Arranged...WHAT?!

Chapter 24- Plotting

“Naw, that place is too cool for them, let’s just go to the locked room.”

“No cause we need the tunnels to get there. I’d say pool room, but there’s an echo. And all the other rooms aren’t soundproof………I know! The art room has that stereo we can turn up so nobody’ll hear us and it’s got the whiteboards for us to draw plans on, plus the door can lock from the inside.”

“Cool, I’ll meet you guys there. I’m going to put my knives away.”

“What knives?” Rick demanded.

“The knives you can’t see, obviously.” She walked around the corner and was gone.

“Come on then.” Said Cody and the two of us followed her the opposite way that Rae went.

-(*@*)-

Cody’s POV:

We’d been sitting in the art room for two hours and nothing but a headache has come of it. Each of us took turns shouting out ideas and then another one of us would down the others idea, but nothing would ever have worked.

The large whiteboard had marker smears all over it where’d we’d written and then erased plan after plan after plan.

“We could always try the running away thing again. You know full well I wouldn’t mind ditching my grandma. And I’ve always wanted to try authentic Chinese food.”

“Your Asian, how can you never had authentic Chinese food?”

“I’ve never been to China.” She told me in a ‘duh’ voice.

I rolled my eyes. “Authentic Chinese food involves dogs. You really want to imagine eating a poor little puppy every time you try something new over there?”

“It’s not like everything is cooked with dog.” She replied, but only half-heartedly so I didn’t retaliate.

A few more moments of silence and Rick spoke up. He’d been oddly quiet through this ordeal. “Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way.”

We all looked at him like he was going crazy, cause over the last two hours we’d surely covered every ‘way’ that we could possibly have looked at this.

“Okay, let me rephrase- maybe we’re starting in the wrong place, and if we’re starting in the wrong place then there’s no doubt we’re going to end in the wrong place. Am I right?”

“That’s so-” I started, but Rae cut me off.

“Wait Code, he may have a point. It’s kind of like in karate. We’ve got all those weird rules like: use your opponents strength against them and sometimes indirect blows can hurt twice as much as an indirect blow. Well what if- and I’m not saying for sure cause this is only a ‘what if’- we need to do something like that with your guys’ parents?”

“Exactly what I was saying!” Rick said happily.

“Oh please,” Rae snorted, “you had a gutsy guess, I’m the one who actually used a brain in the process.”

“Never would’ve thought of it without me though!” Mocked Rick.

“Would you like to shut up on your own, or would you like some help with that?”

“Like you could hurt me! You’re just a little girl.”

“Shit.” I muttered under my breath. “Maybe!” I shouted to get her attention. “We should do like Rae said and start at the root of the problem. Find out how, where, why, this all started in the first place.”

“Yeah,” Jason said, “and then we can take away whatever made them this delusional, then before we know it, we’re out of a marriage!”  

“Then the next step will be getting you all out of my house- not you Rae, you can stay as long as you like.”

We all looked around at each other, and nodded simultaneously.

Operation, anti-marriage equals a go!

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I'm working on the next chapter right now, and the book will be done BEFORE Nov. 30 so i can enter it in the watty awards!!

Oh, and when I finish I'll be posting the sequal directly following the last chapter- in other words, the epilogue to this book will be the prologue to the second book. :) if that makes any more sense.

If there's anything you want to see in either book, let me know.

Eat ice cream.

Pet pandas.

Surf mountains.

=)