Rrrring! Rrrring!

Woken by his phone's annoyingly loud chime, Jesse cracked open one eyelid, blearily trying to make out the numbers on his digital bedside clock. Was that... one o'clock?

Throwing his blankets off in a mad rush, Jesse tumbled out of bed, pulled on a random shirt from a pile on the floor—hopefully it was clean—fell down the stairs, and tripped over air multiple times. All to get to his phone, which he'd left somewhere in the kitchen.

On any other normal day, the brown-haired boy would be still fast asleep, not giving a second thought to his ringing cellphone. But this time, he couldn't ignore it. What if one of his much-labored-for dinner reservations had fallen through, and the Disney people were desparately trying to get in touch so he could book another one?

But as he picked up his phone, almost falling once more, he checked the caller ID and rolled his eyes. Nevertheless, he clicked the accept call button. It was Axel. Of course. Who else would spontaneously call him at one in the morning? (Well, besides Ellegaard—but only when she got excited about a new invention and no one else would listen.)

"Hey, man, I couldn't sleep. Too excited for tomorrow!" Yep, Jesse knew that voice.

"Yeah, I can tell. It's one AM."

"Sorry for waking you up, dude." At least he sounded a little sheepish.

Jesse sighed, shaking his head, but smiled anyway. "Hey, it's fine. You all ready and packed for tomorrow?"

"Yep, all fifteen bags. You got the hotel rooms reserved?"

"I'm not even gonna ask why you need fifteen bags... but yeah, I double-checked a few hours ago and they're ready to go."

They talked for a half an hour longer until Jesse looked at the clock. "Oh, Notch, it's almost two o'clock. I gotta sleep now. See you tomorrow. Bye!"

"But—" Click.

"Sorry, Axel, but I might end up having to drive the rental car tomorrow, and I can't exactly fall asleep at the wheel." Jesse climbed back into the comfort of his nice, warm bed, and had wonderful dreams consisting mostly of potatoes.

"AHHH!" Jesse was gifted a slobbery lick across the face from his pet pig—who, apparently, acted as his personal part-time alarm clock. "Reuben!"

Jesse buried his face under the pillow, but stubbornly, Reuben climbed on his back and sat down, refusing to leave him alone. "Geez, okay. Fine, I'm up." The boy climbed out of bed and pulled on his pink bunny slippers.

Still half-asleep, Jesse accidentally put toothpaste on his hairbrush as he began attempting to fix his face for the day. "My toothbrush is huge," he commented, not realizing immediately. A second later came the answer to the unspoken question. "Oh."

Once he managed to put all articles of clothing on the right body parts, he jumped on his lawnmower (Gill had borrowed his car) and drove to the airport after stopping to refill the gas. There, he found everybody else who had decided to come along on the vacation in the airport cafeteria.

"You're late," frowned the Warden disapprovingly. He gave a tsk and made a tally mark in the little notebook he carried around.

"I know, I had to take my lawnmover. My car was getting borrowed," replied Jesse, as if driving his lawnmower forty-five miles down the interstate was something that occurred every day.

"You know a lawnmower isn't really a car, right?" The Warden shook his head and walked away to chastise someone else, leaving Jesse to attempt to socialize with Soren.

"Hi, Soren," Jesse greeted the red-headed man. "Did you manage to get all of our tickets?"

"Well," answered Soren, "There were some difficulties, but Gabriel came through for us at the last second." He turned to the warrior, who waved happily at them with a fistful tickets in his hand. "Excuse me," the architect said suddenly, turning away, "but I'm needed by the plant." He walked to a nearby fern in a small decorated planter, and carried on a deep conversation with it.

"Okay... that's not weird at all," Olivia said, walking up next to him. "Anyway, what's up?"

"The sky. But do you know how Gabriel got us those tickets in such short notice?"

She answered, "Nope. But I'll ask him." She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "Gabriel, how did you get all our tickets so quickly?"

"Oh, I have my ways," came the mysterious reply from halfway across the room.

Olivia turned to Jesse, eyes wide. "He murdered somebody!" she exclaimed in an exaggerated stage whisper.

Gill, who was walking by and had overheard part of the statement, said, "Wait, Gabriel's a murderer? What did you say? Sorry, I wasn't really listening." He pointed to his headphones and guitar case. "I was listening to one of my demos. Wanna hear?"

Yeah, Gill didn't listen a lot.

"A murderer?" exclaimed Em, glancing up from fiddling with a vending machine. "Let's get 'em!"

"GABRIEL'S A MURDERER?! NOTCH HELP US ALL!" screamed Nell, running around the building, alerting total strangers of Gabriel's non-committed act of homicide.

"Ooh, we could be friends!" exclaimed Cassie Rose, grinning widely.

The airport was in chaos. And it was all Gabriel's fault for murdering someone, which he did not.

Thankfully, an announcement was announced over the loudspeakers, momentarily breaking the chaos. "Flight 451 is stuck in Dallas, Texas, grounded by a freak snowstorm. It is not expected to arrive until eleven AM. Flight 451 is stuck in Dallas, Texas, grounded by a freak snowstorm. It is not expected to arrive until eleven AM."

"Yeah! We can stay here for three more hours!" shouted Magnus happily, plucking Ellegaard's phone from her pocket. She swiped at him angrily, but missed and instead knocked Xara's phone away. The griefer scuttled after that one, too, and ran away as he cackled triumphantly.

All the strangers nearby groaned.