2
"Martin, are you going to do the briefing or must I remind you?"
"In saying that, Carolyn, you have just reminded him."
"Shut up, Douglas. Martin?"
"I think Skip's asleep, Mum."
"What? Well, he can't sleep while flying Gertie. Wake him up."
"Carolyn, if you wake him up now, he'll be utterly lethargic and rather disagreeable all during the walk-around."
"Douglas, the last time I checked, Mr. Cheerful back there performs the walk-around, by himself. I don't see why it should concern you if he is lethargic and disagreeable."
"Well, the mood will linger."
"Pity if you can't play Brians of Britain."
"No, we try to play a different game every day, but that's a totally irrelevant story."
"Of course it is. Martin!"
"I'm awake, of course I'm awake," Martin mumbled quickly. "How could anyone sleep with you lot talking?" He had been trying to tune them out, admittingly, although it was a rather hard to manage thing with anyone associated with MJN.
"So, are you going to do it or what?"
"Do it? Do what?" Martin asked, blinking hard. The car was rocking a bit more than it probably should have been, he reckoned, but he was quite sure it would all go away once they were on Gertie. Everything was always better when he put a foot on board their airplane. Everything.
"Oh, for-" Carolyn huffed. "The weather's good, although rain is expected in Tundara within six hours. Not heavy, so we should be fine. Our alternate is Mbeya. Douglas, you will operate out, Martin, back-"
"No, no, wait a second here, I'm the Captain, I should operate out."
"You're also sleeping in the back of my car on the way, so do forgive me if I take a few liberties in making decisions." She paused. "Actually, you don't have to forgive me. Don't forgive me. I don't care."
Carolyn's voice had all but bled together by the end of her statement. Martin wasn't listening. The nausea from earlier was back with a fiery passion. Oh- Oh, oh, no, he couldn't upchuck on the back of Carolyn's seats, she'd kill him via all sorts of particularly painful torture-
"You all right, Skipper?"
"Martin?"
"He's gone all green, Douglas!"
"Wai-what?"
The car came to a suddenly screeching halt. Martin almost pitched forward into the back of Carolyn's seat, had it not been for the restraint of his seatbelt. His stomach jolted painfully, the throbbing in his head doubling.
"Out!"
He didn't need telling twice. He scrabbled at his seatbelt, throwing the car door open. The blast of air cleared his head, lessened his urgency when he felt like he wasn't going to heave tea and toast over the backseat.
"What is wrong with you?" Carolyn demanded.
"What? Just a bit light-headed s'all."
"You looked like you were about to-to explode upon my upholstery!"
"Come on, all I had for breakfast was a cup of tea and toast."
"Would make for rather unattractive vomit," Douglas said, peering over the back of the seat.
"Douglas, please," Carolyn snapped. "Now are you done playing Mother Bird, so we can crack on?"
Martin took another deep breath of the air, letting his eyes wander across the landscape. "Yeah, I'm fine. Perfectly brilliant."
"You don't look brilliant, Skipper. Once I ate some prawns and was violently ill for the better part of three hours. The interesting thing was that when I ate them, they were pink, but when they came back up, it was orange!"
"... Thank you, for that rather colourful piece of information, Arthur," Douglas stated, turning to face the front.
"Colour- oh, I see what you did there. My colourful vomit and colourful can be used as an adjective, so-"
"Thank you, Arthur."
The rest of the ride there was enveloped in silence and Martin only had his churning stomach, a pounding headache, and a rather daft twenty-nine year old for company.
I'm not particularly happy with this chapter, but the humour [at least, Douglas's snarky humour] kicks it in in the next chapter. Thank you to my reviewers and, hopefully, more feedback will be posted. I'm still rather unsure about the comedy, as it's not my lark. xD Hopefully you all like it, and thanks for reading!
