I woke up at eight-ish to get ready. I found my clothes from Friday night and put them back on. Then I headed out after taking Dan's Oyster card and leaving a sticky note on the kettle saying that I'd be back soon.
I headed out of the building and towards Starbucks first. I got some hot chocolate and headed for the tube. After a short ride, I was at the Manchester Uni station looking for Pj.
"What ho, Mackenzie!" I heard behind me. I turn and see Pj, standing on a bench.
"What are you doing up there?" I asked, feeling incredibly short.
"Thinking, getting ideas, looking for you. Your twenty-six seconds late," he said, jumping down.
"Starbucks had a long line, and then there were too many business-y people on the tube."
"Oh well, no harm done. To the dorms?"
"I have to ask Dr. Grimm something first, mind coming with?"
"Not at all. Lead the way."
We walked in a comfortable silence until we reached administrations. I nodded at the secretary before heading into Dr. Grimm's office. I might have been the only student able to do that, but I had to fight my way into this school for apparently living in America for two years made me a foreign exchange student in his eyes.
"Hello," I said taking his attention away from the book he was reading.
"Yes, Mackenzie, sit down, please." He gave Pj a quick glance as he waited outside.
"This is Pj, he's a senior here," I said, sitting down. "I was wondering if I could have a new dorm room?"
"I understand that being in your current dorm might prove to be... difficult," Dr. Grimm started. "But as you know, this is a very popular University, and we have no other dorms available at the moment." He shrugged. "I wish I could do more, but I can't."
"So nobody has dropped out at all? There are no open dorms? Like, at all?"
"None; I'm sorry, but either stay in your current dorm, or find a flat nearby."
"So you expect me to find a flat, in November, when you very well know that all the damn flats in the nearby area are all rented out!"
"I guess you'll be living in your dorm then, goodbye," Dr. Grimm finished before shooing me out of his office. Pj was outside the building on his phone talking to someone but he hung up just as I got within hearing distance.
"Hey," I said as I fell in step beside him.
"Don't be so down, you are not going to staying in that dorm. I found a place for you, we just need to get your stuff."
"Really, are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm positive, they're friends of mine, and its just two roommates with you," Pj said with a slight smirk. When we reached the door of my dorm room, I paused for a moment, and then tried to continue on but Pj noticed and stopped me. "You sure you want to go in there?" he asked worriedly.
"No, but I have to don't I?"
"I guess so. Do you want me to go in with you or stay out here?"
"Come in with me, I need someone to carry all my stuff," I joked lamely before opening the door. It was the same as I'd left it Friday morning, except most of Lindsey's stuff was gone, and one half of the room had caution tape over it. Turning my back to Lindsey's half of the room, I faced my half. There was my bed with a crumpled duvet sprawled over the bed that was fuzzy and tie-dyed. On the wall above my bed there were a bunch of postcards from everywhere I'd been: Paris, New York City, Albany, Miami, and Tulsa were my favorite. There were also a bunch of movie posters from Stand By Me, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Lord of the Rings, Order of the Phoenix, and The Princess Bride.
"Quite an interesting repertoire," Pj said, looking at the posters.
"Don't judge, they're all wonderful, and have a hot star in them."
"Never said they didn't. Ever seen Pulp Fiction?"
"Part of it, but then my friend's mom came in and we were only like twelve, so yeah..." I trailed off. I was looking for my backpack to stuff most of my stuff in, since all of my clothes still weren't unpacked.
"Anything I should start bringing out?"
"No, but you could start taking stuff off the wall," I said while removing the sheets and duvet from my bed and throwing them into a bag. Pj started carefully taking down the many postcards and posters, placing them in a pile on the floor. I went into the bathroom and grabbed all my toiletries and stuff before putting them into a small canvas L.L. Bean bag I had gotten in America. After about two hours of silently taking apart my room, we had everything packed down into two cardboard boxes, one suitcase and three tote bags.
"We probably should've thought this out better," Pj said, "it's gonna be hard to carry all of this onto the tube."
"True, we could hail a cab..."
"Good enough." Pj grabs a tote bag and a box. "You flag one down and we'll tell him to wait until we have everything in the boot."
"Sorry, it's still early, but what?" I asked, feeling insanely stupid for growing up in England and forgetting words.
"You wave down a cab, and I'll make sure he doesn't drive away until we have all your stuff put in the thingy in the back of the car where you put stuff. No clue what you Americans call that."
"One, I'm not American-"
"You keep telling yourself that."
"Ignoring that, and in America they call it the trunk."
"Yes, that thing. We'll put the stuff in the trunk." Pj made a face. "God, that sounds so weird. Trunk. Blegh."
"Don't get your knickers in a twist love," I said, faking a British accent and heading out towards the road.
"What on earth was that? Was that an American British accent?! That was just-" Pj shuddered. "Non-British."
"Exactly," I said, finally flagging down a cab. "I got a taxi."
We only needed to make a total of two trips each before we could get in the cab. On our way there, Pj was texting someone.
"Okay we're like a minute away, close your eyes" Pj said.
"Wait, why?" I asked, refusing.
"Just do it, please?" He pouted.
"Promise you won't do anything stupid?"
"I'm a YouTuber, I can't make those promises," he said smirking. "I promise I won't do anything exceedingly stupid."
"I don't know why I'm trusting you, but I am," I said while closing my eyes.
"Just trust me," He said before grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the cab. "Ok, we're in front of your new flat. Open your eyes."
"What the hell?! Are you serious?" I asked, seeing the building I ran to less than 48 hours ago in the rain.
"Yup. Unless you absolutely hate Dan and Phil, in which case, no. This is just a practical joke and erm..."
"I don't hate Phil, maybe Dan, everyone can ignore him. But they didn't have another room; did they?" Pj shrugged.
"I texted them asking if it would be alright if you moved in, and they said yes."
"We actually do have an extra room, but Phil was too lazy to show you," Dan said out of nowhere.
"I wasn't lazy, you had been using it as a storage room for extra beanbag chairs and I figured she didn't want to see them," Phil retorted from the doorway into the building.
"Okay, lets move this stuff up to the eleventh floor," Phil said, grabbing stuff out of the trunk. We all managed to grab everything and dump it in the elevator. After a lot of complaining from Dan, we got everything moved into the spare room, well my room now. It was definitely the smallest of the rooms, but still larger than the rooms at Uni. My favorite part would have to be the large window seat looking out towards the city center. There was a bed in one corner and a wardrobe in the adjacent one. It was perfect.
After redecorating it to the way that I wanted, I headed into the lounge area where the three guys were playing Sonic. Or at least Phil was playing and Dan was yelling at him while Pj laughed. None of them had noticed me yet, so I snuck up behind Dan and covered his mouth with my hand. Dan started freaking out trying to get my hands away from him, but he couldn't. Whenever he got close the getting my hands away, I touched his neck.
"NOOOO! NOT THE NECK!"
"I'm not doing anything."
"GET THE FUCK OFF ME! PHIL, HELP ME!"
"But I'm almost to the end of the level," Phil said ignoring him.
"PJ HELP PLEASE!" Dan yelled. "I'M DYING HERE!"
"Just thinking here, you can get Phil off of you, but not your sister who is like half your size and two years younger than you; really Dan. Really?" Pj reasoned and went back to watching Sonic die on screen.
"HOW DARE YOU BETRAY ME IN THIS WAY LIGUORI! I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!"
"We were, but then again, it looks like Kenzie's gonna win."
"C'mon Dan is that the best you got, calling for help?" I said egging him on.
Dan stopped and grinned. "No, not quite."
"What are you gonna do then?" I asked naively.
"TICKLE YOU!"
"NOOOOOOO-" I tried to get away, but he grabbed me and started tickling me. "Pj... HELP...ME..." I managed to say between breathes and fits of laughter.
"Sorry, but there's no way I can help you now," Pj said, also laughing.
"Phil...?" I asked, not being able to escape from Dan.
"YES! I finished the final level," Phil said, jumping up and dancing around.
"Phil...help me..." I said really struggling to escape from Dan.
Phil sighed dramatically. "Fine." He pulled Dan off of me and dumped him onto the floor.
"Thanks," I said while moving to the opposite side of the room from Dan.
"What should we do now?" Pj asked. Just then his phone rang. "Hello?" He paused for a few seconds before putting it on speaker.
"Hey guys!" Chris's voice sounded from the phone. "I'm on my way over, what do you guys want for Chinese takeaway?"
"Mai Fun," Pj said. "And egg rolls. And sesame chicken."
"General Tso's Chicken and chicken Lo Mein," Phil added.
"Steamed dumplings, and egg rolls, and pork fried rice, and Moo Shu prawn. And wontons," Dan ordered.
"I'll just have veggie Lo Mein." Everyone gave me a weird look.
"That's all?!" Dan asked.
"Yes, that's all; unlike you alien beings, I don't eat four tons of food every meal."
"You're gonna like, starve to death! You need to eat more," Dan commanded.
"I bet you ten pounds that I won't finish just that."
"How can you not eat that?" Pj asked.
"I don't know," I shrugged. I never really ate a lot of food.
"Well when Mum and Dad show up and wonder why you're wasting away, don't blame me," Dan announced.
"They don't even know I'm on this continent."
"Touche."
"Is that all for food?" Chris asked.
"Don't forget the fortune cookies!" Phil said.
"Got it, see you guys in ten," Chris said before hanging up.
"Wait, did you say your parents don't know where you are?" Pj asked, sounding slightly concerned.
"Wellllllllllll, no; they think I'm at UCLA right now..."
"AND YOU EXPECT THEM TO KNOW THAT YOU'RE NOT?!" Dan demanded.
"You are crazy, you know that won't work right? You can't fake being in another country," Pj said, sounding more logical.
"I mentioned getting accepted to UCLA, but they never asked where I was going-"
"Yeah right," Dan interrupted. "Everyone in the entire family was wondering where you would go to school; nevermind where Dan is going right now, let's ask Mackenzie where she'll go in two years."
"I swear, they never said, 'Where are you going to Uni right now?' They just assumed and assumed wrong. And people wanted to know, you're just indecisive and lazy."
"I am not; I just procrastinate. And no one ever asked me where I wanted to go or where I was going."
"They asked me where you were going," I muttered as the doorbell rang.