***Chapter 1- Sophie pov***
Ring, ring…Ring, ring…
Ugh, that was the alarm on my phone. I reached out my hand and groped blindly on the bedside table, my head still under the pillow. Then my hand brushed the phone and it fell off the table.
Fantastic.
I was hoping the fall would have broken it, but the alarm kept ringing, sounding like a megaphone even though it was only on half volume.
Half-groaning and half-mumbling swear words, I pulled myself over the side of the bed and turned the alarm off. Then I simply lay back in my bed and stared at the ceiling.
The date was October 6th. The time? Half four in the freaking morning.
This was the day we were going to Australia. We were emigrating.
I finally mustered the energy to get out of my warm bed and opened the curtains of my window. It was still dark, but rain was pouring.
No rain where I'm going! I thought happily.
Then I mentally shook myself. Stop staring out a window, Sophie, I thought, you have four hours before the plane leaves and shit needs done.
I had drawn the short straw and so had the responsibility of waking up Emily and Anna, which was dangerous since they were far from morning people.
I stared around my almost empty room, looking at the bare walls for the first time in four years. It felt weird not to see them covered in posters and photos. Most of our stuff had gone into storage, apart from one suitcase each. The bare essentials, which were coming to Australia with us.
I left my bedroom and walked down the hall to Emily's room, turning on lights and being as noisy as possible. The easier they were to get up, the better.
I walked into Emily's room and switched on the light. She was completely covered in the duvet, the only sign she was there being her foot sticking out from the covers. I had a flashback to when Anna and I hit under her bed just so we could grab her foot, the night after she watched paranormal activity.
I crept in and poked the lump that was her head. "Get up!"
Nothing.
I poked her head again, harder this time. "Emily…"
Still she slept on.
Fine then, be that way.
I grabbed her foot and started pulling her out of the bed.
"Fuck off." She mumbled, trying (and failing) to kick me.
"Be up in two minutes or I will pull you out of bed and down the hall." I whispered before marching out and into Anna's room.
Anna had fallen asleep listening to music again. She always did, and Emily and I could never fathom how.
I picked up her iPod and shuffled it. It put on Rain on her Parade, by Short Stack, one of our favourite bands of all time, ever. I grinned and started turning the volume up slowly.
Eventually I had it at full volume. I was wondering how Anna could possibly be sleeping through it (maybe she's dead, I thought, sniggering), when she mumbled "Okay, I'm up."
I nodded. Mission accomplished.
I walked into the kitchen to find Emily already sitting on the worktop, drinking coffee and eating the last of our nutella with a spoon.
"Morning!" I said cheerfully, pouring myself cereal.
"It's too fucking early." She said by way of a greeting. Meh. She'd perk up soon enough.
"Hey Anna!" I said when Anna slouched in.
"Bite me." Anna mumbled, pouring her own coffee. "How are you so cheerful?"
"I'm so cheerful because I know that in 4 hours we'll be on a plane, emigrating to Australia!" I said.
Emily grinned and downed the rest of her coffee.
"It feels weird, doesn't it?" Anna said after a short silence. "After seven years of talking about it, we're actually doing it."
"Yeah, I suppose so." I said. I grinned at Anna. "Why? You having second thoughts?"
"Of course not!"
Emily snorted. "Well even if you were, there's not exactly any going back now."
"True." I nodded.
"We should probably get ready to leave." Emily said.
"Okay!" said Anna. She bounded towards her room but slipped and collided with the wall.
I shook my head. Poor Anna. We think she's been cursed.
***Anna pov***
Half an hour later we had rang for a taxi and the three of us were staring round our empty apartment. It was weird, the three of us had shared this apartment for about three years, and yet it felt like just yesterday we had bounded in here, aged eighteen, the first time we had ever lived together, and broken the TV in the first half hour.
And now we were leaving it. We had each been to uni, passed our exams and got degrees. Not to mention lived together and learned how to cook something besides cold cereal.
I could sense Sophie was getting emotional, so I said "C'mon, let's leave before Soph has a breakdown."
"What? I'm fine! It's my hayfever!" Sophie snapped.
Emily looked at me and grinned.
As the taxi driver pulled away from the building, I looked out the window at the dark building that was our apartment block. Tensions in the taxi were running high, since we didn't think it through when we ordered an average-sized taxi to take us and our larger-than-average sized suitcases to the international airport. The driver hadn't been best pleased and I was pretty sure he was going to over-charge us.
I was still slightly in shock that we were doing this. We'd been talking about it since we were fourteen, adding money to our "Australia fund" and then taking it out to buy nice clothes.
I won't bore you with the story of us getting our bags checked in, going through security etc. Let's just say that in security Emily got her mascara confiscated and wasn't best pleased.
But anyway, we got through security and were soon wondering round duty-free. We bought another breakfast and magazines etc. for the twenty-two hour flight. We didn't want to resort to playing hangman since a) none of us can spell our way out of a paper bag, and b) we just end up insulting each other.
"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked Emily. We hadn't even been asked to board yet and already she was a bit pale.
The girl with a fear of flying wants to go to Australia. What a wonderful and well thought out idea.
She nodded. "I'll be fine once we're up in the air. It's just taking off that makes me nervous."
"Sophie, you can sit beside her." I said jokingly, and Soph groaned theatrically. Emily glared at us both.