I'm gonna move to the southwest, and, I don't know...

"Aga blah blah! GaggGablaghblagh."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Summer waved her hand dismissively as she fiddled with the unfamiliar device, "I got it, I got it. Okay, uh, say 'Glargablarg?'"

In front of her, the two Garblovians in Aloha shirts posed, Summer managed to figure out how to take their picture, and handed back their device. "Aga glab glab!" they garbled before they drifted away, and Summer tried to not make a face as she returned to the edge of the fountain where her friends were sitting.

"Ugh, tourists are the worst," she said, pulling out a phone.

( There was a funny thing about popularity... )
[[establishy, do do do]]

Because Summer apparently didn't have enough going on in her life with trying to break her grampa out of space jail, she now had a new very important goal that seemed....slightly easier to achieve. Which wasn't saying much, because Summer apparently was a very ambitious, slightly delusional young lady. However, it didn't take her long to come up with what she thought was a brilliant idea, with but one giant obstacle: Morty.

When she got back to her room, she took a deep breath, rehearsed her speech again in her head, and dialed home.

"Morty, I need your help," she said, before he even had a chance to answer.

"S-Summer, Dad told you to stop...to stop bothering me! He says he knows of a Gromflomite detention school to s-send you to, a real one this time, if you don't...if you don't knock it off!"

"No, no, no, no, wait, Morty, I promise you, this isn't about Grampa Rick. Well, it is, kind of, but it's not about breaking him out of prison this time. I swear. Just hear me out, okay?"

Summer took his silence as a petulant agreement. "Okay, do you remember, when we escaped the wedding and Grampa Rick used that thing to pin down how many Earth-like planets were available that we could live on? Like, he just asked it and it told him?"

She could tell that he wasn't sure he'd like where this was going. "Uh, yeahhhh, why?"

"I need you to find that device for me, Morty. I need it, for a friend, okay? Just...it's too dumb complicated to explain right now, but I need you to poke around the garage and see if he's left it or hidden it anywhere, okay? Please? I'll send you as many boxes of Strawberry Smiggles you want if you manage to find it."

"S-Summer, you know they confiscated most of Rick's stuff, and Dad turned the garage into his own space now. B-besides, that-that thing was on his spaceship. He abandoned us in that spaceship. If-if it's a-a-anywhere, Summer, R-Rick still has it."

"Just check, Morty, god! How hard can it be just to look? What have you got going on that's got you too busy to just look? Making out with Gromflomites for extra pills? Yeah, I bet those little feelers and those huge, sagging ba--"

"God, Summer, stop being a bitch!"

"No, you stop being a bitch, Morty. A little bitch who can't even help out his own dear sister. Just look, okay, Morty? That's all I'm asking. And maybe, just maybe, if you pull through with me on this, I'l...stop bothering you about contacts for Grampa Rick, deal?"

Another pause, but she could tell it was a good pause. "Yeah, okay, I'll look."

Victory! "Thank you, Morty! You're the best little brother ever."

"He's not coming back, Summer! We're all better off without hi---"

Annnnnd click. Enough of that. Summer nodded, pleased with herself, and then flopped belly-down on her bed to catch up with some texts and other notifications, trying not to think about the fact that Morty was probably right.

[[ mostly establishy, but the door is open! ]]

Summer knew she should probably be out there trying to make new friends, but she just had so much to text to her old friends back home that she was just semi-reclined on her bed, texting away, back and forth about various aspects of what was going on here, there, everywhere. There was also the occasional angry text to her brother (WHERE IS HE, MORTY? YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME SOMETHING, ANYTHING!) which received an aggravated response back (FORGET IT, SUMMER. JUST FORGET IT OK?), and, while she texted, she was also thinking about what her next steps would be, whether Morty was going to help her out or not. She'll figure it out; she could do anything she set her mind to, dammit.

The frenzy of messages was interrupted, though, when Summer received a phone call. There could only be one person who would actually be calling her, so she braced herself for the conversation about to come.

"Hey, Dad."

"Summer, we just got your workshop list, and I think we need to have a talk. We have a problem."

Rolling her eyes, Summer sat up. "Yeah, you're right, we do, Dad. Because they're all lame. Arts and Crafts? Advanced Takeout?" Which hadn't been bad, and she was hopeful for the others, but that wasn't the point. "What is this crap? You know they actually offer classes that might help me? Why can't I take those?"

"I'm not talking about those classes, Summer."

"Then what? Are you still butthurt about the food stuff?"

"You know what one I'm talking about Summer."

"Do I, Dad? Do I?" She did, but she wanted to make him sweat it out. "Is this about non-violence class?"

"Stop being obtuse, Summer. I'll have you know, no daughter of mine is going to be taking a...a...a pole-dancing class."

"Come on, that's, like, the one cool class they gave me, Dad. Besides, the Galactic Federation picked these classes, Dad, not me. If you have an issue with it, why don't you take it up with them, huh? They want me to take pole-dancing, Dad. I think they're trying to tell me something. My urge to move to the southwest and do something with turquoise is growing stronger again."

"You're not taking that class, Summer Smith, and that's my final--"

Summer started to make static noises into the phone, speaking a little more loudly between them. "What's that, Dad? KRrrrrccck What? Krrrrk I can't hear you over the sound of your fear of female sexuality and empowerment. Krrrrrrkkkk What? You're letting your own insecurities dictate what you deem appropriate for your nearly adult daughter? kkkrrssssstttt Oh, no, I think I'm gonna lose the ca--"

And she promptly hung up, settled back in with a smirk, and thought to herself that that went pretty well. She'd be ignoring any further calls from the Smith household that evening, thank you very much.



[[door's open, yo.]]