So... trying to get back on a regular update schedule. I'm just really excited for what I have planned for this fanfic. And I want to prove that I can actually finish a multi-chaptered fic.
Chapter 6: ALL-NIGHTER! WOHOO!
Nina's POV
Nina's first day at the Academy was relatively good. She had spent the majority of the afternoon with Junior and his new-found friends. She had gone to dinner with them and then decided to go back to her room. She wasn't sure why; the last thing she wanted to do was see May again. Luckily, her idiot roommate was still gone, so Nina plugged in her laptop to a nearby outlet. She connected to the Academy's network and pulled up her zmail. She had two new emails; one was from her dad, and the other was from her mom. Both were asking how the first day at the Academy had been. Nina wrote two quick replies to each of them, telling them that she was fine and her day had been fine as well. When she had sent the second email, she closed her laptop, turned off the lights, and went to sleep.
She managed to stay asleep too, until about three o'clock, when the sound of outdated pop songs awoke her. Nina blinked sleepily; the harsh red light from her digital clock resting on her nightstand glared back at her. As she shook the sleep from her eyes, the glowing red dashes became clearer and revealed the time. 3:26.
Why the hell am I awake at 3:26? Nina wondered.
The answer came to her as T.G.I.F. was blasted through nearby speakers. Nina pushed herself up and turned around to see May dancing (rather badly, I might add) to the old Katy Perry song, which was coming out of Sparky's mouth. May had hung up several Christmas lights around her section of the room, which she had turned on to give her life.
Nina glared at her oblivious roommate, who was still dancing. "What are you doing?" she demanded, trying to keep her voice level.
May turned around. She looked slightly surprised, but she grinned wildly. "Pulling an all-nighter, silly!"
Nina blinked as her tired mind tried to process May's words. "All-nighter?" she echoed, still not comprehending it.
"Yeah! It's where you stay up all night!" May explained.
Nina, now fully awake and irritated, glared at her. "Well, I actually want to get some sleep!"
"Where's the fun in that?" May asked.
"You're going to get in trouble!" Nina insisted. Honestly, she didn't care that much if May got in trouble. Maybe detention would make her less conceited.
"My daddy would never let that happen," May argued.
"Look, could you at least turn it down a bit?" Nina requested. She was too tired to yell at May, and she definitely didn't want to pick a fight. She just wanted some sleep.
"Sparky, turn it up!" May commanded.
The data dog obliged, and T.G.I.F. continued blasting out his mouth even louder than before. Nina hadn't known that was possible.
That's not what turn it down means! Nina thought angrily.
Nina sighed as she realized there was no reasoning with the hyper blonde. That thought brought up a new question, though. "How do you have this much energy?" she asked, mildly curious.
"Coffee!" May exclaimed. She turned around and pulled up a coffee machine that was in the process of brewing more.
Nina stared at the coffee machine. May's coffee addiction explained why she was so easily excited and hyper. She wondered how much of the stuff she drank to make herself so hectic. Then, Nina wondered how she had developed an addiction in the first place. What parent lets their kid have coffee in general?
"So, you're going to be up all night?" Nina asked, unable to keep the despair out of her voice.
May nodded. "That's what an all-nighter means!"
She'll run out of songs eventually, Nina told herself. Then I'll finally be able to get some sleep.
As it turned out, Nina was wrong. Sparky seemed to have over four hours of music downloaded on him, and it ranged from outdated pop music to even more outdated rock-and-roll music, and included a large collection of music from old Disney Channel shows. Nina was pretty sure she would scream if she had to hear Best of Both Worlds again.
Finally, at around five-ish, Nina resorted to opening her laptop. She wasn't sure why she didn't do it earlier; it would've made her life easier. She had no new emails, but to her surprise, Junior was also online. She hit the video chat option, and Junior's face illuminated her computer screen.
Junior looked mildly surprised, but it also looked like he had had as much sleep as she had. "Is your roommate watching the first three Star Wars movies too?" he asked.
Nina shook her head. "No. Mine decided to listen to songs from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries at an ear-splitting level."
Junior frowned. "Is that the Good Luck Charlie theme song?"
Nina nodded, though she was slightly surprised that Junior recognized it. Before she could ask him why he recognized the irritatingly catchy theme song, May jumped on her bed, nearly spilling the cup of coffee in her hands.
"IS THIS YOUR BOYFRIEND?" May shouted over the music.
"NO!" Nina shouted back, shoving her away.
Junior blinked. "So that's your roommate?"
Nina nodded grimly.
"I feel sorry for you," Junior apologized.
There was a pause in which Nina could distinctly hear Darth Vader tell Luke that he was his father.
"So, apparently it's some kind of tradition hear to pull an all-nighter the first night," Junior announced, interrupting Luke's NOOOOOO!
Nina nodded. "It seems that way for sure."
Junior pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm going to need some coffee tomorrow too at this rate."
Nina nodded again. "Me too. And I don't even like that stuff. May seems to love it, though."
She turned around briefly to see May pretending to punch the air as she listened to the instrumental break in some song Nina didn't know the name of. May still had a cup of coffee in her hands, which spilled everywhere as she quickly criss-crossed her feet.
"Somehow I imagine every night is going to be this hectic with her around," Nina muttered, pointing to May.
Junior shrugged. "I can lend you a pair of noise canceling headphones. Maybe you can tune out the music."
"Or I could disable Sparky," Nina suggested.
"Sparky?" Junior echoed.
"Her Data Dog that she uses as a music player," Nina explained, rolling her eyes. "A waste of a lot of money, if you ask me."
There was a loud gasp from off screen. "Who has a Data Dog?"
Suddenly, Anthony's face appeared on the screen. "Oh. Hi Nina. I thought Junior who is important enough to own a Data Dog."
Junior slapped Anthony's arm. "Get off my bed," Junior hissed, trying to shove the taller boy off of the bed.
Anthony barely budged. "So, who owns a Data Dog?"
"My roommate," Nina answered through gritted teeth.
"The ditz?" Anthony asked.
Nina nodded. "The ditz who's addicted to coffee."
"Well, at least you can laugh when she forgets to drink it one day and has all the tiredness hit her at once, causing her to collapse unconscious," Anthony assured her.
Nina laughed at the thought. "That'll be hilarious."
"Well, I'll see you in a couple hours. I'm off to watch Return of the Jedi. I just need to find the disk…" Anthony trailed off as he got off of Junior's bed and walked off screen.
Nina looked at her schedule, wondering what classes she would have tomorrow and if she would have enough energy to do them. She and Junior had already compared their schedules and found that they were strikingly similar, but she hadn't looked at it very closely. To her dismay, she found that both Basic Combat Class and Generic Physical Education were both early in the morning.
"Check your schedule," she told Junior. "We have to get through Basic Combat Class and Generic Physical Education with about three hours of sleep."
She watched Junior fetch his schedule. His face fell as he realized what she had said was true. "Well, it can't be too bad. Can it?"
Sorry if any of you are Disney Channel fans and feel that I have offended you in this chapter.
You know what? I'm going to do it. I'm going to finish this. I swear on Brian Holden's grave (*weeps*) that I will finish this. And you can hold me to it when I disappear off the face of the Internet (which is usually how the majority of my multi-chapter fanfics end).