Test drive.

We first finished our business at school. I got to talk to my guy friends a bit and they had me show them the new van. They were pretty excited about it, seeing that it was practically modded from scratch. I mean, I was super excited too, obviously. My own vehicle that Alice and her brother clearly worked very hard on to get ready for that day. And that’s not counting how much more useful it was than something like a coupe.

After thanking mom at least five more times I told her I’d be driving a bit with the girls before going home, and then she hit me with a reality check that brought me down from cloud 9.

“Okay. Just remember to stop by a gas station. It’s not full and that’s your responsibility from now on.”

N-Not full? So I had to… Ugh, complaining about it didn’t seem right, but… Was this her way to overcompensate for raising me to be so frugal now? I guess having a car IS an extra cost. Gas, maintenance, maybe fixing kinks here and there…

“You’ve cursed me with more expenses,” I told Alice as she sat next to me on the co-pilot seat. Mila and Noelle were sitting behind us and across from Grace and Sarah.

“Stop crying. You’ll have a mechanic at home,” she told me, giggling.

“How much work did you put into this?” Noelle asked. “This looks brand new but it can’t be.”

“Isabelle’s car was simple,” Alice said. “We didn’t do much other than changing old engine parts, tires and giving it a new paint job. I might have a bad relationship with automatic FF cars, but we knew it’d be good for Isabelle. This one, though… Alex got really excited about it. Actually, almost a bit too much. He almost wanted to turn it into an RV, but that would’ve missed the point.”

I drove the van out of the school and smiled at how it felt. It was surprisingly smooth for such a big vehicle.

“We did our best to keep it balanced, too,” Alice continued. “That was actually the toughest part. We had to make sure the new seats weren’t too heavy.”

“Wait, we have curtains?” Noelle asked, noticing that there were indeed curtains rolled up over all the windows. They unrolled them and suddenly it was very dark at the back.

“Alex wanted to use dark glass, but it would’ve been more expensive, so we went with curtains. Imagine you can’t sleep during a long trip because the sun is getting in your eyes. At least, that’s what I told him.” Alice's mischievous grin made the gears turn in my head.

Those curtains weren’t so the sun wouldn’t come in, but so no one could see inside. There was the space at the back, too. This girl… “And let me guess. Should we buy screens to put on the front windows and the windshield?”

“Buy them?” Alice asked, reaching for the space between the front seats and the ones right behind them and taking three reflective aluminum screens. She smirked. “I knew you’d catch on quick.”

“What? What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

“Think about it,” I told her, turning right at a green light and leaving the school area. “Curtains, screens… No one can see inside the car…”

“OH!” Grace and Mila exclaimed in unison.

“Add the Silence and Stillness runes and…”

“...We now have a portable sexy-time room!”

“OH!” Sarah and Noelle exclaimed, now seeing it clearly.

“I measured it and we can fit a mattress in between the seats if we lower the table,” Alice said. “And there’s enough space to keep one in the back.”

“That may be a little TOO suspicious,” I said.

“Who cares? We’ll be on our own, Oliver,” Sarah said. I saw her grinning through the rearview mirror. “Alice, you dirty woman. This was your plan all along!”

“Not exactly. I only thought it was a good opportunity since Ms. Brooks asked me if I could find someone selling a cheap van in good condition. I didn’t expect Alex to want to mod the hell out of it. Look, he even changed the radio for a newer one. The original only read cassette tapes but this one has bluetooth. I… kinda wanted to keep the old one.”

I chuckled. “You are a bit of a purist when it comes to car modding,” I told her.

“I am, yeah…” Alice sighed, resigned. She liked to keep things as stock as possible, or at least as close to the original intent of the vehicle as possible. “Still, it looks nice on the outside, right? We fixed the body and repainted it in the original colors.”

“It’s amazing, Alice. You and your brother are magicians,” I told her.

Alice giggled. “Glad you like it. I was worried we went overboard since we had to keep everything a secret. Or would you have rather Alex had given you the bike like he planned?”

I chuckled. “I admit that stings a bit. A bike would’ve been cool, but I’m not sure I have the courage to ride one. Besides, this is WAY more useful. We won’t have to take two or more cars to come to town from the house.”

“Yeah. Another reason to sync our schedules,” Sarah said. “Your mom is a genius, Oliver.”

“So… Should we keep driving aimlessly or is there somewhere you want to go?” I asked them.

“Diana’s stuck at work, right?” Noelle asked. “Want to go show this to her?”

“Text her and ask her if we can drop by for a couple minutes,” I said. “I don’t want to bother her if she’s busy.”

“I’m a little hungry, though,” Mila said. “Want to get something at a drive-thru or will you be the type to tell us not to eat in the car?”

“You’ll get the new seats dirty!” Alice said.

“And I’ll clean them up,” I told her. “We can eat in the van.”

Mila, Grace, Sarah and Noelle all cheered while Alice pouted.

Oh wow. My car, my rules. So this is what true power feels like…

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