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Annabel started to giggle.
We all stared.
Then she began to laugh harder, slapping her thigh.
“What in the world is so funny?” Poppy asked, sounding irritated.
“I’m not laughing at anything in particular. I swear,” Annabel hooted. “It’s just…this is going to be the funniest story to retell we’ve ever had. Does anything top being thrown in jail for trying to sneak into a royal’s front yard?” More laughter. “We’ll be telling it for years. The part about you falling out of the hedges is the best part.” She was clutching her stomach, rocking back and forth. “You…you literally squeezed through an opening the size of a dog door and then thought to yourself, ‘Why not climb up this rickety hedge? I’m sure the thin branches will hold me.’ Then you crash-landed on your face—”
Poppy sputtered as we all joined in the laughter. “I don’t need to have it described to me. I lived it.” Then she began to laugh, rocking Yasmine along with her. “Oh my goodness, what was I thinking? If anyone has to own up to their shortcomings, it’s me!”
“That’s because”—Annabel drummed her feet on the ground—“you’re short!”
We laughed ourselves silly for about ten minutes, each of us hooting about a particular point in the story. What else did you do in jail except try to laugh at yourself?
The adrenaline had to exit our bodies somehow.
I wiped tears from my eyes. “It’s two thirty in the morning, and we just drove sixteen hours straight, with only a single burger to fuel us. We should try to get some sleep.”
Poppy looked aghast. “Sleep? Here? Surely you jest. There’s no way any of us are getting any sleep.”
“I don’t know about that,” Annabel said as she stretched out on the bench, using her arm as a pillow. “I can pretty much sleep anywhere.”
I yawned. “This is not quite the night I’d envisioned, but if I have to spend time in jail, I’m glad it’s with you ladies.” I eased back, crossing my arms across my chest, my back resting against the wall.
“Perp besties for life,” Poppy said as she yawned herself. “Pretty soon, we won’t even know what life looks like on the outside.”
“I call laundry duty,” Annabel said tiredly, readjusting herself as she closed her eyes. “I hope they stick me with a cellmate that looks just like Molly Ringwald.”
