Saturday 11 June, 1983

Clunk!

“That didn’t sound good,” Brian noted, as the Bob-White station wagon shuddered to a stop. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

Jim, in the driver’s seat, nodded grimly and reached down to pop the hood. “Is there still a flashlight in here somewhere?” he asked. “I think we’re going to need it.”

“I think I saw one earlier,” Mart called, from the middle seat. “If Dan would just move his enormous feet, I might be able to find it.”

“My feet?”

“There’s one back here.” Honey, in the rear seat, waved it above her head so that the light played across the ceiling.

Diana reached back and grabbed it, then passed it forward to Jim. Thanking them, he and Brian got out and took a look in the engine bay.

“Where do you think we are?” Trixie wondered. “And how far will we have to walk to get help?”

Beside her, Honey shivered. “Let’s just hope that they can fix it and we can keep going.”

The group of twenty-somethings had attended a friend’s engagement party in one of the small towns beyond Peekskill and were on their way back to Sleepyside where they were all staying the weekend. They had originally planned to travel in two cars, but Honey had seen their old station wagon in the garage and in a moment of nostalgia they had decided to use it instead.

On hearing how uncomfortable they’d been, all crammed in together, their friend had recommended a short-cut for the return trip. The lonely country road wound through the woods and should, apparently, bring them out close to Croton-on-Hudson, which was just a short distance from home. If, that is, they could get the station wagon going again.

“Do we want the bad news or the worse news first?” Brian asked, sticking his head back inside so that they could hear him.

“Which one is the news that the car won’t go?” Di asked.

“That’s the bad news,” Brian answered.

“What can possibly be worse news that that?” she wondered. “Are you telling us you won’t be able to get it going again?”

Brian sighed. “I doubt that this car will ever go again.”

“Oh! That is worse news.” Honey commented.

Trixie nodded. “I’m glad that we got to take its last journey with it, at least. I’m going to miss it.”

“I don’t know about anyone else, but I think in that case I’ll stretch my legs,” Mart decided, opening his door and getting out.

The other four still in the station wagon followed his lead.

“So, what do we do now?” Honey wondered, peering into the darkness around them. “Do you think we’re closer to Peekskill or Croton?”

“I still haven’t told you the worse news.”

“There’s even worse worse news than that?” asked Honey.

Brian nodded. “I’m afraid so. It appears that we were on the wrong road, because there’s a dead end just up ahead.”

“So, you’re saying we’re lost, in a car that will probably never drive again, late at night, in the middle of nowhere, and no one is going to miss us until tomorrow morning when we don’t show up for breakfast and even then they won’t know where to look for us?”

“Yes, Honey. That sums it up fairly well.”

Trixie blew out a breath. “Do we split up, or stick together? Some of us could probably stay here and wait for help.”

“Have you not seen any horror movies, Trixie?” Di wondered. “It always goes wrong when they split up.”

“Yes, but this isn’t a horror movie, or Halloween, or even Friday the thirteenth,” Trixie pointed out.

Mart cleared his throat. “Yesterday was Friday the thirteenth. Maybe some of the effects carry over.”

“Yesterday was Friday the tenth,” Brian corrected.

“It doesn’t matter, because I can’t walk out of here,” Di pointed out. “I’m wearing three-inch stiletto heels and this road is pretty rough.”

“Well, we can’t exactly just stay here and wait for someone to find us,” Trixie answered. “Which means that we’ll probably have to split up.”

“But I don’t want us to split up!” Di wailed. “Horror movies. Remember?”

“The last movie I watched was Return of the Jedi, when we all went together last night.” Trixie rolled her eyes. “And unless you’ve seen any movies today, it was the last movie you saw, too. And it definitely wasn’t a horror movie.”

Distracted for the moment, Diana let out a happy sigh. “I was so glad that Han Solo survived being thawed out from that big black thing. It would have been terrible if they hadn’t been able to save him. I’ve always liked him best.”

“I’ve always preferred Luke,” Honey confided, “but I do have to admit that Han is very handsome and attractive, in a bad boy sort of way.”

“Oh, I know,” Di all but moaned. “Remind me to tell you about my dream later.”

“Getting back to the point…” Jim prompted.

“Either we split up, or we wait here until morning,” Trixie summarised. “Unless someone has a better idea.”

But no one did.

“If we split up, the ones who leave would need to take the flashlight,” Jim pointed out.

“And they might get lost in the dark,” Brian added. “As uncomfortable as it might be, I think it would be wiser to wait for first light.”

Jim nodded. “I think so, too. And that’s only a few hours away.”

“All in favour of staying here until it’s light?” Trixie asked, to be greeted with a chorus of ayes.

“I think I saw a picnic blanket in the back,” Honey noted, while turning to retrieve it. “Can someone find a place to put it down?”

“One picnic blanket between seven people?” Dan asked. “Sounds cosy.”

“I think it’s going to have to go on the road.” Di took a couple of tentative steps. “The trees come right up to the shoulder. I don’t think there’s anywhere else to go.”

“There’s two blankets,” Honey announced, holding them up. “And they’re both pretty big.”

Brian chose a spot and helped Honey lay out the picnic blankets. The group spent the next minute jostling for comfortable positions. Trixie settled with her head in Jim’s lap, which caused Mart to clear his throat in her direction.

“What is your problem?” she asked.

“Is that appropriate conduct?” he replied.

Trixie lazily waved her left hand. “We’re married. Which you already know, because I distinctly remember you being there.” In a lower voice, she added, “When is it that we get to stop being the newly-weds? It’s been over a year already.”

“When someone else gets married, I expect,” Brian answered with a smile.

Trixie groaned. “Well, the rest of you had better hurry up!”

“And deprive ourselves of the chance to tease you and Jim? Never!” Dan declared.

“You’re just having too good a time being single,” Di accused, with a laugh.

He shrugged and settled down more comfortably. “Why not?”

“And speaking for myself, I’ve got too much to do right now to worry about that sort of thing,” Brian added.

Trixie sighed. “Yes, I understand that. I’m just tired of being the butt of all the jokes.”

“Well, maybe we can call a truce for a few hours,” Honey suggested, “if Mart can agree?”

He huffed out a sigh. “You’re spoiling all of my fun.”

“Are you saying it’s not fun to just be together with all the Bob-Whites, the seven of us together, just like it was back when we were all in high school?” Honey asked.

“That sounds like treason,” Dan commented. “We might have to expel you from the club.”

“Now, just wait a minute,” Mart blustered. “I didn’t mean that.”

Brian cleared his throat. “No one is getting expelled from the club.”

“Thank you,” his brother replied. “And for the record, I do think it’s fun to all hang out together and heartily wish that we could do so more often.”

“Hear, hear,” Jim replied. “Just preferably not in such uncomfortable circumstances as these.”

“It’s not so bad.” Honey paused to glance at their surroundings. “I mean, it is a bit spooky, and the ground is hard, but it’s not cold, or wet, and we’re all together and it has been too long since the last time that happened and I, for one, mean to make the most of it.”

Everyone being in agreement with the sentiment, they settled down to pass a couple of hours in good company.

“How light does it need to be to count as being light?” Honey wondered, as she lay gazing up at the sky some time later. “I can’t see any stars any more.”

Brian glanced up. “Considering how little sky we can see between the trees, that’s not surprising.”

“Yes, but I could see some ten minutes ago,” Honey answered. “I’ve been watching them, but they’re not there any more.”

“It won’t be too long, now,” Jim decided, cutting out Mart’s attempt to assert that the stars were still there, whether Honey could see them or not.

Trixie got up and stretched. “Good. Because this ground is hard and I’m sick of sitting on it. Who wants to come with me when we leave?”

“I thought we decided we should all stick together.” Diana scrambled to her feet and faced Trixie. “We’re safer together.”

Trixie cast a look at Di’s shoes, which lay discarded on the corner of the blanket. “But you said you couldn’t walk in those.”

“It will be daylight and you’ll be perfectly safe here,” Brian assured Di. “Let’s choose three people to walk out and four people to stay with the car.”

After a short debate, they chose Trixie, Jim and Mart to leave. But the shadows between the trees were still too deep, so they sat back down to wait a little longer.

“It’s starting to look different from what I thought it was going to look like,” Honey commented, a short time later. “I thought, at first, that it was exactly like a place I remember in the Preserve, but now that I can actually see where we are, I’m not so sure that I like it any more.”

Diana made a noise of assent. “It looks a bit like the Forest of Edwin, don’t you think?”

Mart sat up. “Like the what?”

“Where those little teddy bear-warriors live?” Honey asked, ignoring him. “Ooh, I’d love to have them living in the Preserve. They were adorable.”

“Do you mean the Ewoks?” Mart asked, his voice shaking with outrage. “For your information, they live on the Forest Moon of Endor and are a highly civilised, if primitive–”

“Yes, that’s what I said,” Di interrupted.

“Exactly how many times have you seen that movie?” Brian wondered, addressing himself to Mart.

“That wasn’t the first time,” his brother admitted, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“He saw it with me last week.” Dan’s smirk could just be made out in the half-light. “And that wasn’t the first time, either, because he always knew what was going to happen.”

“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Di commented. “Which is probably why I had that dream about it.”

Honey sat up. “Oh! I was supposed to remind you to tell me.”

“Yes, but I meant later, when it was just us.” She hesitated. “But I suppose I could tell everyone some of it, at least. I dreamed that we were in the Forest of Ending at the teddy bears’ village.”

“Forest Moon of Endor,” Mart corrected. “In the Ewok village.”

“And Dan was dressed as Han Solo,” Di continued, regardless. “And Honey, you were dressed as Princess Leia. And I think that Mart was Luke Skywalker. And everyone else was there, too.”

Honey nodded. “I think Dan would make a wonderful Han Solo. So, what happened next?”

“There were lots of things, but the funny part was that I kissed Dan and then you came up to me,” she indicated Honey with a wave, “and said I shouldn’t kiss him because he was my long-lost twin brother.”

Trixie laughed and looked back and forth between Diana and Dan. “If anyone here was your long-lost twin brother, it would have to be Dan.”

“And if anyone here had a long-lost twin, it would have to be me,” Diana added.

“I think you have all this a bit confused,” Mart complained, “because it’s actually Luke and Leia–”

“Yes, we know that,” Diana interrupted. “But it was a dream. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

“And anyway, in a way, it does make sense,” Honey added, “because remember way back at the start, when we formed our club, we decided to be like a family, all brothers and sisters together?”

“Certain of our members appear to have abandoned that concept,” Mart pointed out, with a mock glare at his sister.

Trixie scrambled to her feet. “If that’s your attitude, I think it’s time to get going – but you can stay here, Mart. We’ll take Dan instead.”

“Fine. Take Dan Solo and leave me behind,” he answered.

Dan let out a surprised laugh. “What did you just call me?”

“You know, Trixie, you should leave Jim here and go with Dan and Mart,” Di suggested. “That way, it would be the most like Luke and Leia and Han.”

Honey laughed. “Perfectly perfect! I can just imagine Trixie snatching Mart’s blaster when he comes to rescue her and she has to rescue him instead.”

“Actually, I don’t think I’m going to need to rescue Mart this time,” Trixie commented, as her face broke into a grin. “Just look.”

The rest of them got to their feet just as another vehicle pulled up behind the station wagon.

“Saved!” Mart cried, dramatically. “And without any of us having to trek for miles through uncharted forests.”

“Uncharted forests?” Tom asked, as he got out of the other car. “And only half a mile from Croton?”

“It felt like the middle of nowhere,” Honey explained, “because we thought we were on the wrong road and the car wouldn’t go and we weren’t sure how to get back to where we would know where we were.”

“You are on the wrong road,” Tom confirmed. “But it’s not far back to the right one. So, can I help you get going again, or is the trouble more dire than that?”

“Far more dire,” Brian answered, beckoning him over to take a look.

They leaned over the engine bay for a few minutes, while Tom confirmed what Brian and Jim had deduced the night before.

“I’ll arrange for it to be towed,” Tom promised. “Grab your gear, kids, and pile in. I’ll run you all back to Sleepyside. It’ll be a squeeze, but it’s not far.”

“How did you know where to look for us?” Trixie wondered, as she settled on Jim’s lap. “We thought for sure that no one would notice until later.”

“You have Regan to thank,” he told them. “He noticed the light on in the garage, went to check on it and found the car missing. Then we called the house where the party had been, to check if you’d stayed over, and they told us which way you’d gone home.”

A few hundred yards away from the station wagon, they reached a fork in the road and Tom turned the corner.

“This is where you went wrong,” he explained. “If you’d taken the other fork, you would probably have been within sight of the main road when you stopped.”

Di shuddered. “In that case, I’m glad we took the wrong turn. If we hadn’t, we would have split up and that would have been disastrous.”

Tom looked confused, but didn’t question the statement.

“It doesn’t look at all like the Forest of Irving in daylight,” Honey commented, just as they emerged onto the main road. “But it was fun to imagine that it did, while we were waiting.”

“For about the twelfth time–” Mart began.

“Oh, is that how many times you watched that movie?” Trixie interrupted.

“What? No!”

“Then how do you know so much about it?” she queried.

He tried to draw himself up, but had to give up the effort due to the cramped conditions. “I’ll have you know that I have an excellent memory and unsurpassed attention to detail.”

“And you watched it twelve times,” Trixie added, grinning.

“I did not,” her brother answered, with dignity.

“Then, how many?”

“Enough to know that the place is called the Forest Moon of Endor.”

“Endor. Edward. Egbert. What does it matter?” Di asked. “Those teddy bear-warriors were adorable and I don’t care what the place was called. And anyway, the most important thing is that we’re safely out of the forest and can finish our weekend together without getting attacked by any serial killers.”

“Well said, Di,” Brian answered. “And maybe we can let the matter rest there. It’s really not that important, is it, Mart?”

“I suppose not,” Mart answered. “But if anyone wants to see that I’m right, we can go to the matinee session this afternoon and watch it again.”

Trixie laughed. “Nice try, but I think I’ll just take your word for it.”

The End

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