Hey Monday

h u n t i n g

-ellen-  

"Fucking asshole," I said to Logan as he laid down a "Z" on our Scrabble board. "Za is not a word. You can't do that, mister, no siree."

"Is, too," he said matter-of-factly. "'Za' is an abbreviation for pizza. It'll be in the dictionary; care to challenge me?"

"Yes," I said immediately. "Look it up."

Logan smirked and pulled open the Official Scrabble Dictionary on his phone, typing something in so that I could be proven right.
We'd been playing Scrabble a lot, Logan and I. The way we did it was sort of harsh and cutthroat, though- if one of us thought a word was incorrect, we could challenge the other to see if it was real or not. If you lost and it turned out that the other person was right, you had to lose a turn.

"Here it is," Logan said triumphantly, shoving the screen in my face. "That means eleven points for me and a skipped turn for you."

"Bitch," I muttered, sitting back in my chair.

"Guys, stop your little nerd-war," Noah said from the driver's seat. I felt the RV slowly ease to a stop, and I looked up to see some huge building crowded with people. They were swarming in and out and all around the building- we were obviously in the heart of a city.

"Where are we?" I asked curiously. "Noah, I swear to God..."

He unbuckled his seat belt and strode to where Logan and I were sitting. In one swift motion, he swept all of the Scrabble tiles off of the board and onto the floor. They bounced off the ground in a harsh cacophony of clattering noises. I was quiet for a moment.

"Okay, you get to pick those up," Evelyn said from behind him, hopping out of the passenger's seat and joining us in the living room.

Noah shrugged. "Yeah, it was just for effect, I'll get them later. Now, listen to my plan, because Evelyn and I spent a lot of time on it and it should be really fun."

"I'm all ears," Logan said nonchalantly. "We've been kinda cooped up for awhile."

Evelyn smiled and whipped out two pieces of paper from the kangaroo pocket of her sweatshirt. One was labeled "Team Nogan" and the other said "Team Elvyn".

"We're going on a scavenger hunt," Noah said excitedly. "It's boys versus girls. We're going to go all around the city and find all of the stuff on this list, and whoever is back here with proof first wins."

I jumped up happily, accidentally knocking over my tray of remaining Scrabble tiles. "Yes, oh my god, let's go right now!" I cried.

"Wait, where exactly are we?" Logan asked, holding his list and skimming his eyes over it. "Because I'm not sure if some of this stuff is native to the area... especially this time of year..."

"We're in Richmond, Indiana," Noah said exasperatedly. "And I double-checked everything, so we should be good. Everyone ready?"

I jumped up and down, making the RV shake a little. "Yes, let's go!"

"Okay... GO!" Noah called. We all raced to the door and tried to get our shoes on at the same time, which led to a lot of bumping into each other and knocking everyone down. I finally slipped on my black converse and Evelyn was already in her boots, so we raced out the door before the boys were done lacing up their sneakers.

"Okay, okay," I said, jogging alongside Evelyn. "What's on the list?"

I grabbed it from her and skimmed it over.

Team Elvyn:
One strand of red hair, preferably off of someone's head
Two pieces of candy stolen from a grocery store
Three selfies with three different children across town (the kids must be aware of and in the selfie)
Four pine needles, fresh off the tree
Five grapes, which may also need to be stolen
Six high-fives from six different people (record videos of the high-fives, or no credit)
Seven blades of grass (good luck finding it under all the snow)
Eight selfies with people who are unaware of it happening
Nine pinecones
Ten dimes
***If all of these items are not found by sundown, return to the RV anyway***