Penny’s covering her face. “Let’s go.”
I crank around in my seat. “But I want to meet Micah!”
“You’ve met Micah.”
“Also I have to use the loo.”
“Just drive, Simon!”
“I should probably drive,” Baz says.
He gets out, and I crawl over, leaning into the back seat to look at Penny. “Are you okay?”
She rolls onto her stomach.
“I’m sorry we left you sitting outside,” I say. “Was he not there?”
Her voice is muffled. “I don’t want to talk about it, Simon.”
Baz drives us out of the cul-de-sac. “Let’s talk about where we’re going instead.”
“To the loo,” I say.
“San Diego,” Penny says.
* * *
Baz takes me to a Starbucks to use the facilities, and when I come out—with a massive rainbow-striped Frappuccino—he’s shouting at Penny: “Thirty-one hours to San Diego?!”
“That can’t be right,” Penny says. “That’s like driving from London to Moscow. Let me see.” Baz has been looking at her phone, and she takes it back. “But it’s the same country,” she says.
“I thought we wanted a road trip,” I say, getting in the car.
“Three hours is a road trip,” Baz says. “With a nice picnic break in the middle. This is three days of driving—and we only have seven days left before we fly home.” He sneers at Penny. “‘We’ll just stop in Chicago on the way to San Diego,’ she said.”
Penny is still looking at her phone. “How was I to know that all these middle states are each the size of France? I’ve never even heard of Nebraska.”
“Well, we’re going to spend a full day there,” Baz says, “so you’ll know it now.”
Three days on the road doesn’t sound so bad to me. These trips always take a long time in films—time for people to have adventures along the way. You can’t have an adventure in three hours. (I mean, I have. But I’m a pretty extreme case.)
Baz has stopped glaring at Penelope and started glaring at me. “What on earth are you drinking, Snow?”
“A Unicorn Frappuccino.”
He frowns. “Why’s it called that—does it taste like lavender?”
“It tastes like strawberry Dip Dab,” I say.
Penny’s grimacing at Baz. “For heaven’s snakes, Basil, I can’t believe you know what unicorns taste like.”
“Shut up, Bunce, it was sustainably farmed.”
“Unicorns can talk!”
“They’re only capable of small talk; it’s not like eating a dolphin.”
Baz takes my Frappuccino and sucks down a huge gulp. “Disgusting.” He hands it back to me. “Not like unicorn at all.”
He pushes up his sunglasses to rub his eyes. They look sunken and shadowed.
“Are you thirsty?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll run in and get a cup of tea.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant. But I’m not going hunting in the suburbs at midday.”
“We could get a sandwich,” I say.
“I’m fine, Snow.”
“All right, but I’d still like a sandwich.”
* * *
Baz says it’s safe for me to drive on the motorway. “It’s easier than driving in town.” He’s right—though merging into traffic at fifty miles per hour is fairly terrifying, and I do something that makes the engine whine like a dog.
But then we’re out on the road, and it’s cracking. With the top down, driving feels almost like flying, warm wind in our hair and against our skin. My T-shirt is flapping, and Baz’s black hair whips around his face like a flame.
Penelope is still lying across the back seat. I can tell something’s wrong and also that she doesn’t want to talk about it. She hasn’t touched her sandwich. I can only guess that she and Micah got into a row.
14
BAZ
Something is very wrong with Bunce. She’s collapsed in the back seat like a dead rabbit. But I can’t really focus on it because of the sun and also the wind and because I’m very busy making a list.
Things I hate, a list:
1. The sun.
2. The wind.
3. Penelope Bunce, when she hasn’t got a plan.
4. American sandwiches.
5. America.
6. The band, America. Which I didn’t know about an hour ago.
7. Kansas, also a band I’ve recently become acquainted with.
8. Kansas, the state. Which isn’t that far from Illinois, so it must be wretched.
9. The State of Illinois, for fucking certain.
10. The sun. In my eyes.
11. The wind in my hair.
12. Convertible automobiles.
13. Myself, most of all.
14. My soft heart.
15. My foolish optimism.
16. The words “road” and “trip,” when said together with any enthusiasm.
17. Being a vampire, if we’re being honest.
18. Being a vampire in a fucking convertible.
19. A deliriously thirsty vampire in a convertible at midday. In Illinois, which is apparently the brightest place on the planet.
20. The sun. Which hangs miles closer to Minooka, Illinois, than it does over London blessed England.
21. Minooka, Illinois. Which seems dreadful.
22. These sunglasses. Rubbish.
23. The fucking sun! We get it—you’re very fucking bright!
24. Penelope Bunce, who came up with this idea. An idea not accompanied by a plan. Because all she cared about was seeing her rubbish boyfriend, who clearly cocked it all up. Which we all should have expected from someone from Illinois, land of the damned—a place that manages to be both hot and humid at the same time. You might well expect hell to be hot, but you don’t expect it to also be humid. That’s what makes it hell, the surprise twist! The devil is clever!
25. Penelope “Girl Genius” Bunce.
26. And all of her stupid ideas. “Good for us all,” she said; all I heard was “good for Simon.” Crowley … Maybe she was right … Look at him. He’s as happy as a pig in mud. As happy as someone who’s suffering under the “A pig in mud” spell—which I’ve considered casting on him numerous times over the last six months. Because I’m just so tired, and I don’t how to—I mean, there’s nothing— There’s no fixing him.
27. The Mage. May he rest in pain.
28. Penelope—for maybe being right, about Simon. And America. And this wretched convertible. Because just look at him.…
Off the sofa, out of the flat. Over the ocean, under the sun.
Simon Snow, it hurts to look at you when you’re this happy.
And it hurts to look at you when you’re depressed.
There’s no safe time for me to see you, nothing about you that doesn’t tear my heart from my chest and leave it breakable outside my body.
* * *
Simon looks over at me. “What?”
“Nothing,” I say.