20

Manny finally made his way to the front of the car and got the keys, but instead of opening the door to let us in, he started the engine. Then he fiddled with the knob on the stereo until he found a radio station he liked. THE ITSY-BITSY SPIDER CLIMBED UP THE WATERSPOUT Mom and Dad were pounding on the windows, trying to get Manny to open the door. But then Manny put the car in DRIVE. I think until then everyone had forgotten that Manny had been trying to run away, because we never would've made the mistake of letting him in the van by himself if we had remembered.

Luckily, Manny wasn't tall enough to reach the gas pedal, because if he could, he would've been long gone. I think Manny knew his escape plan was foiled, at least for now. Mom finally convinced him to unlock the doors and let us in. Once we got going again, I started seeing some familiar sights out the window, because we were basically retracing our path back home. We were coming up on the town where we spent the first night of the trip, and when we passed by the motel we'd stayed in, I saw the CRAZIEST thing.

There was a purple van in the parking lot. I told Dad, and he pulled over. We took a closer look at the van, and sure enough, it was the one that belonged to the Beardos. That meant they were staying at THIS motel, and were probably using Mom and Dad's credit cards to PAY for it. We parked our car at the side of the building. Dad said he was gonna call the cops, so he got out to use the phone at the front desk.

But thirty seconds later Dad came running back to the car. He said he saw the Beardos leaving their room to go down to the pool, and it looked like their door was left open. Mom said we should stick with the plan and call the police, but Dad said that before we did, we should do a little investigation of our OWN. So we ALL got out and followed Dad to the Beardos' room. Just like he said, the door was open a crack. Dad nudged it open a little WIDER, and we peeked inside to see if anything of ours was sitting in plain view.

But we couldn't see any of our stuff from where we were standing. Mom seemed pretty uneasy about what we were doing, but then Dad pushed the door ALL the way open, and there was no turning back.

We couldn't find anything of ours, so if the Beardos DID have any of our stuff, they probably carried it with them to the pool. But as long as we had the run of their room, we decided to take full advantage of it. I figured it was OK since we were the ones paying for it. I think Mom felt we were setting a bad example for Manny, so she took him out to the car. But the rest of us weren't finished. Me and Rodrick took turns using the bathroom while Dad stood watch at the door. Then he went in and told us to be lookouts for HIM.