A High School Trip! What could go wrong? The bus ride into what is to be an eventful time with a handful of teens in Three Lakes with exactly one chaperone!
PART II - JOURNEY TO THREE LAKES
The students begin to claim seats on the bus. It looks like many of them will be able to have two-seat sections to themselves.
Caleb and Lai both set their carry-on bags on the same seat.
"Oh! Sorry did you want aisle or window?" Caleb asks.
Lai sets her coffee cup down and notices he seems on edge. She knows he never liked long road trips and would complain often when his family planned long vacations. He got motion sickness easily
"I'll take the window," she offers because she knows it's odd, but he seems to have it worse when he can see the landscape moving.
Angelo might have overslept, but he's still sleepy and promptly picks back up where he left off before his alarm sounded.
"It's going to be a tight fit but you can definitely sit here!" Alice tries to coax Ryder into taking a seat next to her.
"Are you sure? I don't want you to be uncomfortable," Ryder seems very considerate but in all actuality would rather not sit with her.
"YES! Come on and sit down!" She demands forcefully. It prompts him to do as she says but he soon finds out it's not as bad as he imagined.
He adjusts himself to have a clear sight of Alex so they can still talk during the bus ride. At first, Alice is delighted Ryder is leaning on her, but it is cramped and he won't be able to look at her this way.
Colleen has picked a seat in the back of the bus, and notices the gloomy girl is sitting across from her. Drat! Colleen swears she looked over the trip roster several times but can't put a name to this one. She knows Lai, on account of Lai being Caleb's best friend. She knows Alice because Alice is one of her classmates. Is this April or Elenoire?
She decides she can't just call out one or the other and hope it's the right name. The whole point of this joint trip is to improve relations between the schools and she knows she needs to put herself out there more. She's never been good at it.
Alex wasn't wrong about her being a shut-in.
Colleen slips from her seat before the bus takes off and clears her throat, "Hey, sorry about my brother earlier–he can be kind of...grumpy in the morning. I didn't catch your name..."
The girl, who had her head in her hands and already looks miserable, slowly turns it with a blank face and only then does Collen realize she probably didn't want to be bothered in the first place.
"What does it matter? I'm just another low-class public school attendee as far as you are concerned."
Colleen bites her lip and slowly retreats to her seat without trying to correct her. The girl is wrong, but doesn't look like she wants to be told so.
"Oh!" Caleb smiles and kneels down to his briefcase, "I had some school papers I wanted you to look at on the way..."
"You are so silly! Come sit down, and stop being so business-like. This is a vacation from school so let's just enjoy it!" Lai interrupts him and pats the seat.
He pauses, knowing sooner or later he has to show her. It's important and he's gone through a lot of prep work to get to this point.
But her invitation and insistence that he sits by her can table the matter for the time being. He happily takes his seat next to her.
"All aboard?" The Principal of the public school finally arrives to do a head count. She goes over the list of rules, and the five-day itinerary that includes ice skating, the hot springs, snowboarding, axe-throwing, and more.
"Also...here's your motel room assignments..."
The bus begins to drive out of the depot and head toward the mountains.
"April Miller, Laika Kapitha, and Alice Calhoun, you are in one room and there's a double bed so you can decide who gets to share that."
April doesn't know either of the girls well enough to share a bed without it being awkward but figures probably she and Lai know each other better than Alice knows either of them. She hopes they both like guitar music.
"Colleen Cosgrove and Elenoire Denholm."
Colleen falls into a regretful slump, knowing it will be uncomfortable rooming with a girl that wants nothing to do with her. So that was her name–Elenoire.
"All the boys will be in one room, a family suite so there's also a double bed that you'll need to figure out who is to share. Or sleep on the floor, I don't care."
Alex flashes a grin toward Ryder.
They both know that it will be no problem to figure it out.
Noire just wants to get out of the small apartment she shares with her brother for a few days.
Caleb and Lai chat up a storm about all the things they've missed in each other's lives over the semester. His cat has grown up, her younger siblings went to summer camp, and he finished his ship-in-a-bottle kit.
After about an hour, Lai's eyes get heavy and she says, "I'm sorry, but I'm going to use you as a pillow now."
"What?" Caleb laughs, as her head hits his shoulder, "But you had all that coffee?"
She hums like he has a fair point but doesn't open her eyes nor move her head, he's okay with this. It gives him something to focus on and not feel motion sick.
Eventually, Alex hops over next to Angelo so he can talk to Ryder by leaning over the back of the seat. Angelo doesn't care, he's still asleep anyway.
He ignores Alice's jealous frown and asks, "So which side of the bed do you want?"
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