Chapter Twenty
Then we all just sat back and chilled. But then how long can you chill before someone comes and bugs you?
"You!' Some guy yelled pointing at my friends and I.
"Yeah?" I asked.
"Off my bus!" He replied.
"What if we don't wanna?" Phoenix challenged.
"Then I'll have to pound you all!" He yelled.
"Sorry boy but this girl doesn't's want to get pounded." Phoenix replied, or more stated.
"I ain't no boy! And no girl challenges me!" He said smiling a big grin.
"Well, there's a first time for everything!" Phoenix said shoving the guy.
"Stop it right now Phoenix!" Brooke yelled.
"Brooke, sometimes you have to fight, you know, kick-butt then take names?" Phoenix quoted.
"You kids settle down and shut the hell up! Or I'll have to kick you off my bus!" The bus driver yelled as more people got on the bus.
The rest of the bus trip was rather uneventful, and overall, boring.
D did quiz us. "What does D.C. stand for?"
"Dork Camp?" Christopher suggested.
"Dog crape?" I suggested.
"District of Columbia." Phoenix answered.
"That is correct!" D yelled. What is the state tree?"
"The pickle?" Christopher suggested.
"Scarlet Oak." I answered.
"You been, not sleeping through your classes again?" Christopher teased.
This went on for a long time, until he ran out of stuff to ask.
It was dark by the time we had make it to Washington, D.C.
"So our parents are staying in a hotel?" I asked.
"Yeah, the DuraFlame hotel." Phoenix replied.
"I have only one question," D said as he looked at Christopher's map.
"What is it?" Christopher asked.
"Where are we going to stay?" D asked.
"Great question, only I don't have a great answer." I said with a sigh.
"Let's just find an abandoned building, you know, like they do in the movies?" Christopher suggested.
"We stay where?!" Phoenix yelped and jumped a mile.
"In an abandoned building." D repeated.
"Look, we need to stay some were," I said with a heavy sigh.
It was cold out, and yet I was sweating, and I felt really clammy.
What would happen if we didn't find an abandoned building? Was what kept running through my head.
"If you wish, I can use this old communication device to find any buildings that are not in use at this time." D suggested.
"You can do that?" Phoenix asked.
"Yes," D replied.
"But how?" Christopher asked.
"The thing Phoenix calls the Internet." D replied. "I can gain access to most information there.
"Can you teach me to do that?" Christopher asked.
"Humans are not capable of doing so." D explained as he hooked himself up to the phone line.
" Four blocks west, turn left at the stoplight, go straight, turn left again, first house on the
right." D instructed.
We walked carefully through the dark, phoenix complaining the whole way.
"I don't want to stay in any boarded up house! Can't we stay at a hotel?" Phoenix asked
hopefully.
"We don't have any money." Brooke reminded her.
And she was right, after the bus trip, that left us with about enough to buy breakfast. Not even for a bus trip back home, but we might not even make out alive, let alone home.
Everyone was so grime and sad, so I decided to tell them a joke, "knock-knock."
"On what?" D asked.
That cased everyone to laugh.
"It's a joke!" Christopher said.
"Oh!" D shouted and started to laugh himself.
"Who's there?" Brooke asked.
"Dogs."
"Dogs who?"
"No dogs don't hoo! Owls hoo!" I shouted, to the sky. From far off in my head I heard them laugh lamely.
I couldn't keep my eyes off the sky. And don't know why. I guess, it just seemed like the right thing to do.
We approached the house scared and wording what was up ahead.
