Little Diogenes had worried that they might get challenged to a race. She'd win, but she might break something in the 'vette. They rumbled down to the strip low and slow, Patrick next to her, and Crystal poking her head up in the back, pointing and bouncing and trying to get her to change the radio station. There were no challengers; the road was full of summer people on their way to the Cape. Minivans with bike racks, SUV's with tinted windows, towing jetskis.
Soon, she thought, I will have an SUV and tiny sunglasses; I will have a summer place on Nantucket, and I'll buy Mom and Dad tickets on the ferry, so they can visit me in my beautiful house, surrounded by blue hydrangeas. I will become an asshole.
They passed the Lobster Pot, the Softee and Family Fun Land. As they got closer to the liquor store, the traffic kept getting worse. It made Little Diogenes anxious- she was used to going alone on the track.
A police car came alive right behind them, flashing its rack of panic lights. Little Diogenes made a plan; pull over, cut across the parking lot, slow down enough to make the cops think she was stopping, and then gun it over the railroad tracks. Get back into the back neighborhood, over the bridge, and onto the highway.
The cop car pulled beside them, slowed for an instant, and ran off, ignoring the car full of dark young people.
Little Diogenes brought the car to a stop in front of the Army/Navy. Without Zay to make her skin behave, she was sweating. She sucked it from her upper lip as Crystal howled from the back.
"Ohmygod. There's Derrick, right there."
Derrick stood, surprised in the headlights of his own car, in a pack of Japanese motorcycles. He was ecumenical in his motor love, and was stroking the bikes with a lusty paw while the riders stood around, pointing out anatomy.
Derrick stormed the car.
"Yo, I told you not to take it out."
"Patrick wanted to go to the packie." Sometimes, thought Little Diogenes, the safest lie is the truth.
"Hey, get out of my car? You're driving it in traffic; I told you."
"You gonna kick me out?"
"Hey, everybody out."
Patrick lost his smirk. "Derrick. Be real."
"No; crackbaby out. She doesn't even have a license. Come on, I'm taking it home."
Crystal pushed herself up between the seats. "We can walk from here."
Little Diogenes sat her ground even as Crystal slithered out over her brother's lap. She wanted her eyes to pierce Derrick with a stare to freeze his blood, but he just watched her hands with bland anger, waiting for her to go for the shifter.
"Dad won't punish me for taking your car."
She said this coyly enough, having practiced on Zay, but it didn't faze Derrick.
"He doesn't punish you half enough."
"That's true." Little Diogenes took her hands off the wheel and got out. Derrick ducked in, and nodded to Patrick in boy solidarity.