"It's no use." Annie broke the silence in the isolation cabin. "When are you going to give up? There's no signal here."
Charlie sat on her bed the opposite side of the room, desperately trying to listen to get onto the internet.
"I never give up." She replied to her hut mate's insistence.
"You sound like a Hollywood script." Annie's eyes lifted up from the magazine she was reading.
"I'm from San Francisco."
"Same state."
"Still, it's a great motto to live by." Charlie lifted up her nose as she continued to tap away at her phone furiously.
"It's a ridiculous motto."
"How so? Isn't it good to try and try again until you succeed?"
Annie looked up from her magazine again. "Only when it's good that you succeed. What if it would be better to not succeed? Or to use your energy in other ways that would be a better?" At this Charlie paused with her what Annie thought were very beady little eyes, on Annie. Annie's eyes were never as beady as that. Nope. Never.
With her hut mate's attention fixed on her, she continued. "Wouldn't it be better to just focus on enjoying yourself than worry about the fact that your 7G won't work?"
Charlie shifted on her bed. "It's 8G actually."
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Annie had picked up her mother's sarcasm, she could tell. "I should've guessed!"
"What do you think I was trying to do? Make myself really depressed by reading sob stories about children with terminal illnesses, and blind-deaf dogs on the internet?"
"Well I don't know how the rich chose to coddle themselves even more over the fact that they donate all this money to charity. Reading the sob stories is a pretty good guess, I think." Annie looked down and flicked over the page.
"Ok," Charlie dropped her phone onto the bed, "you do realise that we don't always donate money to charity just to make ourselves feel good, don't you? Sure, most rich people have lived their life in privilege, knowing nothing of financial hardship, and they only give money to charity because they think they should, and not because their heart is truly in it. But my family's not like that. We do honestly care about helping these causes, and we choose the ones we feel most strongly about. We're not really excessive in how we live, and we do understand and support the idea that the rich need to pay way more in taxes because we have an advantage, and that needs to change. I would've thought you might not have judged me before you even knew me."
"I wasn't going to judge you on your wealth, but then you used that Illuminate Me app to cheat and win." Annie's voice seemed less confrontational now, and more hurt than anything else.
At this, Charlie sighed. She guessed that you could have said that she started it. In this case, she had been indulging herself in her privilege, which she didn't normally do unless amongst new people whom she wasn't familiar with.
"I could have very easily forgiven your pride if you had not hurt my pride." Annie spoke again.
"I am very sorry for that, Annie Bennet." Charlie looked Annie in the eye with what Annie now detected to be a strong sense of honesty and almost humility. "Truly, I am."
Annie let the corners of her mouth tilt upwards slightly. "I accept your apology, Charlie Darcy." Annie felt her cheeks turn red a bit. "And I guess, if we're talking about pride, I have been a bit too smug about my nationality."
"Yeah you have. You wouldn't stop going on the other day about all the overpowering American patriotism there is around camp, with the flag and all, and how in Britain you're all a lot less patriotic and far more negative about your country." Now it was Charlie's turn to smile. "Which is actually pretty hypocritical really, considering that everything bad the US has done, Britain has done before!"
"Yeah, yeah." Annie smiled before letting out a little chuckle. "We've both been a bit silly, haven't we?"
"'A bit' is a bit of an understatement!"
"Well, 'a bit of an understatement' is a bit of an understatement!" Annie was now beaming.
"Ok ok, let's not get into that!"
Once they had finished laughing, Annie felt it was right to start to try and get to know her hut mate a bit better; better than just first impressions, at least.
"So Charlie, I know you live in San Francisco with your dad and you don't know anything about your mum-"
"Well, I know that they got divorced. I saw my dad fill in a form one time and he said that he was single and divorced."
"Ok, but what about your aunt? Does she live with you? Is she married, or have a partner?"
"Nah. I think I remember seeing her with one, maybe two partners, but that's about it. She has her own place in the city, but she spends most of her time with me and dad. My grandparents died about 20, or 22 years ago now, we're the only family she has."
"Oh, that's sad."
"Yeah, but we're a close family. It's nice!"
"Well, that's good then. My mum was born and raised in California, but she moved to London shortly after I was born. I'm not quite sure why, but I think it might have something to do with my dad."
"What about your dad?"
"Well, I don't know anything about him. I grew up in London with my mum and aunt Lydia. We go over to California every Christmas to visit my grandparents and aunt Jane and her husband and children, but nobody talks about dad."
"I know the feeling!" Charlie moved over to sit on the end of Annie's bed; keen to know more about her ex-enemy turned friend. "So when's your birthday?"
"I'll be 12 on the 11th October."
"No way. Same here!"
"You were born on 11th October 2016?"
"Yeah!"
"Freaky." Annie whispered. "Anyway, what were you trying to do on the internet?"
"Oh, I just wanted to stream a movie."
"What movie was that?" Annie's curiosity spiked. Maybe if they even got out of the isolation cabin and back into the main camp where there's decent signal, they might be able to watch it together.
"Ah, nothing much." Now it was Charlie's turn to blush. "Honestly? I wanted to watch Newsies."
"Seriously? I love that movie!"
"Really? Me too! My dad and aunt think it's weird how much I love it. They always go really silent whenever I talk about it."
"That's odd, so does my mum."
"Now that's freaky!" Charlie emphasised.
"Yeah…" The cogs in Annie's brain were beginning to turn. "You see, my mum had a newsie hat tucked away in her wardrobe, along with that red bowtie that I used as the flag. I don't have the hat with me now, but she did seem strangely protective of it."
"My dad often wears bowties and newsie style hats."
"Does he?" Annie's inquisitiveness was reaching new heights. "You see, my mum use to wear a lot of plaid when she was studying her postgraduate degree. I've seen a few photos of her wearing some from that time."
"I think plaid seems to be really popular amongst moms." Charlie didn't seem to be following Annie's line of thought. "I have a photo of my mom wearing the plaid shirt I used as the flag."
"You do?!" Annie was taken aback.
"Yeah, but it's a terrible photo. I mean, it's from years and years ago, and her body's facing the camera, but she's clearly talking to someone to the left of her but I don't know who because it's been ripped right down the middle." Charlie rattled on, but at this information, Annie jumped up off the bed and walked towards her chest of drawers, where, on top of it, sat a tin.
Annie opened her tin, and pulled out a piece of paper; keeping one side close to her chest, she turned round to face Charlie.
"What have you got there?" Charlie inquired.
"It's a photo from years and years ago of my dad. He's wearing a red bowtie and a grey newsie cap. It's a darker shade of red from the one I brought with me, and the newsie cap my mum has is brown, but still…I know it's my dad. He seems to be facing the camera, and is looking towards someone smaller than him, sat to his right, but I don't know who because it's ripped."
Charlie stared at her as it began to sink in. "Right down the middle?"
"Right down the middle."
At this, Charlie jumped up too, and rummaged about her belongings to find the photo of her mum. She also kept the side with the picture on close to her chest as she turned around to face Annie.
"On the count of three?" Annie asked.
"Yeah.
"One," they began to say together, "two…", "three!"
A gasp escaped the mouths of both the girls, as they saw that both of their photos fitted together perfectly.
"That's my mum!" Cried Annie.
"And that's my dad!" Replied Charlie.