Hank Okomodo, Dragon Boy, borrowed his parent's van and filled the back up with sponges and a hydration system and we were off on our road trip!

Then we got to the desert. Which is Hank's homeland. But the cops there have it out for Dragon Boys and they pulled us over for some cocked up reason. Then they gave him a ticket for an unlicensed mobile hydration system. They wouldn't even recognize me as a life form.

We're laying low, camping out, but Hank's sure they'll pull us over again next chance they get. And there's no telling what they'll do.

Hank says maybe we can take back roads.

So I'm out mapping the perimeter of the energy grid, finding new charging stations as they pop up on the edges, getting charged up, and seeing how out there I can go in my bubble car. Now I can get as far as the desert.

Way out in the middle of nowhere on an abandoned dirt road I spotted a land vehicle in trouble. So of course I landed and discovered it was a couple of kids from the Terraridorm. They were trying to mend a broken axel and not having wheels I really couldn't help them with that but they agreed I could get them back to civilization.

We're a few days back to Psyhigh but the backseat can sleep two and I have just been sleeping with the driver's seat reclined at night. Maybe we'll get a sandwich at a Quick Stop.

There's no doubt we were very lucky to get picked up by that boy from school in his flying bubble car. Imagine the chances of that! Hank's parents are going to be real mad about the van though.

We made it as far as Barrett when the bubble car ran out of juice. Bubbleboy says there aren't many charging stations out this way, and he had to use up extra fetching us. Fair enough.

We put together enough between us to get a motel room at the Fancy 8. Trust me, it's not that fancy. But Hank put some towels in the tub and ran the water a bit so I'm comfortable enough in there.

There's apparently some kind of moonshiner network out here you can buy blackmarket bubblejuice from, so that's @Jo Conde's plan.

"That's a Hiyakoo Droplet 9. You got generous parents, kid."

The blackmarket bubblejuice moonshiner was in the parking lot behind the Fancy 8.

"I only need enough to get back to the Tri-cities," I said. "Can you, like, just sell me a couple of bulbs?"

The dealer was an enormously fat gnome. A little over two feet tall, but quite a belly.

"Trouble is, I don't take credit cards," he said. "And it doesn't look like you have any sacks of gold in the trunk."

He was right about that. I lived off my parent's credit card. All I had was the bubble car. And my phone. And my headphones. And the earbuds. And my computer. And--

"But," the gnome said, looking up at the night sky. "I'm inclined to give you a line of credit myself. You say you go that school? The one in the Tri-cities?"

I guess I'd already said too much.