And the adventure continues! Writing Aelita on the train was ridiculously fun, and by the looks of things Jer's summer won't be as lame as Odd thinks it's going to be 'wink, wink'. And so, like our heroes, onward!
The taxi pulled up outside the train station's row of revolving doors, joining its half dozen fellows as they deposited piles of boxes, heaps of luggage, and over burdened students. As soon as the Taxi rolled to a stop its doors were opening, the gang spilling out to join their fellows in the controlled chaos of returning home for the summer.
As soon as she stepped out Aelita's eyes went wide. For a moment all she could do was stare at the station; through the constantly spinning doors she could just make out the bustling crowds, the row of ticket counters, and the massive arrivals and departures board filling the main lobby.
"You ready for your first train ride?" Ulrich asked playfully, hefting his bag over his shoulder. Behind him Odd struggled to drag his over-packed suitcase from the taxi's trunk, unassisted by the cab driver, who was watching the blonde's antics with a flat look.
Aelita could only nod in response, biting her lip to hold back a grin.
"Don't let your excitement get the best of you," Yumi said, smiling when the pink haired girl looked her way. Yumi motioned to the open trunk. "You don't want to forget your bags, do you?"
"Oh!" Hurrying over, Aelita, with Ulrich's help, retrieved her pink baggage, quickly adding it the pile the group was accumulating on the curb. Shaking his head, Ulrich shoved Odd aside and started pulling the blonde's bags out as well, leaving Odd to pay their cab driver.
"Mom and Dad's funding," Ulrich explained, before Aelita could ask were Odd was getting his money from.
"You know, I actually do have some of my own money," Odd said, as he stuffed his wallet back into his pocket.
"Invisible money doesn't count."
Sticking his tongue out, Odd turned his back to Ulrich. Ulrich rolled his eyes in Aelita's direction as Odd started tugging his giant case from luggage pile. After a brief struggle, in which the case rolled onto one side, almost taking Odd down with it, Odd eventually got the bulging purple suitcase on its wheels and heading towards the doors—
Only to get it trapped in one of the revolving doors. Grumbling a string of less than polite names at his suitcase, Odd tugged on the handle, trying to get it un-wedged. He succeeded only on falling over.
Doing little to hide their laughter, the trio outside gathered their things and headed through one of the doors Odd wasn't blocking. In the lobby they bunched together to avoid being separated in the crowd before quickly finding a quiet corner where they could both check the platform they were leaving from and wait for Odd to rejoin them.
"We're leaving from a…a platform?" Aelita asked as they tucked behind a decorative plant. Yumi nodded as she pulled out her train ticket. Aelita, whose definitions of a platform included a little raised thing you stood on and something politicians argued, was understandably confused.
"You'll see what we mean," Ulrich assured her as he checked his own ticket.
"Platform sixteen," a third voice said, causing the group to look up just as Odd appeared beside them, scuffed suitcase in hand. "Thanks for helping, by the way."
"You looked like you had it handled," Ulrich said, grinning as Yumi snorted into her hand. Kiwi, hanging in his little bag on Odd's shoulder, barked.
"No one asked you," Odd frowned. Kiwi stared at him for a moment, and then tilted his head, tongue lolling out happily.
"So, where is this platform?" Aelita asked curiously, redirecting everyone's focus. Odd, his annoyance quickly forgotten in the face of Aelita's enthusiasm, turned and pointed off to the group's right.
"Right this way," he announced, as he started marching off into the crowd.
"Not so fast, Marco Polo," Ulrich said, grabbing Odd's backpack and pulling him back. Pointing to the group's left, he said, "it's actually this way." Odd blinked at his friend, and then asked,
"You know who Marco Polo is?" Ulrich frowned.
"Yeah. He was a guy who didn't get his suitcase stuck in revolving doors."
Recognizing a wrestling match in the making, Yumi nabbed Aelita's arm and together they started out across the lobby, Yumi heading for the hallway beneath the sign reading 'Platforms 15-19'. When they realized they were being left behind the boys scrambled to keep up with the girls before they were lost in the crowd.
Aelita's amazement was in no way dulled by the hustle and bustle around her, her friends all but dragging her along as she continually turned around to get a better look at all of the new and interesting sights around her. However, it took the sight of the train its self to stop Aelita in her tracks completely. She was unaware of the grins her friends exchanged as she stared up at the massive silver engine, her mouth hanging open as she tried to take in every inch of the hulking beast in a single glance.
"Cool, huh?" Odd asked. Aelita nodded numbly.
"If you think that's cool, wait till we get inside."
"Inside?" Aelita repeated, eyeing the train critically.
"We don't ride inside the engine," Ulrich said, correctly interpreting Aelita's confusion. "We ride in the cars." He motioned to the string of cars trailing behind the engine, all colored in the same silver and lined with dark windows.
"Oh," Aelita breathed, eyeing the cars. "Which one do we ride in?" It was Odd who answered her.
"Why don't we go find out?"
When Jeremy first climbed onto the school's chartered bus he'd been surprised by the number of kids who'd opted for summer classes. His surprise had grown when he noticed William among the bunch, sitting by himself near the back, his nose shoved into a book. And as Jeremy took the only open seat, which happened to be beside William, his surprise reached its peak when he spotted the girl taking up two seats across the aisle.
William had looked up curiously when Jeremy arrived. When Jeremy gave him a pointed look and then motioned to Sissi he'd simply shrugged, having since settled on simply being baffled by the girl's presence. With no further illuminations forthcoming, Jeremy was left to be similarly baffled and, taking that as his cue, he set the issue of Sissi's presence aside for another time and, still using William as a role model, pulled out a book of his own and began to read.
Content in their new found literary silence, the boys found no reason to join in the chatter filling the rest of the bus as it pulled away from Kadic. Or, they didn't until, after a few minutes, Jeremy suddenly found he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. Eventually looking up, he was surprised to see a familiar face peering down from overtop the seat in front of him.
"Uh, hi Emily."
"Hey Jeremy," Emily said, chin resting on her folded arms.
"Didn't you…have a question?" Jeremy asked.
"Nope."
"Oh. Okay."
Still confused, but not sure what else to say, Jeremy turned back to his book. He could still feel Emily's eyes on him as he read, but he did his best to ignore her gaze. Just as Jeremy was beginning to feel uncomfortable, he looked up, planning on asking Emily to stop staring—
Only to be met by two stares instead of one.
"Hello, Theo."
"Hey."
Jeremy's gaze traveled between Theo, who was trying to look all kinds of innocent, and Emily, who was clearly grinning into the crook of her elbow. He sighed. Tucking away his book, he asked,
"Okay, what are you two up to?" Theo scowled.
"What makes you think we're up to anything?" Jeremy's response was a flat look. Theo sighed. "I wouldn't call it 'up to something'," he defended. "More like…helping a friend."
"…What?"
"Odd asked me to do him a favor," Theo explained. "Since you decided to do the most boring thing possible for the summer, he wanted me to make sure you didn't spend what little time of you summer you won't spend in class doing boring stuff. Like reading." William frowned over his book at the soccer player, while Jeremy rolled his eyes.
"You can tell Odd I appreciate the concern, but his idea of boring isn't exactly everyone's idea of boring. And speaking of boring," Jeremy added after a moment's pause, "if studying all summer is so boring, why are you doing it?"
"You think I'm choosing to do this?" Theo asked. "Please. My parents are making me take the classes." He snorted, then added, "Is there anyone who actually chose to do this?"
Jeremy raised his hand, giving Theo a pointed look. Theo scoffed, although he blinked his surprise when Emily, grin growing, raised her hand, as did William, eyes still on his book. Shaking his head, Theo sighed.
"You guys are the weirdest people I've ever met."
"Weirdest?" Emily repeated. At Theo's look she motioned to Sissi, half hidden by a pile of silver luggage and nose deep in a fashion magazine.
"I'll bet she didn't volunteer for this torture either."
"Neither did we," William mumbled, giving Theo a look. When he realized what the older boy meant Theo, with an affronted scowl, dropped back into his seat and out of sight. Emily flashed William a grin and then, with a conspiratorial wink to Jeremy, she too disappeared.
Turning back to his book Jeremy was only half aware of the blush now coloring his cheeks, and oblivious to the look William sent between the blonde and the back of Emily's seat.
Struggling to immerse himself back into his book, Jeremy heaved a mental sigh. It wasn't a private island with his friends, Jeremy thought, but it looked like his summer might turn out interesting after all.
Aelita peered through the glass window, hands at either side of her face.
Two eyes peered back from under scruffy bangs and over a stuffed bear.
Grinning, Aelita curled her fingers in a wave. The little boy watching her smiled wide, exposing a missing front tooth and a bright laugh. A hand appeared on Aelita's arm just as the boy's mother looked up to see what had caught her son's attention, quickly pulling the girl away.
"He was cute," Aelita said brightly.
"I know," Yumi said, tugging her friend down the aisle. "But we really can't stop and look into every car we pass. Not everyone likes being peered at through window."
"Those kids from earlier didn't mind," Aelita said, tilting her head back to glance into a compartment full of ladies knitting.
"Yes, but that were from our school. They kind of know us. Those people," Yumi nudged Aelita away from a car carrying business men on their cell phones, "on the other hand, don't know us. And an unfamiliar girl staring at you on a train is kind of weird." Aelita, used to her small school where everyone pretty much knew everyone else, frowned.
"People on trains are weird," she decided.
"We're on here," Yumi pointed out.
"So is Odd." Yumi laughed.
"Come on, let's go find the boys. They're probably at our compartment by now."
True to form, as soon as they'd boarded the train the boys had bolted, racing to see who could find their seats first. Bags flying and Kiwi barking, it wasn't long before they'd vanished from sight, leaving the girls to make their own way.
Keeping one hand on her friend, Yumi lead the way across the junction from one car to the next. Luckily this one was less occupied, many of the compartments still sitting open, providing less of a distraction for the ever curious Aelita. And now, with her gaze turned forward, it was she who spotted their friends first.
"Odd!" she cried, as the blonde's spike of hair peeked into the aisle. Ulrich appeared a moment later, waving.
"Couldn't even wait to help the girls with their bags?" Yumi teased as she and Aelita shuffled their luggage into the compartment.
"I had to go save our seats!" Kiwi, who'd already been released from his bag, barked in agreement with Odd.
"Right," Yumi drawled. "You had to save our pre-assigned seats." As Aelita giggled, Yumi rounded on Ulrich. "What's your excuse?"
"I had to keep Odd from getting lost."
"The train's a straight line and the compartments are numbered chronologically."
"I had to keep Odd from getting lost."
When Yumi failed to look convinced Ulrich motioned to the blonde. He was attempting to shove his over-packed bag under the seat, feet skidding across the ground as he fought against the laws of physics.
"Valid point."
"Are you talking about me?" Odd asked, as he slumped against his bag in defeat.
"Yes," the pair chorused.
"You're terrible friends."
"Keep telling yourself that."
Propping his bag against the wall, Ulrich dropped into the seat beside the blonde. Giving up on his bag, Odd joined him, using the suitcase as a foot rest. Eyeing the boys' overstuffed bags, Aelita looked at her own seat for a moment. She then gasped in mock surprise when her own bag slipped neatly into the little nook.
"Incredible," she breathed as she took her seat.
"Show off," Ulrich teased, while Yumi wiped away imaginary tears.
"I'm so proud."
"Yeah, yeah," Odd said, rolling his eyes as Yumi tucked her own bags away. "So you can origami your underwear to fit all tiny."
"It's easier when your underwear are clean," Aelita assured him. Ignoring his friends' snorts of laughter, Odd defended with,
"Boys have bigger underwear than you guys do."
"Like you would know what my underwear looks like," Yumi said.
"Actually—"
"No, stop." Yumi held up a hand. "Let's pretend I didn't say that." Odd grinned impishly.
"I was only going to say that I don't know what it looks like, but I bet Ulrich does."
Twin blushed, a bright laugh from Aelita, and items being thrown in his direction were Odd's response.
Once the collective embarrassment level of the compartment lowered to a tolerable level the gang fell into comfortable conversation. Odd and Ulrich talked about Jim's offer to make Ulrich captain of the soccer team next year and the girls, despite Odd's horrified looks, worked on picking the classes they wanted to take in the fall. However, now stuck behind a window of her own, Aelita only half paid attention as she turned her people watching onto the passengers filing up and down the aisle. Yumi was eventually forced to switch seats with her, just to keep her from gawking at unsuspecting passengers.
As it grew closer to the train's departure time Aelita found a new distraction, checking the time on her phone so often that Yumi found herself imitating the anxious behavior.
"You know, it won't go any faster just because you're staring at it." When Aelita blinked at him in confusion Ulrich added, "The time, it won't go faster."
"I know," Aelita said, tucking her phone away. "I'm just so excited."
"Well, it is your first train ride."
"A moment we should document!"
"What?" Aelita started to ask, before a flash of light answered her question. Grinning, Odd lowered the camera in his hands.
"When did you get that?" Ulrich asked, pausing to look thoroughly unamused as Odd snapped his picture.
"You should always have a camera on you."
"And you always have a camera?"
"Yes."
"…Always?"
"Doesn't everyone?" Odd's honestly confused expression had Ulrich hesitating—and failing to notice the girls stifling snickers at his expense.
As Ulrich struggled with his response, as series of soft chimes sounded, causing Aelita to look around the cabin in confusion. Yumi, the only other on not engaged in confusing Ulrich, smiled as the pink haired girl scowled accusingly at the ceiling.
"It means the conductor is going to make an announcement," she explained. Aelita's lips formed a small 'oh' of understanding as she nodded sagely. As the conductor cheerfully announced where they were departing from and set their next stop at Paris, the train groaned. Then, with the faintest of pulls, it began to move.
While the boys dissolved into a wrestling match ("Are you both twelve?" Yumi sighed), Aelita's hands and nose were pressed against the window. Leaping into her lap, Kiwi balanced his paws on the sill, and together they watched the station pulling away, the building quickly picking up speed as it raced further and further out of sight.
"Wow," she breathed, her face glowing with her excitement.
Across the compartment Odd and Ulrich shared knowing smiles as Odd's camera flashed.
"If you think this is great," the blonde said, "wait until you see the plane."
The Kadic students frowned and grumbled as they piled off the bus, both irritated and confused by their gym teacher's insistence on making announcements in such a confined space via megaphone. With Jim's magnified assurance that their bags would find them later tonight, the students were sent trudging towards the building they would be staying in for the summer.
"Hello!" a cheery university student greeted as the Kadic bunch filed into the lobby of the small dorm building. She was sitting with a few others her age at the end of a long table, adorned with a sign reading "Room Assignments."
"Welcome, welcome!" the girl called, waving everyone in close. "Welcome to your first ever college experience! Whoo, exciting, right?" A few half hearted mumbles were her response. Not daunted in the least, she continued, "Before we start getting you all going with classes and such, we need to fist make sure you've got somewhere to sleep. Room assignments will be given right here, so everyone grab a roommate and sign in at the left end of the table!"
A general silence and lack of movement followed the girl's announcement. Then—
"Roommate?" The girl nodded.
"All rooms available are doubles, so we need you all to pair up. I recommend picking someone you think you can stand."
A kind of mini chaos broke out after that, students scrambling to be roomed with someone they actually liked. Jeremy, who had enjoyed a single room for his duration at Kadic, frowned his discomfort as he watched Theo march past, an arm around one of his teammates.
"Great," William muttered, also watching the rambunctious soccer players. Jeremy eyed the raven for a moment. Then, figuring he wasn't going to find anyone better, asked,
"Want to be roommates?"
"With someone who will read and study all summer?" William asked. "Absolutely." With that settled, they quickly joined the sign-up line behind Theo and his friend, Timothy. They were followed a moment later by Sissi and Emily, the former agreeing to room with the brunette only after realizing all of the other girls had already paired off.
After signing in, Jeremy and William were handed their new set of keys and, since line placement now made them neighbors, they piled into the elevator together with Emily, Sissi, Theo, and Timothy. After a quick ride to their floor they spilled back out into a hall flanked by two doors, each leading to a different set of room numbers. Passing through the appropriate door, they began their trek, realizing quickly that fate had left them with the rooms at the end of the hall.
"Why did we get the furthest possible rooms?" Sissi moaned. Her annoyance was slightly understandable, due to the load of bags she hadn't stowed on the bus, and was now forced to carry (something no one had offered to help carry, also understandable).
"Here we are," William sighed, when they finally reached their room. Behind him Theo and Timothy burst noisily into their own dorm across the hall. Rolling his eyes, William opened the door, revealing the room inside: two beds, two desks, a dresser, a closet, and a tiny bathroom.
"This is it?" Sissi could be heard shouting as the boys stepped inside. "Where's my vanity table? My walk in closet?" Across the hall the soccer players were making similar noise, a shout of "I call this one!" having turned into a loud wrestling match.
Together Jeremy and William sighed.
"Yay summer," William muttered. Jeremy could only nod.