The beginning of something maybe. Thoughts would be lovely.

Okay so there's gonna be a pretty great adventure later on in this book, so pay attention. Included in said adventure are 6 ridiculous people, and among them, myself. Each of us reside in a certain environment. I like to call mine Suburbia (rightfully sung to the tune of Beyonce's 'Disturbia'), though its official name is 36 Southaven Circle. It's half red brick, half pastel yellow, and it looks a lot bigger than it really is. Listing its residents is a lot like listing vowels, Teresa, Caleb, Ellie, Zach, Buddy, and sometimes Griffen (one of the 6). This seems like a lot but Zach and Buddy are actually domesticated animals, and Teresa and Caleb are just parents. So I guess the only one really taking up substantial space in this house is me. Griffen lives here on and off, but most of the time he's in China doing something intelligent. Though when he's not off studying ancient samurai warrior culture, he's home, taking up as much space as possible. We love him and all, but when he's home Mom gets really stressed out because he puts his feet on our coffee table, and when mom's stressed she buys a lot of ice cream and makes me and Dad do all the laundry. It's not fun.
There's two other siblings in the Daily family. PJ, the oldest, is all old and employed and lives in Arizona, so we don't see him much. Jaquie actually lives in town, but she's always either working, babysitting, going to school or making cookies for people. Sleeping is usually not included in her routine, much less coming home for anything short of super important.

At some point in my early childhood, I met a curly headed kid named Daniel Magee (also one of the 6) and we've rarely left each others side ever since. He's what I like to call a day-resident. (meaning he's here all day every day but goes home in time for supper.) Neither of us actually remember meeting the other, so we've agreed upon the theory that we were abducted by aliens and saved the world together and the government erased our memory but we still share a telepathic link. The story begins with Dan actually.
It was back when Griffen was still a permanent resident. Me and Dan had just finished the 9th grade and Grif was already preparing for his senior year. Dan arrived at my house at 7 a.m. on the first day of summer. This was a horrible decision.
"GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE." He exclaimed as he heartlessly flipped the switch for the overhead light.
I believe I mumbled something along the lines of, "Holy Frick Danny, I swear I will kabob your stupid head into the next dimension."
"Well that's a bit violent." He chuckled. He waited for a response and when there was none, he aimed a stuffed giraffe at my head. "Wake uuup." He whined like a freaking 2 year old. My mood was murderous.
I bolted up in irritation, but I couldn't quite decide if I was awake or not, and I couldn't see where Dan was because my hair was all up in my face. So I mumbled a few convincing words such as: " What... Freaking... I am...NOT okay with this. I want to ...be asleep now... You butt.."
Apparently I was rather intimidating because he left me alone for an hour and a half after that. When I came downstairs I found him in the living room playing an intense game of Mario Kart with Griffen.
"It seems beast has arisen from its cave." Griffen acknowledged.
"You suck." I announced. I was in desperate need of cereal.
"Hey, Dan's the one that provoked you not me." He defended.
"Yeah, Els, I thought you were going to rip my face off."
"Was I really that bad?" I asked in search of a decent bowl from the cabinet. I knew exactly how bad I was, I just didn't feel like apologizing.
"Uh yeah, you were ravenous. I nearly died." He exaggerated. His hair was even crazier than usual today. And his sock were mismatched. (Not intentionally though. Same color, different brand.) He must have been in a hurry.
"Hm. I don't remember most of it. Sorry if my subconscious was a jerk." I said as I poured my cereal, mixing captain crunch and recess puffs together. (Try it. It's fantastic.)
"Eh." He was focused on his game now. "Aghh bananas are freaking everywhere. Goodbye cruel world! Nooooooooo." He narrated as his cart plummeted off the rainbow bridge.
"Mwhaha 3rd place." Griffen said. I sat down between them on the couch and studied the screen.
"Dan, no wonder you're losing. You're playing with toad." I pointed out.
"What's wrong with toad?" He defended.
"Dude he's like the worst one." Griffen added.
"Nope, Princess peach." I corrected.
"Oh, true that."
"That's not how it works you guys." He said
Evidently that was exactly how it worked, because Dan lost 5 games in a row.
"Dangit."

"Hey Griffen where's mom?" I asked. I added my cereal bowl to the pile of dishes in the sink. I felt bad for a second about leaving them there, but then again I had no desire whatsoever to do the dishes.
"She went to take to food to someone who's aunt has like pelvis cancer or something." He explained. "Then she said she was going running with Mrs. Katie and going to her book club." As usual. Mom was always ridiculously busy. I'm pretty sure she had a more hectic social life than all of her children combined.
"So she should be back when?"
"Not sure, but knowing her she'll probably convince her self that she needs to go to Wal⭐mart while she's out, and that could take decades so probably around Four." He estimated.
"I DECLARE ADVENTURES!" I exclaimed running back into the living room. I nearly slipped on the hardwood floor due to my Pokémon/Ninja Turtle socks (one for each foot.)
"Woah now, careful, Miss Enthusiastic. Where are we gonna go with out a car?" Asked Dan. He had already caught on to my objective. Smart kid.
"Wweellll... Griffen you've got a car don't you?" I asked innocently.
"Nope. There is no way in hell I'm putting on pants today." He declined, standing up and stretching his arms. I realized that I had allowed him to roam around in his plaid boxers all morning.
"Dude that's just sick." I complained. "You wouldn't have to actually like TALK to people, you wouldn't even have to get out of the—"
"Uh-huh. I'm not falling for this one again. I'm not chaperoning your little tweenage shenanigans anymore." He interrupted.
"Under WHAT circumstances do we constitute Tweens?" I defended. (Notice I didn't deny the shenanigans part. That was very true.) "Dan's already got his learners permit, thank you very much."
"Well Dan's not a little baby tween." He smiled, intentionally offensive.
Dan is exactly 6 months older than me. His birthday is January 1st (we always throw him a New Year's Eve party), and mine is August 1st. So he got his permit much before I did, and I was slightly jealous about it.
"Ugh. Fine. We'll stay here." I said annoyed. "Dan what do you want to do?"
He shrugged. "Whatever is fine."
"Come on Dan, opinions. I'm asking for it." I prodded.
Dan was always careful not to shove his opinions in people's face. It was considerate, sure, but sometimes you just need to spell out what you want you know? He was way too compliant. I'de been trying for years to show him that the whole polite crap didn't work on me but he was still as submissive as ever.
"Okay um... We could... I don't know watch a movie or something?"
"Nah, Jaquie took all our good movies with her to college." I explained.
"I say you guys should like, go outside for once." Griffen suggested.
"Oh, you're one to talk Mr.—WAIT THAT'S A FANTASTIC IDEA." I realized.
"WHAT IS." Dan returned at a matched volume.
"THE HORSEHEADPOLE" I told him.
"THE HORSEHEADPOLE?" He asked.
"YEAH THAT." I realized how loud I was talking and calmed down. "Don't you remember? In the third grade? When we thought we were hunting a ghost in the woods and we were making a list of mysterious things and we found the horse head pole?"
"Oh yeah that thing!" Dan remembered.
"Wait you have a horse head on a pole somewhere out there?!" Griffen asked incredulously.
"No! God no, Griffen! It's an iron pole that has the shape of a horse head on top." I explained.
"We'll what's so great about a pole?"
"Childhood dude! I wanna see if it's still there!" I said.
"I'm cool with that." Daniel agreed.
"Okay then. You guys have fun in the woods, I'll be here guarding the fridge from predators." He said shoving a grape in his mouth.
"Dancomeonweneedtobringstuff." I said excitedly, as I dragged him up the stairs to my room.
I immediately began emptying my purple school backpack out on the floor, and Dan immediately began picking up my old notebooks and putting them on my shelf. He was a bit of a neat freak.
"Ellie you can't just—"
"Okay let's see, what should we bring?" I said inspecting my bedroom for supplies.
"Wait why do we need to bring stuff? The woods is like right over there.
"Provisions! We could get kidnapped! Or lost! Or hungry! or hopelessly bored!" I told him, tossing some packets of peanut butter cracker from my emergency stash on my bed. He picked them up an put them in the outside pocket of my backpack, then held it out for me to shove more stuff into.
"Hey do you think we should call Lyla and see if she wants to come with us?" He asked as I was digging in my drawer for a decent pencil.
"Yeah sure my phones over there." I pointed to where it was charging next to my bed.
"Wait I'M gonna do it?" He asked nervously.
"Yeah, it was your idea." I said
"But...do we know her that well yet? Should I just text her?" He asked. He was so awkward it was ridiculous. Lyla (yet another one of the 6) was a girl we had met at the beginning of the school year. We were in drama with her and we kind of adopted her since she was new. She was a grade below us, but technically she was only 3 months younger than me, so there wasn't much difference. We had been hanging out with her alot and we were just on the verge of deeming her the third musketeer.
"Fine I'll do it if you're scared." I prodded.
"Ugh fine." He got my phone and started scrolling for her number. "Heh. Nice background." He joked. It may or may not have been the lead singer from fall out boy.
"Shut up." I said
"Um. Lyla?" He said awkwardly as soon as she picked up. "Uh.. Hey.... Yeah, uh do you want to come to the woods with me and Ellie?"
I could hear her "What?" From across the room.
"Oh my god Dan give me the phone." I said, zooming to the rescue. He hung his head and handed it over.
"Lyla?"
"Oh hey Ellie."
" Yeah hey. Okay here's the thing, there's this awesome horse head pole in the woods across the road, me and Dan found it when we were kids and we're going on an adventure to see if its still there. Wanna come?"
"Um. Assuming this isn't a real horse head you speak of..."
"It's not, I swear."
"Then sure, when?"
"Like now. Meet us at the path entrance in 10 minutes."
"Uhm. Okay sure." I heard the frantic shuffling of items. "I'll be there. Thanks bye."
"See ya." I hung up and turned to Dan. "Now was that very hard?"

More stuff happens. The other two of the 6 are met. Adventures ensue.