EPISODE 1: GREEN TEA AND IRRESPONSIBILITY

"Please don’t hit me! PLEASE DO NOT HIT ME. DO NOT CRASH INTO ME.” The quiet and strangled but desperate cries of Piper Cass would've normally been disconcerting, if they hadn’t been accompanied by comically wide eyes and wild hair. As it was, she had dashed out into the street without looking either way, (again) and discovered too late that a car was driving down the road without her permission. After an insane amount of speed-walking, she made it across.

Play it cool. I’m cool. I can be cool. She attempted to meander down the sidewalk nonchalantly, but tripped over her untied shoelaces. Sprawling out on the sidewalk, she wondered what she had done to earn the gracefulness of a tired elephant.

Finally after several more blocks, she (barely) made it home (somewhat) intact. Dumping her backpack on the couch, she wondered why her house was so quiet. Usually, it was teeming with life from her four siblings and her parents. Two envelopes on the table caught her eye. Tearing open the first, she discovered her driver's license. In the second contained a handwritten letter from. . . her mother?

Her lips moved as she read it to herself, and tears formed in her eyes. In short, the letter said,

Pip (this was a nickname assigned by her little sister, Kelli),

We have decided to take a vacation. I ask that you stay home and watch over things. We’ll be gone until September 2. There’s money in the flour bucket. It should get you through to then.

Piper skimmed through the rest of the letter. For a moment, she couldn’t really figure out what exactly she had just read. As the minutes passed, though, it dawned on her that she was alone. The silence in the house quickly turned from peaceful to terrifying as the walls seemed to close in on her. I’m alone. I’m all by myself. . . I don’t know if I can do this. I can’t. I’m by myself for a summer.

After a few deep breaths, the panic subsided, leaving a black ache in her stomach.

The hours ticked by, and Piper had already grown stir crazy. That was never a good thing. The wheels in her head began to turn (which was also never a good thing). After tapping some things out on her laptop, printing a few maps, and getting distracted on Google Earth, she had a plan: She was going on a road trip. Counting the money that her parents left her, she mentally added what she had in the bank, and found that it was about six thousand dollars.

After making a phone-call, she had someone who was willing to watch the house for free, and after a second call, she had ferry tickets. By nightfall, she had it all planned out. She would ferry down to Washington from her home in Wrangell, Alaska, then she’d visit her friends and travel around the U.S.A. until September 1, when she would head home and pretend that none of it ever happened.

Her uncle had offered to let her drive an old car that he’d ‘fixed up’. She had absolutely no idea what that’d look like, but she was willing to go along with it. Because she’d done ‘all that work’, she decided it’d be a good idea to sit down on her couch and talk to her friend Ash for awhile while eating an entire tub of ice cream. She decided not to inform Ash that she was planning on paying her a visit over the summer.

At around midnight, she realized that she had to pack if she wanted to be on the ferry. . . the next day. . . at six in the morning. Panic set in. Grabbing a hiking backpack, she crammed it full of green tea, blankets, a laptop, two iPads, and about seven different chargers. Then, she upturned the pack and dumped all of the things out when she realized that she could not, in fact, wear her current outfit (which consisted of volleyball shorts and a hoodie) all summer. Taking a deep breath, she asked herself, What would I pack if I were going to be gone all summer? Then she promptly packed the opposite, because what she would pack and what really needed packing were a little different.

Eventually, she ended up with seven outfits, a sleeping bag, a hammock, a pillow, her electronics (minus an iPad and several chargers), a can opener, seven different knives, and a ton of other stuff. After much pushing, shoving, begging, bargaining, pleading, and threatening, she got it all crammed into her backpack.

Instead of sleeping like a responsible person, she sat down and began making a map of where she wanted to go. About halfway through it, she trashed the map and decided to ‘wing it’, because that was sure to turn out well.

Finally, she decided that sleep was inevitable. As a last minute ‘surprise for her future self’, she added a bottle or two of green tea to her supplies, stacked her backpack, her guitar case, and her ukulele case by the door, and headed to bed. That night, she dreamed of adventure, the possibility of finding love, and her meager supply of green tea.

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