The Extraterrestrial Truth And The Girl From Seat 2B [ONC 2022]

1.1 [AN ARRIVAL AT HUXBAY]

"All right, everyone off the bus." Coach Merdel clapped his hands and popped open the door. "Stay in your groups, follow the rules, don't make us look bad. Remember, if you need Ms. Mirkle or I, we're going to be near the entrance. Check in with your chaperone when you're told to. Get it? Got it? Good. Get out."

The doors to the bus opened with a distinctive hydraulic hiss and everyone clambered out, clutching drawstring bags and disposable water bottles and pre-purchased tickets to the park. The year was 2004 and students from Cape Hux High School were headed to the town's one amusement park: Huxbay, the place of legends.

Vicky McNamara and her friends had been looking forward to this for months. Lwo and Conner's parents paid for their tickets; Scotty and Vicky did work at the school to pay for theirs. Most of that "work" had been goofing off in the dumpster, but the admins didn't need to know that.

Vicky was excited. She hadn't been here in years, since the 1997 incident. Her mom had gone insane about the water on the boat rides and convinced herself she was having an allergic reaction. It was a mess. Vicky was glad to be back without her, and with four of her best friends.

Well, three was a more accurate number. The fourth was that girl from her geometry class-- whatever her name was. She had been lumped in with the four of them. It wasn't like they had much of a choice. Groups of five were the rule, and the girl from seat 2B was lacking in four other people.

To be honest, that was entirely her own fault. Even Vicky knew that. 2B was kind of annoying and a bit of abitch. She was a class clown wannabe, always cracking jokes that didn't quite land. And she could be funny, but it was always for the wrong reasons.

Vicky was willing to tolerate it, though, if it meant that she finally got to go to Huxbay like a normal goddamn person.

Vicky clambered off the bus, clutching her school-sponsored ticket wristband in one hand and her drawstring bag of lunch and what little cash she had saved up in the other. It was expensive to buy food in the park. Scotty told her that. His brother worked there over the summer last year and was able to get Scotty in for free a few times. He said that everything there was expensive. Connor and Leo didn't really seem to care all that much, inasmuch as paying for things went. Scotty and Vicky didn't really have that luxury, what with all his siblings and her mom's financial situation.

It was a bummer to talk about it unless it was just the two of them, though, so they didn't. Not unless they were walking home, down past the dance studio Vicky's cousin used to go to, along the train tracks that vivisected what used to be farmand and was now a never-ending construction site for a recreational center paid for by taxpayer dollars that neither of them would ever be able to go to. Paid for by the public, but locked in as something only those with some extra cash (fifty to a hundred dollars a month, depending on the size of your family) could afford. It wasn't a place for either of them. More likely, if they were to ever go there, they would bum membership off of someone they knew.

Today wasn't a day for thinking about that, though. Today was a day for fun. For rides. For forgetting the realities of her daily life and getting lost in near heat exhaustion with her three favorite jackasses in the world.

And the girl from seat 2B, but she didn't count.

Vicky got trapped in line with her, separate from Connor and Leo, who still had to buy their tickets, and Scotty, who just ended up in a different line. When she was standing behind 2B and didn't have to listen to her, Vicky had to admit that the other girl was a lot more pleasant. She was in the middle of taking off her dress code-appropriate cardigan and tying it around her admittedly-slender waist. Vicky felt a twinge of something, watching this girl tie the sleeves into a knot with nimble fingers and a soft smile. She wanted to convince herself it was jealousy, but, truth be told, she had no idea what it was.