P.S: Using my name in 3rd person makes me feel retarded.
Alarm goes off. The standard “bzzt… bzzt…”. It shocked Stephanie’s brain awake so fast she almost back-flipped out of her bed and into her shoes. But in that split second neuron blast between the first and second “bzzt”, in which she usually plots out her school day lightning-fast, she drew a blank. Something was off. There was no plink-plink of the coffee maker, no lively glow of the living room touch lamp, and no obnoxious clamor of her dad doing the goddamned dishes in the unholy hours of the morning. No, Stephanie was quite sure she was the only stirring body in the house. Just then, between the third and fourth “bzzt”, her brain realized that it was Saturday. That jarring pulse under her pillow was no alarm, it was a phone call. Suddenly everything clicked and she launched the phone at her face without even looking at the caller ID.
“Whgfrtszph,” Stephanie spoke into the receiver. Amazing, she thought, how the brain can be so literate and sophisticated while the rest of you sounds like a two year old. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Gudmroninghallow?” Not quite. But good enough. There was a sleepy laugh on the other end.
“Hey Stoof. I wake you up?” a low voice said. Steff answered with a small slurred noise. Oh. It’s Gary. “I understand completely,” Said the voice. “Being up this early is insane. Are you ready for going to the middle-of-fucking-nowhere, Maryland?” Stephanie smiled to herself. This is why she was up so early. A road trip with a boy who, four years ago, she would’ve killed to spend a day with. Today they were going to some desolate town to blow things up. It was RedGlare, the rocketfest, which celebrated the time honored tradition of making poor nearby farmers crap their pants.
