Author's Note: Eeekkk! This is my first fic i've posted, so be nice! ^_^ Umm, and thanks to muh wonderful friends who (sorta) gave me permission to manipulate the main characteristics of their personalities, even though I'll probably screw them up ~_^
Disclaimer: I don't own copyrights for the books dammnit, or I already would have had them turned into movies.^0^
I honestly can't think of something much worse than the sound of an alarm clock waking you up at six in the morning. But then again, at six o'clock in the morning waking up and thinking weren't exactly on my list of priorities. Nevertheless I somehow managed to drag my sleep wearied limbs from the bed and stagger across the bedroom to where I'd placed my alarm clock the night before, strategically so as that I had to get up to turn the blasted thing off. 'Bleep-beep,bleep-beep,blee-'. I gave the clock a triumphant grin as though I'd just accomplished an extraordinary feat in turning it off and scuffed my way back across the room to change.
20 minutes later I emerged from my room, feeling somewhat fresher and more human, and trying to creep down the hallway without waking the people behind the walls on either side of me. I clunked around the kitchen for a few more minutes attempting to find something for breakfast, before giving up and settling for a cup of coffee.
"Couldn't you walk any quieter with your stupid poxy feet, you woke me up you dumbhead."
"Good morning little sister mine, sleep okay?" I turned and grinned at the scowling form of Kira in the doorway,who glared at me a bit more before answering.
"No, and no thanks to you and those stupid planes. They wouldn't let me sleep." She trudged into the room and threw open the fridge, rummaging around in it for awhile before turning up the same result as I had, and settling for some of my coffee.
"Where do you think they were going?"
"Who?"
"The planes."
"Oh,I dunno, probably somewhere for Commem day." She glared at me a bit more over her cup,as if dissatisfied with my answer. "What are you and your stupid friends going to do today anyway?"
Ahh, my friends, the only thing on earth short of a volcanic eruption that would get me up this early in the morning. It was Commemoration Day and five of my friends and I had chosen to spend it away from our families and the usual annual Commem Day rituals; running around with whingeing siblings and ending the day with a chronic migraine. Around here 'getting away' didn't really mean much, but trips into Emerald kind of lost their appeal when you'd done it several hundred times before, so we figured Commem Day would be the perfect excuse to go somewhere else, and that somewhere else was Rockhampton. Not that there was something special about Rockhampton, but it was on the coast and about 8 times bigger than Emerald and that was good enough an excuse for us.
"Athena!" Kira's annoyed voice shocked me out of my stupor.
"What?!Oh, nothing much I spose, just stuff, a movie and lunch and a whole heap of walking..."
"But you could do that here.."
"Yeah, but 'here' has kinda lost it's appeal, so a couple of days out of 'here' can't do us any harm." I finished my coffee and washed the cup out at the sink, glancing at the time as I did so. "Far out it's seven already?! I'd better go wake Mum up and tell her I'm going."
"Bet she'll be happy about that." Now it was my turn to glare.
"So? I've gotta tell her I'm going anyway or she'll wake up and freak out."
"Hurry up and go then, I hope your abducted by your own kind on the way and they finally take you home." I stuck my head back through the kitchen door and pulled a face at her, before turning back and taking off down the hall toward Mum's room.
I made a quick detour and stopped off at my room to grab my slightly over-stuffed book bag, which I had packed and repacked for the past three days in anticipation, and rushed back into the hallway, closing the door carefully behind me and rushing back down and across the hall to Mum's room. I knocked softly on the door before opening it and poking my head round it, whispering loudly into the darkness; "I gotta go now Mum."
There was a small snoring sound and then "Wha?"
"I have to go now Mum, Chloe'll be getting impatient."
"Okay..wait, you got all your stuff?"
"Yes Mum!" I fidgeted a bit, anxious to get going.
"Ok, well have fun then. And don't do anything stupid."
"Yeah ok, and I'll ring you tonight so you know I got there ok, okay?"
"Mmm'okay. Love you."
"Love you too mum." I ducked my head back through the door and closed it, hurrying back down the hall to the front door and calling through to the kitchen;
"Seeya Kira! Make sure you say goodbye to the boys for me when they wake up!"
"Yeah that..."
The air outside was chilly, though not the sort of chilly that was unpleasant, just sharp and fresh. I guessed it was typical weather for 7 am on a summers day, though I can't say I ever really woke up that early. I picked up my pace slightly as I strode across the paddocks that separated Chloe's place from mine. Chloe lived two houses down from me, but we'd grown up as if the distance was only several metres. I was meeting her this morning so her mum could drive me and Andrea, another friend, into Emerald to catch the train. Chloe wasn't coming with us to Rockhampton, she'd settled for lunch with her friend Diana instead, and according to her she had 'school priorities' to attend to.
After twenty minutes of walking I trudged up the hill toward Chloe's house, ducking various tree branches as I went, and crunched my way up the pebbled driveway.
"Thena!" I started and looked up from the ground, grinning when I spotted Andrea, waving madly as though she wasn't noticeable already, and Chloe, who looked up for a moment from tieing her shoe.
"Heya Andi, hey Chloe."
"Hey Athena, we'd started to think you weren't coming."
"Thanks for the trust Chlo, I wasn't running that late."
Chloe's mother bustled out of the house, car keys jingling in her hand. "Oh good morning Athena, come on Chloe hurry up with your shoe, if we don't hurry they'll miss their train!"
"Mum, their train doesn't leave for half an hour!"
We piled ourselves and our bags into the car, and as we started up I turned to Andi. She was older than both Chloe and I, but shorter, with red hair, and currently sporting a bruise on her forehead.
"How'd you get to Chlo's so early in the morning?"
"I walked." She grinned proudly at the fact, which was fair enough as it would have been a forty minute walk.
"Tell Thene 'bout your head Andi." I glanced questioningly at Chloe, who was grinning broadly, and then turned back to Andi.
"I don't see what the big deal is, all I did was fall up the stairs." Chloe snorted and I raised my eyebrows at Andi.
"Up the stairs?"
"Yeees..." I held back a laugh as she glared at me, daring me to say something incriminating.
"Interesting." I grinned back at her and cast a look out the car window. There wasn't much to see, just almost bare countryside and farmland on either side, and the 'You are now leaving Werribee' sign. It was a bit of a joke really, Werribee, as it only had a population of around 450, but it was only 15 minutes drive from Emerald and that made it worthwhile. Andi, Chloe and I had lived there all our lives, not that that length of time was much worth boasting about, and Werribee, Queensland, wasn't much worth boasting about either. I turned back to the other two, who were talking animatedly beside me.
"...so Liera's gunna meet you guys in Rockhampton? Oh I so wish I could come!"
"You could have, but you insisted on staying here with Di since she couldn't come.."
"Yeah, but I need to be here in case Hayden and Joel need babysitting or something."
"Oh, ok, fair enough then."
"Who else are you meeting at the station?"
"Erin and Shane should be there..."
"You forgot Gilead." I butted in, grinning at Andi, who rolled her eyes disdainfully back at me.
"Yeah, and him..."
The car pulled up outside the station five minutes before our train was due, so Andi and I jumped out pretty quick, with a hurried 'Thankyou Mrs Serea' and goodbye to Chloe, who yelled 'Have fun!' back at us as we rushed into the station.
More Author's Notes: Errm, if you are for some reason compelled to know, the locations in my story are real, so you could find all but Werribee on a map. Well, you could find it, but it'd be in the wrong state because I didn't know it existed when I named the place that . Anyways, thankies and review please!!!