Golf Break

“Alright. So uh… one ice pack… phone charger… two sticks of deodorant, two toothbrushes… this here thing of toothpaste… aaaand one can of hair dye. That’s uh… your total is 3827 dollars and eighty-five cents.” The nervous part-timer decreed.

“Thank you!” Beamed Katie.

“We should’ve just stolen from the rest stop…” Frankie murmured, looking around the gas station for any cops of neir-do-wells.

“No more crime for us, silly.” Her big sis whispered, pulling the brat away whilst shoving the shopping bag with their supplies. “We’re self sufficient now, we won’t need to stop at places like those if we don’t have to.” The sliding doors spread to release the two girls back into the intermittent park sitting pretty somewhere near the western border of Missouri.

The loud cracks of hard metal sticks slapping plastic balls across the town without regard for who was standing in range of them was almost as bad a noise as a more coaster-filled establishment. Frankie wasn’t able to anxiously affix her eyes to the flat green terrain when every few seconds she had to check upwards to spot any incoming sports implements. Wolfman Golf Valley was so boring an idea in concept that it actually sustained a strong unique appeal in a market oversaturated by Kidneyland ripoffs using the same centuries-old designs and techniques. Of course, Katie saw no measurable difference between the two philosophies.

“This place is pretty cool, huh?”

“Maybe if you like balls hitting your head.”

“That won’t happen if we’re the ones hitting them! We should play a game!”

By the time Frankie groaned it was already too late. Soon enough they both had clubs in hand and were slowly making their way down plotted courses going through many a goofy obstacle, from simple windmills to animatronic field hazards in the shape of cartoonish lupines. It wasn’t so much professional mini-golf as it was mini-golf upscaled to the standard professional size, where in which you spent most of the day just driving- or, in the poor sister’s case, running towards the next hole.

It was only when they were done that Frankie felt right bringing it up again. She herself kept wanting to forget they actually had anything to do, given how even as much as these activities sucked, she couldn’t necessarily deny they took her mind off the never-ending stream of nasty situations and unfair consequences they’d gotten themselves in.

The wood bench was hot and uncomfortable, but the trees above it served to deter most balls from striking them, at least with the totality of their initial force. Frankie sighed before opening up to her fellow adventurer.

“Katie…” She begrudgingly reminded the loser of today’s game, the competition having driven her into participating quite thoroughly. “You know we still gotta get to Kidneyland as fast as we can, right? Today was fun… hell of a time better than yesterday, but… can we even afford to stop this often? If you really wanna keep doing all this, we’re gonna need the money from this “game” he’s gonna start. We gotta get the most of those moon tokens before the twenty-fourth.”

“Yeah… yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I promise that after today, we won’t stop on any rides. Or golf courses. I mean… we can always go back to them later. I hope.”

“I’m sure we will… Just try not to worry too much. I won’t either. We’re almost there… so let’s just go for it.”

“It’s a deal.”