What she didn’t enjoy was the rain shower that passed over. It spent just enough time above them to make the inside of the car just the right level of miserably damp. She started checking the radio stations while she was sitting there. The FM bands all gave her nothing but static. The AM band had one station that she could just make out. She listened intently for about thirty minutes to the ramblings of the announcer. According to the man on the radio this was all some sort of UFO driven pod people government conspiracy to turn them all into impossible burgers to feed the people from Atlantis. In the thirty minutes she painstakingly spent picking out what the man was saying around the bursts of static the only two things she didn’t hear blamed for the current situation were the loch ness monster and bigfoot.
She sighed and turned the radio off after a quick scan to validate none of the other channels were broadcasting anything. She turned the air conditioning up to get a few more blasts of cold air before she killed the engine. They were going to have to suffer some to conserve gas. She put her own seat back and reclined backwards looking out the broken windows around the car. Feeling comfortable with the cold air from the vent hitting her in the chest she closed her eyes to relax for a second.
She woke up confused. She’d been in the middle of a dream about being in the shower. It was dark outside. She was lying in a wet car seat that wasn’t even reclined. Seeing the broken shards of glass around the edges of the window finally woke her up. She was supposed to be on guard duty! She sat up so fast she gave herself a head rush. She swiveled around to look behind her and saw that the boys were still both asleep. A loud roll of thunder echoed through the open car. Drew stirred then looked up at her.
“Is it night already? How long did I sleep?” He mumbled. He started fumbling around for the door handle. He needed to get out urgently and relieve the pressure in his bladder.
“It’s not nighttime yet I don’t think. Just the standard Florid afternoon liquid sunshine.” Yue said nervously. Seeing Drew getting out of the car and standing in the rain made her realize she needed to urgently do the same thing. Except for her it was all a bit more complicated than just standing beside the car and letting it fly.
“Well what time is it?” Drew asked from the other side of the car as Yue positioned herself in the rain trying to hold the small umbrella over her head and squat down all at the same time. She decided to ignore him since she had no idea what the answer was. For all she knew it really was getting dark outside.
“It’s about five.” LeBron called out from inside the car. Evidently everyone had decided it was time to wake up. Yue realized the car was dead because it’d ran out of gas when she fell asleep with the engine still running. That meant she was going to have to fill up the tank. That also meant she was going to have to explain why the tank was empty.
“Hey Drew, can you help me top off the tank?” Yue asked. She was hoping he wouldn’t notice that topping it off really meant filling it up. She was standing up holding the umbrella over her head as the wind picked up and started driving the rain sideways. Around the back LeBron had popped up the rear cargo door using it as a nice wide shelter to stand under while he took care of his business. He was the only one of them who wasn’t soaking wet. He zipped up and went to sit back down in the car waggling his wounded hand around in the air.
“Sorry I can’t be much help!” LeBron told Yue as he passed by her on his way to get back into the car. Not that it was going to be a whole lot more pleasant inside the windowless auto considering the rain was now pouring in from every direction. Yue muttered something unpleasant to LeBron as she met Drew in the trunk of the car. Drew grabbed a gas jug and Yue went with him to help pour it in the tank. It didn’t really take two of them, but she was feeling guilty about having wasted the gas in the first place. She also wanted to make sure he didn’t spill any of it.
“Did you fall asleep with the engine running?” Drew asked her quietly. Faced with the direct question Yue didn’t see a way to avoid telling Drew the truth. She decided to just not answer.
“I’m going to check on dad.” She replied to Drew who was grinning and shaking his head mockingly at her. Yue was pretty much always the perfect one in the family, so she was mortified to have been caught out in having made such a dumb mistake. A mistake that could’ve resulted in something a lot worse than just running out of gas.
She forgot all about her screwup when she looked into the third row and saw how miserable her dad looked. Bart was sweating like crazy. He smiled up at Yue as she lowered her hand to his forehead. He was burning up.
“I’ve got to hit the head.” He told her. She stared at him strangely for a second before doing the mental math and translating his request. She’d
