*distant rattling*

 

    Jazzy jumped out of bed and ran with Sparrow into the girls’ room. “The beez go BUZZED!” he shouted as he jumped onto one of the beds. Specifically the one next to the window, which resulted in a book slapping him in the face. Jazzy fell off of the bed and fell on his bum, feeling a shooting pain throb from his bum to his spine and erupt in his head. 

    “Back off ye bamboozled frog mcnugget,” Pluto said to him from where she sat up in bed.

    “What book did you smack me with?” Jazzy asked. 

    “An encyclopedia over how to kill people. Frankly, one of them was to smack somebody with a book. It didn’t work,” Pluto sighed looking very disappointed. 

    “Why do you look so disappointed!?” Jazzy questioned mildly fearful for his life.

    “‘Cause your vocal cords are still vibrating you expired coupon.”

    “Haha,” Jazzy said with little enthusiasm. He popped to his feet and brushed off his pajama pants. “Anyway. We playing a little game of finding Coach. You're coming with.”

    “I call Pluto!” Sherlock immediately shouts.

    “Wait, why do you get Pluto?” Sparrow asked. 

    “Because two brains are better than one with both thinking alike!” Pluto and Sherlock shouted in unisan. 

    “I can’t believe you two are abandoning me,” Sparrow stated with a look of mocked betrayal.

    Pops walked into the conversation with Noodles clinging to her arm, “What’s going down now, kiddos?”

    “I got slapped with an encyclopedia!” Jazzy said excitedly. “Bucket list still ain’t finished but I’m down by one!”

    Pluto gave Jazzy a questioning look, “What are you a masochist?”

    Jazzy grinned and snapped his fingers into finger guns toward Pluto, “Yes.”

    “Do you even know what that means?” Pluto asked. 

    Jazzy continued to smile, “Don’t have the slightest clue.”

    “Idiots,” Sparrow said, walking out the door to the darkness of outside, “Ya’ll coming or not?”

    Pops sighed and waved them along with his free hand, “Yes, let’s get going. Maybe Coach will have a flashlight for us to borrow or somethin’. And get your shoes on. We don’t need a nail going into any of your kiddo’s feets.”

    Noodles whimpered as they continued outside. If there was something scarier than the dark inside, it was the dark outside. Number one, it was bigger outside and lots of things creeped and crawled outside. 

    Jazz Naruto runned out of the motel room with a screech. In result, Noodles screamed and jumped at least three feet into the air and into Pop’s arms. 

    Turtle and McLovin’ joined the others outside not long after although they couldn’t really see anyone, the street lights were out. “Oh poor Noodles, you alright hun’?” Turtle asked as he saw Noodles holding a death grip onto Pop’s classic Pepsi shirt. 

    “Alright everyone enough pointless banter let's get down to business, I would like to go back to bed.” Pluto cut in an annoyed tone.

    “But little Noodles over here is terrified!” Turtle said at Pop’s side

    “Well standing here isn't going to help. Let's find Coach and get on with it.” With that Pluto turned around to see that the bus that they had arrived here with was in fact, missing. “Wait…” Pluto turned to the group and then back to the missing bus, “Wasn’t the bus broken down?”

“Yes,” Pops said with tense eyebrows as she too was confused by this. “Guess this gives us more reason to find Coach and let him know the bus driver left without us.”

Noodles whimpered with tears flooding his cheeks, “This isn’t good!”

Pops set Noodle’s back on his feet and patted his head, “It’s going to be just fine. We all have our phones. We can just call our parents or someone to pick us up.”

“Okay,” Noodles said. He clung onto Pop’s arm. 

    “Speaking of which, why don’t we see if we can wake coach up by calling him.” Pluto said with a look of realization on her face, which no one could really see.

    Sparrow immediately took her phone out of her pocket and tried to turn it on. “Mine must be dead,” Sparrow said as her’s stayed off. “Could have sworn I charged it…” She trailed off.

    Pops pulled out hers and looked at it’s black screen as it didn’t respond to the click of the home button. “Well dang, mine is too. Since power is out too we can’t charge them either. Anyone got one that’s not dead?”

    Sherlock took hers out to check only to discover that it was dead. “Mines dead too.”

    “Aw, mines dead too,” Jazzy said. 

    “Does anyones phone work?” Pluto asked looking down at her black screen.

    “No.” Turtle replies after trying to turn his phone on.

    “Noodles, do you have one?” Pops asked. 

    “I lost it,” Noodles said. 

    “Well why didn’t you say something?” Sparrow asked. 

    Noodles played with the leather of Pop’s bracelet, “I didn’t want to. Plus it always buzzes and so I thought it would just buzz.”

    “When was the last time you had it?” Turtles asked. 

    Noodles lowered his head, “On the bus.”

    Sparrow facepalmed, “Well you're not getting it back now, so let's just go find Coach. Does anyone know what room he was in?”

    “Did he even have a room?” Sherlock asked. 

    The group was silent as they realized Coach never really said that he had a room, nevertheless where he was going.

    “He left us!” Noodles shrieked.

    “Let's not get in over our heads, just because we don’t know where exactly Coach is. It doesn’t mean he isn’t still here,” Pluto started, “We should head to the front desk and ask which room he is in.”

    “Good idea,” Pops said. “Come on, kiddos. It’s getting late and I’m tired.”

    “We’re the same age,” Sherlock muttered dejectedly.

    “And I am taller than you,” Pops said as she passed Sherlock. 

    “Say goodbye to your kneecaps coward,” Sherlock muttered.

    “Eh, never needed them anyway,” Pops said. “Now come al- woop!” A black cat sprinted in front of them and into the forest to the side of the building.

    “I’m gonna pet it!” Sherlock announced before dashing off in the direction of the cat.

    “NO!” Sparrow shouted and ran after Sherlock. 

    “I’ll make sure they don’t die.” Pluto sighed out before running after the two.

    “Stay safe!” Turtle shouted out after them. “I worry about those three,” he continued with a frown on his face.

    “Ima join them!” Jazzy ran after the trio and shouting as he did so, “WAIT FOR ME!”

    “Make that four,” Turtle said with an exhausted sigh. “Shall we go to the front desk?”

    “Yes, we should,” Pops said in agreement. 

    “Mhm,” Noodles whimpered with a nod.

    “Oh don’t worry, Noodles,” Pops said, giving him a pat on the head, “This will all be fixed before you know it.”