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“Wake up. We’re going to a funeral.”
Casey was already awake, but this doesn’t stop Derek from throwing her purse at her head. She barely manages to block it with a pillow.
“Derek what are you talking about?” she rubs her head and glances at her clock. Whatever this is, it must be bad if Derek is awake at 8:00 am.
“The Prince. It died.”
She sits up then, alert. “The Prince? What happened?”
Derek sits on her roommate Laura’s bed (her finals ended on Thursday) across the room, body tilted forward, hands restless. “It got totaled last night.”
“Der-ek!” she shrieks, and bolts out of bed, and she’s doing this weird mime of a security pat down crossed with a boxing routine while she hits him in exasperation. “Are you okay? How could you be so irresponsible?”
“Lay off, crazy” he bats away her hands “I’m fine. And it wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t even in the car.”
She pulls back, confused. “Then what happened?”
He puts his head in his hands and mumbles something.
“Come again?”
Derek says the mumble-y thing again, just barely louder than before.
She prods him in the shoulder “Once more, with feeling.”
He pulls his hands down, throws his head back, and groans. “A moose fought it.”
Casey stares. “A moose. Fought it. That’s your story.”
“It’s what happened, so, yeah. That’s the story. Stupid thing pushed the Prince right off the road.”
“Why. Why would a moose… bother with that?”
“Best guess? It saw those stupid reindeer antlers you insisted on putting on the windows and got tetchy. So really,” he glares at her, “it’s your fault we’re stuck with the bus home now.”
She has the momentary grace to look just a little ashamed, and then, “Wait a second. If the car was in park, how could it roll?” Derek flushes, and Casey’s eyes narrow.
“Yeah, well. Remember how I was supposed to get the transmission replaced? That uh. didn’t happen. Turns out 500 kg of wound-up mega fauna can push a clunker with a lousy transmission off the road and into an iron fence pretty easily. Who knew?”
This is all incredibly insane and Casey plops down next to him on Laura’s bed.
“Well then. What next?” She asks.
Derek gestures to her purse and then the door. “Funeral, remember?”
Right. That’s why he’s here. Not to let her know he’s alive and unharmed, but to make her mourn a car.
He continues, “I already called the insurance and they gave me the number for a salvage yard, and” a sigh. “I was kinda hoping you’d call them?”
“Derek! It’s your car, as you have repeatedly made clear. Clean up your own mess!”
“It’s the Prince, Casey! Calling the salvage yard would be like, like- like hiring a hit man.”
“Derek, it’s a car.”
“Casey, it’s the Prince.”
She takes a deep breath, lets it out, and “Fine. I can do that.”
He grins, shoves a crumpled receipt with his scrawl on it at her and bolts for the door. “Number’s for the salvage. Address is for the impound lot. I’m gonna go get funeral supplies, and I’ll meet you there, okay?”
Funeral supplies. For a car.
She shakes her head and pulls out her phone.