"Okay", said Martin and scratched his bare arms. He was still somewhat dirty and the dirt was itching.
"We'll just have to wait for the machine to turn off. Come on, there's a restroom next to the arcade. We can get our faces cleaned off in there. And our arms."
It didn't take too long to wash off. There was a long roll of paper towels in the restroom, and a few minutes later, Keith and Martin and cleaned the road mud from their faces, arms, and even hair. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the clothes to be clean.
It was when they exited the restroom that Martin first spotted the sign on the wall, which had been well above the boys' heads when they walked in. "Oh, no. Keith…"
Keith read the sign. "NEW SAFETY FEATURE — LAUNDRY MACHINES LOCK FOR SECURITY UPON ACTIVATION. FULL LAUNDRY CYCLE… 3 HOURS."
"Three hours!?" exclaimed Martin.
Keith felt bad. He honestly hadn't realized. But it made sense. Three hours was a pretty long laundry cycle. At least he guessed it was. The price, he supposed, of having a machine that did the washing AND the drying all in one. And it also made sense for the machines to lock upon activation, since most people wouldn't want to hang around the laundromat for that period of time. They'd want to go elsewhere and run errands or something, and come back just in time for the machine to finish up. But they'd also want to know that their clothes weren't going to be stolen or anything in the meantime, hence the automatic lock.
Of course, most people wouldn't be stuck in just their underwear.
"Ohhhh, man! Is that for real? What do they mean by 'three hours'? How can anybody stay here and wait for THREE HOURS?!" exclaimed Martin, turning a bit red, half from anger, half from potential embarrassment. He looked a bit weird in his white underwear combined with black shoes and socks, and he knew it.
"Are you expected home anytime soon?" asked Keith, sincerely concerned. He was already trying to think up some excuses for Martin's behalf.
"No, not really," said Martin. "Aunt Matilda was going to be visiting all day. Mom said as long as I was home by dinner that was fine. But Keith, what are we going to do? I mean… three hours?"
"Nothing." said Keith. His major concern had just been addressed. No one was going to miss Martin that soon. "Nothing we can do. We'll just have to wait it out." He put his hands on his hips, trying to look more decisive, but this made him feel even more weird. Funny, how skinny he suddenly felt while standing in underwear in a somewhat public place. The feeling made him shiver a little though the air was pretty warm. But he couldn't very well let on that he felt almost as uncomfortable with this situation as Martin did.
Martin scowled, unconvinced. Keith sighed. "Look, we've got the arcade. Okay, most of the games are older than we are, but that just means we probably haven't played them before, so that can't be too bad. And there's a soda machine in there, and another one with candy and crackers in it, so we won't starve. Try to see it as an adventure."
"In our underwear," said Martin sourly.
"This from the kid who survived being tossed into an interplanetary brig on a spaceship with less than that?" said Keith, trying to sound cheerful and encouraging. "Come on, what's a couple hours in a laundromat in your Fruit-of-the-Looms compared to that?"
Martin cringed. "Don't remind me. That was awful."
"But…?" asked Keith, trying to sound upbeat.
"Okay. I guess that was worse than this." said Martin.
"And you survived that." concluded Keith. "So you can survive this. Now come on, let's see what sort of video games this place has."
They were just about to head over to the arcade area when the door to the laundromat opened, and trouble walked in. It was a huge lady that could have been a cousin of Martin's aunt Matilda. She carried a bright colored plastic basket with clothes in her massive arms and headed for one of the machines. If the lady was alone, there was the chance that she might go away after she had unloaded her laundry. But unfortunately, there was somebody in her company, a girl of about ten or eleven years.
Keith swore. "Couldn't they pick another day to do their laundry?" he whispered.
"I'll go and play a little", said the girl, jingling with some coins in her hand. The fat lady just sighed and put the basket down in front of the chosen machine. And then the girl came straight towards the small arcade room where the two boys in underwear hid behind a corner.
"Keith, what do we do now?" whimpered Martin. Getting caught in undies by grown-ups was bad enough. Getting caught in the same situation by a girl of their age was a fate worse than death in Martin's book… and Keith's as well, frankly.
"Sssshhhhh!" said Keith and pushed Martin deeper into the corner behind a candy machine, already trying to think of a way out of this mess but not immediately seeing one.
Luckily, the girl had no reason to think that somebody else was already in the arcade. So she had only eyes for one of the archaic games that, fortunately for the boys' present location stood in an opposite corner. Soon she was absorbed in the game that made funny sounds and some awkwardly primitive music, her attention completely diverted.
There were multiple rows of laundry machines, and fortunately, one was leading to the exit far enough from the fat lady's view. "C'mon." said Keith flatly and dragged Martin with him. Keeping low, under the level of the rows of machines that were between them and the lady, Martin and Keith sneaked to the door. Then, Martin stopped and held Keith back.
"But where are we supposed to go? And suppose these people are still here when we get back? And what if they take our clothes?" said Martin in rapid-fire succession.
"Later," said Keith. "Let's get outta here first."
"You seriously want us to go outside on the street, in our underwear?" cried Martin quietly.
"I can't see anybody outside. You'd rather hide here for three hours?" argued Keith.
Martin swallowed. "Okay… let's go."
The boys managed to slip outside without anybody noticing. Then they ducked quickly into the nearby alleyway where Keith had parked Martin's bike and his skateboard. "Keith, what about our clothes?" demanded Martin. "They might steal them, or still be there when we get back!"
"Don't be silly." said Keith. "Our clothes are locked in the laundry machine. We could leave them there until evening if we want."
"But we can't just stay here in this alleyway. It's not very big, and somebody's bound to see us." argued Martin. He wrapped his arms around his small body though the sun was shining and it was pretty hot. His upper thighs looked paler then the rest since the pants that Martin usually wore in summer were quite longer than the briefs he stuck in now. Keith could even see goose pimples on this pale skin.
Keith chewed his lip. Martin had a point. If a cop came along and saw two boys sitting in an alleyway in their underwear, they wouldn't get out of that one too readily. But where could they go? Then he had an idea. "I think I know what we can do," Keith said, pulling the cel phone out of his sock.
"What?" asked Martin.
"The one place where clothes don't matter." replied Keith. For the first time since this fiasco started, Martin grinned. He knew what Keith meant. The aliens that lived out near the woods near Davy Caulfield's home. Two of them, at least, Jahv and Keyro, almost always wore absolutely nothing. A third, Toben, also was frequently unclothed. And it'd be a safe place to spend a couple of hours until the clothes were done. There was still the matter of getting out there, though, but Martin suspected Keith was trying to deal with that right now.
And indeed, Keith was. Technically, Jahv and the others didn't have a telephone. But they did have what they called a «commlink» which Jahv and Toben had set up in such a way that it could be accessed by telephone. It was a ten-digit number that Keith had memorized, followed by "#" three times. It wouldn't even show up on the phone bill.
"Hi, Keith!" came a voice over the phone. It was Jahv. Keith was a little surprised that Jahv used his name, but he realized that not that many people had this number, and certainly Jahv must have something like "Caller ID" in his commlink.
Keith explained as much of the situation as he felt was necessary, then said, "You've got that transmat device or whatever it is. You think you can bring Martin and me out there directly?"
"Keith, I really wish I could, and I certainly would any other time, but Toben and I are performing maintenance on it at the moment. We'll be done in about an hour and a half, but I know that won't do you much good right now."
Keith groaned. The laundry would almost be finished by then.
Jahv continued. "Look, if you can get out here, you can certainly hang around with us for the duration, and then I'm sure we can transmat you back to the laundromat in time to pick up your clothes as soon as they're done. You'd be safe out here, you know."
Keith considered this. The one advantage to their current location was that the laundromat was at the edge of town, and the edge closest to the rural area where the Caulfield farm existed. Keith and Martin would not have to go through any city streets or even suburban neighborhoods to get out there. At least not many. They could be at the farm in about thirty-to-forty minutes, Keith estimated. That would give them almost two hours to spend with the aliens, by which time they should have the transmat device working again. Keith didn't particularly trust Jahv's repair skills, but he did trust Toben's. The blue-hued Botaran had managed to keep his own starship operational for quite some time after his father's death. Finally he said, "We'll be there as soon as we can."
Keith turned off the phone to look into the stunned expression of Martin. "We've got to get out there on our own!? We're supposed to go out in public like this? Are you crazy?"
"What public?" said Keith. "We'll be on back country roads for the most part. You gonna worry about what a cow thinks of how you're dressed?"
"People live out there, you know." said Martin.
"Yeah, on big farm properties where the house is so far from the road they'd need binoculars just to see us, and even then they'd figure us for two kids in swimsuits, which wouldn't be unusual on this hot a day." Keith knew he was mostly making excuses, but he hoped it sounded good. "And who besides Davy even knows us out there?"
"I am not doing this." said Martin flatly.