There you guys go, another chapter up and ready to read.
I know reviewing was down for a little while...but here, review on this one.
My friend, the one who lets me use her power cord...is going back to Ontario. So, her being my only hook up, my updating will be spaced out, yet again. Unless I use a public computer...(shivers)
Anyway, seeing as how I won't be updating for a little while, you guys should leave a bunch of reviews on my fic so when I come back, I'm not 'uninspired' to write.
Come on...you know you wanna'.
Chapter 8 - The Trip
"I don't like long car rides." Aria said, slouched over in the front seat.
Leo looked at her, slightly worried. "Do you want me to pull over?" He reached over and rubbed her back with his right hand, his left hand still holding the wheel of the car.
"No." She groaned. "I'll be fine." Sitting back up, she looked around. "The entrance!!!" She yelled, pointing. Leo quickly jammed the air brake, causing the car to fishtail out as he spun the wheel off to the left. Screeching to a hault, they were now staring at the entrance. Aria laughed ruthfully as she held on to the dash board. "I had a feeling you were going to miss it."
"We're right in front of the entrance, aren't we?" He smiled wide as he reapplied pressure to the gas pedal, thus moving the car forward.
"I'm bringing a helmet next time, you nutcase." Bunny smirked as she kicked at the back of his chair.
"You can walk home. People don't got no appreciation." He said with bad grammar, purposely.
"I'm good." She leaned back and admired the beautiful fall leaves that tried despeartly to stick to their respective trees. "So, you said this is the last few days before they close till next summer?"
Ed pulled out the pamphlete they were given a few days ago, when Leo and his mother made the reservations, outlining the events that were taking place over the weekend. "Yeah. It's actually their 10th year anniverseary, so they're going all out before winter hits." He handed the folded paper over to Paninya. "Check it out, there's fireworks and everything."
"Fireworks? Shit, this is going to kick ass." Russell smiled as he rubbed his hands together. "They're going to have a concert before hand. I love keltic music. The Cotters are playing aren't they?" He glanced over to Bunny.
Skimming the booklet, she nodded. "Yeah, right after the Rankins'."
"I've never been a big fan of Keltic. Now, you stik Flogging Molly up there and then we'll talk." Leo said as he weaved his way through the narrow road overgrown by trees; their hanging branches brushing the sides of the car.
Ed added to the conversation. "Great Big Sea is closing the show."
"What?!" Leo nearly jumped over the steering wheel. "No god damn way! Great Big Sea is, well, fuckin' great!" He smiled as he sat back in the drivers seat. "I take it back, keltic is fine." The car ful of teens got a good chuckle out of Leo's quick change of heart.
Ed reached down and gathered up a few more downed branches for the fire. They had bought a few small bundles of firewood and a bottle of kerosine to get them going, but Aria convinced them to opt out of the lighter fluid and stick with kindeling. It was better to get and keep the fire going; anyone who knew anything about lighting a fire knew that you couldn't just go for the quick fix, you had to work up from small twigs to sticks and so on. The embers would be perfect for toasting marshmallows that way.
Finding a series of long sticks, he began snapping them in half when, all of a sudden, someone crept up behind him. "Hey Ed!" He said abruptly.
Startled, he dropped what he was doing and wipped around to come face to face with his brother. "What the hell are you doing here?!" He yelled with a scowel on his face. "You better not be here to bother us." The week went by with ease but sadly, a few un-kind words from Clause every so often. She had a terrible habit of picking at them, fortunatly, nothing major, nothing like the first day where Ed was on the verge of having his ass handed to him.
"Nah." Al smirked as he waved a hand at him. "We're here for the fireworks and then we're leaving...also, I'm here to see if you're drinking, just so I can see if you're full of shit or not."
Sighing, he reached down and gathered up the sticks he originaly dropped. "I told you, I'm not drinking." Ed sood up straight and looked at Al with suspission. "Well, what about you? You're not drinking, are you?"
Al shook his head. "Clause is our hook-up for booze, and she has to drive us home. She said that if she can't drink, no one is. Which I totally understand. It would be pretty shitty being the only sober person in a car full of drunk people." He checked over his shoulder. "But uh...she's having a party next week which I'm going to. So I expect you not to rat me out." He folded his arms.
Ed smirked. "Expect what you want, but I'll make no promises." He dumped the twigs off in the bucket a few steps back.
With a roll of his eyes, he continued. "I saw that coming, which is the main reason I'm letting you know now. Alright...what do you want? Name it."
Shocked, Ed spun around and looked at his sibling. "A bribe? Come on Al--"
"Come on Ed!" He cut him off. "Just because you got stuck fitting into the 'out-crowd', doesn't mean I want to." He said with a hint of anger.
"I know how to choos my friends Al, I didn't get 'stuck' with anyone." Ed planted his fists on his hips.
"Whatever, so are we going to make a deal?" Al had seemed to calm himself down somewhat.
Skeptical, Ed nodded. "Fine...I want you to get that Clause friend of yours to leave us alone. She's irritating."
"I hear ya'." He said under his breath, followed up by a lenghty inhale. "I don't know if she'll go for that."
Rolling his eyes, yet again, he sighed. "At least for the week...including the night of this party of hers...from tonight on...and it counts if she gets her friends to do it too. So just leave us be."
Al nodded. "That, I can do. Up to, and including, the night of the party, you won't get picked on. You have my word."
"Good...and no making up for lost time afterwards. Aria doesn't deal too well with it, and we all just want to have fun tonight."
Al nearly jumped out of his skin. "Aria?" He turned pale as a ghost. "Is she here? Tonight?"
Ed raised an eyebrow. "Yeaaaah..." He drug out his word somewhat.
"You have to be careful with her Ed, she's a vampire you know?" The most amount of 'dead serious' he could muster in his voice and on his face was poured into that one sentence.
Ed laughed. "What? Al, seriously dude, don't be stupid."
He gave Edward a quick shove in the shoulder. "I don't mean like a vampire in the movies, I mean, like, she kills animals and drinks their blood. People are even saying that she killed her boyfriend and drank his blood, which is why no one ever seen him since they broke up. He stopped coming to school and everything." He looked over Ed's shoulder at the campsite his brother was staying at, their little cabin they rented in the distance blended in with the trees and looked rather erie.
"Well Al, as you'll come to realize, most people are idiots." Ed picked up the pail full of sticks.
"There you go, talking like that again. Anyway, I'm out of here, remember, you better keep you end of the bargin. And seriously, if you ever want to be popular, you better change for the better, and soon. And fix that way you talk." With that said, he turned and headed back to be with his group.
"I'll keep that in mind." He said sarcastically as he too headed off to his site.
"Get that slimy little bastard away from me!" Russell yelled as Aria followd behind him, her hands coated up to her wrists in mud, with a frog delicatly being held in her fingers. "Put it back!"
"Oh, come on, he's cute and you hurt his feelings. Just look at his little eyes. Touch him!" She scooted along behind him. "He matches your hair to boot!"
Ed laid the firewood down near the fire pit and smirked. "Glad to see they're keeping busy."
Bunny nodded. "Everything else was done, so we let the kids go and play." She held up a raw piece of meat on a knife in front of Ed's line of vision. "Steak?"
"Cooked?" He smiled.
"Of course." She laid it back in the tinfoil saturated with marinating sauce. "We'll eat before the concert, I have something different here for Aria too, and then we'll have marshmallows when we watch the fireworks."
Leo held up two jumbo bags of marshmallows. "I'm positive we won't run out this time. Not like last year."
"Hopefully." Aria walked up next to the cooler, drying her hands off on a small red towel. "And I made sure to buy plenty of drinks for us too." She knelt down next to the cooler.
Russell sat down on a log next to the soon to be fire. "Good, I'm thirsty." He huffed, out of breath from being chased with a little froggy critter.
"Drinks?" Ed followed up.
Aria held up one of the glass bottles filled with red liquid. "Wine flavored coolers. They're really good." She took the grocery bag filled with them and began piling them into the cooler filled with ice. "I wasn't sure what you liked, so I just picked up the regular berry ones for you." She held up the bottle, a design of berries lining the upper rim of the bottle.
"Uh...I don't think I should..." He seemed skeptical.
"Don't worry, we're allowed to drink these." She grabbed on and headed over to Ed. "Right there." She pointed to one of the first ingredients. "Dealcoholized wine; they're non-alcoholic, but they taste like wine. So we can just sit and pretend we're being rebels." She smiled. "But if you're still uncomforable with it, you don't have to drink it, we still have pop."
Ed sighed in relief. "Nah, it's ok. I'll have one of them." He smiled and took a seat next to Russell, happy just being where he was.
"The party next Friday is going to be awesome. You'll drink with is right?" Clause smiled at Al who was staring off into the trees.
"Huh?" He drew his attention back toward his friends. "Yeah, sure." Taking a quick glance in Winry's direction, he could see she was reading some kind of heavy book. "Who else is going?" He asked, wishful to the fact that Winry's name had the potential to get mentioned.
"So far, just the cheerleading team, the basketball team, the student council and a few of my buddies from college. But there'll be more." She took out a pack of cigarettes and twirled them in her hands.
"Cool." Al was excited; he had a week to get to know Winry and then he could hook up with her at Clause's party. He smiled, teeming with anticipation.
There you have it...let's hear what you think.