Chapter 4: first day in London
The girls woke up to the high pitched alarm of Rachel's phone. Lauren fell out of bed with a loud thud; Mercedes hid her head under the pillow, muttering about having just five more minutes. Tina was on the bottom of the bunkbed, and at the sound of the noise, bolted upright, hitting her head on the bed above her. The alarm kept going, for what seemed like half an hour, when in reality it was about five minutes. Rachel clambered out of bed in a method that was anything but graceful and searched the room for her phone, eventually finding it on the sink in the en suite bathroom. They had finally all woken up, only to realize that Rachel had set the alarm for 6 o'clock, they didn't need to be at breakfast until 8.
Mercedes: oh, hell to the no! We could have had another hour in bed!
Rachel: sorry guys, I thought this would give us plenty of time to have a shower and get ready for breakfast. I'll go first, that way you can all have a bit longer in bed.
Tina: I did want a shower before we go
Lauren: I don't even care; I'm going back to bed.
By 6.30, Rachel had showered and was ready to go. She normally had an hour on the elliptical before getting dressed and showered, and now she didn't really know what to do with herself. She looked at her phone and smiled at the text from Santana. Then she decided to go for a walk around the hotel. When she passed the other girls room, she considered knocking, but decided that if they were asleep, she would be hated even more for waking them up, possibly even attacked with the razor blades that Santana keeps in her hair. At the thought of that, Rachel shook her head, thinking about how stupid her thoughts sounded.
When Rachel made her way into the lobby, she glanced around, only to see Miss Pillsbury sat on one of the leather sofas reading a book. Deciding that she had nothing better to do, she sat down on one of the chairs opposite her, and had a chat. Their talk was nothing if not awkward, but it beat sitting in her room trying not to disturb or irritate the other girls.
Once again Quinn was the first person to wake up out of the unholy trinity. She tiptoed softly to the bathroom to have a shower, deciding that it was too early to wake the other girls up. Once she had finished it was still way too early to even contemplate waking the fiery Latina with an extremely short fuse. Quinn dug into her bag to pull out a piece of paper and a pen, leaving behind a note next to Santana's phone.
Woke up early so went for a walk. Set your alarm so that you wouldn't be late and had enough time to get ready. See you at breakfast
Q
Just as Rachel had done, Quinn found herself sat in one of the leather sofas, next to Rachel and opposite Miss Pillsbury.
Back in the room, a phone went flying full speed across the room, hitting the wall as the alarm had gone off. It wasn't so much the sound of the alarm, but the sound of the back coming apart from the phone that woke Brittany up. Santana was still fast asleep. It was funny how even in her sleep; Santana could be somewhat violent when she wanted to be. Brittany went through her usual routine of waking her sleeping friend. First she slowly untangled herself from the Latina who had managed to snake an arm around the blonde. She bent forward gently kissing her shoulders and her forehead, rubbing circles on Santana's back, before her eyes gradually wavered opened, and a smile formed on her face. They got ready in record time, and made their way down breakfast. At this point, Quinn was sat at a table with Rachel, chatting away, which was unusual. Mercedes and Tina were at a table, obviously saving seats for Kurt and Mike to join them. Lauren was stood by the buffet piling huge amounts of food onto the plate.
Santana followed Brittany who sat down next to Rachel. Quinn and Rachel were both eating fruit; Santana simply nursed a cup of coffee to wake herself up. Brittany on the other hand had numerous sugary treats piled up on her plate.
Artie, Mike, Sam and Kurt took their seats at breakfast, each of them choosing to have a full fry up. By the time it reached quarter past 8, Mr Shue decided he had better go and wake Puck and Finn up. Kurt had told him that he woke up early, and thought he would leave the other boys to sleep a little longer. They obviously had either not set an alarm, or chosen to ignore it. The two boys eventually woke to Mr Shue hammering on their door.
/
At breakfast they discussed what they were going to do for the morning. They had the matinee performance of Wicked in the afternoon, so they had to decide on just one thing to do in the morning. In the end it was decided that they would take a visit to the aquarium.
Once inside Mr Shue allowed them to split off into groups, however most of them stayed together. Mr Shue and Miss Pillsbury headed offon their own, as did Kurt, Mercedes, Tina and Mike. The others all went in the same direction. The large group found themselves stood in front of a massive tank containing a variety of deep water fish. To everyone's surprise Puck seemed to be very knowledgeable about identifying fish species, they stood listening as he pointed out a massive Tuna that swam past, its scales glistening under the light as it moved effortlessly through the water.
Finn: is it weird that I feel hungry now
Rachel: ew, these are beautiful animals Finn, I can't believe they make you feel hungry
Quinn: fish are not beautiful Rachel
Rachel: all animals are
Quinn: whatever
Britt: I want to touch them
Brittany was met with a few odd looks from the other teens. After a few moments of silence, Santana linked her pinkie with Brittany and started to lead her away from the rest of the group.
San: I'm taking Britt to the area where you can touch the starfish and stuff
Quinn: I think I'll come too
Rachel: if you don't mind, I'd like to come, rather than stand around with the boys talking about how they want to eat everything
San: whatever, just keep up ok, and don't talk too much
Rachel was about to voice something about her height making no difference to her ability to keep up with the taller girls, but decided better against it. The girls made their way through the aquarium towards the area where you can get up close and personal with various sea creatures. The boys were left behind staring at the sharks, and no doubt thinking about their stomachs.
Once they reached the touching area, Brittany didn't take long before plunging her hand into the water as she tried to "stroke" some kind of sting ray. She was warned several times by all three girls and the volunteer who worked there to be gentle with the sea creatures, and not to touch the tail.
Britt: San, touch the starfish, he's so cute.
San: nah Britt, I don't want to touch any slimy sea creatures, they're totally gross
Brittany pouted a few times, Santana insisted that she wasn't going to touch any of the creatures, claiming that they would either bite her or somehow make her ill with their "nasty sea germs".
Rachel: go on Santana, they won't hurt you, do it for Brittany
San: urgh whatever, but if I die, I'm holding you responsible man hands
With that, Santana dipped her hands into the warm water and scooped up one of the smallest starfish she could see, all the while pulling faces of disgust. Brittany beamed up at her with a toothy grin as she watched her best friend hold a starfish that she decided to name Timothy.
Quinn: we should get back to the others; we are supposed to be meeting them in the café for lunch.
Rachel: Quinn is right, let's get going
Britt: ooooh lunch, I'm starving!
Brittany skipped off down one of the underwater tunnels, looking up at the fish swimming above her. Quinn followed closely behind, listening to her friend ramble on about how they all looked like they were dancing in the water. Rachel held back a little, and grabbed onto Santana's arm to hold her back.
Rachel: have you talked to her yet?
San: First of all, get your hands off me dwarf, second of all it's none of your business, but no, I haven't exactly had the chance
Rachel: well, let me know if you do, and if not, I'm going to come up with a plan for you to get your girl.
Rachel jogged a little to catch up with the two blondes, leaving Santana to walk behind them muttering under her breath.
Santana's pov:
Why did I ever open my stupid big mouth to Berry. I'm never going to get her to shut up about this now. Not until I talk to Britt that is. Damn, even then she won't shut up, she'll say me and Britt getting together is all down to her. Crap! The others have gone, I need to catch up.
/ A Wicked afternoon
After having a light lunch at the aquarium, the glee club made their way to the matinee performance of Wicked. They sat together and chatted excitedly as they waited for the show to begin. Once it started, not one word was spoken amongst the kids, they simply sat, wide eyed, watching the show in awe. Kurt and Rachel gave each other a quick smile when the song Defying Gravity was sung. Brittany spent the entire show playing idly with Santana's hand, whilst they both watched in silence. Even the boys seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Puck's pov:
Ok, I have to admit it, that show was pretty awesome. I might be all badass and that, but even I can appreciate a decent musical when I see one.
Kurts pov:
I can't believe Rachel managed to get us tickets for that! It was so amazing; I think I can safely say this has been one of the best days of my life.
After the show, the group was buzzing with excitement. Will took them to a fancy restaurant for the tea, thinking that it would be the perfect way to top off the amazing day they had just had.
/
That evening, the kids decided that they wouldn't bother having any alcoholic drinks. They were just going to chill out and have relatively early nights. Mercedes, Tina and Kurt spent the evening in the girl's room. They had Kurt's iPod on the speakers and were painting each other's nails. Artie and Mike were in the game room, playing various arcade games, when Artie couldn't reach to play, he just watched Mike, giving him pointers on how to destroy the enemy. The other members of the group were sat once again on the floor of the game room, playing a game of polka. For a while they were having fun, but then Puck decided it would be much more interesting if they turned the game into strip polka. Reluctantly, they all agreed, except for Lauren, who decided to go to bed.
To everyone's complete surprise, Brittany remained almost fully clothed. Only Santana knew that Brittany was a secret polka genius, and a few times, cheated by getting Brittany to give her some pointers. By the end of the game, Sam was left in just his boxers and socks. Finn had just been given orders to remove his socks, leaving him just in his boxers. Puck was lucky enough to still be wearing his jeans. Santana had made the mistake of choosing to wear a dress, so it only took one mistake to get her sat in just her underwear. As she looked around she thought to herself we've been in London for two nights, and two nights I've been sat in this games room in my god damn underwear. Quinn was sat wearing her shorts, but had been given orders to remove her top.
Everybody left together, deciding that they needed an early night because they were sure that Mr Shue would be dragging them around London all day, most likely going to museums and trying to teach them a thing or two whilst they were on their trip. It was after all a school trip, sort of; they wouldn't get away without learning at least something.