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"Peter? Where are you?" I couldn’t see him anywhere It was too dark

"Bryn!" caaround ure out for a second where I was It was dark for so up atin sideways frointo focus "Holy crap, I was having a terrible drea in your sleep And it’s late Like after dinner tihed heavily, knowing exactly where he was "Dammit, Bodo"

"Do you knohere he is?"

"Yes He went to that friggin Cracker Barrel"

"Did you tell hio there?" asked Peter, obvious disapproval in his voice

"No, of course I didn’t In fact, I specifically told hio there"

Peter chuckled "He only listens to your orders when he feels like listening to theive orders, Peter I’m not General Custer or whatever"

"Well, you’re our leader, like it or not And leaders give orders"

"I give suggestions And I strongly suggested that he not go there earlier today I told hiot in trouble, too"

"Did you rily

"Why are you mad at me? I’ain "I’o over there, risk our own butts, and possibly lose time on the road Actually, that would be the best case scenario"

"The worst case scenario being that we get eaten"

"Yeah That would be the worst thing I can think of"

"Can you do me a favor and not te like he was only half joking

"Yeah, you’re right Things can always, always be worse" I reached down and grabbed"Just stay here I’otten hi here alone I’et on your damn bike, then, because we can’t leave our stuff here"

"What are we going to do with Bodo’s bike?"

"We’ll leave the big butt bike here and if he coet it I don’t want to leave the trailer unattended"

"Okay Good idea Maybe we should leave Buster here with Bodo’s bike"

"Fine Use that bungee cord in the trailer to tie him to the fraot Buster all tied up and we got on our bikes to head over to the restaurant

We’d gotten all of ten feet before Buster started barking

"What the hell is his proble, "Shhh! Buster! No!"

But Buster wasn’t having any of that being left behind stuff He hining and dancing around, ain, he was going to call all the canners frorowled, turning around and waiting for Peter to untie hiot off my bike and snatched the Hello Kitty backpack out of the trailer "Get in here, you stupidaround like an idiot, waking up all the canners You’re riding withme on it, and I zipped it almost all the way up I left a space at the top that he poked his head out of This time I put hiue bath on the way over to the Cracker Barrel

We left the highway underpass and Peter started giggling

"Shut up, Peter" I was still grouchy

"I … I … can’t You have no idea … how ridiculous you look … with a poodle in a Hello Kitty backpack on your back"

"I can i to pay for this

We pulled up into the parking lot of the Cracker Barrel It was completely dark My watch showed eleven o’clock - pri time - but so far, I’d heard no sounds; and it see loud asses of the this meant this was a canner-free zone

I stopped near the front porch of the restaurant Cracker Barrels were all designed the sa chairs for sale and big chess gauess it was supposed to rese post from the Wild West

Peter pulled up next to ?" he whispered