With a screech and plumes of rubbery smoke and rocky dust, the tires of a cream white Chevy Silverado skidded against the beginnings of a gravel road before gaining traction and taking off. The driver ran a flustered hand through his tall, caramel blonde locks as he looked through the rearview, making sure no cops had followed him. He was, admittedly, driving a hair too fast. He lowered his dark, tinted shades as the mid-morning sun beamed through the trees on either side of him.
Nervously, he glanced at the rearview one more time, but when his gaze returned forward, he saw a larger truck barreling toward him. The road was nary wide enough for both of them. With a gasp, he threw the leathery steering wheel to the right, his heart leaping into his throat while his truck went halfway onto the grassy terrain, inches away from the unforgiving line of trees.
The other driver had the nerve to blare their horn at him.
"Asshole!" he shouted before taking a deep breath. "Cool it. You're trying to be less douchey, remember? A good role model or... whatever."
The gravel road was one of many shortcuts that speckled Port Townsend, Washington. It would take him from point A, a lower middle class residential neighborhood, to point B, the main shopping strip which overlooked a wide, blue waterfront. Point C, which should have been B, was the public school campus where he attended high school. Yet, he wasn't going there for him. He had narrowly avoided being sent to summer school. His saving grace was the job he managed to land washing towels, lifeguarding, and monitoring the basketball courts at a local sports club, which was also point D, arguably the most important one.
"He had better be there," he grumbled under his breath.
He roared back out onto a main road to find another vehicle honking at him, this time with good reason, as they had to slam on their brakes to avoid a T-Bone.
"Sorry!" he shouted from his window.
They accepted his apology with a one-fingered gesture.
At long last, he pulled into a street parking spot in front of the arcade. Heat radiated from his truck as he exited, practically slamming the door on his way out. He treated the arcade's glass door a tad more kindly and was greeted by its welcome bell. Pocketing his sunglasses, his hazel eyes landed squarely on a gaggle of nearly teens huddled at a game right in front of him, all yelling over each other in dizzying madness.
"Hey!" he shouted.
Five pairs of eyes, all with the look of deer caught in headlights, shot back at him.
"Shit," uttered the very preteen he was after.
"Yeah, busted," the older boy replied. "It's the first day. Come on."
"Your first day on the job?" the targeted youth asked.
"Yeah, and your first day of summer school in case you forgot, which I doubt. Let's go."
For some reason, all five youths stepped toward him, each arming themself with a backpack.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said, putting his hands up to halt them. "All of you got summer school?"
Their guilty expressions and side glances at one another answered for them.
"No way. Henderson's mom is paying me to take him. The rest of you twerps are gonna find your own way, you hear me?"
"You have a middle seat," Henderson protested, the others joining in agreement.
"There's five of you! Are you really that bad at math, man?"
"Only when I want to be."
"Two of us can sit in front," the lone girl of the group chimed in, tying back her fiery red hair, "and three of us in the bed."
"That's so unsafe."
"Unsafe?" Henderson scoffed. "You probably almost crashed on your way here."
"Twice, smartass," he replied, only afterwards realizing the stupidity of it. "All the more reason for me to put my foot down. No, no, no, and no," he said, pointing to each of the others before his finger landed on Henderson. "You, now."
They refused to budge. The girl even began lowering her backpack down to the floor, raising a brow and pursing her lips in the most annoying, adolescent way possible. Seeing he would not win and make it to work on time, he caved with a loud sigh.
"Someone needs to teach you dweebs to respect your elders," he rolled his eyes, throwing his shades back on.
"It ain't gonna be you," Henderson laughed, patting him on the back as he sped past.
Lucas, Mike, and Max claimed the bed of the truck. Will felt safest inside, and Henderson (whose first name was Dustin) squeezed into the middle. The lack of talking made Dustin's skin crawl.
"Sorry, Steve," he uttered.
Steve knew he was genuine and swallowed whatever further scolding he had planned, trading it out for another sigh.
"You too, Will? Summer school? Really?" he asked, glancing over at the freshly bowl-cutted boy.
"Yeah," Will replied plainly.
"Are you really one to be judging us, Mister Second-Year-Senior?" Dustin asked, suppressing a laugh.
"First of all, I only have four classes to repeat. I'm not even gonna be there long enough to eat lunch and I'll be making bank all afternoon," Steve replied, raising four of his fingers from the steering wheel. "I'm graduating in December, you prick, so it's not like I'm that far behind. And second, I don't want you to be like me. That's the whole reason I agreed to chauffeur you all summer."
"Not the buck a day my mom agreed to pay you?"
"I mean..." Steve shrugged.
He reached back and pulled the rear window open.
"You each owe me a goddamn bee- root beer for this."
"Language, Steve, language," said Dustin.
"Shut up," Steve replied, pushing the boy's trucker hat from his head, unveiling his long, curly locks, which he then gave an aggressive tussle.
All five of the fond friends landing themselves in summer school was nothing short of a conspiracy, devised after Mike unexpectedly failed pre-algebra. The previous summer had been grueling for all of them, having been separated by family vacations, Will's mom losing her job, and Max and her mom moving after her stepbrother Billy died suddenly. This year, they vowed to stay together for every moment possible, until Mike's failure threw a wrench into that promise. He told them he wasn't going to pass pre-algebra, and the others tanked one of their own grades in solidarity, save for Dustin, who managed to tank two of his.
They trudged through the academic portion of the day. The last two hours following lunch were practically going to be a detention. Nothing planned other than sitting and suffering in silence in the scarcely air conditioned classroom. At lunch, they devised a plan to ditch. Lucas, Mike, and Dustin suggested going back to the arcade.
"Max is so close to the high score on Rampage," Lucas stated. "It's the last one she needs and she'll have her name on every game in the place."
"Alternatively," Will replied, "we could take a trip into the woods."
This prompted a gasp of excitement from the others. Max and Mike particularly leaned further in, eyes wide.
"You finished it?" Mike asked.
"Yeah. I mean, you'll have to give me your final thoughts before it's done done, but it's usable."
"What about the campaign?" Max inquired, pushing back an escaped lock of her red hair.
"You bet," Will replied proudly. "Everything we need is ready. The question is, are you?"
Without opposition, the entire gang made off with the rest of their lunches stuffed into paper sacks, snuck from the building, and ventured into the nearby woods with Will in the lead. The others hadn't remembered it being quite so tedious of a walk, dodging branches, and occasionally tripping over a rock or a root. Will, on the other hand, had dedicated so much time to the cause that he had every duck, dip, and step practically memorized. However, he was so busy rambling on and on about the Dungeons and Dragons campaign that he failed to share any helpful directions.
After a few scrapes and scratches, and one comment from Mike about how quick Lucas was to help Max up when she fell (or steady her when she stumbled), they finally came to what was arguably a clearing. There was moss, weeds, and some kind of invasive, leafy vine covering the ground, but in the center was the magnificent stump of a downed tree, perfectly flat and smelling very woodsy and "oak-y" as Dustin liked to say. The fallen portion of it served as a bench right beside it, which Will had carved two smooth seats into. Three big chunks of wood completed a circle around the stump.
"Jonathan helped me with those," Will admitted.
Two old chairs (which were practically falling apart) donated from Dustin's basement were reserved in case anyone else ever joined them (though they doubted anyone would) and had been carefully covered in tarps to protect them from the elements and the animals.
"What the hell, Will!" Mike exclaimed. "This is incredible."
"You really are the dungeon master, my friend," Dustin said, laying a hand on the shorter boy's shoulder.
"And that's not all," Will said, breaking free from Dustin's grip and moving over to a nearby tree. He clawed at an elevated mesh of the leafy vines and revealed a small bear-proof cooler underneath, filled with Hi-C Echo Coolers, pudding pies, candy cigarettes, and Dunkaroos.
"Forget dungeon master," Lucas said, rubbing his hands and smacking his lips. "You are the dungeon god."
"Hey Dustin," Will called, "you got your pocket knife on you?"
Before Dustin could even reply, Max unfolded hers and handed it off to Will.
"Thanks," Will said, surprised by the fact that he was surprised. "Anyway, it's not finished until we make our marks. I thought maybe we could etch our names into the table."
One-by-one, they each did just that, after which they held a quick vote on whose name was written the sloppiest (Mike and Dustin tied). They sat around and plotted when they would officially begin their D&D adventure, contently finishing their lunches of apples and sandwiches with too little peanut butter and even less jelly, then chasing them with some of the delectable snacks, laughing, and soaking in one another's company.
This summer was already leagues better than the one before.