Just in case you were wondering, yes, I am a big Fall Out Boy fan, and the title of this chapter is a reference to them. I am also in urgent need of some good storylines, so please review and tell me some good ideas - I need them!

EggyDanosaur x

Chapter 8 - Thanks for the Memories

We had reached the end of our time there, and as quickly as the time came to go, the time came to leave. We packed our things and left the hotel, and picked up a rented fissioncar from the local garage. The children drew pictures of the view out of the windows in their sketchbooks, and I drove while Todd had the map.

"Right at the turning." I swerved left. "RIGHT at the turning." I carried on going. "What are you doing!" He shouted. The children looked up from their pads.

"I'm taking us somewhere else," I replied calmly. I kept on going.

"No," Todd whispered. You're not - are you?" We sped past a sign for New Prentisstown. "You ARE!" He shouted, horrified. "Viola Eade, we are turning back home this instant! I am NOT going to stand for this!" He stood up and wacked his head against the ceiling of the fissioncar.

"You just stood," Toby said, going back to his drawing.

Not appropriate right now Tobes, I mouthed to him as I swerved to the side of the road and abruptly stopped the car. He nodded.

"If you are going to take us to New Prentisstown," he began. "I will go all the way back to the graves, rent out another fissioncar and drive myself home."

"No, you won't," I replied. "You would never do that again. You told me." He muttered a reply angrily, and sat down, not bothering to put his seatbelt on. I had won, like usual. I would take us to New Prentisstown. The children need to know about it. If we ever have the courage to talk about our experience there again, they need to know about it. They had seen the spaceship and Old Prentisstown, so it was time that they saw where Todd and I had spent time in our lives. Not enjoyable time, but time.

We drove into the city through a road that had now been opened up, but once was closed off and hidden, so hidden that only somebody as good at 'everything' as the Mayor could -

I couldn't let myself continue.

Maybe the children shouldn't see it. Maybe Todd and I shouldn't see it. But I had set my mind to it now, and once I set my mind to something, I won't back down. We drove past a shed that Todd, Davy Prentiss and 1150 Spackle had built in our time living there. We drove past what we recognised to be bomb wounds in the earth, but were now covered with fresh earth and grass, and even houses. It all looked so different and...weird, to me. It wasn't how it should be. I kept looking at parts of the place and saying to myself; That's not right - it should be like this! And that's not how it was - it should look way different to that.

Todd was acting like he was the same age as Toby or the twins - a child once again. He had one arm crossed over the other, head on top. His window was rolled down and his head was stretched out so far that it looked like he was going to fall out, but he didn't, he just looked, in awe and wonder, about what had happened to the city.

New Prentisstown, we're back.