Chapter Two- Let the Fun Begin
I awoke, as always, when the first rays of sunshine splayed through the open curtains.
Max's rule number one for inside living: always sleep with the curtains open. If something's coming for you, it's best that you can see them coming.
Fang was- strangely- already awake, and studying me from the doorway, as I stretched and sat up. I hated to admit it, but the motel bed was a lot comfier than my one back home- I'd managed to burst a spring in the one back home, or whatever, and so spent most of my night with a spring digging into one of my wings. Fang had offered to trade, but I hadn't let him, and had promptly shot the idea of buying a new one down.
How were we supposed to carry a mattress back to the house?
"No nightmares." He commented, as he set about making breakfast in the conjoined kitchen- I grinned at him.
"No nightmares." I confirmed, before heading to the bathroom- ready to take a shower.
When I was clean, and happily dressed in some of my new clothes, I headed into the kitchen, braiding my still damp and curly hair into a long braid as I did so. It was a lot longer than I usually wore it, reaching to almost mid-back, and I knew that it wouldn't be long before I had to hack it off with the scissors- which we'd thought to buy a new pair of yesterday- or, alternatively, a knife of some description.
That was the one thing that we always struggled to buy. When Jeb had been living with us, he'd brought a new set of knives- both for the kitchen, and for self-defence purposes- every time he went shopping; saying he'd rather that we had too many sharp ones than not enough blunt ones. The first shopping trip after he'd left we'd tried to buy some, and the man at the counter had laughed in our face and told us to wait until we were eighteen. Apparently, he wasn't allowed to sell knives to minors- whatever than meant.
In the end, we'd learnt to put to good use the skills Jeb had taught us in the art of shoplifting. I didn't like shoplifting, don't get me wrong, but the knives were essential to our survival- when caught between survival and my moral standard, I almost always chose survival. Sorry about that, shopkeepers of America.
Fang had set up breakfast, and had really tried his best to cook. Of all of the things that Jeb had taught us for survival reasons, cooking was the one class that Fang and I had both failed at. Neither of us could cook anything, honestly, although Fang maintained that he was the better cook of the two of us; we were lucky if we didn't burn toast- which, thankfully, Fang had successfully managed today.
He'd obviously gone digging through the food supplied by the motel, and found some strawberry jam, too- although he'd clearly used almost the whole bag of bread between the two of us. I smiled my thanks at him as I slid into my seat and began digging through the mountain of jammy toast that he'd prepared for me.
It was completely typical of Fang to have thought about me. We'd grown up knowing that the only people we could really depend on, when it came down to it, were each other; Jeb had often joked that we were one person that had been split into two bodies- sometimes, I wondered if that was true. Maybe that had just been another part of the experimentation that we'd endured as children?
Probably not, but it was an interesting- if not morbid- concept. I'd be sure to mention it to the scientists next time they kidnapped us and performed inhumane tests on us to see what made us tick.
We looked out for each other, and were practically inseparable. In fact, the whitecoats had noticed it, too- and I'd spent the best part of the year between my fifth and sixth birthdays (which, of course, I knew nothing about back then) crammed into a size small dog crate with Fang. It was a bit of a squeeze, and when Jeb had found out (apparently he'd been away on a research project at the time) the other whitecoats were told to give us our individual cages back.
Not that either of us minded sharing, honestly.
"You should shower, and then we can head out." I told Fang, as he sat back in his chair and finished the last of his orange juice. He nodded, and stood- heading to the bathroom as I finished my food and carried the dishes to the sink. I ran some hot water and dumped them in, but made no effort to wash them- if I didn't have time to do them later than the housekeeping staff should simply consider themselves lucky that I'd put them in to soak- I was sure that it was more than most people who stayed here did.
Content that I'd done my good deed for the day, I packed the clothes from our shopping trip yesterday into our backpacks, and, content with the surprisingly large amount of room left at the top of both, I zipped them shut and grabbed the rest of the money. My new hoodie and windbreaker were warm, and I sighed happily as I pulled them on- my last move was to dump my old combat boots in the bin, and slip my new ones on my feet.
I was just tying the laces when Fang emerged, freshly dressed, and with the combat boots in his hand- he nodded his thanks when he saw the packed backpack, and quickly pulled on his boots.
Content that we weren't forgetting anything, we headed out.
Shopping, I soon remembered, was the most tedious thing in the world. It didn't help that they'd re-done the supermarket since we were last here, so when we went to what used to be the cereal aisle, we were faced with toilet roll.
"Well," I sighed, rolling my eyes as I looked at Fang. "This sucks."
"No kidding," Was Fang's response, he grabbed the handles of the trolley, and started steering it out of the way- as was habit, I kept a hold of the side with one hand, whilst allowing my eyes my eyes to wander the shelves in search of cereal. Generally speaking, Fang was pretty good at steering the trolley in a way that meant that I wasn't going to bang into anyone, and I trusted him completely.
It must have been an off day for him, because half way down the aisle, I felt myself slam into somebody, and a moment later, heard the crash of two shopping trolleys colliding forcefully. The person that I'd walked into was both bigger and heavier than me, and I felt myself begin to fall backwards only a second or so after we'd first smacked together. I thought, for a second, that I was going to find out just how cold the cheap linoleum flooring was, and then the still unidentified stranger grabbed the tops of my arms to steady me.
I heard Fang cursing in the background, and assumed that he was ensuring that the trolley hadn't been completely destroyed in the crash.
Getting my balance back, I shook my head slightly, and stepped back to survey the damage. The person that had both collided with me, and saved me from the embarrassment of falling, was a guy- probably on a few years older than me- he seemed to have been doing the same thing as me, and a woman, who I presumed to be his mother, was now helping Fang sort out which supplies belonged in which dented trolley.
Fang was looking increasingly annoyed in the situation, and I caught his eye as he glanced up to check that I was alright.
"Are you alright? I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going." The guy who I had crashed into said, clearly embarrassed at having walked into me.
"Honestly, neither was I. Don't worry about it, let's just get everything back where it's supposed to go." I said, forcing a smile, as I turned and began to help Fang collect up the shopping and put it back in the trolley. Neither of us was particularly happy with this situation, and I had a strange feeling that I was missing something that should me incredibly obvious. The annoying part being, I had absolutely no clue what I was missing, just that there was something.
Finally content that everything was back in the trolley, and realising that the cereal- which was last on our list- was right in front of us, Fang and I threw a few (twelve) boxes into the trolley, and headed to the cashier. I shifted uncomfortably as she started ringing our stuff up, and Fang noticed.
"You're wigging out." He said under his breath, pausing to throw a couple of handfuls of chocolate bars onto the counter. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I said, and then, when he shot be a look that said 'You can't lie to me, so don't even try it.' , "I don't know. Something feels... wrong."
He frowned, and did a three-sixty, but clearly- much like myself- found nothing. "Forget it," I said. "It's probably just a mix of being tired and being in a crowded place- probably nothing." I reasoned.
Fang didn't seem convinced, but said nothing more as we packed the scanned shopping into bags. It was boring, and tedious, but we made sure to double-pack everything, so that if a handle or something snapped whilst we were flying our falling groceries weren't going to kill somebody or anything. Then again, wouldn't that be a cool thing to have on your death certificate?
Killed by falling groceries of an unknown origin.
I accidentally snorted out loud, and Fang turned to look at me, an eyebrow raised in the Fang version of pure confusion.
"I was thinking about what would happen if one of the bags split or something on the way home and we hadn't double packed." I said, grinning at him lightly.
"Yeah. How fun that would be: Killed by fallen groceries of an unknown origin." Sometimes, I swear that boy can read my mind. I nodded, and the two of us shared a private laugh- as the cashier finished ringing up our shopping.
"That'll be-" She seemed to choke, looking at the screen which very clearly read $1956.48. I grinned as I pulled the money out of my pocket and handed it over. She glanced between the screen and the money for a moment before seeming to pull herself together, and set about sorting our change out. She looked utterly thrilled, and I found myself wondering if she got a bonus if a customer spent a certain amount or something.
I probably should have been bothered that we'd gone over budget- by $356.48, actually- but when I reasoned that it was probably the last-second selection of chocolate bars that Fang had thrown into the mix that had tipped the balance so drastically, I couldn't bring myself to care.
I hadn't had chocolate in months, and I was practically drooling just thinking about it. For some reason, chocolate never seemed to last long with the two of us- no matter how efficiently we planned our rationing. I kind of thought that it had to do with both of us eating it as a sneaky mid-night snack every night when we had it.
It was probably unhealthy, but man, the stuff tasted good.
We'd done it as kids, too, despite Jeb's warnings that it would give us nightmares (he'd said the same thing about cheese, strangely), because, honestly, we didn't need the chocolate for that.
"We finished early." Fang commented, unable to keep the surprise from his voice, as we headed out. I was surprised to find that he was right, as I mentally totaled up everything that they'd bought and found that they weren't missing anything. I knew that I'd been hurrying us a little today- due to the strangely insane amount of paranoia that had fear freezing my heart every time that someone so much as looked at me the wrong way- but I'd had no idea that I'd rushed them that much.
And now they had nothing to do.
"Oops?" I offered, with a small- and somewhat fake- grin.
"Don't sweat it," Fang said, grinning himself, and then, "Come on- if we take off early we can have a chocolate fest when we get back."
Any that was reason #127 why Fang was my best friend in the whole entire world: he always knew how to make everything better, no matter what. If I ever wrote a book about our lives (which, with my limited knowledge of the English language was incredibly unlikely) I'd have to make a point of pointing that small fact out.
The two of us headed back to the motel, and I was happy to find that I was, in fact, feeling a little less nervous than I had been before- although the reasons for the sudden feelings my mind had still to enlighten me too.
Since we had some time, I decided to do the dishes when we got back- which Fang laughed at- and Fang packed the bags; surprisingly, most of the shopping fit into our backpacks, with only the few boxes of cereal and some tins of spaghetti and the likes left over. All in all, there was about eight jumbo-sized plastic bags left over [which wasn't bad, out of the twenty-six we'd had to start with], and we each took four.
I had a sneaky suspicion that Fang had managed to arrange it so that he got the four heaviest, but sighed instead of fighting it- as much as I hated to admit it, I was tired. It was about half-three by the time that we made it down to the lobby, and I left Fang with the bags in the waiting area across the room as I headed over to check out.
"I'd like to check out please," I said, as pleasantly as I could- distinctly aware that my nervousness and fear was back. My hands were shaking as the clerk nodded and I handed the key over. He took it with a controlled movement of his arms that made the feeling all the more worse; some part of my mind was telling me that he was dangerous- and to get out of there; the more logical side won out, and I waited for him to nod and say,
"You're all paid up. Thanks for staying here, hope to see you again." With a voice like velvet before smiling as politely as I could and all but bolting across the room.
"What was that about?" Fang asked, glancing at me concernedly as he handed me my four bags, before allowing his eyes to wander over my shoulder to study the clerk- who was now dealing with a young family, and looking completely innocent.
"Nothing; I, just… something doesn't feel right. Hasn't all day." Fang looked concerned, and like he was a second away from leaning over and placing the back of his hand to my forehead and asking if I was sick like we'd seen all the people in the movies do.
"On a scale of one to ten, just how fast is your Max-o-meter dinging?" He asked instead, surprising me.
"Eleven and a half," I answered truthfully, and then, "You feel it too?"
Fang nodded, and then motioned to the doors.
"Let's just get out of here already."
It was nearly nine O'clock by the time that we landed back at the E-shaped house, and we were completely wiped. Six hours of solid flying will do that to you; in fact, I was so eager for the day to end- as was Fang, apparently- that neither of us remembered Fang's promise of a chocolate fest. Instead, we removed all of the groceries from our backpacks and piled everything on the large kitchen table.
The mountain that it formed was impressively tall, even if I do say so myself.
"Well I, for one, can't be bothered to put all of that away. I reckon make that- and sleeping- tomorrows jobs; what say you?" I asked Fang, standing by the back door with my hands on my hips, and surveying the unorganised heap of bags and packages.
"Aye." Fang said with a grin, and the two of us said nothing more as we headed through the house at a leisurely pace. When in the bedroom, I pulled the curtain across between our beds and changed quickly. Between you and me, the curtain was Jeb's idea- saying that it would give us some privacy. He didn't seem to realise that, a) modesty was something that was nothing more than an illusion between Fang and I- a notion that we'd had to dispel and get over quickly in The school. And, b) the curtain was see-through.
I don't think that he meant to get a see-through one, and Fang and I never mentioned it to him, but we still pulled it out anyways- more to honour Jeb's memory than anything else, I guess.
The two of us had just accomplished getting ready for bed, and were about to slip under the covers of our beds- the lights already turned off- when we heard it.
The kitchen window was being broken, which could mean only one thing: erasers.
AN: Until I've finished writing this out, updates will be pretty slow. Sorry for that, and don't forget...
Reviews make updates quicker, and the writer happy :] x
