So, here I am. Trapped on a 6 hour ferry from Portsmouth to Caen, with a cripplingly irrational fear of the ocean and my best friend Ali yattering in my ear, which isn’t helping at all.
”Do you think the cafe sells croissants? I hope it does, and pan au chocolates. I have a fiver in my pocket, do you want anything? Do you feel sick? My mum told me to pack ginger biscuits, just in case. Do you want any?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine, thanks.” I am obviously not fine, but I don’t want Ali worrying.
To try and shake off the peeling anxiety in my head, I open up a book and start reading. The uncontrollable rocking of the ferry makes it quite hard, the words bleeding around on the page.
A few minutes later, Ali comes back, clutching a packet of fresh croissants in their hands.
“Guess what? It’s 4 for a pound in there! Smashing deal, innit? That’s 25p for a croissant! Want one?”
“No thanks.” I can’t even fathom the idea of eating right now.
“Suit yourself.” They say, taking a huge bite out of the pastry, little bits of croissant flying all over the table we’re sitting at.
One of the teachers starts to walk up towards us and for a moment I’m extremely worried that Ali is going to be lectured for vandalising a perfectly good tablecloth.
”Hey, sweets.” It’s Mrs Beynon, mine and Ali’s history teacher. Ali can’t stand her. “Just wanted to ask you somethin, if that’s okay?”
I look at Ali, who’s nodding in between bites. “Yeah?” I say.
“So, you sweets are gonna be in a dorm with Shannon, right?”
I nod. Shannon sits next to me in Maths, and she’s extremely kind, as well as an expert homework supplier. When I heard she was going on the trip, me and Ali decided that she could bunk with us.
”Yeah?”
“Well, you see. That’s only 3 people, and you know there’s a maximum of four in a dorm. So I was wondering if you could take an extra one on? She just has no one to go with and I’m sure she’ll be no trouble to y’all.”
Ali’s eyes squint as they finally swallow. “Who?” Ali has a lot of enemies, which is only partly their own fault. I doubt they would come out alive if they were put in a dorm with Sadie Stone or Olivia Fulham.
”Amare, you know her? Amare Kwadi?” She added, looking at our confused faces.
I’m not really a social person, and I’ve not taken the time to memorise anyone who isn’t in my classes, so I had no idea who she was.
Ali reacted differently. “Ohhh, the new girl? Yeah, that’s fine.”
”There’s a new girl?” I hiss at them.
“Well, she joined halfway through year 9, but she’s still the new girl to me.” They whisper back.
”So?” Mrs Beynon snaps her fingers to get our attention. “You’re both okay with that?”
I reluctantly nod. I honestly don’t want to be in a dorm with some stranger. I’d much prefer it to be just me, Ali and Shannon.
“Yep, that’s fine.” Ali grins.
Mrs Beynon smiles back softly and walks away. I internally sigh.
“I’m going to the toilet, I’ll be back soon.” I stand up from the table and walk away. Ali wishes me a great bathroom experience as I walk up to the deck.
I’m evidently not going to the toilet. There’s no toilet on the deck. And I’m certainly not going to encourage the awkwardly named poop deck to become an actual poop deck. I’m going to find Shannon.
She’s quite a simple girl; sitting quietly on the deck whilst playing chess with her boyfriend. They make a great couple, in my opinion. They’re both quiet, and smart, and they both like playing little tabletop games.
”Uhm, Shannon?”
She kept her eyes on the board. “Yes?”
”Just letting you know that there’s someone else in our dorm. Her name is Amare, I think. Is that okay?”
“I know her, she’s really nice. It’s fine.” She picked up one of her horse pieces and moved it forwards. “Checkmate.”
I took a step back and walked off. Shannon wasn’t even going to be in the dorm most of the time. She’d be cozying up with her boyfriend in his. That’s one of the reasons why I picked her, so that Ali and I could just be on our own. But now we have to deal with this Amare girl as well.
I walk back to Ali, feeling deflated. They wave and gesture for me to sit down. I put my head down on the table and sigh.
”What’s wrong?” They ask, giving me a friendly shake.
I frown slightly. “Do we have to go with this other girl? Can’t it just be us?”
They can’t help but chuckle. “She’s not gonna bother us or anything? We can literally just ignore her the whole week.”
I nod. “I guess. I don’t know her though.”
”What’s wrong with that?” Ali asked. It felt a little weird to say I don’t want to sleep near strangers, so I just shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Ali pulled a face, clearly trying to sympathise. “If you really don’t want to, I can…”
”No! It’s fine. It’s not that deep, really.” I definitely didn’t want to act all mean and kick this girl out. I especially didn’t want Ali to have to do it for me. I’m not that bad of a person.
I start to read my book again. The words are as shaky as usual, but my brain slowly filters them out. After what feels like no time at all, ‘Diary Of A Void’ by Emi Yagi is completed and lies flat on the table.
Ali is listening to music, their head leaning against the wall. I’m genuinely concerned for Ali‘s ears at this point; I can hear every word of music clearly, even the Spotify ads. Ali swears that they’d never buy Spotify premium until the day they died.
I close my eyes and try to familiarise myself with the rocking of the ferry. Nothing. The ferry isn’t moving. I get up and walk to the nearest window, hoping that we aren’t stuck.
My eyes widen as I see the cityscape that lies ahead of me. “We’re here? Already?” I mumble to myself.
“Still one more coach.” A teacher exclaims, making me jump.
So this was Caen. It looked nice. We weren’t going to be staying here for long; all we needed to do was walk to a nearby car park, where a coach was waiting for us.
Ali is still asleep. I walk up to them and give them a friendly shove. Their eyes snap open immediately. “Huh?”
“We’re here.”
To my surprise, Ali stands up right away, without showing one sign of exhaustion. “Let’s go!” They pant.
It only just hits me how excited Ali actually is for this trip. I kind of just tagged along, but they’ve been screaming about it non-stop for the past few months. I smile and we join the rest of the kids in the group.
Fresh air. Finally. I step out of the ferry and my heart lifts. I just completed the scariest part of the trip; the rest was gonna be a cakewalk.
As we’re walking along the beautiful French streets, Ali sees a coffee shop and starts begging Mrs Beynon to let them go buy a cappuccino. She refuses and we keep walking, but Ali makes a dash for it and goes to get one anyway.
“That little-“ It’s clear that she’s furious. I’m deathly afraid that Ali is about to be beaten up/killed/publicly humiliated. You do not want to mess with an angry Mrs Beynon. Trust me, I know from experience.
I keep turning behind me, hoping they’ll show up again. Suddenly, I see them running towards the group, clutching a drink in each hand.
”Here you go!” They pant, thrusting an iced latte into my arms. They take a sip of their cappuccino and sigh happily.
Mrs Beynon snaps her head around like a hawk. Her eyes flash with anger. “Get here you little-“
Ali laughs uncertainly as Mrs Beynon grabs their arm. “You! I can’t believe that you just did that! You never, never leave the group without permission! Do you hear me?!”
Ali nods.
”You are sitting with me on the coach! Get here!”
She pulls Ali away to the front of the group. I look around nervously. I couldn’t survive a two hour trip without them. Shannon is walking with her boyfriend again; and would clearly not be arsed to sit near me. I didn’t want to end up near some chav who likes to throw stuff at people.
I’m the last one to get on the coach. It’s nearly fun. A teacher snaps at me to find a seat, so I run to the nearest one.
I sit down and look beside me, only to see a mountain of chocolate brown curls. I stare down at my legs, almost wanting to cry. I’m just overreacting though. I’m fine.
‘Connie Kavanagh?” Mrs Beynon yells.
My head snaps up on hearing my name. “Yes, Miss!”
”Amare Kwadi?”
”Yes ma’am.” The girl beside me says quietly.
I snap my head around. That’s Amare? The Amare that I’m in a dorm with now?
She looks back at me nervously. She has the most beautiful, curly hair, and huge doe eyes that shimmer in the dimly lit coach.
“Hello?” She asks as I stare at her.
”Oh, hi.” I reply, my transfixed eyes darting away. “Sorry.”
”It’s okay.” She stares down at her lap. “Are you in a dorm with Ali?”
I nod. “Why’d you ask?”
”I’m in a dorm with you as well then. Because none of my friends wanted to go on the trip, you see. I’m kind of on my own.”
There’s a short silence. “That’s fine.” I say. “I’m sure you’ll have an awesome time. They have a zip wire, you know?”
And just like that, conversation strikes up. We start talking about all the activities we’ve heard of so far, and the food, and the dorms that are apparently tiny. Amare says how having one bathroom between 4 people sucks and I disagree, saying it could be way worse.
On a residential in Year 7, we had one bathroom between like 15 girls, and I once had to wait half an hour just to use the toilet. I almost wet myself.
The coach has been moving for a while by now, and Mrs Beynon gets up to address all of us. I see Ali for a moment, who pulls a face at her.
”Loves, I’m going to give out an itinerary for each of it. Don’t lose it, we have no spares.”
”What’s an itinerary?” A kid at the front yells.
Mrs Beynon sniffs. “Well, if you had more than a 5th grade reading level, you would know that it’s a guide to the activities throughout the week. You’ll be doing these in desperate groups, of 8, four boys and four girls. Different groups will be doing different things at different times.”
Ali pulls another face at the word ‘girls’. I’m scared they’re about to say something.
Mrs Beynon shuffles about the coach and eventually thrusts an itinerary in mine and Amare’s hands. “Merci.” I mumble.
It’s hard to read on such a shaky vehicle but I try my best.
Group 3 Itinerary
Sunday
Arrive- roughly 5pm
Settle in until 6pm
Dinner- 6:15- 6:45pm
Hike- 7:45pm
Fire pit- 9pm
Arrive back at dorms- 9:30pm
Lights out- 11pm
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It’s all in French, unfortunately, so I have to translate it in my head. I only looked at Sunday’s, but Amare is blazing through the whole week.
“What’s l’accrobranche?” She asks, pointing to her sheet.
“Uh, it’s like climbing trees and stuff. Adventure courses, you know? Like Go Ape?”
”Oh, alright.”
Amare and I take a look through the activities, chatting about what looked good and what didn’t.
”Swimming in the lake? What if I get some disease?”
I smile. Ali loves those sort of things. They once jumped into a river just to prove their shoes were waterproof. They got pneumonia, but to them it was worth it.
“I can’t wait.” I say with a huge grin on my face.
“For me to get a disease?” Amare asks, concerned.
I shake my head. “Just… for everything, you know?”
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So many words 😮💨 I’m gonna write more of this but as a story, not in this contest. Hope you like it :>
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