Matt Sanders
I shut my door after Emily handed me the phone. I quickly turned down my music and went over to my bed and sat down.

“Hello?” I asked, not sure who was on the phone.

“Hey Matt, it’s me.” Jimmy’s familiar voice rang through the phone.

“Oh hey Jimmy. What’s up?” I asked, leaning against my headboard.

“I was wondering if we were still on for tomorrow. I didn’t know if any of you losers decided to change your minds.” He chuckled.

I laughed. “Not me. Why, are you trying to find an excuse to chicken out?”

He snorted. “Hell no! I'm all up for it. I just have to finish packing. Hey, who’s bringing the food and shit?”

I thought for a minute. “I think Johnny said he’d get the beer. I know Brian packed a carton of cigarettes and the necessities like that. Maybe Zack was smart enough to think about stuff to eat. I don’t know. I'll ask him later.”

“Oh, okay. What about flashlights? I looked around the house for some and I was shit-out-of luck. I found some matches, though. They might come in handy. You never know.”

I could just see the smile on his face. “Don’t even think about setting anything on fire, damn it. I'm not going through that again.” I said remembering the time Jimmy caught my damn pants on fire, trying to set ablaze Johnny’s hair. We were all drunk that night, but that still wasn’t an excuse to set me on fucking fire.

“Do you remember the look on Johnny’s face when I kept throwing the lit matches at him after pouring all of those beers on him? Ha! Fucking priceless.” He laughed. “Your face was pretty damn funny, too. You jumped in the pool just to put yourself out.”

I smirked but was still laughing. “Yeah, and Brian kept shouting, Put him out! Put him out!”

“That was such an amazing Saturday. Probably the best one I ever fucking had.” His laughing stopped. “Dude, what are you guys going to tell the girls if they ask about where we’re going?”

I cursed under my breath, completely forgetting about that. “Well Emily’s already suspicious. She tried peeking into my room earlier. Man, if she saw that I had packed my bags, she would instantly know something was up, probably even tell mom and dad.”

“Nah, I don’t think she would. Your sister’s too cool for that.” I cocked an eyebrow. “But I do know she’d ask you where you were going.”

I sighed. He was right. “Yeah, and the last thing I would want is for her and her friends to tag along. They’d probably get too scared and go running off crying and screaming.” I rolled my eyes and chuckled at the thought.

“Dude, why not?” He asked.

“Why not, what?” I asked, confused.

“Why don’t we ask the girls to come along? It’d be fucking hilarious to see their faces and get scared. Another priceless memory to add to my book.” He spoke metaphorically.

I shrugged. “Eh, I don’t really think that’s such a good idea. I mean, that would be funny and all, but wouldn’t they just be a big affliction on our part? They would just whine and complain the whole time.” I said, rolling my eyes at the thought of having to drag my sister and her annoying friends along.

“Yeah, but it would still be funny. You should ask Emily.” He said, sounding a little too excited about the idea.

Suddenly my bedroom door opened. At first I thought it was Emily barging in but then I realized it was Zack. I quickly sat up. “Oh hey, dude.” I said to him and away from the speaker on the phone.

He gave a small nod as a hello. “Hey Jimmy, I'm going to have to call you back. Zack’s here.”

“Oh okay, see you later. Just don’t forget to pack the toilet paper like last time. Man, Johnny had to go so bad so he just used those fucking leaves!” He said, reminding me of our camping trip this previous summer.

I laughed and held my sides. “Yeah, and he had poison ivy up his ass for a week!” My laughter became uncontrollable as it hurt to breath. Zack gave me a weird look and sat down on the edge of my bed next to my packed backpack.

“Dude, best summer ever! I just couldn’t stop laughing those entire three months!” He laughed loudly. “It’s not funny guys!” He mocked in his fake Johnny impression.

Suddenly there was a loud sound coming from his side of the phone. “Whoa, what was that?”

There was a moment of silence. “Sorry, fell out of my chair and dropped the phone from laughing so hard.”

My laugh finally died down. “Okay, well I'll see you later.”

“Hey, ask Zacky if he thinks we should bring the girls.” He said quickly before I could hang up.

I groaned loudly. “Do you really want to bring them?”

“Yes, I want to scare the shit out of them. I've already got a few ideas in store for them.” He said. I could easily hear the eagerness in his voice.

I sighed. “Fine, talk to you later.”

“Later, dude.” He hung up.

I hung up too and set the phone down on the bedside table. Zack raised an eyebrow at me and smiled. “Jimmy?” He asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, he wanted to know if anyone chickened out yet. I'm sure we can all expect Johnny to be freaking out soon.” I laughed.

He chuckled. “No doubt. So who was he wanting to bring?”

“He wants to bring the girls along.” I mumbled in frustration.

He shook his head quickly. “What, why? There is no way I'm letting Andrea come along. You know how she is. She’ll try and pull so much shit on us.” He said, talking about her always trying to prank us and scare the shit out of Johnny. The guy was just too gullible.

“Kind of like Jimmy would?” I asked, knowing I was right. He nodded, giving me an unpleasant look, as I'm sure he and the rest of us weren’t looking forward to it. “I don’t want to bring Emily either. She’ll just be a dead weight I have to watch out for every five seconds.”

The girl really doesn’t know how to look out for herself sometimes. I've always had to get her out of bad situations, like when some guy she didn’t like was hitting on her and wouldn’t leave her alone. Or when she almost got in a fight with a girl at the high school.

I guess I've just always had to be the big brother and help her out when she needed me, not that I minded it that much, but still it would have been nice if she watched out for herself every once in awhile.

“So you all set?” Zack asked, looking at my bag. “Do you have all that you need to stay the night out there?”

I unzipped the bag and looked through all of the items inside. “Yeah, I think so. I’ve got my clothes, a few water bottles, my video camera…oh, and I need to grab some toilet paper before we leave tomorrow.” I mentioned.

He laughed. “Yeah, we all remember what happened that one time.”

I chuckled, wiping my eyes. “That’s what Jimmy and I were just talking about. God, that was so fucking hilarious.”

Zack reached over and grabbed the phone. “Do you think we should invite the guys over for tonight so we can all sneak out tomorrow? We can just let our parents know that we’re all staying the night with you for today and tomorrow, and then once it’s dark, we can all just head out then.”

I nodded. “Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Call Brian and tell him to pick up both Johnny and Jimmy. And tell them all not to forget to bring something to sleep on, like a sleeping bag or something. I'm sure they wouldn’t enjoy sleeping on a cold, dusty floor.”

“Okay,” He said, dialing Brian’s number.

Notes