Get Out of My Room
After dessert, Edaline sent them both to their separate bedrooms. Trying not to think about the boy sleeping a floor below her, Sophie hummed as she went through her bedtime routine. Change into pjs, brush her teeth, wash her face, brush her hair, drink a bottle of youth… She finished up and skipped into her room, expecting to flop into bed and slip into a deep sleep. Instead, and all too familiar blond head rested on her pillows with an all too familiar smirk plastered on his face. "Took you long enough."
"What are you doing up here?" Sophie hissed, glancing nervously toward the door. Grady already didn't like Keefe. If he caught the boy in her room after explicitly telling him not to leave the second floor…well, Sophie didn't want to know what'd happen.
"Isn't it obvious?" Keefe asked. "Waiting for you."
"Keefe, you've gotta go back downstairs. Grady will kill you. And me. But probably you first."
"Grady's never gonna know," Keefe said confidently, pushing himself up. "Now can we watch more of those Disney movies?"
"More?" Sophie asked. "You're not sick of them already?"
"Of course not! Those things are awesome!"
"But you don't speak English," Sophie said.
"Still awesome," he assured her, patting the bed next to him in an attempt to get her to cross the rest of the room. "Or, you could tell me more about this Disneyland. I still don't get why you guys were posing with that giant mouse."
"His name's Mickey," Sophie said, giving in and sitting down on the bed next to him. "Walt Disney, the creator of the Disney company, came up with him, and he was their first big hit. They started out with little black and white, stop motion shorts, but—"
"Wait, slow down," Keefe interrupted. "Remember, I don't know any of this human stuff. So, what's stop motion?"
"It's when you take a bunch of drawings of the same thing with minute changes. Then, when you flip them, or play them at a rapid pace, it seems like the animations is moving."
"Human technology is so cool," Keefe breathed.
"Anyways, one of Walt's famous quotes is, "I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing—that it all started with a mouse.' The entire business started with Mickey. Without him, Disney would have gone bankrupt and we wouldn't have any of our fairytales."
"Weird, but cool. So what's this Disneyland thing?"
"It's a human amusement park."
"What's an amusement park?"
"Well, it's a place humans go to have fun and get adrenaline rushes. They ride roller coasters, boats, merry-go-rounds, tons of stuff. It's super fun."
"What's a roller coaster?"
"It's a car that goes superfast on a metal track. Roller coasters go in loops, and down big drops, and they even go upside down sometimes."
"That sounds weird."
"It's super fun."
The sat there in silence for a moment, both lost in thought.
"You should take us!" Keefe suddenly yelled.
"Shhh!" Sophie whispered. "Grady'll hear us."
"You should take us!" Keefe repeated at a slightly lower volume.
"Maybe someday," Sophie laughed.
"No, but seriously. Can you take us to Disneyland?"
"No," she said. "It's in the Forbidden Cities."
"So?"
"So that's highly illegal. And after our Black Swan exploits, I highly doubt the Council will be happy to let us go on a field trip."
"So don't tell them."
"That's even worse!" Sophie said. "Then what if they find out? What if we get hurt? What if we get lost, or stuck? I mean, I don't want to go back to Exillium. I want to graduate Foxfire and enter the Nobility and become a Keeper. I don't want to be some burnout that doesn't even finish school. Especially not after everything people have sacrificed to get me here."
"Come on, Sophie," Keefe pressed. "Live a little. It'll be awesome. And we can even take Biana and Wonderboy if you want to."
"I thought only Dex called Fitz that."
"What can I say? The Technopath is rubbing off on me."
"Fine," Sophie agreed. "But Dex is coming too."
"He could be useful," Keefe agreed.
"Now get out," Sophie said, shooing the boy off her bed, "you don't want to give Grady any more reasons to hate you."
"Grady doesn't hate me," Keefe laughed.
"Oh yes he does."
"No, he's worried that I'm going to break your heart," Keefe said in a wistful, serious voice. "There's a difference." Before Sophie could respond, he slipped out the door and was gone.
