the other dress he had made for her, layers of pastel gauze with an overdecorated hem and a spiral of multicolored ruffles running from hem to neck. Luann hated the dress because she felt it had cost her a beauty contest she had been in with Tiiffany. The dress had been hideous but Gunther had made it especially for her so it was either not wear the dress and hurt his feeling or wear the dress and lose the pageant. The choice had really tested her friendship with the nerdy boy.

Gunther, however, was still in love with the dress, talking about the tricky points of its construction. Finally he turned the page and Luann realized that there was plenty of room for worse.

"Did you draw my face on all your dresses?" she asked, not knowing what else to say. It was true. Gunther had drawn a model under each of his dress designs. They all had the elongated arms and legs, the small bust and hips of professional models but on each and every one of them appeared Luann's face. Sometimes her hair was tied up in some sort of do, other times it had been combed down into a straight fall to her neck. But it was clearly Luann's face. She didn't know which bothered her the most, the sign of Gunther's continuing infatuation with her, despite her best efforts to explain to him that nothing was ever going to happen between them, or the unrelenting awfulness of the dresses. She finally burst out with "Do you have anything that isn't quite so - gay?"

"What do you mean?" Gunther asked indignantly, and Luann couldn't answer. She wasn't sure what she meant. "You think I'm gay! Everybody thinks I'm gay!" Gunther continued angrily. "I'm not! Why can't people believe that!"

Because you like to sew and design dresses, Luann thought but out loud protested, "That's not what I meant." She could hear sniggering in the front seat. Tiffany and Crystal. "I just meant that all these dress designs seem so" - Luann fought for a word - "fruity," she blurted before realizing that wasn't the word she wanted. "I mean they all so over-the-top, so ..."

"Gay?" Gunther taunted.

"No, awful!" That really helped, Luann thought and tried to regroup, but it was too late. Gunther had turned his back on her, something not easy to do in the backseat of a car.

"Don't bother," he said. "If you don't like my designs, fine. If you think I'm gay then you're no friend of mine!"

"I have never thought you were gay," Luann said to Gunther's back. She sighed and leaned back against the window post. Just great, she thought, not two days into their mission to find Quill and she had already alienated half her friends in the car. Tiffany and Crystal, of course were no friends of hers, and Knute was something of a open question but his hanging around Crystal suggested he'd side with the anti-Luann cliche if push came to shove. The only friends Luann had had were Bernice and Gunther and now Gunther wasn't talking to her. She'd try apologizing again later, when he wasn't so angry. For now she was beginning to think this trip wasn't a good idea at all. What more could go wrong she wondered? She found out about three hours later.

][

Luann had been contemplating the incredible odor coming from the hog farm they were driving pass when the car suddenly lurched to the right. She looked up with a "wha?" to see Tiffany turning into a service plaza. They'd filled up that morning as they left the motel so Luann knew they didn't need gas.

Tiffany barely cleared the off-ramp before throwing the car into 'park', turning off the engine and throwing her head back on the head rest while moaning dramatically "I can't drive another inch!"

A truck roared past them, rocking the heavy Caddy. If Crystal had been riding with her arm out the window there wouldn't have been an arm to pull inside. The truck passed that close. "At least pull into the park lot," Crystal ordered, eyeing another truck coming off the freeway. With another dramatic sob Tiffany started the engine and pulled into a spot in front of the Welcome Center.

She stopped the car again and groaning pathetically stretched her arms, rolled her neck and sighed heavily.

"Oh, gimme the keys and I'll take over," Luann said. "We can't just sit here waiting for you to feel better."

"I could give her one of my patented back massages," Knute suggested, before being elbowed by Crystal, who apparently objected to Knute putting his hands on another woman.

"No way, Degroot! I'm not letting you wreck my car car!" Tiffany said.

"I have never been in an accident!" Luann reminded her. After a moment Luann went on, "Then let someone else drive." She looked around the car. "What about Knute? You've got a license, right?" Luann figured everyone of them had their driver's license, she just figured that Tiffany had already taken a dislike to the lanky skateboarder and wouldn't let him drive.

"Sorry, dudes," Knute said unexpectedly, "No can do. I could never get the hang of parallel parking. I failed all my driving tests. No license."

"You can't drive?" Crystal looked shocked. "You can shred three flights of stairs without crushing your nuts and you can't drive?"

Knute grinned sheepishly.

"What about Bernice. I know she got her licence."

"My parents won't let me drive their car," Bernice said from behind her video game. "It's been, like, a year since I've been behind the wheel."

"Gunther?" Luann asked hopefully.

"White knuckles. I get so tense that my hands go numb after half an hour."

"Crystal?"

"What and break a nail? No way!" Luann was going to ask how one could break a nail driving but Tiffany caved first. "Oh, all right, you can drive. But if you so much as much a scratch on my car I am going to sue your ass off!"

"Fine, whatever. I won't hurt your precious auto-mob-ile..."

Tiffany got out of the car and stretched. The others did to. Luann suggested they use the restrooms while they were here and they headed off inside.

Luann was back first. She took her place behind the driver's wheel and began adjusting the mirrors. Tiffany was right behind her, taking the spot in the back seat behind the driver. The boys were back next, laughing over something. As they waited for Bernice and Crystal Luann decided she wanted a caffinated pop for the road. So she got out and went back into the building, turning right into the food court. A souvenir shop and news stand was on the left. Coming back at the car with her pop Luann could see Knute and Bernice in the front and Gunther and Crystal in back. It looked like everyone was there so she got in, turned on the motor and backed around into the lane heading for the freeway. She merged onto the road at speed, marveling at how nice the car was to drive. Power steering that didn't drift and jerk like the one on her brother's car. A smooth ride unlike her dad's car. And as they put miles between the pig farm everything smelled better, too.

Then her phone rang.

Luann looked around just in case it was really someone else's phone. The phone rang again, vibrating as well as chiming in her pocket. It was definitely her phone. Who could be calling her in the middle of Missouri? She fished it out of her pants and tentatively said "hello?"

"Very funny, Degroot! Very funny! Now you get my car back here in the next five minutes or I'm calling the police!"

"Tiffany?" Luann asked, puzzled. "Where are you?"

"Where do you think!"

Luann looked over to Bernice, "where's Tiffany?" she whispered.

"In back," Bernice answered without looking up from the game she was playing.

"Crystal!" the goth girl had her eyes closed, sleeping. "Wake up! Where's Tiffany?"

Crystal took one look at the back seat and screamed "Where's Tiffany?What have you done with her?"

"Maybe she's calling from inside the trunk of the car and is pranking you," Knute suggested.

"There are six suitcases in that trunk, moron, you couldn't squeeze a cat in there!"

By this time it was obvious were Tiffany was. "What are you doing at the Service Plaza?" she asked, jerking the steering wheel into a tight turn. The blare of a truck horn sounded as the eighteen-wheeler barely avoided colliding with them. Gasping, Luann pulled to the side of the road and stopped.

"Now you're facing backwards on a one-way road," Bernice remarked mournfully.

Luann snapped her phone shut in the middle of Tiffany's rant and mumbled curses while she tried to think. "How am I going to get back to the service plaza? Where's the next turn around?"

"You don't need to do that," Knute said. "Just drive over to the other side."

Luann looked where he was pointing. There was a wide grass median between the east and west lanes of traffic. The grass dipped into a shallow ditch but there were no fences or guard rails keeping her from driving across the grass to the other side.

She put the car into gear and slowly drove down into the ditch and back out. She waited a moment for traffic to clear then gunned the engine and merged back into the road.

It was a couple minutes before she saw the service plaza and realized that there was no cross road to get her back to the other side. She drove on past the east bound service plaza to the confused cries of the others and then, when out of sight of both plazas, she swung into the median and quickly bounced through the ditch to the other side. Grass and dirt was sent flying as the car skidded around to face west again. She lurched back onto the freeway, dodged between a couple of semis and pulled back into the service center that they had left ten minutes before. Tiffany was standing outside the Welcome Center arms waving and hopping around.

Luann had barely brought the car to a stop before Tiffany ripped open the door and tried to pull Luann out. She didn't get very far because Luann's seat belt was still buckled. "Give me the keys you bitch! Trying to ditch me? You'll never drive me car ever again!"

For her part Luann was scream back "Where the hell did you go? Were you trying to give me a heart attack? She showed the other away, unbuckled her belt and got out. When Tiffany came in at her with her fingernails set to claw Luann grabbed some hair and started to pull. They were staggering across the parking lot when arms suddenly grabbed them and pulled them apart. Knute and Crystal were holding on to Tiffany and pulling her back. She imagined that Bernice and Gunther had a hold of her.

"Stop fighting you two," Crystal cried, "Can't you go one day without bickering? If I'd known it was going to be like this I wouldn't have come on the trip!"

"She deliberately left me behind!" Tiffany accused.

"When did you leave the car?" Crytal asked. "I definitely remember you being in the car when I closed me eyes. The next time I know we're miles down the road and you're not where you were supposed to be!"

"I went to get a magazine."

"Without telling anyone?"

"Luann was getting a pop, which I expressly forbid anyone from getting. I figured I could run into the convenience store and pick up some thing to read before she got back."

"Obviously not," Knute said.

"Well, what's her excuse?" Tiffany demanded. "She just started driving without seeing that everyone was here?"

"I thought you were still in the back. How was I to know you had got out?"

"Tiffany was about to say something when Gunther interrupted. "It doesn't matter who did what. The thing is we came back for Tiffany as soon as we knew she wasn't here. Isn't that the important thing?"

"She did it on purpose." Tiffany insisted.

"Why would I leave you behind? It's your car. If we got stopped for anything it would sure look odd that the owner of the car isn't here. Maybe I made a mistake of assuming everyone was here. Maybe I should have insisted on a rollcall. But I wouldn't deliberately leave anyone behind."

"You should have seen her face," Knute volunteered, "when she heard you on the phone. That was priceless."

"Ok,maybe you're right," Tiffany said. She pulled away from Knute and Crystal's hold. "It was all a big accident that we'll laugh about later. But mess with me again, Degroot and so help me..."

"Let's just get back in the car and go," Crystal said, leading Tiffany over to the back door. After a moment Luann got back behind the wheel and started the car.

As they merged once again into traffic Tiffany asked in a puzzled voice, "Why is there sod stuck to the window?"

You can, in fact follow Luann and friends in your Rand-McNally. They are traveling west on I-70 heading to Kansas City.

Think of this chapter as a series of really small chapters, or as a week of gag-a-day strip. Chapter five - karaoke!