"I may not be my brother's keeper, but I am my brother's brother."- Jeffery R. Holland
My hands are shaking as I hold my cracked phone. One part of me is ecstatic that I get to call my foster parents (who wouldn't be after a plane crash?) but another is terrified that whatever happened to Perry's parents will happen to mine. Will they be shot too? Has someone been watching them the way someone must have been watching the Whites? Once something bad happens to one person, it becomes entirely possible that it can happen to you.
I glance over my shoulder to the "camp" that consists of a fire pit and our tent. Alice is talking to Perry to help him get over the accident. Diana seems to be oblivious that anything has gone wrong. I don't know where Bob and Guad are, but I hope they're doing something productive.
Turning around and taking a breath, I go into my contacts and find my home phone, one of the many we've had. Since I never got rid of the previous ones, this is "Home #3."
Quickly clicking the "call" button, I put the phone up to my ear.
After only a few seconds of ringing, I hear a voice. My stomach leaps.
"This number is no longer in use," a cool female voice says. "Please check that you have dialed the right number, or press 1."
"Excuse me!" I ask out loud. I try calling again before their cell phones, but I get the same message thrice more.
Before I know it, I'm stuffing my phone in my pocket. I stomp my foot childishly, something that Alice teased me about throught my whole childhood. I'd only continued doing it to annoy her, but now I'm doing it for a reason. I can't get to my foster parents.
"Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine, and valleys of frustration and failure."
Seated to my right, looking over Lake Titicaca, is Bob.
"Did you seriously just quote Calivin and Hobbes?" I ask him, not knowing what do say. Is this flirting? I'm pretty sure most guys don't talk to girls that way. Not that Bob is like most guys, of course.
"What do you mean, 'seriously?'" Bob replies in a pouty voice. He pats the ground next to him; although chilling on the edge of a cliff isn't at the top of my to do list, I take a seat anyways. Sitting with the dude you met 7 years ago and met again when he was 72 is normal right?
I watch my feet dangle over the lake, and my stomach plummets for a second. I've always been terrified of heights.
"So," says Bob, trying to sound serious, but failing miserably. "Did you actually know the quote, or did you just know that it was Calvin and Hobbes because his name was in it?"
"How can I not recognize a Calvin and Hobbes quote?"
"Forgetting, I don't know."
I find myself laughing for a second. "The question was rhetorical."
"So what? Don't rhetorical questions deserve answers? Haven't they suffered enough? They used to be sentences, but now they're just sayings."
I nod. "I suppose I could call you a rhetorical activist, but you used a rhetorical sentence in that little rant there," I point out.
Bob frowns, looking dissapointed. "I'll just smoothly change the subject, that oughta work." He clears his throat. "So, what was all that about back there on the phone?"
"My foster parents' phone numbers are all out of service. So yeah, not being able to call them when I'm stranded isn't fun."
Bob gives a low hum, which vibrates for nearly a whole minute until he stops. "Maybe we should consult everyone else on this? Guad Squad Council Meeting?" He pauses. "That sounded a lot cooler in my head."
I chuckle nervously and stand up. "As much as I enjoy your company... Bob," I almost call him Fincher, but catch myself, "poor Perry over here looks like he's behind harangued to death."
We both walk over to the camp where Diana is yelling at her brother so loudly people stare from the cars that pass us.
"What did they say? Why can't you tell me?" She cries.
Guad and Bob both give Perry a puzzling look.
"Can we not?" Perry says curtly.
"I want to talk to them! Give me my phone so I can call them!" Diana demands.
"I'll tell you later. We have work to do now."
"What the living crap, Perry? Why can you not tell me?" I don't know if Diana is normally frustrated at her brother, but she certainly is now.
"Yeah, so what's happening?" Bob whispers in my ear, making me jump.
"Perry's parents were shot," I say nonchalantly, which probably makes me sound like a total jerk.
"What?" Bob chokes.
"Diana!" Alice yells suddenly. She gives off an assertive vibe as she strides over to the older White sibling. Perry looks slightly afraid of "Assertive Alice" (as I call it), but hides it with a worried face when he realizes he's losing the argument.
"I just want to know what's going on!" Diana insists.
"Same thoughts exactly," Guad mutters to no one but himself.
Alice whispers something in his ear. Perry shakes his head. She tries again.
"Whatever it is, Perry," Diana says softly, "I'm sure I can handle it."
"Uh, let's go in the tent," Perry says awkwardly.
He mutters something to Alice, who begins walking to us as the Whites go inside our tent.
"You know," Bob says, "none of this ever would have happened if the Wright brothers had just had a childhood accident or something."
I shake my head sincerely. "They did: inventing the plane."
"What are you guys talking about?" Alice asks us.
"Something about right or left," Guad shrugs.
"What did Perry tell you?" I ask my sister.
She crosses her arms. "To get the crap out of here."
I nod, "To Puno then?"
"Yay, walking," Guad says, briskly starting us off.
As we walk down the highway away from two emotionally unstable people and a cliff, I wonder why we can't just have the regular fugitive experience.