College Fund

//They Say Never Judge A Book By It's Cover//

Sitting on the plane next to Eric was a surreal thing. I had taken Dr. Saunders' suggestion of listening to music while driving and it had worked out very well. I had been so focused on the lyrics of the music that all the negative thoughts associated with driving had been banished to the back of my mind. They were still there, but I was learning to not listen to them.

We were sitting on the plane waiting for the flight attendants to finish packing away all the carry-ons when my phone began vibrating with a call from an unknown number. Figuring it couldn't hurt, I decided to answer.

"Hello?"

"Cassidy Clark?" A female voice with a British accent questioned.

"Yes, that's me."

"Oh, good. This is Esther, do you remember me? I'm Will's sister."

Esther. Of course, she was the lady that Bria and I had met on the plane to England. If it hadn't been for her, Bria and Will would have never met.

"Hi Esther! How are you?" Eric was giving me weird looks because he had no idea who Esther was, but I waved my hand through the air, signalling that he didn't need to worry about it.

"Well, I was a lot better until I heard that your little friend is planning on dragging my brother to that wasteland they call Canada."

"Wasteland?' I questioned, overly offended.

"You heard me," she replied. "I already lost one sibling to that mess of a country, I am not about to lose another one."

"Mess of a count-wait, what?"

Her tone was rich with anger. "Listen to me, I don't want to have to say it again. Your friend who's dating my brother is planning to come and take him from me. And I don't like it."

"Her name is Bria," I retorted. "And she isn't trying to steal him from you. Have you ever thought that maybe this is something he wants to do too? And that you should do what's best for him instead of what's best for you?"

"No."

I sighed. "It's okay. I thought that way once too." I hung up.

"Is everything okay Butterfly?" Eric turned to me, his eyes filled with concern. He was sitting in the seat by the window, and I was sitting in the aisle where I felt more secure.

"Yeah, of course," I assured him. "That was just one of my friends from England. She'll a little upset over something right now, but it'll blow over."

He nodded, satisfied that I was okay. "So, what do you think you are going to do when we get back to Mapletown?"

"Ugh," I sighed. "I don't know, Eric."

"You know..." He began nervously, as if he was hesitant to say whatever he wanted to say. "A lot of universities and colleges will accept applications for second semester right now."

"It's an interesting idea, but it's going to take me a lot of shifts at Milky Way to save up enough money for my tuition again," I replied stiffly.

Eric grabbed my hand. "I didn't mean it like that. I was thinking you could apply for a scholarship."

"A scholarship?"

"Yeah, you know, where people give you money for school if you-"

"I know what they are." I rolled my eyes. "I just didn't think I would be eligible for one."

"Why not? There's tons of them out there. For most of them you just have to write an essay. You could easily do that."

I thought about what he said. He had a point, I did like to write. So I took out the notebook that Dr. Saunders had given to me (I had dug it out from under my bed) and began to write about everything I had learned on this trip.