"It is a happiness to wonder, it is a happiness to dream."
― Edgar Allen Poe

WONDER

Andrew looked out of the car, watching the city of Charleston whiz past him, for the last time. His parents were driving him to the Charleston International Airport, in which he was supposed to fly to Seattle, where his siblings went to college. and be bored there for six hours, and then fly to Portland, where his siblings would be waiting for him. he shuddered at the thought that in a few hours, he would be seeing them again, face to face. God, it had been so long since he had seem them, he didn't even know how to recognize them out of the crowd.

He hadn't even seen a photograph of them in years, as Andrew thought back to the blackened faces. Did they have a picture of him? Maybe they had a picture of him when they left for college or something. Andrew can only assume when his parents cut them off, Dipper and Mabel dropped out. All Andrew knew is that Dipper went to a fancy private college and Mabel went to an art school, and they shared an apartment. When his parents cut them off, it happened so fast. Andrew didn't even know what was happening at the time. He just assumed that after they were thrown out of the house, they would come back and they would all play tag or something. "Well, that game of tag's been overdue for eight years now", Andrew thought to himself. He saw the big letters that read, "CHARLESTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT" flash above him as he entered the terminal.

The car stopped in-front of the sliding doors that entered the airport. Andrew grabbed his backpack, and got out with his mom while his Dad stayed out in the car, waiting for his wife to rejoin him. Andrew's mom helped get his luggage out of the car, and offered to walk him to the door. Andrew extended the handle on the rolling suitcase and started to pull the suitcase behind him.

"Andrew, you remember, just get the check. That is the main purpose of this trip, nothing else. You better not come back with any phone numbers or email addresses, or I'll quickly put a stop to that." Mrs. Pines reminded him.

"Yeah, mom" Andrew replied glumly.

They approached the terminal.

"Look around, Andrew, this is the last you're ever gonna see of this city." Mrs. Pines said to Andrew.

Andrew turned around and squinted at the Charleston skyline barely visible at the terminal gate, and tried his best to take it in, but to no avail. To be honest, Andrew was glad to get out of Charleston. It was a boring place, and the people, at least at his school, were horrible.

He turned away from the skyline to see his mother offering a handshake for him. Andrew's mother had never been there for him. Not emotionally anyways. Andrew always had memories ta the back of his head of his mom actually being there for him, but they were nothing but distant memories by now.

He shook his mom's hand and went inside the airport, turning back once to see his mom walking the opposite direction to his car, ready to drive away. Andrew watched the car drive down the road, making twists and turns, eventually becoming out of view. He was on his own now. Nobody to tell him what to do and what not to do.

He hauled his baggage up the stairs, to security in which he was asked to take his shoes off, and step though the metal detector. Yeah, a thirteen year old white kid? He totally was a terrorist. He received his backpack, suitcase and shoes after all of that business. Andrew thought that all that baloney you had to go through just to get on a plane was bogus. After he arrived at the screen to see what gate number was his flight, he thought to himself, "I want to see the space needle". He was instantly dizzy by this request from his subconscious. Why would he suddenly want to go the space needle? Sure, he knew he would be bored the entire time in Seattle, but the space needle? Andrew slowly walked to the gate and waited for half an hour before boarding the plane.

He was assigned a seat next to a couple, who had chosen to stay away from the window seat. He always loved the feeling you get right after you tale off, and felt it again as he left Charleston forever, never to return.

Andrew sat there, as he flew over multiple flyover states. Andrew had nothing to do, he was bored out of his ming in that flight, flipping back and forth in a book he's read a thousand times.

When the finally landed, Andrew was anxious about getting out of that small, enclosed plane. He had the need to run a marathon right there and then. Then the thought popped in his head again. "I want to go to the space needle" he thought to himself.

How would he even get to the space needle? He is only thirteen after all. Andrew walked out of the plane and into the airport itself. If he didn't go, then he would have to spend 6 hours of his life here, waiting. He was one step closer to his siblings once again. He hadn't been this close to them since Piedmont. He felt so anxious about meeting them again, it was unbearable.

He felt the need to bury his anxiety with a walk. He walked up and down the airport, waiting for the flight to Portland to finally be boarding. he tried to not think about wanting to go to the space needle, but he knew he wanted to see it. It wasn't often for Andrew to travel and he really wanted to see the city of Seattle, the city he was probably never going to go back to. After an hour of waiting, he couldn't take it anymore and asked a security guard at the airport how to get to the space needle. The security guard told him to get on the Seattle Monorail, and where and when to get off.

Hesitantly, Andrew purchased a ticket and got on the monorail and rode it all the way through the city. He caught a glimpse of the skyline of Seattle, as he headed on his way to see the space needle. To Andrew, each skyline tells a story about the city. It describes the context of a city and gives it purpose. For Seattle, the skyline gives Andrew a feeling of the city. Andrew liked Seattle, it had a nice feel to it, probably better than Charleston. Just to think, his siblings went to college somewhere down there. Before Andrew knew it, the monorail pulled in-front of the looming space needle. He paid the five dollars that the ticket demanded, and exited the monorail. There was a short sidewalks, which was lined with trees, leading up to the giant tourist attraction.

The first thing he noticed was the height of it, he had to crane his neck just to get a full picture of the space needle. It was beautiful to finally see it up-close. It's always rejuvenating to see something that you've seen only in pictures. He walked around the needle, trying to bypass the crowd of people around the space needle. Andrew eventually found a park bench and just looked at the space needle, with the skyline of Seattle in the background, which made the whole view look beautiful. As Andrew sat there, the time got away from him as he watched the timeless view. Andrew figured he would head to the airport at dusk, but unfortunately, other people with the same idea crowded the monorail lines and took an hour just to catch a train back to the airport. When he did catch the train, it was crowded and smelled like B.O. When Andrew finally got back there, he realized he only had 20 minutes to make it to the gate to Portland.

Andrew stopped. Thoughts like, "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE SPACE NEEDLE?" and "YOU"RE GOING TO BE STUCK IN SEATTLE" raced through his mind. But before Andrew could react to his situation, he started run sprint like crazy. Like any person who would was going to be late to a flight to meet your incestuous siblings, Andrew was running like crazy. Dodging people, dodging trashcans, dodging anything just to make it to the gate. When he finally did, they were just closing the gate door when he came running into the flight attendant, begging for her to open the door back up. She smiled and said that he caught her in the nick of time.

He handed her his boarding pass, and before he knew it, he was on his way to Portland. During that short flight of an hour to Portland, Andrew couldn't contain his excitement of finally seeing them. He's had many daydreams over the years of this very event happening, different scenarios, different endings, but he knew that only one of them would end up to be true. The other people sitting beside him noticed this too, because they asked him to stop bouncing in his seat.

Andrew's heart felt ready to beat out of his little chest when the plane touched down in Portland. It was too dark to see any skyline in the city, but that didn't matter to Andrew. When the plane docked with the airport, Andrew rushed out of the plane, excited to finally be here. A mix of emotions ran through Andrew. Some happy, some confused, some excited, some anxious. It was a mess of feelings to be there. When Andrew's feet touched the ground of the Portland Airport, he felt like he wanted to run back into the plane, because he was so scared. In fact, Andrew was shaking all over just to be there. he didn't know what to expect. But when he walked around the airport, he was confused as to where you would exit. Was it over there? Or here? Andrew desperately searched for some sign that said "arrivals". Some traveler who looked as if he had travelled the world already, even though he looked like a twenty something guy, must've seen Andrew look frustrated, because he pointed him in the direction of the arrivals.

Andrew looked towards the direction he was pointing at and started waking towards it. He ended up at the mouth of a hallway. he froze for a second, letting any worries and concerns wash over him, and started to walk down the ramp of arrivals.

This was it. The moment of truth. The moment where when he spotted his siblings in the crowd, the chariots of fire soundtrack would play in the background and he would run towards his siblings and have a big group hug, and reconnect. But when he got to the arrivals, a big room behind two metal doors, there were too many people there, so many that he couldn't distinguish them out of the crowd.

After all, it had been awhile since he had seen their faces. But they crowd was so packed, that he couldn't distinguish them if he tried. He ended up not finding them immediately in the dense crowd at the Portland Airport. He decided to wait it out, hoping they would show up sooner or later, after all, he was going nowhere without Dipper and Mabel. In the arrivals, there were people greeting family members, old friends, long lost twins, you name it. Andrew felt out of place there, watching family members greet people with joy, instead of detest. He left as if he lived a life not worth living as he brooded, watching people reconnect with loved ones. Just as Andrew felt as if Dipper and Mabel forgot about him, he heard a voice he could easily distinguish.

"Mabes, are you sure that this is the right place?"

He instantly turned around to find a crowd blocking the source of the voice. He wasn't worried or anxious, he was genuinely curious to find the source of the voice. Without thinking, he rudely shoved his way through the mass group of people to their dismay, to find a man and a woman, both with chestnut brown eyes with strangely familiar faces.