AN: Each of their talents will be terribly useful. Of course :)
They may be a bit too level-headed - I hope I'll manage to make them run crazy in a few chapters. Maybe an emotional outburst or two.
Next few chapters are written and I'm reviewing them to make sure there is enough story "meat" on the bones of events happening. I like stuff to have logical connection, so I need to rewrite things sometimes, to make sure the speed of the story is appropriate.
"We go?"
Emma sighed and finally smiled thinly.
"We go. If we don't, we'll drive ourselves crazy. You know, Narnia-style. What would have happened had we gone and checked. So we go, we check, we try to help. If it doesn't work out, we still have our apartment or money to rent something else somewhere else. If we don't find the town in reasonable time, we locate nearest civilisation and make base there. If we…"
"I see your point" Elsa leaned forward and prodded the notepad with one finger. "What is that?"
"That, my dear, are our plans. All we have to pack to storage, all we have to pack to take, all we have to do to secure the flat. Also, all we have to buy to make that road trip reasonably comfortable. Neck pillows, portable fridge, stuff for Henry to do, because he just managed to go through that last math puzzle book today, out of sheer boredom. Stuff we have to verify we have, like all types of power cables and a portable modem - I'm sure we had one, but I can't find it. Also, stuff we're not supposed to even try to pack, to avoid taking space."
"I've written down everything that August told us" Elena dropped her bullet-journal-calendar-notebook on the table. "I'm now putting it in a cross-referenced library on my laptop, but we have a hardcopy, just in case. All the history, whatever he remembered of the internal and foreign politics, local heroes, everything. And the descriptions of our persons of interest."
Emma patted Elsa's hand.
"By the way, I forgot to tell you, but… that was well done, Elsie."
Elsa blinked.
"What do you mean?"
"We got… so caught up with August describing our parents that neither of us ever thought to ask him about his father. And you did. I could say, you saved the honour of the royal family, covering the debt we have to our loyal servant" Emma snorted finally. "Really, you made the guy happy. And we gain one more good description of our parents' ally. One of the few we can trust to apply in this world, by what August says."
Elsa shrugged uncomfortably.
"It seemed like a reasonable thing to do. This way we can check for Gepetto first thing and let August at least know if his father is there, and how he's doing."
"And you've gained yourself an ardent admirer" Elena poked her in the ribs. "All he did for the rest of the evening was stare at you in wonder."
"Gee, Lena. Thank you. Yes, the only guy that thinks I'm an interesting woman is a wooden puppet. Superb. It's not like I was counting on this, come on. I just wanted to make sure he knew it will be taken care of. He was rather nervous, after all."
"The ice queen has feelings for the wooden puppet" Elena giggled and poked her again. "You care for him!"
"It's obvious that you're a month younger than me" Elsa said in a tired voice. "I feel soooo much older."
"What do we take?"
Emma checked her list and added a few objects to the pile.
"Clothes for a week. We can hope for a laundromat or maybe a hotel with a laundry room after that. More for Henry, who know how many changes he will go through in one day. Also, his stuff takes much less space than ours, so we can afford the volume" she turned a page. "Four full sleeping sets. A tent. Camping cooking gear. Just in case. I don't want to sleep in the rough, but we may need to. First aid kits, one small and one large. Two termoinsulated picnic baskets for food."
"Where do you want to put all of this? Even our car may be too small, if you include Henry's gear, electronics, tools, some books…"
Emma turned a page.
"We'll buy a roof container. It should be good for the camping gear and other stuff we won't want to unpack every night. Actually, I've already ordered one online. With setup service, so no worries about fitting various screws as needed, they'll send someone to mount it for us. I don't want repetition of the bike rack tragedy."
Elena shuddered, recalling the day they almost lost their bikes in the middle of nowhere due to mis-aligned screws in the bike attachment.
"And the fridge goes into the trunk" Elsa added happily. "It's connected to the lighter socket there, so it can stay powered during the drive."
"I see you already have all the gear you need" Elena smirked. "Have you packed it full of water, or not yet?"
Elsa poked her in the shoulder with a finger.
"You'd better focus on taking your yoga mat and the staff, and let me worry about ice water. We may need you to bash some unsuspecting fiend's head with it."
"I'm strapping it to the side railing on the roof. Enough velcro and it should stay in place. Otherwise we'll be riding with it sticking all the way through the car, between our heads."
Emma flipped a few more pages.
"You two, stop bickering, and pack, each a minimum set of clothes for a week, full change. Consider poor conditions - it may rain, or there may be a problem with laundry. Seven or eight of everything. Then add a bit of warmer wear - a sweater, tights, maybe snow overalls. Who knows what that town looks like. Maybe it's all Wild West, so they walk on earthen streets covered with cow manure."
"Or maybe even medieval, so there will be a lot of crap, literally, lying on the streets" Elsa added with a shudder.
"Anyway, consider weird things that may happen. My gear is here" Emma pointed to a large shoulder bag, sitting by the door. "I'm adding a second bag like this with the warmer clothes, rainproof jacket… Also, add several pairs of shoes. Same reason…"
"Yep" both her sisters said instantly and turned to their rooms.
"I'll pack my rubber shoes" Elsa made a face. "Juuust in case."
Henry used the school-free days to sleep late, walk around the house in his pyjamas and fluffy socks until someone noticed and got him to change, lie around on the sofas, coughing from time to time and try to understand what was going on around him.
"Mum?" he sidled up to Emma on the couch. "Are we leaving because of me? Because I got sick?"
She hugged him tightly to her side.
"No, not really. At least not only. But Elena and Elsa had their jobs changed due to all these weird accidents, and I've already been working remotely, and with you sick we have no more reason to stay in Boston. You'd only get worse. Actually, it's half of your class, too. Their parents are moving outside of the city or to smaller towns. So it's not like you'd get your old classmates if you went back to your old school next fall."
He sighed.
"That's sad. If they move far enough, I may never actually meet them again."
Emma picked him up and pulled into her lap.
"If you want to keep in touch with someone specific, I can ask your teacher to give me their parents' number, so you can call them."
He shrugged.
"Not really. Phone is not much fun. I could go to the playground with Tommy or Sasha, but I suppose they are moving, too…"
She hugged him closer.
"I will take these phone numbers anyway and when we're next in Boston, we can call them. Meanwhile, I hope we can find some nice kids in Maine. I'm sure there will be someone you can play with."
He only leaned on her arm and closed his eyes.
"It will be nice to stop coughing."
Elena was standing in the middle of their tiny kitchen-cum-dining room and considering the big box of cooking and baking implements she was trying to close.
"Don't pack half of the kitchen. We need to take only the basics. Kettle, a pan or two, a pot. The picnic basket with all the lunch plates in. It all must somehow fit into the trunk. The only things I'll allow inside the car are backpacks and Henry's stuff" Emma sounded rather tired
"Do you expect that we'll have a chance to cook on the way? I was kind of resigned and though we'll go for, well. Diners."
Emma gave Elsa a reproachful glare.
"Maybe we'll have to do this during the drive, but in that Storybrooke place, or wherever we find ourselves, I expect us to rent an apartment, and to have a proper household. For Henry's sake, even if we don't really need it. But I don't think we need three muffin tins and your collection of silicon cake molds, Elena. So please, take them out of your backpack and add to the box going to the storage."
"You're assuming it is a modern kind of town that rents apartments and not huts" Elena made a face. "If it is some kind of medieval implant in Maine, it may make sense to bring everything with us, including kitchen tools."
Emma rubbed her face.
"Yes, I'm assuming - maybe wrongly - that whoever transplanted themselves and these people to Maine in XX century, did it in fact in order to make use of said XX century luxuries. Maybe it's a wrong assumption, but if I even try to consider the Renaissance option, I'm getting shivers down my back. Just thinking about the toilet solutions gives me nightmares."
"You're more afraid of a lousy toilet situation than of a curse, evil queen and black magic?"
"I can imagine bad toilet situation. The other ones, no. So I'm afraid of what I know is scary."