Luann's route kept them on I-70 on into Denver. Tiffany drove for a couple hours, pulled into a rest stop and pointed at Gunther, "Hey, white knuckles - drive!"

Gunther gulped, got in the driver's seat and slowly pulled away. He drove so slowly and stiffly than after an hour Luann volunteered to take over. Tiffany, must have still been sore about losing the karaoke contest because she pointed to Bernice and told her to drive. She even had Crystal drive for a stretch before letting Luann behind the wheel.

In Denver they picked up I-25 heading north to Cheyenne where they turned into I-80 still heading west. The Rocky Mountains were growing tall and ominous in the distance when Luann pulled into a motor lodge just outside Cheyenne.

"Why are we stopping here?" Bernice wondered. "It's kind of early in the day isn't it?"

Luann held up her Rand-McNally for everyone to see. "It's all Rocky Mountains from here on, according to the map. I don't want to go crossing the mountains in the dark, ok? So we'll break early today and cross the mountains in the morning."

"Why didn't we cross the mountains at Denver? We'd probably be over them by now if we had," Tiffany asked. She had taken to chewing gum because her ears kept popping.

"You two argue over that, I'm getting out of the car," Knute said. The lodge consisted of a row of small individual cabins. At one end of the row was a fenced-in swimming pool and in a grassy park in front of cabins were a series of picnic tables and a couple standing grills. Knute walked over to the tables and stretched out on one. He was followed a moment later by everyone. Luann spread out the atlas on an open table. Tiffany actually sat down next to her to better study the map. The others kind of loomed over Luann's shoulders.

"We didn't cross as Denver because of this!" She had turned the atlas to another page and pointed to a huge blank space in the middle of the page. "That's Nevada. According to this there's nothing there. The passage from Denver leads down this way to Las Vegas. ..."

"Oh, Las Vegas! Showgirls! Gambling. Bright lights, big city..."

"Knute, shut up," Crystal said. "No showgirls! No gambling - you're too young. We all are. Besides we'd only lose what money we have. The games are always rigged in favor of the house."

"No showgirls?" Knute whined. "Yeah," Gunther added.

"You got four live girls right here, and we're better looking than any showgirl you'll meet in las Vegas." Crystal insisted.

"Well, maybe three," Bernice said.

"You, too, Bernice!" Crystal unexpected included Luann's friend. "Your prettier than any of those old whores in Vegas."

"But the costumes..." Knute continued. Crystal just gave him a stare. He sighed and sat down.

"Las Vegas," Luann picked up where she had left off, "is way out of our way. We want to go here!" she pointed to a spot half-way up the coast of California.

"San Francisco?" Tiffany wondered. "Quill is in San Francisco?"

"No, we're going to Yosemite National Park which is close to San Francisco. At least closer than LA would be." She pointed to a point at the bottom of the state. "So the shortest route there is on this one freeway that cuts across Nevada, I-80, which crosses the Rockies here, which is why we're here." She frowned. "The problem is that it's only going to take half a day or so to cross the Rockies and reach Salt Lake City. But it's going to take a full day from Salt Lake to Yosemite. We had a short day today. I'd hate to have another short day tomorrow. I'd like to get to the Park as quickly as possible so we can begin looking around for anyone who remember's Quill." Luann ended with a sigh.

"Why don't we just keep driving?" Knute asked.

"We?"

"The five of you. If you, like, traded off every two hours that would be like two hours on and eight hours off. You could nap while someone else is driving and be refreshed when your turn comes around again. We - you - could do twenty hours straight, twenty-four - thirty - whatever. Once we get to where we're going then we can get a room and rest."

Luann looked over to Tiffany who was chewing her gum with bovine placidity. It was her car so it was up to her whether they drive it all night or not.

"Sure," she said after a moment. "But we get a nice hotel when we get there. No more no-tell motels."

][

With that settled Luann threw the atlas back in the car and walked over to the office to rent a couple cabins. When she got back out the caddie and the boys were gone. Suitcases piled up on the ground. Bernice explained that the boys had decided to have a picnic here and Gunther and Knute had gone looking for charcoal and some hotdogs to cook.

Luann opened the cabins so the girls could freshen up. As they were sitting at the picnic tables later she mentioned that the manager had said that the pool had just been opened for the season. "Anybody think to bring their bathing suits?" she asked.

"I never travel without a bathing suit," Tiffany spoke up. "You never know when you might need one." Crystal shrugged while Bernice hung her head.

"That's OK. I brought along a couple," Luann told her, "You can borrow one."

The boys were surprised to find the picnic tables empty when they finally got back. The girls had decided not to wait. Only none of them were actually in the pool. Luann and Bernice were sitting on chaise lounges on one side of the pool while Tiffany and Crystal were on the other. Bernice was tugging on different parts of her borrowed outfit trying to make the bikini less revealing.

"It would have been nice to visit Las Vegas," Luann sighed.

"What could we do there? We're too young to enter any of the casinos and who wants to see any of the casinos's 'family shows'?"

Yeah, but it would have been fun just driving up and down the streets looking at the lights, the people on the streets and all."

"Sounds boring," Bernice said.

Luann took another sip of her soda and set down on the cement under her chair. "It's funny," she said, "here we are a few months away from eighteen when we can get married, buy a car, or a house, join the army and kill people in foreign countries..."

"or get killed," Bernice added.

"and yet we can't get a drink, enter a bar or a casino or see the headline shows they have there. I don't see how a few months more will make us any more adult then we are now."

"Looking at those two," Bernice waved in the direction of the boys goofing around the picnic table while they waited for the coals form, "I don't thinking turning 18 or even 21 will make them any more adult - ever."

"Boys never grow up." Luann said sagely.

"I had an uncle who once said something kind of crazy but sometimes I think maybe it wasn't so crazy. He said that the age for drinking ought to be 16 and the age to get your driver's license should be 21."

"That is crazy."

"Yeah, but what he said was that kids drink too much because it's all new to them - a 'forbidden fruit' - so, of course, they over-indulge. Let them start drinking when they're still living at home, when they still have to deal with their parents, would cause them to not get so drunk. Then when they're old enough to drive a car drinking would no longer be a big think for them, ergo less drunk driving."

"I've been driving for almost two years now and I've never had an accident." Luann said.

"Yeah but we both know a lot of classmates who have. And when you hear about all the adults who were caught driving drunk I'm not sure that letting kids drink before they can drink would really solve anything. But from time to time I think about what he said and wonder if maybe he had something after all."

They sat in silence for a while. Luann was watching Tiffany and Crystal. Tiffany had already fallen asleep but Crystal, when not reading the magazine she had brought with her, was looking at the boys. Crystal was, as usual, wearing heavy make-up around her eyes, black lipstick, a couple piecing in her eye-brow and several chains around her neck. She wore a black tankini. When Luann had first met Crystal she thought she was ever more of a high-end fashion slave than Tiffany; oozing condescension and snideness. The odd thing was that over time Crystal had become less snotty while Tiffany had become, if anything, even more so.

From the coroner of her eye Luann could see Knute running from the picnic area towards the pool. He cannonballed into the water drenching Tiffany and Crystal. They shouted and screamed at him as they tried to brush the water off them. Of the two it seemed like Crystal yelled louder and longer.

"What a jerk," Bernice sighed.

"Do you think they're getting it on?" Luann asked.

"Who?"

"Crystal and Knute."

"Those two? Getting what on."

"You know, having sex."

Bernice sighed.

"Why would you even think of that? They have nothing in common."

"Just look at them. Knute is always doing something to attract Crystal attention..."

"Like splashing water on her?" Bernice sounded dubious.

"I didn't say he was smart about it, but yeah. And look at her. She's always looking at him. Not obvious like, but you can see that her eyes always come back to where Knute is."

"There are two reasons why you are so horrible wrong about this," Bernice began. "They're about as opposite as two people can be. Knute's sloppy and unkempt. Crystal is always poised and, uh, kempt. Knute is virtually inarticulate, Crystal can be trusted to always have something clever to say about anything."

"Knute's inevitable cheerful and Crystal isn't," Luann said. "Maybe she likes a little bit of something like that in her life."

"Eh. But the chief reason I'm sure Knute and Crystal are not doing anything is because Knute can never keep it a secret. If they had done it he would have been crowing about it before this."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Luann took sip from her soda and picked up the magazine she'd bought before coming out to the pool. She flicked through a couple pages before another loud splash stopped her. She looked up to see Crystal surfacing in the pool, sitting on top Knute, beating on his head. "Bern, why are we sitting here?"

"We're resting from all the driving we've been doing?"

"But we mostly were just sitting in a car all that time. Why are we sitting now?"

Bernice shrugged. She was completely happy to spread out a little and enjoy the sun. The car, for her, was a little claustrophobic.

Luann got up. "Race you to the end of the pool," and dived in.

Bernice sighed and picked up her magazine.

][

The afternoon had gone well in Luann's opinion. Roughhousing with the others she had been able to splash Tiffany several times. The last time Tiffany had angrily stood up and screamed "If that's how you want it!" and dived in after Luann. They have wrestled and pulled hair in the water for a couple minutes before Knute and Crystal could pull them apart. Luann considered it a moral victory because in the last minute she had been able to pull off Tiffany's top. It would have been better if Tiff had panicked and made a comic effort to cover up her boobs but Tiffany just seemed in an "oopsie" mood about her naked breasts and took her time diving down to the bottom of the pool to recover it. As the sun was setting in the west Gunther called that the dogs were ready and they climbed out of the pool.

Despite having lunched just the day before in one of the top BBQ places in Kansas City, home of BBQ (or so the signs all said) the roasted hotdogs were as heavenly as any meal they'd had. Tiffany even said "thanks" when Luann pointed out some ketchup on her cheek. The boys had picked up some potato chips and pretzels in the store where they'd picked up the dogs and buns.

Gunther seemed to be hovering around Luann, dying to tell her something but too embarrassed to say it. After eating her third hotdog Tiffany made some comment about watching her figure and sashayed off to the girl's cabin. Knute's jaw hung open, staring until Crystal shoved it up with a snap of clicking teeth. Gunther slid into the spot Tiffany had just vacated next to Luann. "I thought I ought to let you know that Tiffany's been looking at my dress designs," he began. "She really likes them."

Luann was surprised that he could say all of that without sounding like he was gloating.

"We've talked about opening a boutique when we get back home to showcase my designs."

"Well, good. I hope it works out for you, Gunther. I really do." After a moment's reflection, Luann felt compelled to ask, "have you ... ever worked with Tiffany on a project before?"

"Why do you say that? What are you trying to say? Are you trying to break up our plans?" Gunther accused, suddenly sounding both hurt and disappointed.

"It's not that. I wish you the best, Gunther," Luann pleaded, "it just ... I've worked on school projects with her before. She has a habit of not pulling her weight, that's all. I thought you ought to know about that before you start making commitments. She'll just sit around and make you do all the work."

"That's not true. Tiffany would never do anything like that to me. You just don't want me to succeed."

"I do want you to succeed, Gunther," Luann persisted. "I'm just saying to be careful about what you get into. I don't want you to get hurt."

"Tiffany and I are going to be a big success, just you watch and see!" Gunther stormed off.

Luann turned to Crystal, "Could you talk some sense into him?"

"I'm not sticking my head in between you two. Anyway you're wrong about how much Tiffany does on a project. She does a lot."

"I'll talk to him later," Bernice said, mournfully, "not that I expect I'll have any effect. Some people just have to take their lumps before they know any better." The way she was slyly looking at her made Luann wonder if Bernice was including her in with Gunther on needing to take their lumps.

][

A sound like the closing of a door woke Luann later that night. She sat up in bed and looked around but with the curtains pulled there was little light in the cabin. Bernice was snoring softly beside her. Looking at the bed Tiffany and Crystal shared, it looked like both were there. Luann decided it was just noise from the people in the cabin next to theirs.

Once awake Luann found it hard to go back to sleep. She thought about Quill and what she'd say to him when they found him. Or if they found him. Now that they were in the middle of her quest it was beginning to dawn on her just hard it would be to find any one person in the whole country. Did she really want him back? Did she have or ever have feelings for him? She must have, to feel this angry about his weird, mysterious skipping out of town. At the same time when she tried to think back about their times together all she could recall was pleasant congeniality. Their mutual decision to be "just friends" had seemed easy at the time, a way to avoid the huffing and puffing of so many of their love-struck colleagues. But now that one last year of high school remained before her she was being to feel she'd missed out on something by not having that huffing and puffing.

She tossed and turned until Bernice snapped "stop it!" Luann tried laying perfectly still but that just make it seem worse. She rolled on her side, decided that wasn't helping and sat up on the side of the bed. The way her muscles were jumping maybe she needed a short walk. She stuck her feet in her flip-flops, made sure she had the cardpass for the door and slipped out of the room. Outside Luann suddenly realized that there was no where to walk. The street certainly wasn't safe enough. Well, there was always the pool. It was closed, of course, but how hard would it be to get in and she could flop on one of the lounge chairs until she felt more like sleeping.

She walked down the length of the cabins to the pool. The pool was surrounded by eight foot high chain-link fencing to prevent kids from sneaking in after hours - like what she was doing. There was a gate on the corner nearest the cabins that opened with cabin's cardpass. A multi-purpose shed next to the gate formed a tunnel, blocking off view of the pool. She was surprised to find the gate already open. It had been closed to within an inch of the lock so that from a distance it looked like it was still closed. Luann wasn't thinking what this might mean. She could have walked into any sort of situation but she had been riding with Gunther, Knute and the girls for so long that she had come to think they were the only people in the world. And they were all in bed.

She pushed on the gate and it swung against the back fence with a sharp clang! Luann froze for a moment, afraid she had awoken someone in one of the other cabins, but when she saw no lights come on she proceeded down the tunnel to the pool. She thought she heard some kind of scurrying but assumed it was just a squirrel panicking.

"Gunther?"

Gunther was sitting at one of the patio tables under the rays from a large night-light, his ever-present sketch pad in his hand. He was turning the page to a blank sheet, and looked back at Luann with a guilty start as she called to him. "Hey," he said. Luann walked over and sat down in a chair next to him. "Can't sleep either?" she asked. Gunther shook his head and tried to hide his sketchbook.

The pool looked different at night, even thought nothing had changed. There was a mercury vapor lamp mounted on the utility building and another on a pole at the far end of the pool. They provided a shadowy green light to the area. With no one in the pool the place was profoundly quiet. Aside from small ripples running across the pool nothing was moving. Gunther was sitting facing the pool. There was a chaise lounge in front of it but Luann didn't think anything about it.

"Bernice kicked me out of bed," she explained. "I got to thinking about Quill tonight and whether I'm being an idiot to go chasing after him like that. My tossing and turning was keeping Bernice up so I came out here for a while. What about you, Knute's snoring keeping you up?"

"Oh - ah - um," Gunther began nervously. "Knute doesn't snore. But - But - ah, I felt like coming out tonight to work on my sketching." he started speaking faster as if he had decided what to say. "It's not easy to draw in the car. Too crowded, you know, and the roads tend to be bumpy when you least expect it."

"I guess," Luann agreed. "Have you been enjoying the trip?"

"I was," he said with emphasis.

"Oh, yeah. That." Luann fell silent. "Look I'm sorry, Gunther. I don't know why I said what I did. I never meant to hurt you or imply anything about you."

Gunther said nothing. To avoid talking to her he began sketching a corner of the pool.

"Hey, you're good," Luann said as she watched what at first seemed like random lines on the page evolve into a realistic portrait of the swimming pool. "I didn't know you drew anything because fashion dresses."

"Oh, I like to draw all sorts of things. I usually don't show them to people because they're not that good."

"How do you know they're not any good if you don't show them to other people. Come on, I'd like to see them."

"So you can make fun of them?"

"Why would you say that?" Luann wondered.

"Well, you made fun of my dress designs and Tiffany things they're really good."

"Look, I'm sorry I called them 'gay.' I don't know what I was thinking, but it's wrong to call anything or any body Gay just because you didn't like them."

"Next you're going to say some of your best friends are gay..." Gunther accused.

"I don't know anyone who's come out as Gay. I certainly never thought of you as Gay."

"Thank you."

"So what have you been drawing? Anything special? Need a model? She stretched back in the chair, placed an arm over her head and arched her neck. "I've got nothing better to do since I can't sleep."

For some reason Gunther choked on that, even though he wasn't drinking.

"Oh, come on. We've know each other for how long? And you've never asked to draw me?"

"I've drawn you." Gunther said huskily.

"I mean besides as a head on top a dress."

"I've drawn you without a dress."

"In the nude?"

Gunther nodded, too choked up to speak. Luann wasn't sure if she felt excited that Gunther had thought of her when drawing nudes or creeped out that he had visualized her naked body.

She held her pose as Gunther worked. Lines quickly became her face. A stroke delineated her nose, some smudging gave it body and depth. Luann was fascinated how he worked, and somewhat envious of how he could put down a line and make it mean something. Gunther worked in her shoulders and arms, drew a couple lines across her chest and by shading turned them into her breasts. If Luann noticed that he drew her breasts as twin mounds erupting from her chest she didn't say anything. If she noticed that he had drawn them with a little sag, like a ski slope coming to a point she she didn't say anything about that either. When Gunther crowned each mound with a thick jutting nipple...

"My breasts don't look like that," Luann objected.

Wordlessly Gunther pointed to her chest.

Luann looked down, and a second later crossed her arms over her breasts, hiding her rebellious, erect nipples.

"You're not going to leave them in, are you?" she asked. Gunther shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "I kind of like how they look; makes you look all sexy. And anyway, even if I erased them, I'd know they were supposed to be there."

Gunther stopped drawing while he waited for Luann to resume her pose or stop modeling. She looked down at her traitorous nipples to see if they had deflated as she had willed them. God, it looked like they'd gotten larger and harder. She was acutely aware now that she was sitting next to Gunther in just a soft T-shirt and jogging shorts. The lack of panties and a bra made her feel more naked than she really was.

At the same time a thought was stirring that here was a chance to make it up to Gunther, to show him that he was a special friend by doing something special with him.

"Would it help if I took off my shirt?"

There was a splash in the water of the pool. Luann looked around but couldn't see anybody. She shrugged and turned back to Gunther.

"No, that's OK. You don't have to do that for me."

"I could take off all my clothes, lay on that lounge chair and you do draw me in full Titanic mode."

Gunther seemed to choke on that, then asked, "Didn't that guy drown in the end?"

"I've got a better idea. Let's go skinny-dipping!" Luann heard her mouth say almost before the idea was formed. She was about to say, 'sorry, that was a bad idea,' or something but realized that the words were already out there and it would be as embarrassing to take them back as it would be to strip in front of her friend. She whipped off her T-shirt before she lost her nerve and jumped up, pulling Gunther along with her.

"Come on, what are you waiting for?" She started working on the buttons of his shirt. Gunther always wore buttoned up shirts of a plaid pattern. Oddly bland for someone who wanted to be a fashion designer. She jerked the shirt out of his pants and pulled them down his shoulders, accidentally trapping his arms behind his back in the long sleeves of his shirt. And unexpected final button went flying. She knelt and was fumbling with his belt when ...

"Hey, the gate's already open. We won't have to climb over it after all."

Knute! Luann panicked, letting go of Gunther's pants as she sprang up and grabbed for her discarded top. Gunther's pants promptly fell to his feet revealing him to be a tighty, whitey man.

She was struck trying to pull her head through one of the armholes when a girl's voice said her name. She froze for a moment, then pulled the shirt back off, held it in front of her and saw Knute's companion.

Crystal.

Crystal was wearing the short, black neglectee she wore around in the motel rooms. In the half light it was hard to tell if she was wearing anything under it. Knute was wearing a pair of boxers and nothing else.

There was a moment that seemed to stretch on forever as the two girls stared at each other, a shared sense of embarrassment for being caught. It was broken finally by Knute heartily exclaiming "Gunther! You Dog!"

Gunther wasn't as excited about being caught with a half-naked girl. He was wrestling with his shirt sleeves, finally got one hand free and finished pulling the other hand out. He put on his shirt and started button it. In the half-light it was hard to tell what color his face was but he spared a venomous glare at Luann when he came to the spot where a button should have been on his shirt.

"Gunther and Luann!" Knute was saying. He rarely knew when to keep quiet. "Out for a little skinny-dipping. Just like Crystal and -" Crystal elbowed him in the kidneys. "What?" He objected.

"Nothing's happening." she told him.

"What? Why? They're going skinny-dipping, we were going skinny-dipping. The more the merrier."

"No! Two's company, four's an ..."

"An orgy?" Knute suggested.

"Go to hell," Crystal snapped. She turned and walked away.

Knute stood stunned for a moment, then ran after her. "Crystal! Babe! What did I say?" His pleading faded in the distance.

As silence descended over the swimming pool Luann considered whether to put her T-shirt back on or take her shorts off. She put her shirt on. Whatever frenzy had made her want to go skinny-dipping with Gunther was over. It just seemed awkward now. Gunther was pulling up his pants as well. "Did you want to finish your sketch?" Luann asked.

"No. I think I've had enough excitement for one night. I'm going to bed."

"Yeah. Me, too."

She waited for him to gather up his sketchpad and pencils and together they walked back to their cabins. "Poor Knute," she said as she opened the door to the girl's cabin. They could still hear them arguing in the distance.

"Poor? I'd love to be berated by a hot girl like Crystal." Gunther said wistfully.

"I'm sure there's a doiminatrix in your future." Luann leaned over and kissed Gunther on the cheek. " 'night."

][

Back at the pool the waters suddenly heaved up on a loud splash and a body grasped the edge of the pool. They spat out a plastic soda straw and lay there gasping for breath. "Ninja trick my ass! I don't know how they expect anyone to breath through a straw. God I thought Luann would never leave!"

Tiffany climbed to her feet and picked up the towel from under the chaise lounge and dried herself off. She pulled on the thin nightie and threw the strawless cup of soda into the trash. She looked around the table where Gunther had been sitting. "Damn! I've got to get the drawing from him before he accidentally shows it to Luann!"

With a grunt of thwarted plans, Tiffany made her way back to the cabin.

With the fifth chapter of this story I achieved something that has never happened before. I published a chapter that - to date - has not been viewed by anyone. Apparently this story is so awful that no one wants to read it. I probably should just abandon it in place and move on to things which people occasionally do read. But I've got one more chapter that's already drafted and the final chapter has been floating around in my mind so I might write that up as well.

This chapter is what happens when one reads too many manga about Japanese school life. People are already running into each other naked. There's a lot of grabbing of breasts (girl on girl, always to check on how large the other girl is) and stuff. In Japan it all happens at hot springs but since there aren't many of those over here I transferred it into a skinny-dipper party.