Pros and Cons

“I have a question.”

“Shoot”

“Where exactly are we going?” Elizabeth queried, raising an eyebrow at her best friend who, she decided, had probably taken something with some very fun side effects if she expected a midnight adventure out of a Mormon highschooler, her monosyllabic chaperone and a clearly distressed stranger who was currently sniffling into a poorly made fast food burger.

“Anywhere! The world is our oyster! We’re teens on the run- this is our Stand By Me moment! Our John Green opening chapter!”

Oh yes, Blair was so getting a drug test when they got home. Something nice and invasive, with needles. That girl HATES needles.

“Blair, I love how you make every day the start of your own personal indie movie, but I’m getting tired and me and Max have to get mom’s minivan home before she starts to destroy all the rest of my most treasured possessions.”

Elizabeth rose to leave as she was starting to freak out about their little jaunt into urban Burlington, plus The Ronald McDonald statue in the corner was looking particularly eerie in the washed out overhead lighting. She expected the rest of the mismatched group to follow her.

They stayed put.

“Um, guys?”

“Stay longer?” piped up Max, fiddling with the tie of his eyepatch.

“Maximillion, you’re VEGAN. You hate McDonald's, you dragged Carlton to a protest outside this very store last year.”

He shrugged and went back to slurping out of his extra large soda cup, carefully avoiding the gaze of the now even more irritated woman at the counter who had just overheard that last part and was looking about ready to whack the group collectively over the head with an incredibly unsanitary looking mop.

“What about you, uh, Honeydrop, need a ride back home?” Elizabeth turned to the brightly coloured girl now leaning heavily on Blair’s shoulder, hoping to find a little sanity.

“It’s Honeydew. And I don't have a home, not anymore.”

Nope, nothing there but teenage angst and a reminder of Lizzie’s least favourite melon variety. This may be harder than she thought.

“Liz, your mom is, pardon my french, a total buttface. We’ve got a crack team of whacky characters, a fully gassed up vehicle and enough burger grease to take us through ‘till dawn. School’s out! We have to take this opportunity to do something crazy, mostly for the sake of that poor little suburban white-bread head of yours. You’ll explode if you have to stay around your goddamn family any longer and I’ll explode if I have to listen to you complain about them any more.”

Elizabeth considered the pros and cons of this. There was, perhaps, some logic to what Blair was saying. The thought of walking back into her house to face her parents, siblings and what was probably going to be the worst grounding of her entire life was just not that appealing. However, an impromptu road trip with these people? She didn’t even have any supplies- no clothing, no toiletries, nothing, a concern which she voiced to her companions. They seemed unnervingly nonchalant about this whole thing as if running away was a common occurrence in their collective repertoire of fun things to do.

Honeydew piped up in a relatively cheerful tone, her attitude doing a total 180 after Blair offered her some kid’s abandoned minions happy meal toy off the ground.   “Oh it’s really easy to get by, I can show you how to steal all the stuff you-”

“-That’s fine, nope, that’s okay! I’m good thank you though!” Elizabeth cut in, now decidedly more unhappy at the idea of sharing a small space with this girl who probably WAS an actual runaway if the tears and the overstuffed backpack were anything to go by.

“Mami gave me her credit card for emergencies before she and Mom left for vacation.  We can use that to buy s**t?” Blair whipped out a shiny looking piece of plastic from her purse with a triumphant little grin. She knew Liz was on the losing side here.

Max began to poke the ice cubes in his drink with a straw. No help there.

“FINE. We can do the road trip thing. But no hitchhikers. And no James Blunt. And especially no alcohol. In fact, I’m going to make a list of things we are NOT going to do.” Elizabeth grabbed a kiddie menu and began jotting down rules on plain side in a desperate attempt to regain some sense of control of the situation while Blair and her new friend squealed with joy and Max smiled slightly out the corner of his mouth. Blair whipped out her candy red mobile phone and dialled...somebody.

“D! Remember that thing we talked about? It’s happening! N-No, not that. I am not getting a degree in aeronautical engineering just so you can look, no, the thing I mentioned about six months ago? We’re doing it. Me and a couple friends will be by in a day or two to grab you. Be ready!” She flipped the receiver (why did she still have a flip phone?) and grinned at the group. “You guys don't mind if we make a little stop in Philadelphia do you?”