As had been mentioned, we were in a car. Zach’s car, parked out on the street by his house. Any moment now, said car would be absconded with by us in the best prank the world had ever seen… or at least, the best prank this street had ever seen in the last 30 minutes.
“Just tell me what to do,” I instructed Luke on how to instruct me. I grinned after I said the words. “Only time I’ll ever tell you that.”
The adrenaline pounded in my veins and I was so ready for this.
“Alright.” Luke nodded. “What you wanna do is.” He stared intently at the car. “Drive?”
“Oh my god.” I banged my head on the steering wheel to show my exasperation. I meant to do that, to express said exasperation, but I used a little more force than I intended, so I frowned and rubbed at my forehead.
I really needed to do something with my hands. And my face. And my twitching leg. I wanted the getaway part to happen already. I was so keyed up, I maybe shouldn’t drive when I’ve never done that before and am so excited.
Then again, all I had to was go forward. I had done that when not in a car several times and maybe even sometimes without falling down, so it should be the same, just on wheels. I could figure this out even with Luke pointing out the obvious next to me. I just needed to focus on this first and then tackle the other driving parts as they came.
The street seemed to have an incline to it, so I just took the car out of park and let gravity do the rest, giving the gas a gentle tap.
Yep, I’m calm, cool, collected, responsible. I can do this.
And then I started doing it and lost all chill whatsoever. I tried to make the car go and I succeeded. I did it!
“Look, Luke, look!” I shouted even though he was right next to me. “I’M DRIVING!” Whee! “A CAR!” I added, in case there was any confusion.
“Stop yelling,” he protested.
“I can’t hear you over the sound of me driving.” A car!
“Okay, Ryan, that’s good. Brakes.” Yes, those were also part of a car. “Ryan, brakes!”
Oh, that was an instruction. A good one too. How did I brakes?
The car kept rolling, gaining momentum and I totally didn’t close my eyes. Okay, I could brakes, brakes was easy. I stomped on the brakes and we came to a sudden stop, lurching forward in our seats. Seat belts were also part of a car fortunately, so nobody flew from the vehicle.
Really pleased at myself for actually hitting the pedal I intended to hit, I forgot what I was doing for a second and stopped braking, and then there we went again. I drove! And brakes! Wait, focus!
There might have been some screaming and frantic movements, and this possibly wasn’t the best idea. At least there was some actual driving in the driving lesson this time.
We hadn’t even made it off the street by the time Zach caught up with us.
Either he was pretty brave or he trusted me because he stood right in front of the car, staring us down. Not trusting myself to be able to continue not hitting him, I turned the car off. Hey, go me turning the car off! No, not the time to celebrate.
Zach stared at us, hands on his hips, pissed off expression on his face. We probably looked embarrassed and guilty; that’s how I felt. Joey was here too, laughing in the background, obnoxious and incessant.
“Gotta say,” Zach started mildly. “In theory? Top notch prank. Harmless altogether, yet still annoying.” This felt like the calm before the storm. “And adding insult to injury by teaching Ryan how to drive with my vehicle? That’s the kind of extra touch that really makes it sting.”
Luke and I glanced at each other, unsure of what to do. “Thanks?” Luke tried after a moment.
“What were you going to do with the car when you got away?” Zach asked us.
“Hadn’t decided yet,” Luke said. He was partial to the classics like saran wrapping it or maybe filling it up with something annoying.
Deciding sharing my plan would be a good idea for some reason, I told Zach, “I wanted to leave it in front of the Center for Impotent Chronic Bedwetters with Bad Teeth, Who are also Really Stupid and Ugly, so you’d have to pick it from there, but Luke told me that place doesn’t exist.”
“Alright, you had options,” Zach continued, taking that in stride. “And you had deniability if Ryan wrecks everything because he’s never done this before, but you’re basically insuring I’ll torment you and hold a grudge forever.” He looked pleased to have the opportunity.
“We didn’t wreck anything,” Luke reminded him.
“That’s not relevant to the grudge and torment.” Of course not. “At least you gave my family a good show.”
We looked over. Yep, a couple people were looking out the windows and some people were outside. Luke sunk down in his seat. Seeing them all watching, Joey went up to the house to laugh at us with them. Zach’s brother and I were in a fight because it looked like he was retelling the incident from earlier to Joey.
