Down Memory Lane

Chapter Three-Of Multicolored Sheep

//Laughter...A girl with light brown hair that curled around her head, speaking to him. Dancing. Music.

Screams of terror...

Red eyes...\

The boy looked out the window at the clouds. Where are these memories coming from? He wondered. Who are those people? What happened to make them all so scared?

His ears pricked when he heard the door to the room open, but other than that he ignored it. Instinctively, he knew that the visitors wouldn´t be for him.

"Hey, Chris!" a whispered voice said. It was the girl with the multi-colored hair.

There was a crash as something hit the ground. "How did you get away from those evil nurses?"

Sniggers. "Jack ticked off Lia, so she started to scream and yell. I wish she had had a ruler--that would have made it all the funnier!" The boy didn´t understand the significance of the ruler to "Lia" and "Jack". He wondered why she had a boy´s name as well.

"For you, maybe, but you weren´t the one being attacked by a girl who happens to weigh more than you and also happens to be a pretty fierce kicker!"

"Well, you weren´t the one having to deal with Kirsten rambling again."

The door opened again, and this time the boy looked over. It was Curly, the one who had given him a strange look before the nurses had ushered her out the day before. "Do you know how hard it is to maneuver through these halls and try to keep out of sight from the nurses?" she asked.

"Well, considering that we did it first, yes. And it wasn´t that hard."

"It is when the nurses are patrolling the halls around you!"

//"How did you two get in here without her seeing you?"

"Invisibility cloak, silly. How else?"

"Here--we brought candy and Butterbeer!"\

"Did they see you?"

"Of course not! I´m a master of disguise, did you forget?"

"It´s not hard to miss a person with hair like yours, eyes like yours, wearing a hospital smock and a huge ace bandage over her arm."

"How many times have I told you to shut up about my hair?!" Smiling slightly, the boy peered past the curtain and saw that Curly had pulled her hair back with her good hand and was twisting it around her fingers expertly, as though she had done it a million times or so (which, he supposed, she had). The action brought another memory to the surface of his brain.

//The way she twisted her hair around her finger made his mouth go dry. He had never had feelings for her, but she had grown up so much over the summer. It was impossible to recognize her for the once nerdy know-it-all girl that she had once been.\

Laughter. "Chris, I´m really sorry about what I said yesterday. I didn´t mean any of it."

"S´okay, Lia. I was just mad that I wasn´t going to be able to swim for the next year-and-a-half."

"`Wasn´t´?"

"The doctor said it´s too early to tell, but he thinks I might heal faster than normal. Remember when I broke my wrist?"

"Back in freshman year?"

"I was still in eighth grade."

"Whatever. Yeah, Jack told us all about it, and then when she brought pictures from her fifteenth birthday, I couldn´t help but laugh."

The girls giggled.

"Hey, we´re laughing at my expense here!"

"Oh, are you hurt?|"

"Yes! I have a broken leg! I´m SERIOUS!" he cried, seeing Lia doubled over with laughter.

//"Be serious."

"The last time I checked, I was..."\

The three girls laughed again. "Chris, you´re a riot."

The door creaked open once again, and the boy heard a thump from the other side of the room. When a groan of pain was issued from the same general direction, he figured that Curly had lunged behind the bed to hide from one of the nurses.

"Guess who´s here!" a new voice said excitedly.

"Oh, no," three voices moaned in unison.

"Lia! I´m gonna kick your butt!"

"I didn´t do it!" Curly yelled out. The boy leaned forward slightly to see whom she was talking to, and winced when his back protested in pain.

"You nearly killed Kirsten!"

"I did not!"

"And you nearly killed that boy that you hit with your brother´s car!"

"I didn´t hit him! He hit the car..."

"Anyways--"

Curly interrupted the newcomer. "--is not a word."

"Anyway, where is he? Poor guy must be lonely."

"How do you even know about him? I certainly didn´t call. Beside, doesn´t it add to the hospital bill?"

Two high-pitched giggles erupted from near the door. "Kirsten was in my head during the accident."

In her head? the boy thought, his brow wrinkling in confusion. He raised his right arm to rub his forehead, something that seemed quite natural to do while he was thinking, and was dismayed to find that the brace on his arm prevented him from bending it at the elbow.

Chris must have shared his confusion, for he said, "Huh? In your head?"

There was another giggle.

"I don´t even want to know what they were discussing this time," Curly groaned.

"Where is he?" There was a rustle as somebody moved, and then footsteps. The dividing curtain was pulled partially aside to reveal the rest of the room. The girl with orange stripes in her hair was kneeling down near the end of Chris´ bed, examining what the hospital deemed "food" splattered near an overturned tray. Curly was massaging her left arm while sitting on an uncomfortable looking chairs near the end of the room. Next to her was a girl that the boy didn´t recognize. She had short black hair with the last inch or so dyed a bright blue. The boy had the feeling that had the rest of her hair been red, it would have looked like flames. A blond girl was standing in the doorway next to a muscular yet pretty girl who appeared to be about the same age as the rest of them. With a sudden jolt, the boy realized that he didn´t know how old he was.

Curly looked over at him and then looked away.

"Er..." the boy said, gazing over the people in the room once more.

Curly brought her head back to him with an almost audible snap. "English!"

The boy blinked in confusion. "I...pardon?"

"You must be from England! Only the English say `er´ and `pardon´!"

"Lia," Chris pointed out, "you say `pardon´."

"What can I say; those nasty Canadians have corrupted me! But you must be English!"

"Well, that only narrows it down to--oh, how much land?" Chris asked sarcastically.

"Good point. Anyway...hey, you don´t know any of our names, do you?"

The boy started to shake his head, but stopped as a blinding pain erupted in his forehead, right above his right eye. He winced and said, "Well, sort of...he´s Chris."

"Yup, that´s Chris. I´m Lia that´s Jack"--she nodded her head in the direction of the girl at the edge of Chris´ bed, who stood up and grinned--"whose real name is actually--"

"Lia!"

Lia´s kind smile turned into an evil grin. "That´s funny; I thought my name was Lia. Her full name is actually Jessakah." [A/N: Nova told me to say this: it´s pronounced jess-AH-kah. Yah...`Chris´ came up with it. Long story.]

Looking quite angry, Jack shot Lia a glare and then glanced at the boy. "Oh, yeah? Well her name is actually Lianne."

"What´s wrong with Lianne? At least my name is pronounced the normal way, Jessakah!"

"Lia, leave Jack alone," Chris told her, rolling his eyes.

The boy had to work very hard to hide his smiling.

"Anyway, that´s Pyro--would you stop that!" she yelled at the girl as the girl with the blue-tipped hair backed quickly away from Lia, looking all around the room to say `I´m innocent´. The effect was slightly ruined by the laughter trying to escape her lips. Lia scowled heavily as Pyro burst into laughter.

"I was wondering how long it would take you to realize what I was doing," she said. She turned and grinned at the boy. Had he been standing, he felt that he would have backed away as quickly as his injuries would allow him to.

"Pyro...gah!...that´s Kirsten"--Lia pointed towards the girl in the doorway with the wavy blond hair--"and that´s Inad. She wasn´t in the accident. Well...unless you count in her head." Lia jerked her thumb in the direction of the muscular girl and rolled her eyes.

"And your name would be..." Inad inquired.

"Er...that is..." the boy stammered. He looked down at his sheets again.

"Inad!" The boy suddenly wondered why they all had such strange names. Jack´s had already been explained, he realized, but Inad and Pyro--wasn´t that another word for someone obsessed with fire?

"I don´t remember..."

Inad looked apologetic. "Oops..."

"I know!" Lia said suddenly, massaging her bandaged arm. "Zack!"

"Huh?" everyone asked.

"We´ll call you Zack!" Lia rounded on him, who started and winced as pain erupted pretty much everywhere on his body.

"That´s a stupid name!" Pyro, Jack, and Kirsten burst out at once.

Zack...? he thought. Hmmm...

"Not really. Think about it! He´s an amnesiac until he gets his memory back, right? And take of amne and you get siac. Okay, it´s not Zack, but it´s close enough."

It makes sense, he agreed mentally.

"Well...it´s a name," Inad agreed with a shrug. "We can´t go around saying, `Hey, you!´ for the rest of the day."

"Well, we could," Jack said. "Nobody would understand who we were talking to, though."

"When are they going to let you guys out of here?" Inad asked after a small moment of silence.

"The evil nurses told me that we had to stay overnight to `see if our conditions improved´ or not. Chris and Lia...I don´t know." Jack tugged on one of her orange strands as she said this.

"They said that I can go home--but I can´t drive. The whole `one-handed´ thing doesn´t appeal to them, I guess. Plus, we don´t have enough space in my car."

"Um...Lia?" Pyro shifted in her chair.

"Huh?"

"Your car is in the shop--remember? You crashed it into a tree."

Inad exploded with renewed fury. "You crashed it into a tree?!"

Lia let out a noise that sounded like, "Meep!"

`Zack´ felt the corners of his lips twitch into a smile, but managed to keep it in check.

"Yeah...you nearly killed me!" Kirsten was back in the argument again.

"You were the only one who wasn´t hurt!" Jack protested.

"Nuh-uh--what about you?"

Jack made a face that plainly read "duh!" and pointed to the cut on her forehead.

"What´s up with your arm, anyway?" Inad asked, nodding her head towards Lia´s arm.

Lia screwed up her face and rubbed her left arm sympathetically. "Evidently, the window shattered and cut open my arm. Unfortunately, it also cut open the muscle, so I won´t be swimming--or doing any sport, for that matter--for a while." She turned to Chris so quickly that everyone jumped. "Happy? Huh?"

"Not very," Chris commented. "Either way, I´m in a wheelchair slash crutches for the next year--NOT IN THE WATER!"

Jack and Pyro began to mouth the word "OBSESSIVE!" to each other. Obviously, thy were more aware of each other´s thoughts than the others.

Zack jumped again when Inad smacked the back of Lia´s head. "And you still nearly killed Kirsten!"

Jack, Chris, Pyro, and Lia yelled out in unison, "Give it a break!" The only one not part of the group was Pyro, who yelled, "Chill!"

"She came closer to--" Someone outside the room knocked on the door and began to open it.

"Hide!" Inad hissed, and all of the teens who were standing--or sitting, in Pyro´s case--leapt behind the divider that partially hid Zack´s bed from view.

~&~

Ron rubbed his hand over Hermione´s back in an attempt to ease her sobbing. The police had said that it would take them a while to find out where Harry was, since the only description of the accident was what the car looked like and that it had hit a tree. No hospitals had Harry´s name on their patient roster. Dumbledore hadn´t returned Hedwig with a reply to Ron and Hermione´s frantic letter.

"They´ll find him," he said, more to convince himself than to comfort Hermione.

"Ron..." he felt her turn to look at him. She looked up at him, her splotched, red face very close to his, and he felt the sudden urge to...

He shook himself mentally. What would Harry say if he came back and Hermione no longer liked him the way she did?

"What if they don´t?" she continued, tears beginning to drip down her face once more. "What if You-Know-Who got him?"

Ron didn´t reply. "We´ll find him...and if we don´t--I don´t know, Hermione. I just don´t know..."

~&~

"Well, Chris, the doctor says that we need to take one last x-ray before deciding when to let you go. Come along--into the wheelchair."

Damn wheelchair, Chris thought bitterly as the nurse gently pulled his bad leg out of the suspended sling. Damn nurses, damn Lia´s brother´s car...damn Louis for even lending it to her in the first place! He suddenly smiled wickedly. Yeeess...Louis´ car... He glanced over at Lia´s face among the five heads that poked tentatively out from behind the dividing curtain. This is going to be interesting...

[Nova: Evilness towards Lia...fun...]

~&~

Inad watched Chris´ facial expression change from anger to an evil grin. Realizing that he was looking at Lia, she wondered curiously what he was thinking. Don´t tell me that the tables have turned, she thought, and grinned as well. This´ll be fun...

[Nova: what do you mean, `tables have turned´? What tables? Are they round?]

[VWW: No more ice cream for you before betaing...]

~&~

Pyro watched the domino effect of evil grins appear on all faces but Lia´s and Zack´s. What is going on? she wondered. When the door snapped shut, Pyro was the first standing to check that no one was coming down the hall.

"What was that evil-grin thing all about?" she asked, glancing between Jack, Kirsten, and Inad.

"That´s what I would like to know," Lia agreed. The three teens looked between each other and giggled.

"Oh, nothing," Inad said, smiling innocently at Lia.

"Not really," Kirsten agreed, nodding.

"Just remembering what happened last year," Jack concluded.

Pyro glanced at the closed door, and then to Lia. Chris...Lia...last year... "Oh..." Pyro said. "Oh!" Now she was laughing.

"What happened last year?" Zack asked. Pyro laughed even harder as she watched Lia hide her face in her hands--or at least attempt to, anyway. Since she couldn´t bring her left arm up, over half of her face was still visible and turning bright red.

"You guys are so mean," she whined.

"I don´t get it," Zack said. Lia had been right--he did have a British accent.

Pyro grinned. "That´s okay. You probably won´t get a lot of things that we say for a long time."

"Not this decade, anyway," Jack added.

"Or the next."

"Maybe not even the one after that." Pyro grinned again at the expression on Zack´s face and decided to take a little mercy on him. "We´re kidding...don´t´ worry; we do that a lot."

A muffled noise that sounded like sniggering came from Lia´s face.

"Oh, hush," Kirsten said, slapping her lightly on the left arm. Lia gasped and pulled it away before she could do it again.

"Mind the arm, would you?"

"Sorry, Lia."

"You know," Jack said suddenly, "I´m thinking it might be a good idea to head back to our rooms about now."

"Why?" Pyro asked. She didn´t see any other reason apart from the fact that it was nearly noon. "Hang on...when is lunch?"

"Exactly. Let´s just...walk on."

"I don´t know about you, but I don´t plan on eating anything from this lousy excuse for a hospital!" Pyro joked with a grin.

"Bye," Zack said, looking slightly sad.

Lia mumbled something under her breath and went to the door. After looking both ways, she said, "Okay...the coast is clear."

Pyro crept out after her, looking both ways as well. "Our room is over that way," she said, pointing to the right.

"Oh, yeah?" Lia hissed, sounding competitive. "Ours is that way." She pointed down the hallway to the left.

"Oh yeah? Well, I´m the beta reader. I win."

Lia glared, then said, "Fine. Have fun with the crazy twins." [A/N: no, they´re not really twins.]

Pyro looked to the two giggling teens beside her and groaned.

"Adios."

"Jack, you said it wrong."

"Fine. À bientôt, then."

Pyro turned and scurried down the hallway, Kirsten and Inad hot on her heels. "I really hope we don´t get caught," Kirsten noted absently as they turned the corner. "They might decide to keep us here a bit longer."

"No. Technically they can´t detain you just for sneaking out. They can, however, give you hospital detention. I´ve heard about it from my mom--she´s a nurse, remember?--and how horrible it is."

"Really?" asked Inad.

"Yup."

Pyro was glad that her two very gullible friends couldn´t see the smirk on her face.

~&~

"This thing sends out how much radiation?" Chris poked at the large and heavy vest that he wore with one finger. He found out the hard way that it didn´t make his finger feel too good.

"Enough," the doctor said. "Now, I´ll be standing right out here. If you start to get scared--"

"I´m fifteen, not five," Chris said, irritated.

The doctor nodded. "So you are. I normally work with children, though."

Do I look like a child? Chris thought.

As the doctor went behind the wall she had pointed out earlier, Chris looked around the small room. The walls were white. The tiles on the ground were white. The lab coats on the white plastic hooks on the wall were white.

Are they trying to make people go insane? he wondered incredulously. That would explain why most nurses and doctors retire early. You know, they never say why they retire. They pretend it´s `cuz they have enough money to, but I´ve discovered the truth: thy really go insane and have to be locked up in mental wards with white rubber walls and white speakers that other, not-so-insane doctors talk to them through. Ah ha ha ha he he!!!

A strange mix between a buzzing noise and high-pitched clicks filled the room and made him want to cover his ears.

"Okay! Now we´ll wait for the x-ray to come back from the--"

"When do I get to swim again?" Chris interrupted.

"That depends on how fast you heal, Christopher."

Chris felt like he could have picked up the chair his leg was resting on and thrown it across the room at the doctor. He didn´t like the use of his full name; he had stopped using it in the fifth grade. He didn´t like that he wasn´t being told anything. He didn´t like--

"That was fast." The doctor´s voice broke the momentary silence as though it were glass. Chris looked up and saw that a young girl in a candy-striper outfit was handing an envelope to the doctor, who proceeded to open it and put the film on the light box. Chris glanced at the girl, who winked at him before she left. Chris was confused.

"Well!" Chris jumped and swore out loud when his leg banged against the chair. The doctor gave him a stern look (which the patient ignored), and glanced back at the x-ray. "You´re healing quicker than normal. The swelling has also gone down enough that we can put a proper cast on it."

"And I´ll be swimming when...?"

"If your leg continues to heal at this rate...between six and eight months."

Lia... Chris growled in his head. That´s not fast enough, dammit!

"By the way: why is there a pink hair elastic in your hair?"

Chris´ hand flew up to one of the short curls that had felt heavier than the rest for a while. Sure enough, something was wrapped around it. He pulled it off, and saw that it was not only pink, but bright pink.

Pink...?

Inad.

~&~

"Necklace...necklace...where is my necklace? Oh, there it is...watch...watch..."

"Lia, you can´t wear your watch."

"Why? It´s my watch!"

"YOU HAVE A BANDAGE OVER YOUR WRIST, STUPID!" Jack sighed, frustrated, and tucked an orange strand behind her ear.

"I keep forgetting about that..."

"Lia, you´re an idiot."

"Thank you."

"You´re welcome."

A knock came from the door. "It´s Chris and Zack. Can we come in, or would we need to gouge out our eyes?"

"I take that as a personal insult!" Lia cried.

Jack closed her eyes and shook her head. "Chris, you´re asking for it."

The door opened to the sound of Chris chuckling.

"Ahh," Jack said half-heartedly. "Help. Rape."

Chris responded in his regular fashion. "Quit touching my breasts!"

"Shut it," Lia said, stuffing the last of the stuff she couldn´t wear into her bag and pulling it over her right shoulder. "I feel lopsided now."

"Skyviewitis*," Chris commented.

"How do you know about that?" Lia asked.

"Pyro."

"Ahh." Lia let her bag fall off her shoulder and sit in the crook of her arm. "Is the taxi here yet?"

"Probably not. Anyw--" Lia shot Jack a look. "Anyway, how did you manage to get a Kelso taxi company to drive all the way to Seattle and back?"

"I wriggled my fingers and said a magic word," Lia said impishly.

Right, Jack thought, rolling her eyes. I don´t even want to know.

"Is that far away from here?" Zack asked. Jack noted that he was squinting slightly, as though he couldn´t see them correctly.

"Three, maybe four hours."

"What?" Chris exclaimed. "Seven of us in one of those things? And with Lia´s arm and my leg?!" He tapped his crutch lightly against the crisp white cast.

"How do you think Inad got here? By donkey?"

[Pyro: Donkey donkey have nice teeth..."ye be a pretty wench" "who? Donkey?!"]

[VWW: Like I said, no more ice cream...]

"She drove?"

"Yesss, Chris...she does have a driver´s license, you know." Chris grumbled about not saying so in the first place. "Just because you´re not old enough to have your license yet, Chris, doesn´t mean we don´t have them."

[Pyro: Chris is younger than everyone, and the only male in a group of females...is he gay? How do they all know him if he´s younger? These are the mysteries...]

[VWW: SHUT UP, ALREADY!!! I GET YOUR STINKIN´ POINT!!!]

After about ten more minutes of watching Lia and Chris throw insults back and forth, she decided to take matters into her own hands and left the room.

"Lobby...lobby," Jack muttered to herself as she walked. One of the nurses turned onto the hallway and upon seeing her, he headed right towards her.

Crap, a male nurse, Jack thought, gritting her teeth. Now what?

"Visitor hours are from eight to eleven and one to four-thirty, Miss. You shouldn´t even be up here."

"I´m a patient; trust me, I´m allowed to be up here," Jack answered, irritated. Evil, she thought. They´re all evil!

"Well, then, you´re supposed to be in your room." He grabbed her arm and started to pull her back down the hallway after a glance at her ID bracelet. "Now, Jessica--"

"Okay," Jack said, her cheeks reddening at the improper pronunciation of her full name. "First of all, it´s Jess-AH-kuh, not Jessica. Second of all, my cab should be here. I´m go to go check out now, if you´ll excuse me."

"Sorry. Just trying to do my job."

Jack wrenched her elbow out of his grasp. Go do your "job" elsewhere, then.

As they parted ways, Jack heard the nurse say, "It must be her `time of the month´."

Asshole!

~&~

Pyro had had enough.

"Will you two stop?!" she yelled. Inad and Kirsten stopped in mid-giggle.

"Stop what?" Inad asked. Pyro jabbed at her head with her forefinger a few times.

"But we like talking in our heads," Kirsten said aloud, grinning. Inad nodded her head in agreement and promptly giggled.

Pyro looked up at the ceiling and mouthed the words, "Help me!"

~&~

Chris resisted the strong urge to take his crutches and throw it at Zack. The boy was being much too quiet, saying few words when he said anything at all. He could tell by the look on Lia´s face that it was making her edgy as well. Especially since she was a very talkative person.

"So how did you get a Kelso taxi to drive to Seattle?"

Lia´s face reddened and she coughed slightly.

"Well...um...the owner happens to be...well..."

"Don´t tell me that it´s Sam´s father!" Chris groaned, remembering Lia´s last boyfriend.

"Actually--and thankfully!--no. He´s one of those guys who will flirt over the phone with any girl that will hold still long enough, so I kinda...flirted back..."

Chris had an image of Lia sitting in a chair by a phone, twirling one of her curls around a finger and flirting outrageously with a forty-some-year-old-man who probably weighed over two hundred pounds. "Lia!"

She giggled slightly and blushed even redder. "He was under the assumption that I was in my twenties."

"Off by about ten years! You never could do math..."

Lia grabbed the hood of her sweatshirt and pulled it over her head, shoved her hair over her face, and looked down at her knees. Chris began to snigger. He had never seen Lia this embarrassed before.

A muffled, "Shut up," came from her direction, sending Chris into a fit of laughter, which made him almost fall over.

"Can´t you see that you´re embarrassing her?" Zack´s voice asked. Chris jumped and swore loudly for the second time that day as his cast banged against the floor.

"It´s okay," Lia said through her hair. "We do this all the time."

"What, make jokes until you want to sink into the floor?" Chris gaped at Zack in surprise and saw that he wore a look of seriousness that no teenager ever was able to obtain--at least, not in America.

"Wow, you really are British. And she doesn´t get embarrassed easily, so it´s really funny when she does."

"Everyone pick on Lia," she said.

Uh-oh, Chris thought. She´s talking in the third person...

"Just like this morning when Jack--" She stopped abruptly. "I´ll be leaving now."

"No," Chris said, putting out his hand (and nearly falling over) to stop her from leaving. "What did Jack do?"

"Nothing," Lia said a little too quickly. She looked up, her face still pink, her eyes a deep green.

Oh, shit! Chris thought. She´s either going to cry or get really angry right about now.

As it turned out, Lia had time to do neither, because the door opened and Jack stuck her head in, a malicious grin on her face.

"What are you being so evil about now?" Chris asked, mildly curious.

"Inad and Kirsten are driving Pyro crazy, and it´s absolutely hilarious. Oh, and the cab´s here.

~&~

Hermione wrapped her arms around Ron´s waist and sighed deeply. "What do you think he´s thinking about right now?" she asked, her voice wavering a bit.

"Probably where he is, or what we´re doing," Ron answered. He tensed as Hermione placed her head on his chest. She´s his, he thought fiercely. No matter your feelings, she´s his. An evil little voice in his head suggested that Harry was gone, though. Ron pushed the thought violently away, instead visioning the look on Harry´s if he came back and discovered Hermione no longer loved him the way she had.

If he came back.

~&~

"Let´s try this again: Kirsten, Zack, and me in the cab, and everyone else goes with Inad."

"But I want to be with Inad!"

"Kirsten, you´ll drive them all crazy."

"I don´t care!"

"For Pete´s sake Pyro, put them together!"

"Who´s Pete? And why should I torture my friend´s for his sake? And why am I even in charge of the seating arrangement? And if I am in charge of it, how come you keep arguing my decisions? And--"

"Shut up, Pyro," Jack cut in. Pyro held up three fingers towards her; Jack returned the gesture. "You´re in charge because you took charge."

"So now you´re blaming it on me?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Zack leaned into the wheelchair he was sitting in and watched the six friends argue.

Pyro tugged on the blue part of her hair and thought again.

"Why not let Jack drive her car," Zack found himself saying, "Inad, Kirsten, and I can take the...cab"--the word didn´t feel right coming from him--"and Pyro, Chris, and Lia can go with Jack."

Lia gave him a sympathetic look. "Are you sure you want to sit with those two maniacs all the way back to Vancouver?"

"I don´t mind," Zack answered. "It´ll give me time to think."

"What if they drive him crazy?" Jack asked, nodding her head in the direction of the cabbie, who belched loudly at that moment.

"Maniacs, Lia?" Kirsten said, her eyebrows arched. "You think we´re maniacs?!"

"Would you prefer psychopaths?"

"Maniacs is fine," Inad said.

"I´m about te start chargin´ by the minute," the cabbie interrupted, checking his watch. "An´ I have the feelin´ yer parent´s wouldn´t `preciate ya spendin´ their money."

"Inad, gimme the keys," Jack said quickly.

"How about we give them to Pyro?" Lia suggested. "She doesn´t drive like your mother.

"Are you suggesting--"

"Here, Jack," Inad said, throwing her three keys attached to about twenty key chains, including (but not limited to) three small fuzzy (and pink) cows, two little red trucks (which matched Inad´s), and perhaps seven different flavors of chaptstick. Jack caught it by one of the pink cows [A/N: I just realized how redic redick stupid that is, since it would look like a pig!] and ran off towards the truck, quickly followed by Pyro, Lia (who ran lopsidedly) and a hobbling Chris. Zack watched them pile into the car (Chris and Lia bickered over who sat where in the back before Jack yelled something out the window. They practically leapt in after that), and then turned back to the cab.

"Okay. You get the front, Zack," Inad said, and started to push the wheelchair towards the passenger door. Something on the side caught Zack´s eye, so he turned his head to look at it.

Owl taxi.

Why did that seem so familiar?

//Hundreds of graceful birds flew through the windows, flooding the open hall. Each one searched for its master, bearing its package or letter with pride. His own Hedwig soared down to him, a letter clamped tight in her beak.\

"Hedwig," Zack said.

"What?" Inad said, stopping so suddenly that Zack was jolted.

"Hedwig. My pet..."

Kirsten and Inad kneeled down in front of him, as though he were a young child having woken up from a bad dream.

"Hedwig?"

"What kind of pet?"

"Everyone in the cab!" the man yelled, leaning on the horn at the same time.

Their sympathetic, curious expressions turned to ones of anger at the cabbie´s impatience; Kirsten pulled the door open so hard that Zack thought it would come off its hinges, and Inad practically dumped him in. Zack found the seats relatively comfortable, though a rank odor came from them. I´m keeping the window open, he thought.

Inad´s truck roared to life, causing Zack to jump. The cab followed suit (though at a lower volume), and they were off, first out of the parking lot, and then on their way out of Seattle.

~&~

"Stop at the Burger King over there, would you?" Pyro asked, pointing with her good hand at the restaurant.

"Sure," Jack answered. "I was getting hungry anyways. And I could use a break. How `bout you two back there? You´ve been awfully quiet."

"Jack--shh! Look!" Pyro jabbed her painfully in the ribs. Jack pulled into the lot and parked the car in an empty spot near the entrance. After turning the key in the ignition to stop the motor, she pivoted to look at Lia and Chris.

"Aww...good thing they´re not awake; it would spoil the moment entirely."

"Get the camera!" Pyro whispered, excited. Jack bent over the back of the seat, rummaging around for Lia´s bag. She found it and pulled it back over the seat.

"Let´s see..." She unzipped it and began to go through it. "The Notebook, Lia´s diary--Pyro, put that down. We don´t go through your diary," Jack said as the black-and-blue haired teen opened the front cover.

"Just wanted to see what she´s said about Chris from last year," Pyro said innocently.

"Uh-huh..."

"Oh, shut up. You know that you´re curious too!" Pyro made a move to flip to the latest entry, but found the little book gone from her hands and hastily stuffed into the bottom of the bag.

Jack found the camera five minutes later in one of the side pockets on the bag and turned around again.

Chris´ leg had been propped up to the side on the floor by his jacket and Lia´s swimming sweatshirt. He was leaning against the car door. Lia was up against him, her left arm resting on top of his right. Her head had tried, obviously, to rest on his shoulder, but because he was so tall, it ended up leaning against his upper arm. A few of the markers that had been in her hands from when she had been drawing little multi-colored sheep all over his cast had fallen from her nimble fingers.

"You know what would be really funny? If we opened the car door..." Pyro said with a devilish smile.

"Oh!" Jack whimpered. "You´re so mean!"

"She´ll kill us if we take the picture," Pyro said with an evil grin.

"But we could use it for blackmail!"

"Then take it!"

Jack leaned back as far as she dared and pressed the shutter. Once the flash went off, she tucked it back in its pouch and put it back where she found it. Once again facing in the right direction, she wondered, What would happen if someone happened to wake them up?

Looking down at the steering wheel, she got the perfect idea.

"What do you say we have a bit of fun?" she said to Pyro, who grinned in agreement.

Jack leaned on the horn as hard as she could.