A quiet afternoon, just on the cusp of evening outside Bob’s Burger restaurant. The door held an open sign as the birds chirped and nuzzled, comfily tucked away in the restaurant's neon sign. The gentle winds pick up a loose feather guiding it along the faded green siding of the building, it makes its way towards the ally silently resting by the hand of none other than Louise Belcher, now 14 years old and no longer sporting her signature bunny ears. She recklessly hangs over the railing of the rusted fire escape- once a polished yellow, now a chipped rusted brownish-yellowish color. - Louise drapes her body over the rail with a phone in hand. “Come on Ruds! We haven’t hung out for most of the summer, why can’t you be there?” she lowers herself onto the rail, placing her full weight on it. “Look Louise, I’m not happy about it either but we’re still moving things in - I swear, there’s just too much to unpack. If I see another box after this, I think I'm just gonna explode!” He huffs. “Okay, okay. Breath Rudy, breathe. - look, it makes no difference to me where we hang out, but I need to talk to you – face to face.” bitting her lip in excitement trying to save the news until they could meet. “Sounds serious, all my stuff is unpacked, I'm sure Mom and Dave can manage without me for a while if you’re willing to take a bus I can meet you halfway.” Just then Rudy’s mom calls out from the bottom of the stairs, “Rudy! Your dad is here!” – “Your biological dad not – you know”- he verbally stumbled “I’m sure you heard that.” He chuckled in slight embarrassment. “It must be complicated now that you technically have two dads.” She empathized “Yeah, I’m more worried about Dave. He- you know what, we’re gonna meet up soon so I’ll tell you then. Okay?” “Course, later buddy.” She hangs up the phone and puts it in her pocket, staying to take in the air for just a little longer. Rudy's gonna love what I’ve got planned. She thinks to herself, smiling as she watches a lone feather float by, the soft breeze tickles her nose. Inside Linda walks into the kitchen in search of something, “Gene?” She calls out to no answer, looking over at the opened window she pokes her head outside suspecting it was Gene. “Wha- Louise? You better not be smoking out here Miss Missy.” pointing a suspicious finger. “Mom! Of course not. I was on the phone with Rudy, we’re gonna meet up today.”

“Since when you take your Rudy calls on the fire escape?” She teases.

“Mom!”

“Ahh I’m just teasing but look hold off on leaving the house for a second, I need your help.”

“Okay.” she sighs, pushing herself off the rusted railing to stand up straight up, the force of the push caused the rail to gain way, falling on one side crudely resting on the bar below it.

“Whoa.”

“Oh, my God!” They both stared in shock.

“Maybe keep the Rudy calls inside, huh?” Linda chuckled.

“We need a better house.” Louise huffed cautiously leaning on the wall of the building. Linda takes a few steps back into the house allowing Louise to climb back in,

“So, what did you need help with?” She asked. “Your bed! It’s here and I can’t find Gene and god knows ya father can’t do it alone.” she playfully mocks.

“I can’t, I gonna meet up with Rudy before the sun goes down. I haven’t seen him for most of the summer-”

“Louise!”

“Fine.”

“I’m gonna help too it won’t take long, I promise.” walking out of the kitchen towards the stairs Louise follows taking out her phone and shooting a text. As soon as she reached the stairs Bob’s strained voice could be heard.

“Don’t worry Linda, see I’m doing it!” His voice airy and high-pitched, clearly exhausted and the bed had only gone up the fifth step.

“Bob! I told you to wait for me. What if you pull something?” She complains.

“I’m not gonna- AHHHH!” Both Bob and the bed paused dead in their tracks.

“You pulled something, didn’t you?” Louise asked, unsurprised. - Bob had been going through a bit of a crisis about his usefulness, having just sent his oldest off to college he realized the familial noise started to die down. Not as many questions needing answers. Not much fatherly advice to offer. Both kids are barely home, and the empty nest syndrome started to creep ever more slowly into Bob’s mind. He wanted to feel like a dad again. -

“Lynn!”

“Yes, Bob?”

“Help. Please.”

“Yep. I’m coming!” She scurries down to meet him at the bottom. She helps him set the bed down, leaning it against the wall.

“Okay, up we go- OH my back!”

“Mom?” Louise leans to look past the bed that was now blocking a clear view of the door.

“Louise! Just leave us here, go do your thing.” she dramatically sighs

“What?! Lynn NO! We need help.”

“Should I call Teddy?” asked Louise, slowly pulling out her phone.

“No. No. Not Teddy. A hospital maybe or a chiropractor- no that’s dumb.”

“I don’t know, Bob. That chiropractor doesn’t sound too bad, Teddy knows a guy. Oh, maybe we should call Teddy, he probably won’t charge us.” She reasons.

“So, call Teddy?” Louise shouts with her phone fully out and his saved contact pulled up and ready to dial.

“Haaa, fine.” He surrenders letting out a defeated sigh. Louise makes her way down to meet the rest of them at the bottom of the stairs as the phone rings. Holding it to her ear, she squeezed past her aching aging parents and slipped out the door. “Hey Teddy, my parents are stuck and only a handyman like you can get them out.” she sarcastically praises.

“Oh no, I’m on my way. DON’T WORRY BOB! I’M COMING TO HELP YA!” He shouts through the speaker. Teddy quickly hands up while Bob and Linda minced and moaned back and forth at each other,

“Ow, Bobby. Don’t lean so much.”

“I’m practically pinned to the wall, Linda.” He screeched. Louise stuffs her phone back into her pocket, “Okay, it seems like you guys have everything pretty much covered, I gotta go meet up with Rudy now, bye!” Waving as she takes off towards the nearest bus stop.

“Louise! NO!” Bod shouts desperately to no avail. Louise now turned onto the next corner, her walk begining to turn into a jaunty strut as her excitement grew.

“Oh my god, he’s gonna love what I've got planned.” pepping herself up, coming up on the next corner she sees Rudy waiting at the bus stop – Almost like a scene from a romcom but with friends. - Rudy walked towards Louise and Louise kept her stride meeting in the middle.

“So, what did you wanna talk about?”

“I think I want to talk about the massive growth spurt you had!” She shouts in amazement. - Rudy, also known as “regular-sized Rudy”, now stood at a height of 6 feet tall. - “Oh yeah, Dave mentions it a lot. He really seems to think I’d make for a great athlete.” He shrugs.

“Uh, has he met you?”

“That’s what I said! - Well, I didn’t say it, but I was thinking it.” He let out a sigh as if he’d been holding it in the whole summer, “But anyway, what was the thing you wanted to talk about?” putting the conversation back on track.

“Not here, come on.” They walked side by side down the sidewalk as the evening hit. The sun’s bright yellow beam slowly faded into a soft orange glow.

“While we walk, why don’t you tell me about the move and ~Dave~.” She nudges in a playfully taunting manner.

“Well, the move is...stressful but what’s really bothering me is Dave’s weird stance on saying ‘Dad’, he keeps reassuring me he doesn’t want to replace my dad, and I know that, but he said-” Rudy bit his tongue, silencing himself as if in protest.

“What Ruds? Come on, you can tell me.”

“Well, he asked if I wanted to live with him and Mom full time.” He closed an eye waiting to hear Louise express frustration and protest. Their walk slowed to a stroll, Rudy looked over at his best friend, “Louise?”

“Well. Do you want to?” she asked, keeping her eyes focused on the pavement ahead.

“That’s the problem, I don’t know. I mean, the new place is amazing! It's twice as big as my dad’s, I practically have my own wing, but if I do stay with them, I’d be in another district; We wouldn’t go to school together.” he sighs. Louise thought for a moment, Rudy was in an emotional rut waiting for her to offer some insight or comment.

“Well, if you did stay full time would you visit on weekends?”

“Do you want me to stay full-time?”

“It’s not about me, Rudy. If you want to stay with your mom and Dave full-time, then do it.” she clenches her jaw.

“I guess you’re right, I have a lot to think about.” They continued in silence, coming up on a wooded area, shrouded in darkness.

“Gosh, I forgot how creepy this place could look.” He lets out a nervous chuckle. Louise smiles, pushing aside a few branches for the two of them.

“Yeah, the creepy vibes keep the chumps out.” Lowering her head to step through the shrubbery and branches, Rudy follows cautiously, inhaler in hand. His new stature caused him to hit nearly every branch in the makeshift tunnel.

“Never remembered the passage being so small- ouch!” His voice strains as he braves through the pain.

“Well, we did make it earlier in the summer, since you- your mom moved we haven’t used it that much. You haven’t at least. Plus, you got that sweet growth spurt, can’t even call you regular-sized anymore.” Letting out a chuckle as she tries to push the branches of the overgrown foliage higher for him. “Here we go, don’t forget to jump, Ruds.” She instructs nearing an opening leading to a small cliff – easy for older kids to jump but still a proper distance for anyone without guts. - Louise jumped without hesitation onto the soft moss-covered forest floor below. Though, with Rudy’s added height his perspective made the fall seem a lot higher than he remembered. In Rudy-fashion, anxiety promptly crept in.

“Come on, Large sized!” She encouraged, “Look, even if you miss, the ground is soft enough to cushion the fall! We’re losing daylight.” - Most know that a forest is hardest to navigate when cloaked by the night’s absorbent darkness. - Rudy takes a deep breath and jumps, the airtime lasting about 2 seconds. - Long legs, shorter fall. - “Alright big guy, let’s keep moving.” She waves towards the continued path. Comming up on a large piece of bark lying inconspicuously on the ground. She lifts it to reveal the lid of an old fallout bunker. - They found it at the start of the summer while riding bikes, Louise thought she could find a faster route to Rudy’s dad’s house. One accident later she found their new hideout. Since Gene was always busy with Alex, Kourtney, and with Tina at college, she showed it to her small circle of friends: Jessica, Millie, and Rudy. The group had never been closer, that is until Rudy’s mom got married and moved. The atmosphere fell off and all the secret plans they’d made for the summer grounded to a stop. It just wasn’t the same without him. Rudy was the voice of reason. It only took 2 injuries for the rest of the group to realize how destructive they could get, without worry word Rudy poking holes into their hastily thought-out plans. It didn’t take long for them to settle down a bit, especially Millie. Concussions are no joke. It was the last time they'd try to jump into the ravine, like Aunt Gale. Scariest day of their little lives. Now, all Louise was focused on was the perfect first year of high school. Which was the reason for this meet-up. Though plans might change.