Page 25 of Pick Me Up On Tuesdays

“Drive faster! DRIVE FASTER!” Max yelled at the bus driver, who, to his credit, was already flooring it.

I pushed against my seat with all my force, totally regretting having done this trip in the first place. Joy was laughing maniacally, recording the pandemonium while Mia attempted to achieve "dramatic cinematic footage" of the catastrophe.

What a couple. Sometimes I happen to think that they met in a mental asylum.

Then Mr. Dax woke up.

He shot up so fast that I could feel his neck break. His eyes, wide and full of fury, locked onto the scene outside.

“WHO DARES?!” he bellowed, his voice shaking the entire bus.

The Boulder High’s students cheered and threw another egg, which splattered right against his forehead.

The silence that followed was deadly.

Mr. Dax slowly wiped the egg off his face, took a deep breath, and turned to us with a calm that was somehow even more terrifying than his usual shouting.

“This,” he said darkly, “is a personal vendetta.”

Oh, great. We were all going to die.

By the time we made it to the nearest roadside carwash, the smell of eggs had become part of my soul.

Ethan, standing beside me, wrinkled his nose. “I think I lost ten years of my life inhaling that.”

“Good,” I muttered. “Maybe you’ll stop tormenting me sooner.”

Mia was already gathering everyone for interviews. “How does it feel to be victims of a cruel and unnecessary act of war?”

“Like a crime has been committed,” Joy said solemnly, placing a hand on her heart. “I demand revenge.”

Mr. Dax, who was standing nearby, clenched his fists. “Oh, we will have revenge.”

I sighed. This trip was going to be the death of me.

After a suffocating few hours, or should I say decades, we finally—finally—came to a stop in front of what was essentially a carwash-hotel mashup—because apparently, those existed in this fairy-tale universe. The sign above the door throbbed ominously, reading "BLOOD & SUDS: Fine Dining & Auto Detailing." That was already two red flags too high.

"Oh, lovely," I muttered, rubbing my temples. "A place that sounds like it caters to vampires only and their car-cleaning needs. Just what I wanted."

Joy elbowed me. "Come on, Clark, it’s an experience. What if we find a haunted breadstick?" Damn, I swear she was using that tone that had gotten me in more trouble than I could care to count. Including this one.

"What if we find vampires that feed on humans? Not elves like you. HUMANS.”

She giggled as if she had forgotten that vampires only ate humans, and she wasn't one. Her pointy ears could attest to that. But in this century, there were no such cases as vampires feeding on any creatures let alone humans. Otherwise, Mia would have made dinner out of me ages ago.

Ethan, who had been half-asleep in his seat, finally stretched and grinned. "I hope we do. I’d like to see if they sparkle."

Mr. Dax, awakened from his nap (a nap that resembled a chainsaw having an identity crisis), stood and stretched.

Don't ask me how this dwarf could sleep in such a stench. The answer is so racist.

"Alright, people! Food break. Bus gets a wash. No funny business."

Max leaned back in his seat. "Define 'funny business.'"

Mr. Dax shot him a look. "Do you want to write another essay?"

Max immediately stood up. "Nope. Let’s go eat."

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