Ok, actually, riding on a bus is really, really boring, especially when everyone on the bus is on their laptop and the fourteen year old guy next to you is way too good at losing himself in his DS. Georgie couldn’t believe how deceived she had been, assuming riding buses was the apex of glorious travel. It was still cool…it was just also somehow…boring. “Whoa!” Cody suddenly cried. “I just got to level 21! I didn’t think the levels even went that far! Sweet!” Georgie rolled her eyes as Cody absorbed himself in killing his enemies once more. Why? Why? Why couldn’t she have done what all the other girls did and make friends with other girls? The question was kind of redundant. Because Cody was awesome. If there was any way for two people to use his DS at the same time, she knew without any doubt he would share it with her. But there wasn’t. So Georgie had to find a way to entertain herself. She sighed heavily, and pulled her MP3 player out of her backpack. She stuck the ear buds in and turned it on. She than started to scroll through her songs, trying to find something catchy that would entertain her for an hour if she put it on repeat.  “No. No. No. No way. Ew I still have that on here? No. Nuh uh. Nope. Whoa that’s old…” She continued to run down the long list, somehow managing to find something wrong with each one. “Eh…that’s a little last year. No. No. No. Whoa! I thought I accidentally deleted this one! But…no. Nope,” Slowly, Cody turned his head to look at her. “Nope. Nope. Nada. Holy smokes no way!” “Georgie,” Cody said, realizing people were starting to turn their heads to stare at them. “Georgie,” “Too long. Too short. Too…too. Wowzers. Nope. Nuh uh. Ooh! I’d say that’s a definite maybe!” “Georgie!” Cody hissed. Georgie burst out laughing. “Oh, I remember that one,” She suddenly turned and looked at Cody. “Do you ever like, totally realize that you need to clean out your MP3 player to get rid of all the crazy junk?” “Georgina,” Cody said. “Shut. Up.” “Why?” Cody cleared his throat. “You are making a scene,” Georgie looked around. “Oh. Sorry,” She looked back down at her MP3 player. “Sorry…I was just bored,” Cody thought fast. “Do…you want me to do something crazy with you?” Georgie smiled, and, grabbing her backpack, pulled out her camera. “Can we take crazy pictures?” “Um…” Cody grimaced. “I guess so,” Georgie hugged him. “I love you!” She turned on her camera, leaned back against the bus seat. “Smile, Cody!” “Say cheese,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Hey, the flash isn’t working!” Georgie giggled, looking at the picture. It wasn’t as sharp as usual without a flash, but it still turned out fine, so they continued snapping photos. They sat there for about ten minutes taking pictures of each other, until they were both cracking up. Georgie leaned back far and rested her chin on her hands, batting her eyelashes, grinning like somebody who knew a juicy secret. “Watch the birdie!” Cody said, and took the picture. The flash went off for the first time, and a blinded and shocked Georgie fell backwards into the aisle of the bus. Everyone looked up as Georgie shrieked, banging her back on the hard, ridged, filthy bus floor. “Ouch!” Cody and Georgie shared a mutual moment of wanting to die. “Sorry, sorry…I’m fine, really,” Georgie mumbled, getting back into her seat as fast as possible, blushing up a storm. Turning to Cody she mumbled, “Let’s lay low…shall we?” “Yeah.”   The next day, early in the morning, Georgie and Cody found themselves standing in St. Paul, Minnesota. “Minnesota,” Cody said, casting a critical eye over his view of a very small portion of the state. “It looks like Wisconsin…only more…like a city,” “Where are all the cows!?” Georgie cried, disturbed. Cows were a constant for her…and there were none as far as she could see. Was this state brain dead!? Cows are so cute! Until you step in a cow pie, sure, but before that. Needless to say, Georgie was a fan of cows. Cody shrugged. “Maybe their further down in the state,” he said. “After all, we’re in the middle of Minnesota. Maybe the cows hang out near the bottom,” “They better,” Georgie muttered, looking slightly murderous. A true sign of youth. Taking everything trivial more seriously than everything important. A grand life it is. Cody wasn’t about to write off the entire state just because he couldn’t see a cow. “Come on,” he shouldered his backpack and took Georgie’s hand. “Let’s have some fun.” And fun they had. Immediately leaving the bud station they found a Chuck E. Cheeses. Neither of them had been there in many moons (a fancier way of putting it than ‘when we were kids’), and immediately decided to throw caution to the winds. They attacked that Chuck E. Cheese’s with extravagance the girl managing the pizza counter had never seen before. They did everything. They fought fires. They watched large robotic Chuck E. Cheese’s characters dance and sing on stage. They searched the floors for lost tickets and tokens (97 tickets, 54 tokens). They ordered an extra large everything pizza and large root beers. They went down slides a few dozen sizes too small (Cody nearly got stuck, but Georgie was able to yank him free before the staff noticed his bulk blocking up the traffic of testy three year olds). They even road on the pathetic little kiddy rides that plague at least 30\% of every Chuck E. Cheese’s in the nation. In short, they drove the staff and the mother’s of small children absolutely crazy, but managed not to break the law, so, fortunately, they were not kicked out. “That was awesome,” Georgie said as the exited the Chuck E. Cheese’s five hours after arriving there. She wore a crazy orange boa, a sparkly purple (flimsy) top hat, hands loaded with candy, fingers decorated with Ring Pops and cheap plastic jewelry. Cody had to agree. They had won so many tickets, and Georgie had used so few of them (in comparison), he had been able to get a whole new DS, so both he and Georgie could play at the same time. For once, Georgie did not leave Chuck E. Cheeses complaining about how cheap all the prizes were. After leaving Chuck E. Cheeses, they found a park with a big, circular cement swimming pool, free to the public. It was huge, and shaped like a shallow bowl…so one could comfortably have fun in it without having a swimming suit. Georgie decided Cody looked hot, and doused him with water. Cody returned the favor, and they went on splashing like that literally until the park manager came to lock up the swimming pool for the night. When they finished their mayhem reeking there, it was obviously late, and they decided to sleep in the park, up in a big old cherry tree. Georgie said it reminded her of Anne of Green Gables, and she agreed with Anne that sleeping in a cherry tree was very romantic. She lay amidst the cherry blossoms as they light slowly faded and they watched the stars come out, humming quietly to herself. Cody listened to Georgie humming slowly, and wishes there were cherry trees everywhere to sleep in. Who needed a bed? Cherry trees were even, he dared to say, more comfortable. Plus, he had no obnoxious alarm clock he would be forced to wake up to…or so he thought.   “Wake up Cody! Cody wake up! Wake up Cody! Cody wake up!” Georgie was tireless. She sang on and on until Cody was forced to either show some signs of life to quiet her or go insane. “I’m awake!” he grumbled. “Just stop singing…I’m awake!” After waking up, they climbed out of the tree and sat down on a park bench for some breakfast, commenting on each other’s rather dilapidated appearance. They both had cherry blossom petals and bark in their hair, and their clothes were wrinkled. “I never thought I would say this,” Georgie said, grimacing. “But I think we need to take a shower sometime,” Cody sighed, and found himself unable to disagree. “Definitely,” Georgie munched on her peanut butter crackers. “But…where? And how?” Cody frowned and was silent for a long time, obviously thinking very hard. While waiting for him to come out of this trance of concentration, she finished off two packs of peanut butter crackers and started on a third, washing it all down with a water bottle. She was about to break into a package of Skittles, when Cody finally returned from the distant planet of his thoughts.  “Ok,” he said. “I know how to go about this…but we’re gonna have to wait till we come to a gas station or something. Until than…what do you wanna do?” “I dunno,” Georgie replied. “Yesterday was so awesome it would be kinda hard to improve on it,” “True,” Cody said. “Why don’t we just start walking and see what comes our way?” “Awesome,” Georgie replied. They got up and dusted cracker crumbs off of themselves, and decided to turn right on the sidewalk, wondering what else was in store for them in St. Paul. First off, a lot of walking. Long, hard walking through an enormous city filled with people, buildings, and cars. But it was certainly worth the wait. After an hour’s walk, they came to another park…where a band was playing in a bandstand. And it wasn’t some lame orchestra band. These guys were pumping out some serious rock and roll. Georgie and Cody decided to whoop and scream like idiots, like they knew this band well and were their biggest fans. After their performance was over, Georgie boldly went over and introduced herself, and then asked if they needed any help taking down their equipment. Cody, with nothing better to do, followed suit and began rolling drums away to a van. To reward them for their labor, the lead singer gave Georgie a free CD. It was then that they finally learned what the band was called…The Screaming Rioters. “Hm,” Cody said after the band had driven off. “For being ‘screaming rioters’, they were actually pretty good,” He deposited the CD in his backpack and they were on their way again, walking through the beautiful Minnesota park. “How is it that I have lived most of my life right near here and never have known how amazing and beautiful it is?” Georgie wondered aloud. “I mean…Wisconsin is nice, but this? This is awesome!” “Completely,” Cody said, looking around. Georgie pulled out her camera and snapped a few photos. They came to a bench, where they both sat down, disinclined to go any further for a little while. They sat and they chatted about things that they hadn’t talked about in a long time…mainly, their story. “We like, totally need to update it!” Georgie cried. “I mean, we are on the craziest adventure ever! I brought a notebook!” She quickly whipped it out and uncapped her pen, clearly terrified at the thought of wasting another minute. “Ok…help me out…every last detail!” Cody laughed. “Start at the beginning…” They sat on that bench for the rest of the day, writing and scratching out and laughing hysterically. The production of this long period of scribbling was rather hard to decipher, filled with grammatical and spelling errors, but generally contained the following information:   ‘ Georgie was sitting sooo bored at her desk, like, dying. Than Cody (being awesome) showed up at her window, scaring her older sister Jessica so bad she fled the room. So she greeted him warmly (they had not been insane since blowing up the mean old Mrs. Crabapple’s flowers [see story 258]), and she immediately knew he was up to something. They fled the house quickly, and Cody made his proposal: “Let’s run away!” They hastily packed, and when the time came, Georgie arranged to be taken to the abode of Aunt Jodie and Uncle Jeff. While there, Georgie carelessly beheaded a beloved gnome of the mistress of the house, a gnome by the name of Rudolph. Aunt Jodie, with her fangs and claws bared, still knew nothing of their epic plans.  After sitting through extreme torture, and force-fed poison (also known as tea), they raced off to first bury the headless gnome, and then to their great flying bird! They escaped with their lives, but tragically, though they had a blast, were careless once again and crashed the beloved hot air balloon. They parted with the deciesed flying machine and went on their way. They rode a bus to Minnesota, where they had an epic time. They became Most Wanted criminals in Chuck E. Cheeses and than most favored fans of The Screaming Rioters. They now sit awaiting their next adventure in a beautiful St. Paul park.’   Then they found a park community building with an open kitchen, where they flopped out and went to sleep for the night.