Stop to smell the Roses or corn in this case

The car will continue to slowly rumble on. Pam wrote this down in her sketch book. She looked out the window searching for something interesting. Slowly moving her pencil across the page, but never daring to make a line, she needed a better idea. Her hand lightly touched the door handle. The black interior of the car was being revealed by the rising sun smiling upon green shades of growing corn, there was a lot of corn here. Pam flipped through the recent pages of her sketch book, It was all corn, Pam dropped the sketch book in surprise. She then slumped down in her boring corn filled fate. The countryside was in all honesty pretty bland. The last time she was here, Pam realized she hadn’t been there in more than a year, and hadn't seen her mom’s side of the family in forever. Looking to her side, Jackal, her best friend, was dead asleep in the car seat. They were having a sleep over, when her mother abruptly remembered the party and made them both get up at the crack of dawn.

"We're almost there.” Her mother turned from the front seat. Moving the steering wheel. Her mom turned the volume all the way up.

“WHAAAAA!” Jackal jolted awake. Pam and her mom giggled. Mom’s face suddenly turned serious.

“Jackel, Pam, don’t make any jokes while we're there.” Her mom drove the car a little slower. Mumbling something about Grandma. They drove for only five more minutes before arriving. Pulling in on the loose gravel drive way, that was way bigger than she remembered, maybe blue whale size. She had no idea how big a blue whale actually is. Her mom didn’t get out of the car while Pam and Jackal looked at her confusingly .

“We goin’?” Jakel asked. The wind blew across the yellow landscape.

“Yeah” She opened the car door with speed and some gravel blew across the ground. Pam opened hers too and got out. As they made their way to the garage, a woman she didn’t recognize appeared.

“Hello, you look like a fashion show, I'm glad you made it, do you need any aid!” The rhyming woman neighed. Ok so this woman was crazy.

“I think we’re good.” Her mom said while having a concerned smile as Pam and Jackal murmured some yeahs and oks as they walked as fast as they could.

“Ok, I'm going to headway to the stairway.” says the rhyming woman. She made her way away without delay.

“Who is that lady?” Jackal asked her. She searched her mind for answers, but she came up empty.

“I don’t know, I haven't seen these people in a while.” Pam answered. She looked ahead to see where they were actually fast shuffling to. A big barn or garage, she wasn’t an expert on buildings. White paint that was peeling off in some places, falling into the rocks surrounding it. She noticed some people talking and eating, a handful she could pick out the faces of, but most of them Pam didn’t recognize. Avoiding someone seeing her she gazed over to the gray house. An old woman was loudly scolding a child that was no more than five, Ah yes her grandma, she went from a shuffle to a run-walk.

“Pam, you didn’t mention there being a pond!” Jackal exclaimed. There wasn’t a pond here but there was a glimmering green pond, a jewel of the hippy property. The light from the sun swirled around. Jackal got closer to her. “Now we can get away from your weird relatives!” Jackal mischievously smiled. She laughed and looked to make sure her mom hadn't heard that. Her mom had gone elsewhere and they sat down in the freshly cut short grass. The both of them just stared at the ducks that had taken up residence in the new pond. The ducks were far apart, rarely crossing paths, one duck with feathers falling out would try and attack the other ducks if they got too close to each other. “I should go see if they have any bread that we can feed the ducks with.” Jackal said as if he had completely forgotten their shared goal of not talking to people, and also that bread is bad for ducks.

“Wait you can’t just go-oh of course you're already gone.” Pam said to herself out loud. She secretly hoped her friend would just come back so she didn’t have to risk saying the wrong thing to someone, but if he ran into her grandma. She had to go, she wouldn't sacrifice her friendship. Making her way to the garage or barn she still couldn't tell, Jackal was perusing the food options. He grabbed a sugar cookie and was eating it as Pam walked over.

“Have you forgotten that bread is bad for ducks? We did an entire paper on it.” Pam said. Relieved that her grandma wasn’t around. There were some horrible looking patties sitting on the table as Pam considered eating something.

“Did I say bread, I meant to say seeds.” Jackal corrected.

“Then why are you looking at the food selection? I don’t think my relatives are birds.” She jested. The both of them burst into laughter.

“Hello Pam, I see you brought your friend.” Pam stopped laughing and turned to face her grandmother. She nodded her head.

“You need to say hello when someone says hi.” Her grandmother’s voice sounded like a metal scraping on a porcelain plate.

“Hi Grandma.” Pam said.

“You need to talk louder; you're turning into such a disrespectful girl.” Her grandmother criticized. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted. “And your friend should speak too.” She slit her eyes.

“Ok…hi Pam’s Grandma.” Jackal hesitated. The wind blew across the land once again and Pam had to hold on to her straw hat.

“Nice to see you're not backward like Pam.” Grandma put her hands on her hips. They both started to slowly inch away. And then back into a shuffle run walk. “PAM!” She yelled but with her stick legs she couldn’t catch up. They both agreed to just ask her mom if they could leave. Unfortunately, they had no idea where she was. She wasn’t by the pond. They checked, their reflection waving in the water. heading back towards the barn-garage, talking about school, a shadow appeared behind them.

“Pam! I haven't seen you since you were a bea you've grown so much!” Her uncle Colt who she had seen in her mom's photo books beamed. He enveloped both Pam and Jackal in a bear hug. Letting go and spitting some dip into a coke can he grinned looking at Jackal. “I see you have a friend; I was worried that since you were such an ugly baby you would scare them all away.” He chuckled.

“Dude you gotta show me those baby pics.” Jackal insisted. She was in fact a very ugly baby and would burn if anyone at middle school ever saw those photos.

“Could we not talk about me as a baby?” She begged. But it was too late.

“I think I have one on my phone.” Her uncle remarked as he pulled it out. Her fate was sealed.

“Oh, hey look moms over there we gotta go, bye.” Pam spotted her mom in the nick of time. Jackal sighed as they walked over to the outdoor couch. And sat down next to her. The three of them stayed on the couch for a while. She felt stuck to this couch. Clouds dragged across the sky drifting apart without a say in the matter. Pam remembered how she used to play with her cousin and how now their parents rarely visited each other. Pam stood up, she was hungry that was all. Grabbing the goofy patties and sitting down at the table instead of the bench. Something overcame her and she opened her mouth to speak.

Talking to the people at the table it turned out that the rhyming lady was practicing for an acting role and that Colt was getting married this summer. She even walked around, talking to her cousins and finding out some of her cousins were going to high school and college! She still avoided her grandma though.

On the car ride home, she took out her sketch book, she would have talked to Jackal, but he was working on schoolwork. Shaking some gravel out of her shoes. She thought about talking to her more relatives on the long drive home as she drew their faces in her sketchbook and not hesitating to make a line with her pencil. On the next page drawing some roses with as much detail as she could remember. She looked out the window again as the house disappeared into fields of corn, The car continued to slowly rumble on.