An Awfully Big Adventure

Hour Four: A Dream

4. Your character has a dream about Disney. What happens?

The three of them take Dale’s car. Although the car isn’t as spacious as Chip’s it offers better gas mileage. Even with their brains filled with wishful fantasies, they are still conscious of the cost of quickly inflating gas prices. Disneyland is expensive and any penny saved is helpful. But after going to their respective houses and grabbing a handful of cash as well as haphazardly packing a day’s worth of clothes, they decide to head off.

Wendy’s hand hovers on the doorknob, and she hastily looks backward. She is not about to change her mind. The thought of paying a visit to The Happiest Place on Earth is tantalizing and already she can feel the thrill of roller coaster rides and the joy of catching glimpses of her favorite Disney characters.

Still, she had never gutsily walked out the door with the intentions of being out for more than an hour or two. There are still a few dying embers in her veins, which convince her that this independent journey will prove that she is capable of managing on her own- without test prep and without stuffy parents breathing down her neck. Weren't they worried she couldn’t be self-sufficient? Doesn’t a journey halfway across the state constitute as autonomy?

Hurriedly, yet still maintaining a careful tiptoe, she returns back to the kitchen. Grabbing a sheet of scratch paper she jots down a note, just to let her family know that she hasn’t been kidnapped and that her escapade is completely intentional. Hopefully, it will mitigate their anger whenever she does come back.

She keeps the note brief, without stating directly where she is going, knowing that while it will piss them off, it will lessen the worry.

Out. Be back approx. 24 hours.

And with her message left out on the otherwise barren kitchen table, she walks out the front door, backpack slung over one shoulder, without looking back.

Chip and Dale are already seated in the car. They had decided to go to Chip’s house first, because the boys assumed that Wendy would take ages to pack. A prejudice that females tend to overpack, but Wendy’s backpack weighs considerably less than it does on school days. Probably because she has yet to empty out her binders and folders so they’re jam-packed with papers from the beginning of the school year in August. She has packed lightly, only taking the necessities, afraid that spending more time in her house might arise her parents from their tentative slumber.

Really, she only arrives at the car a minute or two after Dale, because she had the decency to leave a note.

Dale is ready with key in ignition, and Chip is sitting in the backseat surrounded by various food items that he has thought to bring. Wendy opens the door to shotgun and climbs in, tossing her backpack between seat and dashboard. As soon as she sits down and pulls the seat belt across herself, she pops off her shoes and places her sock claden feet on the dash. “You know, you could have sat up here, Chip. It’s nicer than the back.”

“It’s roomier back here,” he says, popping open a Pringle’s jar and jamming his large hands in the small container.

Wendy frowns, even though Chip can’t see her doing so, “Not really, there’s a ton of stuff back there.”

She is glad that she gets to sit closer to Dale and glance at him from the corner of her eye, but she feels bad that Chip is banished to the backseat.

“Don’t worry about it, Wendy. It’s comfortable back here, really.”

At this she turns around to look at him, because what kind of teenage boy just doesn’t enjoy riding shotgun? It’s not as if they can switch spots because Dale is already driving, and is fast approaching the highway.