19

Mom asked what we could get with the money we had, and the cashier said we could buy a small box of chicken nuggets and a biscuit. So we got that, plus a handful of barbecue sauce packets. Then we went back to the van and split up the food five ways. We drove for a half hour or so, but by now it was pretty obvious we weren't gonna make it all the way home in one shot. So we were gonna have to find a place to sleep. We didn't have any money for a hotel, so Mom tried to find a campsite nearby.

The closest one was ten miles in the opposite direction, though. Dad said we were just gonna have to take the next exit, find a place where we could park, and sleep in the car. I was open to just about anything as long as we could turn the heater off when we stopped. But as soon as we took the exit, it was clear we'd made a mistake. First of all, the road wasn't paved. There weren't any gas stations or stores or even any houses. There were just trees on either side of the road, and no streetlights.

We drove for a long time, but the road was narrow and there wasn't a good place to pull over. I think everyone was getting pretty spooked, and eventually Mom told Dad we should just get back on the highway. But Dad kept saying he was POSITIVE that at any moment we were gonna find a good place to stop. The farther we went, though, the more nervous Mom became, because now even the GPS didn't know where we were. We saw some signs up ahead, and we all got excited that maybe we were getting back to civilization. But we were wrong.

Right at the moment when everyone's nerves were totally shot, there was a really loud noise. Dad swerved off the road, and our car came to a stop in the mud. My ears were ringing, and I looked around to try and figure out what had happened.

I expected to see broken glass everywhere, but the windows were intact, and there was some kind of weird goo all over them. Rodrick had the gooey stuff on the back of his head, and he was TOTALLY freaking out. I still didn't know what was going on, but then I looked in the grocery bag, which had shreds of the cinnamon roll package inside. The tube had EXPLODED because the bag was sitting right on top of one of the heater vents.

But RODRICK didn't know that yet. He had uncooked cinnamon rolls all over the back of his head, and he thought the dough was his BRAINS. What upset Rodrick even MORE was when he saw Manny licking the stuff off his fingers.