I stared out my window as the scenery flew past from tall buildings and shops and stores, to grassy fields with little cabin-like homes and forests lining the roads. The sun peeked through the deep green trees as we zoomed by, a pure, light blue sky above without a trace of clouds in sight.

Meanwhile, Max and Mackenna chatted in the back about pretty much anything, and Julie commented into their conversation a few times every now and then.

When the talk in the backseat finally died down, I decided to begin one myself.

I looked over as Julie, my eyes slightly squinted. She noticed and turned her gaze to me expectantly.

"Yes?" She raised an eyebrows before returning her eyes to the road.

"I want to get to know you better, Julie." I stated. "Since we could possibly be spending the next two weeks together and all."

She glanced at me again, almost suspiciously before nodding. "Okay, that's fine."

"So." I said and took a deep breath. "what's your favorite color?"

"Really?"

"Just answer it."

"Um, probably red. But not the plain and bold red color. More of a faded velvet red."

"Mkay."

She looked at me and cocked her brow. "What's yours?"

"Gray." I smiled.

Julie laughed genuinely. "I figured."

"Why's that?" I stared at her, offended.

She looked at me and now both light brown eyebrows were raised. "Because, honey, you are one to have a favorite color, purely because it's nobody's favorite color."

I furrowed my eyebrows and narrowed my eyes at her. "So you're saying I'm an attention-seeker?"

She laughed again. "You said it- not me!"

"Whatever," I grumbled and looked back out the window.

Julie kept glancing at me again and again, a playful smile on her lips and an amused glint in her pale blue eyes.

Finally she decide to give up and trained her gaze to the road ahead.

After a few more minuets of silence I broke it and said "Orange."

"What?"

I smiled smugly. "If I was an attention seeker, I'd say orange. No one's favorite color is orange."

She pursed her lips together. "Hm."

And that was my ego-boost for the week. I looked back out my window, still smiling to myself, but then I heard Max in the back whisper to Mackenna.

"My favorite color's orange..."

•••

We drove until the sunset painted the sky.

Okay, no, not really.

We drove until we couldn't bare our hunger anymore and Max had to go to the bathroom this time, which Mackenna eagerly agreed to also having to. I reminded her she just went, but she scolded me about how that was hours ago.

It was almost seven o'clock when we parked at a McDonalds.

Our food didn't come nearly soon enough and our stomachs literally growled at the sight of it as it was handed over the counter. We decided to eat inside the restaurant for both a break from driving, an easier way to discuss our plans for the night, and, most importantly, the free wifi.

Julie had finally pulled out her laptop from the back of the car and set it on the table in front of her as she chewed on her burger.

I scooter closer to her and stared at the screen eagerly with a mouth full of fries.

I'd been begging the entire trip, and even before then, for Julie to use her high tech records system thingy to look me up and see what else we could find. She'd always say "my internet's out. Until I get wifi, that's not gonna happen, sorry Hun." And now, to my excitement, she had wifi.

"What's that?" Mackenna asked in awe as she looked the the screen. It looked like something from a spy movie.

"It is a digital file of every single person inhabiting the United States background and records... all background, and all records."

Mackenna's eyes widened. "Oh."

Julie smiled proudly as she clicked on the search button.

"Ooh!" Max shouted. "Do me, do me!"

I glared at him. "No, she's doing me."

Max frowned and pouted like a little child, even going so far as to pucker out his bottom lip. "No fair. I want her to do me."

Julie smiled. "I'll do you, Max."

Mackenna practically spit out some lettuce from her salad and stared at all of us three with wide eyes. "Do you guys have any idea how what you're saying sounds?"

Cue the blushes. Well, actually, only Max blushed. The third time since I'd met him, I thought.

Then he shook his head, rolled his eyes at Mackenna, and looked at Julie with dramatic, pleading eyes. "Really? You'll do that for me?"

My turn to roll my eyes as Julie said "Of course. Kyra can always wait."

Max had the nerve to stick hjs tongue out as me as Julie typed his name into the computer.

"Watch it." I warned. "I bet that that gas station has a video of you shoving pretzels into your pockets, and I'd hate for them to get an anonymous tip to actually look and find it."

Max's eyes widened. "You wouldn't."

"Oh, yes I would."

"Guys!" Julie said. "Stop bickering and let's invade Max's personal life."

Mackenna and I cheered and all of us leaned over one another to peer at the screen.

"Ouch!" Mackenna yelled and shoved Max away.

"What?" He asked incredulously.

"Your boney elbow jabbed my shoulder!" She spat, earning a glare from the boy.

"Let's see..." Julie said. "Brown hair... Hazel eyes..."

"Hazel?" Mackenna's eyebrows furrowed. "I thought they were brown." She turned her head and studied his eyes

"They're hazel." Max snapped in her face. "Brown is plain and boring."

"Hey!" Mackenna shouted.

Julie droned on. "One mother... No siblings... You do have an uncle in Wyoming, though. Did you know that?"

Max's eyes widened and he shoved Mackenna over to get a better look. "No, I did not."

"Technically half-uncle, but uncle nonetheless."

"Huh."

Julie continued scrolling through Max's information as I grew impatient, secluding myself to the corner and shoving my face with fries and coke.

I'd planned to stay that way until they felt guilty, but gave up when they burst out laughing- all except for poor, little Max, that is.

"What?" I asked. "What is it?"

"Oh, nothing." Julie snorted in between laughs. "Just that Max here happens to have a birthmark on his-"

"Okay, that's all!" Max shouted and slammed the laptop shut, his face burning.

"Aw, c'mon Max." Mackenna complained, slowing lifting the screen up. "We want to get to know you." She poked his red cheek playfully.

He scoffed and gestured at the laptop. "This is how you get to know someone? By doing a background check on them?"

Everyone laughed, then Mackenna replied with "Well, what do you suggest, Maxen Jackson?"

He held up a finger. "First I suggest that you do not use my full name." He said. "Second," he shrugged and his face scrunched up. "I don't know. Ice breakers?"

"You mean like the candy?"

"That's a candy?"

"I thought it was a gum-"

"No." Interrupted Max. "Like the game things. Ya know?" He sighed at our dull expressions. "To get to know people? To break the ice, if you will?"

No one spoke. He took a deep breath. "There's guessing games, physical games, telling-about-yourself games. We played them a lot in b-" he stopped himself, his face turning red. Again.

"Boy Scout, yes." Julie said and winked. "Section four."

Max sighed but he had the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "Well, yeah okay. Whatever. So there's that."

"Sure." Julie said. "Lets play one of those-"

"No!" I yelped desperately, reaching for Julie's laptop. "You have to look me up!" I pleaded with wide eyes.

Julie thought for a second, then said "we have plenty of time. We should... We should do that later."

I could almost feel tears swelling in my eyes... okay, not really, but it was getting close. "No Julie. Please, it won't take long. We can find some really helpful information too and-"

"Kyra." Julie said in a stern voice. "I said no. We want to have fun now. We can do that later."

"But no we can't you don't have Internet-" I whined.

"Kyra." Julie looked me dead in the eyes, her cold and hard ones connecting with my desperate ones. "No."

I gulped under her intense gaze and then nodded slowly with a frown and a sigh.

Over where Mackenna and Max were talking I could here Max whisper "what just happened there...?" and saw Mackenna shrug, both looking bewildered at the sene that had just played out before them.

Julie turned to the two and smiled. "So what should we play?"

Max adjusted his glasses and shifted in his seat. "Well there's the classic two lies and one truth one." His eyebrows furrowed. "Or is it two truths and one lie?"

Mackenna tapped her chin. "First, I think."

"Okay, we'll play that," Julie agreed, smiling like she had actually been looking forward to playing with a group of teenagers. Maybe she had. She was looking up Harry Styles on her google searches... She was obviously a bit below her times.

We decided that Max would go first since he came up with his. His three things were: 1.) He has OCD, 2.) he has ADHD and 3.) He has a cat named Cupcake.

Julie chose ADHD right away. Mackenna went for the cat, thinking she would have though he'd have both disorders if one. And I picked ADHD, thinking of how shaky he was while stealing and how fidgety (even his eyes) he'd been the entire trip. Not to mention the low possibility of OCD since there was a huge mess of food in front of him... that he created and left.

Max smiled smugly. "The correct answer is OCD, my friends. I've been clinically tested and proven." He winked.

I gapped at him. "But how? Doesn't OCD mean like clean freak?"

Max rolled his eyes. "I really wish peasants like you would educate themselves."

"Wha-"

"Oh!" He said excitedly. "And, also, I do have a cat but his name is Muffin- not cupcake, and I'd really wish I could get back to him so can we hurry this whole operation thingy up?"

"My turn!" Mackenna shouted, causing us all to cringe and cover our ears. "Sorry," she said, faintly blushing.

"Okay so one truth and two lies...." She pondered and then frowned. "This isn't fair. Mackenna already knows me."

"I don't know everything about you." I admitted with a shrug. "I'm sure you can come up with something I don't know."

"Right. Okay, I can do that." Mackenna said like she'd just accepted a challenge. "Let's see... I once rode in the back of a cop car, I won 1st in state at a spelling B in sixth grade, and I've only been out of the United States once.

Max barked a loud laugh the moment the words left Mackenna's lips. "Oh, this is tricky," he said sarcastically.

Mackenna squinted her eyes at him. "Try me."

Max pushed his glasses up his nose and smiled. "Well you've obviously been out of the United States more, hence the accent. So that's a lie. And I can't even picture the image of you in a police car... So I'm going with the spelling B because that totally sounds like you."

Mackenna glared at him, but I saw something that looked like pride flicker on her face.

She turned to me.

"Uh." I said intelligently. "Spelling B is a lie."

Mackenna cocked her head to the side. "Okay, then what's the truth."

"I dunno. This I actually a pretty hard one."

Max stared at me dumbfounded.

I thought about the randomness of the cop car. Of course a spelling B and vacations were also pretty random, so maybe it was just Mackenna. But I took a leap of faith and went for it.

"Cop car."

Mackenna smiled. "Alright."

"You've only been out of the U.S once," Julie said.

"You're right." Mackenna replied without missing a beat.

"What?" Max and I both said at the same time.

"You only have to be out once to get an accent," she said sourly to Max. "I lived there until like three years ago so most of my life has been spent in England after my mom moved there from Asia and met my dad." She said proudly.

Max sunk down in his chair, obviously feeling defeated and stupid.

"As for the cop car... I got to ride in the front, and I almost did in the back, but we ran out of time. It was a school activity where they took us to a police station and showed us around."

We all nodded in understanding, though I still couldn't picture the rule-follower Mackenna was in the back of a police vehicle.

"And lastly, the spelling B," she said bitterly. "I didn't get to go to state because Christina Rodriguez beat me." She said with a frown, then added, "but I'm sure I would have won if she hadn't."

"Mackenna if you didn't even win the-"

"Shut it." She snapped and shot me a look, but then her lighthearted smile returned shortly after.

"Are we gonna keep playing?" I asked, not really wanting to but knowing it was a good way of passing time if time was what we had.

"Uh, yeah it's your turn." Mackenna said in a "duh" voice.

I sighed. "Okay. 1.) I hate this game. 2.) I wanna leave. 3.) Or I want to look myself up on Julie's computer." I said, staring at it on the table.

Answers are so close...

I then watched as everybody's faces screwed into confuse and puzzlement.

"You wanna look yourself up?" Said Julie.

"You wanna leave?" Mackenna guessed.

"Yep," Max said loudly as he exhaled. "You hate this game."

I smiled. "Trick question- they're all right, now can we please look me up? This is such an opp-"

"Oh!" Julie said suddenly with a jump and yanked her phone out of her pocket. She pressed a button and put it up to her ear. "Sorry guys, I gotta take this." She whispered to us and stood up from the table.

From where she paced on the other side of a half-wall divided we could see as she chatted on it.

I frowned and slumped in my seat. "Do you guys think she's hiding something?"

Max's dark eyebrows scrunched together beneath his glasses and he pursed his lips, looking at me like I was crazy. "Uh... no."

But Mackenna looked intrigued. She tilted her head to the side again like she does and asked "what makes you think that?"

"I don't know- she seems to not want me to look myself up."

"Because her phone rang? Come on, Kyra, be realistic here. Why wouldn't she want that?" She said with a short laugh.

I'd been wondering the same thing, I thought, and stared at the laptop resting untouched right in front of me.

"Sorry about that!" Julie's voice chirped as she came hasting back to us. "We should leave now."

"What?" I asked, a lump forming in my throat and eyes widening. "No, we can't. Why?"

Julie raised an eyebrow. "Have you looked outside?"

I turned my head and peered out a window. I saw black. It was already dark out.

Then a thought dawned on me and left me with chills running up my spine. "Where are we gonna go?" I asked staring up at Julie.

She smiled. "I know a place."

•••

I think every single one of us had a mixed jumble of feelings as Julie checked us into a hotel, all as her children. We'd all together be staying in one room for the night.

The woman didn't ask any questions as she handed Julie the key to room number 113 and watched us embark onto the elevator.

We were the only ones in it and Julie looked like she was going to be sick as it zipped up and up and up. Max looked nonchalant and Mackenna had a goofy grin on her face. I was something of a mix of Julie and Mackenna. Elevators excited me- I rarely ever got to ride on one, but because of that very fact, it made me nervous and even frightened as we shot up the building in a little square box.

When the elevator almost came to a stop, Mackenna jumped up and landed on the ground with a thump, stomping her feet hard. Instantly, the elevator jolted and shook, causing me to have a mini heart-attack and Julie actually screamed. Max looked a little alarmed but maybe it was just because of the shriek that almost deafened me.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Julie asked Mackenna incredulously as we stepped out of it and let the doors slide shit behind us. "It could have fallen or broken and we'd be killed or stuck and-"

Mackenna laughed. "It's fine- I do it all the time. It just shakes it a but, that's all. Isn't it fun?"

Julie stared at her with wild eyes that said it was not fun, then she turned and started off to our room.

I could sense the tension as us three followed Julie. Even though I'd been friends with Mackenna for three years, I'd never spent the night with her. I'd never spent the night with any friend before because Mackenna was the only friend I had. And Max... well, that was a whole different problem.

For a moment I was afraid the others might not see anything wrong with it, but then I noticed the odd aura of everyone as Julie stuck the keys in the lock, twisted, and pushed open the door to reveal a clean and plain, big room with big curtains, white sheets, two shiny dressers, and night stands by the two beds.

We all could do math- at least I hoped we could.

Two beds. Four people.

I swallowed hard and took a step inside.

Suddenly, I was pushed to the side as someone rushed past me. I looked ahead to see short black hair bobbing up and down against Mackenna's neck as she ran into the room and jumped right before she crashed into a bed, so, instead, she ended up face-planting with it, her arms and legs spread like she was about to make a snow angle with the sheets.

"I love hotels." She said, her British accent muffled from the bed. She then lifted herself up and sat on it, sighing as she looked around with a pleasant smile.

I, on the other hand, kept glancing at Mad uneasily. He looked very uncomfortable before, his eyes glued to the ground, but then he looked up, a sloppy sideways smile on his lips as he looked at Mackenna. "Yeah," he agreed and sat on the other bed, fiddling with the sheets with his fingers. "You can make a mess and you don't even gotta clean it up."

Julie chuckled and sat down her bag beside the door.

"They are like mini adventures," I said, smiling now, taking in the spotless little room. There was an old T.V in front of the beds and a separated bathroom with a shower on the other side of the door.

"As much of an adventure this is," said Julie as she exhaled. "We should be sleeping soon. I'm a morning person, you know. So we'll be getting an early start tomorrow."

All three of us groaned, me especially. I'd experienced the full wrath of morning Julie first-hand.

Then Mackenna cleared her throat awkwardly. "So where's everybody gonna sleep?"

Then the awkwardness spread like wildfire.

Max was standing by the door, face as red as a tomato; Mackenna was still sitting on the bed, her eyes scanning everyone's face over a billion times and then some more; Julie was biting her lip as she leaned against the other bed, deep in thought; and I was finding the floor particularly interesting with a face I knew was similar to Max's.

Then suddenly Julie shouted. "I call this bed!" and crashed onto the one she'd been leaning against.

Everyone jumped in shock and then Mackenna joined with "I call this one!" and flew right back on it so her back was against it this time.

Max and I made weird eye contact, then both ran forward to the two beds. "I call this one!" We both shouted as we ran toward them.

I didn't even have a particular bed in mind when I said that, and ended up beside Julie. Max had panicked at the last minute and didn't even choose a bed, but now he only empty space was with my best friend, Mackenna.

His face burned a brighter red as he stepped forward.

"I guess I get this bed then-" he began to say.

"Uh no." Mackenna said shaking her head with a grimace.

Max frowned. "It's just sleeping. Not like I'm gonna-"

"Okay!" Julie's panicked voice broke in loudly. "We got a problem, let's bring it out into the open."

I pursed my lips as Max grumbled "I'm a boy."

Mackenna laughed. "Yes, we now. It was on page one."

"So how do we solve this problem?" Julie asked, ignoring Mackenna's (funny) joke.

Max snorted a laugh.

"He could get a sex change," Mackenna said with a shrug.

"Mackenna!" Julie said.

"What?" She exclaimed, he's hands in the air as a surrender.

"Be serious here or next thing you know he'll be right there next to you all night."

Her eyes widened and I could see her gulp as she pressed her pink lips together into a thin straight line.

"I mean, it's a little awkward but nothing too bad." Max said with a shrug. "I won't even touch her-" he stopped and his eyes widened at his words. His face burned red again. "I mean- I'll lay as far away as possible," he corrected.

"But," Julia said, "If Mackenna's not comfortable with it, then it's not good."

"That's right." Mackenna said, speaking for the first time for a while. "And honestly, I'm not." She said with a 'sorry!" look.

Max sighed. "What am I supposed to do then?"

An idea spring into my head. A crazy idea, a stupid idea, an idea to rival the break-in one, but an idea nonetheless.

"You could sleep in the bathtub." I said.

Max blinked at me. "The bathtub?"

I nodded. "Just take some band legs and a pillow with you and it'll be as comfortable as if you were right in a bed." I said with a smile.

Max didn't seem to buy it but reluctantly nodded, taking a deep breath and grabbing off a pillow and some blankets from the foot of Mackenna's bed.

"Sorry." Mackenna said. "I just don't know you well-enough."

As Max lumbered off, his white sheets dragging across the floor behind him, all three of us heard him mutter "so much for ice-breakers." and we all broke into a grin.