4 Sweet Ride!

Chapter 4 SWEET RIDE! The Heartbreak Hotel in Memphis has an Elvis Presley theme, of course. There are pictures of Elvis all over the walls. Elvis songs blare out of hidden speakers. There's a TV in the lobby that always has an Elvis movie playing on it. From the looks of the place, you would never know that The King died back in 1977. It looks as though he's still alive. Everywhere Coke and Pep turned, there were constant reminders of Evil Elvis. It made it hard to forget what happened with Aunt Judy just a few hours earlier. Still, the twins slept soundly. It was nice to be in a regular bed for a change. After a few weeks, the RV had begun to feel like a rolling jail.

In the morning, everyone was famished. The food in the RV had been incinerated in the explosion, of course. The McDonalds came downstairs at nine o'clock and took a table in the hotel restaurant. Apart from a few lonely Elvis impersonators, the place was almost empty. A giant-screen TV on the wall was showing the young Elvis dancing with Ann- Margret in the movie Viva Las Vegas. The waitress took everyone's order and went to the kitchen. "Family meeting!" Dr. McDonald announced. "I've been thinking—" "Uh-oh," Coke muttered. "You know I've been trying to come up with a topic for my next book," Dr. McDonald continued. "I've decided that I don't want to do an Elvis Presley biography after all." "Good idea, Dad," Pep said, visibly relieved. "Yeah, there are probably a thousand books about Elvis," Dr. McDonald told them. "I was thinking that maybe for my next book I might

try a novel." "A novel?!" Pep said, almost spitting out her orange juice. "Ben," said Mrs. McDonald, "you're a respected scholar, a university professor!" "That book about coal and the Industrial Revolution was awesome, Dad," Coke said. "I couldn't put it down." "See?" Mrs. McDonald said. "And you tackled an important subject. And now you want to write... a novel?" "What, you don't think I can do it?" "You can do anything you put your mind to," Pep told her father. "That's what you always say to us, right?" It was obvious that Dr. McDonald's feelings had been hurt. It may have been the 21st century, but he was still insecure over the fact that his wife was more successful than he was. It didn't seem fair to him that a million people visited her silly website every day to find out about ridiculous museums, giant balls of twine,

and the like. Meanwhile, his book had been a flop. Sadly, not a lot of people care about the impact of coal on the Industrial Revolution. The book sold less than three thousand copies. He wanted to write something that everybody would read and talk about. He wanted to see his name on the bestseller list. "All I need to do is write a nonfiction book and add a story to it," Dr. McDonald said. "Throw in some action. Some adventure. Some conflict. How hard could that be?" "Do you have an idea for a novel, Dad?" Coke asked. "No. I'm just thinking about it." The family looked at him skeptically, and Dr. McDonald decided it would be best to drop the subject for now. He pulled out his trusty Rand McNally road atlas and opened it to the big map of the United States. Leaning over it like a general planning an invasion, he stabbed his finger at Memphis, Tennessee.

"Okay, gang, here's how we're going to get home," he said. Dr. McDonald traced a southern route west with his finger sliding across the states of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Then they would drive up to Las Vegas in the southwestern corner of Nevada, and up through California until they got back to the San Francisco area. The food arrived just after Mrs. McDonald opened her laptop and plugged in the starting and ending points for the trip. It would be about 2,200 miles, according to the computer, plus

any detours they would make. The total travel time would be one day and eleven hours, if they drove it straight. But, of course, Mrs. McDonald had no intention of traveling all those miles without stopping off along the way. "There are some cool things right here in Memphis," she informed the group. "The National Civil Rights Museum is at the site where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. And Sun Studio is here too. That's where Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and all those other singers recorded their first songs." "I say we blow this pop stand," Coke said. "I second that," said Pep, glancing at her brother. "It gives me the creeps." After breakfast, the McDonalds went to the front desk to arrange for two taxis to pick them up—one for the boys and one for the girls. Pep and her mom went to the Southland Mall, just two miles from Graceland on Elvis Presley Boulevard. They filled a couple of