Stranded Chapter 6 – The Beginning of the End of Our Troubles
Recap: "Good!" I said. "Now I'll get to pummel him for leaving his 'passengers' to die. That stupid little weakling!" Wow. I gotta be careful. I'm starting to sound a little too much like Wuffers, I mean Wufei!
The pilot stirred then jumped up when he realized he was no longer alone.
"Good mornin' sunshine!" Duo grinned, an evil glint in his eyes.
"Oh! Hiya fellas. I'm sure glad you guys are alright, what with the plane crashing and all." The pilot, whose name I never bothered to learn, said in his squeaky geek voice.
"Well, that's funny," Quatre started to say in a sarcastic tone. "Because the way you turned tail and ran we thought you didn't give a damn about us."
"Yeah, and I've been waiting a long time to give you a piece of my mind." I added.
"Wait a minute! Don't you want to hear MY side of the story?" The pilot asked.
"No, not really." Heero grumbled.
"I'll make it worth your while."
"I don't care."
"Please hear me out. I've got a good reason for wrecking the plane's engines."
"YOU DID WHAT?!?" We all shouted in unison. This guy is seriously asking for trouble.
"Are you saying that you deliberately crashed the plane on this island Mr. ummm, what is your name anyway?" Quatre asked while struggling to hold me and Duo back.
"Who cares what his name is, let me at him." Duo tried to pull himself free
"I'm gonna thrash him within an inch of his life." I grunted as I tried to pull my self free.
"Wufei! Heero! A little help, please!" Quatre requested. Wufei and Heero took hold of both Duo and myself, relieving Quatre of his burden.
"My name is John, Mr. John Webster. I'm Relena Peacecraft's normal pilot. She sent me to get you guys, but on my way to the airport I received a note. It said to stall for time on my way back with Miss Relena's friends, to crash the plane if I have to." John paused.
"Who sent you the note?" Wufei spoke up.
"I don't know. It wasn't signed."
"But you followed the instructions anyway?!?"
"That's where the story gets a little complicated." John resumed his story. "I decided to show the note to Mr. Milliardo, Relena's brother. Maybe he'd be able to trace its source. Mr. Milliardo asked me if there was, by any chance, an island or hideaway spot that I'd be able to hide the plane. I said that I knew of one island, but I didn't know if it were inhabited or not. He told me to make an emergency landing here, and paid me extra for doing that. That's when I decided to fake engine trouble. But something happened and the engines stopped working for real. That's all I know, honest."
As John finished his story he looked around at us. We were shocked, and a little confused. What was all this about?
"So….is Milliardo responsible for us being trapped here?" Duo slowly spoke up.
"I knew it!" Heero shouted, making us all practically jump out of our skins. "He was so scared of me beating him at table tennis he had us waylaid so he could keep his title as the Best Table Tennis Champion with the Coolest Hair Ever!"
Okayyy, Heero's lost it completely. While he sulked in the corner, brooding over his table tennis skills, the rest of us turned to the mystery at hand. Why does everything have to get more complicated before it becomes simple?
We all began walking, continuing down the path we'd been standing on. We discussed the mystery from all angles, but for the life of us, we couldn't figure out anything. The only one who came up with a semi- halfway decent reason was Heero and his whole table tennis thing. But then that would only affect him, not all of us. I personally don't care who has the Best Table Tennis Champion with the Coolest Hair Ever award in his room.
We were all so engrossed with our theories that we didn't even notice that we'd come to the end of our path. The path stopped at the edge of a high cliff, and the biggest surprise of all was waiting for us here.
A city. A very large city. A very large and beautiful seaside city appeared before us. I rubbed my eyes.
"Is it real?" Quatre asked, blinking and rubbing his eyes.
"It is!" Duo exclaimed. "Look! Hotels, cinemas, fast food restaurants! It's all here!"
"And we've been living off nature and in a stick shelter for the last 2 days?" Wufei growled. And sure enough, we had been. If only we had explored this side of the island sooner.
We all climbed down the cliff and headed straight for the first hotel we saw, Shady Constellation Inn. Oh no, my spidy senses are tingling again…
"Hi, I'd like to use the phone to make a long distance call please." Quatre said to the lady standing behind the counter. She gave us the once over, and I could see she wasn't thrilled about 6 dirty guys standing on the immaculately clean floor in the spacious and elegant hotel.
"And how will you be paying for it?" She asked in a voice as sweet as honey, but with a smile as acidic as vinegar. I leaned over to read her name tag. Dorothy. Go figures. Dorothys were always a bunch of pain in the rear ends, if you catch my drift. Too bad. She would've been cute if she weren't so evil.
"Oh." Quatre's smile faded. "Well, you see, that's a bit of a problem at the moment, hehehe." He laughed nervously when Dorothy's smile widened. "We, umm, we crash landed on the other side of the island and all our credentials and money burned in the wreck."
"Oh, that's too bad." Dorothy said, but I could tell she really wasn't sorry for us at all. For one thing, she was still smiling that evil smile of hers, and secondly she was picking up her phone and dialling a number.
"Hello Manager? I've got 6 stray puppies in the lobby who claim they crash landed on the other side of the island. They have no money, but want to make a long distance call. That's right. Uh huh. All right, I'll send them your way. Bye bye." She hung up, and turned back to us. If she noticed the glares she was getting, she didn't let on.
"The manager of the hotel seems to believe your story. He wants to meet with you. Go down the hall. It's the first door to the left. Have a nice day." She pointed us toward a hall, still smiling.
"Ewww. I hate Dorothys." Quatre shivered and shook himself. Probably trying to get rid of the grossness only associated with a Dorothy. We found the door with no problems, knocked, and entered. We were expecting to walk into a spick and span room with another Dorothy like figure sitting behind a spotless desk. Not a messy topsy-turvy room that looked like a war zone that could've easily been Duo's own bedroom.
"I assume you're the 6 stray puppies Dorothy was talking about, am I right?" A voice asked. It was such a mess in the room that it took us a good 5 seconds to locate the voice. It came from a figure that had his head stuck in a fridge. He was struggling with 6 cans of soda. But what really surprised me was that he was only a kid, no older than any of us!
"Are you the manager?" Heero asked, as shocked as I was.
"Yep! My name's Pietro. Have a seat. Grab a pop. Make yourselves at home." He grinned. "Boy, you don't know how happy I am to see people my own age. All I've got for company is that stuffy hag Dorothy, and she's as fun as a power outage."
Pietro looked like a surfer version of Quatre. His long blond hair was tied into a small ponytail and behind his ultra cool sunglasses was a pair of big dark blue eyes. He was wearing a yellow surfer shirt with khaki shorts.
"Cool clothes, man. I like your shades." Duo said, draining his can.
"Hey, thanks Bro. Righteous braid. Is it real?" Pietro countered. Freaky, he's like a stereotype from California. And even worse, Duo was somehow able to speak his 'language'. Good thing too, cause if this keeps up, I'm gonna need a dictionary.
"Yeah, it's real. I'm 100% natural, baby." Duo grinned, helping himself to a pack of chips.
"Umm, I hate to interrupt the party, but we sort of have a problem that needs to be solved." Quatre was staring at Pietro, no doubt a little freaked out by the likeness between them.
"Right. Right. Business first. Here's a phone card with 4 hours worth of free calling time. And here are some hotel keys. They'll get you access to a few rooms so you guys can clean up a bit. No doubt Dorothy will freak if you drop so much as a speck of dust on her clean floors. Oh and here is a thousand dollars, on the house. You'll probably want to buy some more clothes and personal belongings."
"Wow! That's very generous of you." Quatre smiled. The rest of us mumbled our thanks. Pietro waved it away.
"No problem. Glad I can help you guys. Say, how would you all like to meet me at the beach for lunch. I can give you the grand tour of the city and teach you how to surf!"
"Cool!" We agreed. Finally, our vacation was starting to feel like a vacation.
That night, after making all our individual necessary calls, we all crowded around the vidphone. Quatre was going to call Zechs and demand an answer to all our questions. What none of us noticed at the time was a slight shiver in the transmission.
"Hello." Zechs' face appeared on the screen, he looked angry.
Heero pushed his way in front of Quatre, "Zechs, you've got a lot of explaining to do."
"Heero? Where are you guys? Relena's been frantic. Hey! John Webster! Where are you guys? What happened?" Zechs looked like all his anger had just melted into thin air and was replaced with worry.
"Don't play innocent with me, Mister. You know very well that you told me to land on this bizarre island." John spoke up.
"What? What island? I never said anything remotely close to that."
"You mean you don't remember when I asked you what to do with the strange note?" John asked.
"What note? Hey, are you going to explain what's going on here?!?"
We took it in turns to explain to Zechs what had happened in the last three days. He was shocked.
"Apparently someone impersonated me and tried to either kill you guys or have you detained. I'll send a plane there for you immediately." And with that, Zechs' image faded from the screen. But not before we noticed a shiver in the transmission. Someone had been eavesdropping on our call.
"Wow. The plot thickens." Duo said as he slurped through his third milkshake.
"Ow. My head hurts from all this espionage." Quatre threw himself onto a bed, burying himself under a pillow.
"Barton! Are you ever going to finish this damn story?"
"Sorry Wufei. I'm almost complete. Just a few more paragraphs."
"A few more paragraphs? A few more paragraphs? Barton, if you don't finish this stupid, retarded story soon, I'm going to finish it for you."
"Fine, okay. Geez."
To make a long story short, we stayed an extra three days on the island. Relena and the crew stayed here with us, sort of like a double vacation. On the last day, before we all went our separate ways, us 5 boys were called over the P.A. system to meet Zechs by the hotel pool.
When we got there we found everyone waiting for us. Relena, Hilde, Sally, Noin, Une, and two Zechs. Wait a minute! Two Zechs!?!
"I found our little impersonator. Apparently she was getting ready for more mischief." The real Zechs smiled, and pulled off the mask that was hiding…Dorothy Catalonia?!?
"YOU!" Quatre screamed pointing a finger at the Dorothy we knew for years.
"Yes, me." She said calmly. "It was getting so boring around here. No wars to fight. Paper work day in and day out. I wanted some excitement. So I created a little trouble, all in the name of fun, of course." Dorothy smiled a little, running an elegantly manicured finger over her forked eyebrows.
"Hehehe…Game time!" Duo screamed as he logged onto the Internet. He'd been itching to play this new online game forever. With the week he's been through, it's no wonder he's so happy. Ah, to be at home again.
"See Wufei, I finished the story in 5 small paragraphs." I said as I saved my work onto my laptop. I'm actually going to write my book, How to Stay Away From Bad Ideas by: Trowa Barton. One of Quatre's sisters is going to publish it for me.
"Yes, but if you didn't have to tell the story with every single bit of detail, you would've been finished 4 chapters ago." Wufei popped another Starburst into his mouth.
"Yeah, but it makes for interesting read, told this way."
"No it doesn't. I for one nearly fell asleep halfway through this chapter and I'm not even sure if the readers bothered to get this far."
"Oh, put a sock in it, Wuffers." Duo finished his game in second place, not bad for a guy who started playing a week after it came out.
"Yeah Wufei. Trowa was going for accuracy, not length." Quatre was sitting on the sofa, flipping through the channels on the T.V. while playing chess with Heero.
Heero had finally gotten his wish at a table tennis rematch with Zechs while we were on the island. He's currently in possession of the Best Table Tennis Champion with the Coolest Hair Ever award. It's said that he polishes it every night before he goes to bed. Hehehe…
Ah, well as you can see, we're back to normal (Crash! "Sorry Trowa, I'll fix it!") or as normal as we'll ever get around here. See ya!