The chaperones were hard pressed to get everyone out of the airport and onto the bus that would take them to the hotel. Students were everywhere; some had even escaped to a small gift shop that was "out of bounds" as Mr. Richard called it. Derrick made his way to the food court, Massie following him and muttering how the bus would leave without them.

"You don't have to come with me you know." Derrick hissed impatiently, digging in his jean pockets for his wallet.

Massie stuck her tongue out at him, searching her brain for a worthy retort. Coming up with nothing (she was still a little light-headed from the pills) she proceeded to kick him, which required no thought. After a heated kicking match, Derrick bought his burger and fries and tried to find a table with only one chair open, which was rather hard considering there was barely anyone there and more than half of the tables were completely empty. Follow the leader began, with Massie stepping on Derrick's heels every time he tried to take a step.

"Can you look before you walk?" Derrick asked as he made his way painfully to a table, Massie on his heels, literally.

"Can you just pick a seat already? My feet are about to fall off and I feel faint. The whole room is spinning and the floor is really bumpy and…."

"First off, the bumpy floor is my feet. Second, do I look like I care? Go find someone else to be your babysitter or give me a raise." Haughtily, Derrick sat down, clearly annoyed.

"Nag, nag, nag. You know you love me." Massie peered hazily through her tired eyes, sitting down in the chair next to his, discovering too late it was already occupied.

It took her a second to realize that the soft padding on the seat was alive and breathing. Screaming, she slid to the floor and crawled under the table with her arms covering her head.

"Its a old fat guy, not a bomb." Derrick was able to say amidst his laughter, which was impossible to control since he picked this table for the sole reason of watching his friend sit on someone. The old fat guy, as Derrick called him, had on an outfit that was the exact color of the chair. That, combined with his chair-like body shape, made him hard to see unless you were specifically looking for him. Which Derrick had been. The guy was asleep, and Massie sitting on him had no effect what so ever on his peaceful slumber. After coming out from under the table and brushing herself off, Massie waved her hands in front of his face to try to get a reaction. Dissatisfied with his continued obliviousness, she began breathing on his face.

"You do know how obnoxious you are, right?" Derrick commented. "Leave the poor guy alone before he wakes up and calls security to take the crazy person away. And by crazy person, I mean you."

Massie ignored him. She was still tired from the pills and wanted nothing better to do then sleep, but since that was not an option she had to preoccupy herself with something. And here was this perfectly situated, sleeping man who was quite interesting to poke. His skin felt like blubber, and she counted how long it took for his skin to resettle into place after she poked a hole in it. Luckily no one was in the cafeteria to scold her, so there was no need to be afraid of being caught. However, after ten minutes of poking him she became bored again and had to think of another way to preoccupy herself. An hour later, the old fat guy awoke and realized he had to go to the bathroom. He made his way slowly there, yawning every five feet. He finally made it to the bathroom, went into the stall, came out, and stood awe-struck in front of the mirror. His hair was neatly done in a hundred little braids, each with a neon hair elastic at the end of it. That and the fact he was wearing berry kiss lipstick was enough to make anyone have a heart attack.

So when Massie and Derrick were waiting in line to get on the bus (which had to be postponed since it took quite awhile for the chaperones to gather up the students), the poor old fat guy was being loaded onto a stretcher. But Massie never found out, though a week later when she was looking through a newspaper, she saw a picture of an old guy in the obituaries that looked vaguely familiar, though she could not fathom why.

The bus was nice and Massie had time to take a nap, though she was jolted awake by the whole bus singing to the radio, which had been turned on after the chaperones became sick of listening to the students curse, yell, and make farting noises. Since it was a French station, the music was in French. The teachers, always trying to make a situation educational, attempted to start a game where the students had to translate all the lyrics correctly before the song was over. The game was going great, too, before a song came on that the teachers forbid the students to translate. The music was turned off, which aggravated Kristen, who was trying to brush up on her French skills. If she was going to attract a guy, she wanted to be able to have an intelligent conversation with him in his native language. First, she counted up to one hundred in her head, then she went through the colors of the rainbow, and finally she repeated the different words for the weather. Good, now she could tell the French guy that he was a number one major hottie who had nice white teeth and red hair (she loved guys with red hair and was being optimistic) and if it was too hot out, did he want to take his shirt off?

In the seats in front of her sat Alicia and Dylan. Alicia was sympathizing with Dylan, whose mother was apparently in France and awaiting her daughter's arrival.

"Tell me again why my mother has to ruin my life? I mean, did she read a manual or something when she was pregnant with me titled, "How to make your child miserable by the age of sixteen". Or maybe she took like a college course or something, which if she did I'm sure she passed with flying colors." Dylan looked gloomily at the window. "I think I feel sick."

Alicia rolled her eyes and put her arm around her friend's shoulder. "Relax mon ami. Just ditch her; I'm sure she will understand. And if she doesn't then you could always just accidentally slip some rat poison in her sparkling water and say it was the butler."

"Right, blame the butler, that will work." Kristen said sarcastically from the seat behind Alicia and Dylan. "Because that is so original. If you ask me you shouldn't blame it on anyone, just say that you were coming to kiss her goodnight or something and you found her dead on the floor. The police would never suspect you. They would sooner suspect a pigeon came in the window and dropped radioactive poop in her cup."

"You are so gross!" Alicia squealed, trying to get the visual out her head. "And anyway isn't stuff that is radioactive glow with a greenish hue? So then her mom would notice something was wrong when her normally clear water was green and glowing."

"Not all radioactive things are green and glow, duh Alicia. It would dissolve in the water and her mom would never know", Kristen explained as if she was talking to a three year old.

Dylan stuck her tongue out in disgust. "Ewww, wouldn't the water taste funny though? I mean, I never tried pigeon poop but I'm sure it doesn't taste like chicken.

At that moment Massie woke up, just in time to hear Dylan. "Why do I have such horrible timing? I really did not want to hear that." The three girls laughed at their friend, who looked like she had just been through a car wash. Her hair was sticking up every which way, her mascara was smudged, and a long line of drool trailed from her mouth to her cheek, and then all the way down her neck to her shirt.

"It looks like someone squirted you with a miniature water gun", Alicia observed, trying not to laugh.

"I feel horrible", groaned Massie, whipping the drool off her face with her hand.

"Join the club", grumbled Dylan just as the bus driver announced that they had arrived at the hotel. Everyone stood up to look at the hotel, which was grand and magnificent. It was made from white marble and with the sun shining off of it, it looked luminescent. Claire, however, did not care about gazing at the beauty of the hotel. Cameron was talking to Olivia, and every word was like a stake through her heart. Not that they were flirting or anything, but the fact that Olivia could talk and laugh with him and Claire couldn't was almost too much to bare. She at once typed in his number to call him, but unfortunately his cell phone was still off, since he had neglected to turn it back on when he got of the plane. Once the bus left and luggage was returned to its owners, the hotel doors opened to welcome the students from BOCD high school. The teachers signed everyone in, and then lead the students up to their rooms to get settled.

Massie, Dylan, Alicia, and Claire were luckily roommates, but unfortunately Kristen had been accidentally placed in a different room with people she barely knew. The lucky four, however, also had to share their room with a girl whose name was Beverly. This girl never spoke, and Massie was still trying to decipher whether she even breathed. Beverly slowly walked into the room; as if afraid someone would pounce on her at any second.

Trying to break the tension (since the four friends were just staring awkwardly at Beverly) Dylan said with a fake cheery tone in her voice, "What's up new roomy? Did you get all your baggage? It was like trying to fight through a pack of wildebeests, right? Now I know how Mufasa felt. So what's your name again?"

"Dylan!" Massie hissed at her friend, then smiled apologetically at Beverly. However, Beverly was in her own little world, and had apparently not heard anything Dylan had said. She tiptoed around the room, peaked around every corner she came to, and stalked the bed she apparently wanted to claim as her own.

Massie leaned over towards Claire and whispered in her ear, "She's not breathing. That's not normal."

Claire shooed her away, and tiptoed up to Beverly. "Hey, you're in my science class, right? Mrs. Gorgon is such a spaz, don't you think?" Beverly still made no indication that she had heard anything of what had been said to her.

"I wonder if she's deaf", Massie whispered again, this time to Alicia. But Alicia did not care about Beverly; she was memorized by the view outside the window. "What a gorgeous city." Her hand hovered in the air and made stroking motions as if she was painting.

Everyone was silent for a few minutes as Massie tried to tell if Beverly's chest was moving up and down and Alicia continued to paint the scene outside their window in her mind. Kristen collapsed on a bed, followed shortly by Claire. Massie came over and sat beside them, looking thoroughly disappointed.

"So I'm guessing she's not an alien", Claire said quietly to her friend.

"Aliens can breath too you know. They can imitate us to make themselves seem human."

"Right. I think you need help. Probably as soon as possible. You have the potential to be seriously disturbed."

"Thank you.'