A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #4) - Ransom Riggs Page 0,69
get in so we can go already,” said Emma.
“Shotgun!” Enoch cried, diving into the passenger seat.
“It’s going to be a very long trip,” said Millard.
I sighed. It seemed I had no choice.
Our friends gathered in the driveway to see us off. We exchanged hugs and they wished us good luck—all but Claire, who sulked in the doorway.
“When will you be back?” asked Hugh.
“Give us a week before you start worrying,” I said.
“Way ahead of you,” said Horace. “I’m worrying already.”
We drove down the key and over the bridge, then out toward the boonies and the far edge of town. That’s where we would pick up Interstate 75 and head north. The first stop was Flaming Man, whatever that was, which H had indicated could be found inside the wet-glass ring he’d made on the Mel-O-Dee map. That narrowed down our destination to about thirty square miles in the swampy middle of the state, a few hundred miles to the north.
I was at the wheel, consumed with the task of mastering my grandfather’s powerful but quirky old car. It had heavy steering and lurched around corners in a way that made my heart skip, and all its dials and gauges were located in odd places. Emma sat beside me in the passenger seat, a regular, non-peculiar road atlas of Florida spread across her lap. (Millard had also brought along Peculiar Planet, though its maps were very out-of-date.) I had insisted Emma be our navigator because it gave me an excuse to force Enoch into the back seat and to spend the next couple of days glancing over at her face instead of his. Enoch sulked out the window and periodically gave the back of my seat a kick. Millard sat beside him, squished against Bronwyn, who had to turn diagonally so her long legs would fit.
“From here to the ring on the map it’s about three hundred miles,” said Emma, looking from the cartoon map to the road atlas and back. “If we don’t stop, we could be there in five hours.”
“We’ve got to stop sometime,” said Bronwyn. “You haven’t bought us modern clothes yet.”
She was right. Everyone I’d taken shopping had stayed behind; the ones who had come were still wearing the clothes they had arrived in. Their outfits would soon become a liability.
“We’ll stop soon,” I said. “I just want to put some distance between us and Miss Peregrine first.”
“Where do you think Portal is?” asked Enoch. “Very far?”
“Could be,” I said.
“Will you be able to stand that much driving?” asked Millard.
“I’ll have to,” I said. We couldn’t drive in shifts because my friends didn’t have licenses. And besides that, Millard was invisible, which would get us pulled over instantly, Bronwyn was too scared to drive, and Enoch had no experience. Only Emma was competent behind the wheel, but again, no license. So it was all me.
“Just keep me caffeinated,” I said.
“I’ll help,” said Enoch. “I’ll get us there a lot faster than you could, too.”
“Forget it,” I said. “You can take a driver’s-ed class when we get back, but this is no time to learn.”
“I don’t need lessons,” he said. “I already know everything about how cars work.”
“It’s not the same.”
He kicked my seat again, hard.
“What was that for?”
“Driving like a granny.”
We happened, just then, to arrive at the interstate on-ramp. I swung the car onto it and floored the accelerator. The engine wailed and I let out a giddy laugh, and by the time we’d merged onto the highway Enoch was screeching at me to slow down. I checked my mirrors for police cars, eased back on the gas, and pushed all the window buttons.
“Oooooh,” Bronwyn cooed as her window slid down. “Fancy!”
“Music?” I said.
“Yes, please,” said Emma.
Abe had a radio and some ancient kind of tape deck. There was already a cartridge inside, so I hit play. A moment later, a wailing guitar and a huge voice came crashing out of the speakers—Joe Cocker singing “With a Little Help from My Friends.” After three minutes I was convinced no music had ever sounded as good, and my friends, who were all grinning and bopping in their seats, the wind in their hair, seemed to agree. There was something in the act of shouting along to that particular song with these particular people while driving that particular car that gave me a crazy, spine-tingling high like I’d never experienced before. It felt like we were claiming the world for ourselves and our lives as our own.