Once Upon A Dime (hiatus)

2. Carnivals and Claustrophobia

"Is everyone ready to go?" Dad asks, peeking through the rearview mirror to scan over his passengers.

Being crammed towards the back and shoved to the far most window seat, you could say I'm having a wonderful time so far. Paris thought it was necessary to bring her three, morbidly obese friends, as to make herself look thinner in the eyes of anyone who could be watching. Maya, Rory, and Alexandra are their names.

Now, generally, I don't have a problem with overweight people, but in this instance, it's driving me insane. I don't think Rory or Maya understand the term 'personal space', since both of them start yelling over the seat at Alexandra, who accidentally spilled her drink. As well, I can't get Rory's left thigh off of my leg, and I'm inching closer to insanity than I ever thought possible.

"Mrs. Hernandez? How much longer?" Maya says, flaunting her annoyingly high voice that she thinks is by quote, 'adorable.'

"Maya, honey, we haven't left yet." Mom stifles sweetly, holding back obvious irritation, of which Maya doesn't notice. She quietly wails to herself, resulting in a slap on her jiggly thigh by Rory. The two have a short glaring contest, before insisting on having a cat fight, right there in the back of our 7 seat white Sierra.

They drone on and on, throwing insults at each other right and left, when Rory starts to cry. I hear her unpleasant bawling sounds as she flings her sagging limbs, back and forth in front of her, successfully hitting me multiple times with her slimy mits.

After about an hour of sitting in an uncomfortable, heated silence, forced upon us by my father, I begin to relax again. My back sinks deeper into the plush leather, and I heave a sigh out, successfully drawing the attention of Paris and her friends. They glower at me meanly, and I grunt at them, flipping my hair in their faces.

"Mom? What's a circus like?" Paris speaks before thinking, sounding flabbergasted. I'm sure she's seen pictures of…. well, I don't know. A circus. I know they have….

Okay, I don't know either. I thought it was like a carnival. What's the point of calling a carnival a circus? Why not just stick with one word?

They always have to make more words for the same meaning. Take 'always', for example. They have always, eternity, forever; why not just stick with always?

"That was a very stupid analysis." Rory whispers in my ear, and I spin around, accidentally slapping her with my flowing brown locks.

"What was?"

"The word always? You talk when you think, man." She rolls her eyes, and smiles a wide toothed grin, exposing her very evident crooked teeth with dark braces to emphasize.

"I do not!" I raise a hand to my chest, over exaggerating the offense I've 'clearly' taken.

"… has elephants balancing on balloons, tigers that can speak, men carrying 400 pound weights, and galore."

"That sounds like an average day of show and tell, at my school!" Alexandra blurts out, signaling Paris, Rory, and Maya to roll over, guffawing in laughter.

Okay, I know they're immature, but they're all freaking fifteen years old. When will they grow up, just a little bit? They're in high school, now! They should learn to at least control themselves-

"What was that?" Paris turns around, demolition engraved in her soul blackening death glare.

"N-nothing." I splutter, eager to change the subject. I must have been think-talking. I have to see a specialist on that! And a specialist for a bunch of different other things. But I'll decide on that later.