only on pizza, please

iv.

"it'll be over before you know it, time will fly. like penguins. wait, penguins don't fly, do they? oh well. you'll be fine, mate."

"i know."

"yeah? good, i don't want to have to babysit," omar scolds.

"it's just—i don't—i'm not sure why we need to, like, do this. like, what's the point? you know? i'm just—like, not too overly excited. okay? nevermind, it's—whatever."

"sure. well, when you can finally live up to that hair of yours, let me know. and by the way, nick, what do sharks taste like?"

-

nick follows in omar's footsteps as he rushes out of the bus. (n/a nick is not the same person as nicky, k?) his hair bounces into his eyes, and with one swipe across his forehead, the sunlight hits him with full force. his hands race up to shield it, but there's no difference. he sighs as he makes his way towards the side of the bus, where their bags have been shoved. quite insensitively, too, nick would have liked to point out. where's the order?

he quickly spots his old, tattered bag, and heaved it out from under approximately three other ones. the one resting atop the pile was a school bag. after he pulled out his, the one on top fell off, rolled along the gravel and then it hits some worn white converse.

"uh, erm, i—i didn't mean to—i was just, erm—"

"oh, sorry," says the girl with blonde wavy hair attached to the converse. nick, at this time, wasn't wondering why she was apologising (when clearly she did nothing wrong), but he was simply intrigued by her.

before he could figure out where he recognised her from, she turned around, swiftly grabbed her bag (which happened to be the school bag), and walked away. in fact, she walked straight into someone.

oh, thought nick, it was her who crashed into me on the bus earlier.

without any chance to wonder where she came from, who she was, omar crept up behind him and slapped his shoulder.

"come on, nick. they're telling us to meet over there," omar informs, pointing to a clearing of grass to the side of a dirt pavement. he then proceeds to walk ahead.

"are you coming? let's go," tk tells nick this time, pulling his arm. "have you seen max? he was on your bus, wasn't he? oh, there he is! see you over there, nick," tk runs along to find max, and nick slowly follows behind.

when he catches up to tk and max, someone else had joined them. she had red hair, glasses, freckles, and nick instantly recognised her as apple—omar and him had given her a nickname.

"i hope the beds are at least soft, like that's the least they could do, right? otherwise they'd be very inconsiderate," apple complains, as per usual.

"eleanor, stop being ridiculous," max laughs. nick smiles to himself, her name is eleanor. she told them her name was meagan, nick always guessed she was lying.

"max, stop babbling, like, shut the fuck up," tk says. everyone bursts into laughter, except nick. he was never that good with audiences, he didn't like big company. it seemed to him that eleanor was the same, though she didn't like to show it, he could tell.

they reach the meeting place and drop their bags. the brown haired girl who sat next to eleanor on the bus skips up next to them, followed by john. eleanor is immediately engulfed in conversation, and ushered away to an open room with a concrete floor, filled with tables that reminded nick of the ones in the great hall at hogwarts.

he turned around to find tk and max in some deep and meaningful conversation about friendship and hardship. it definitely was not something nick wanted to get involved in, so he searched for any of his other friends. he wasn't exactly a social butterfly, so choices were limited. he figured omar would find his way to him from wherever he'd disappeared to.

so nick decided to sit on a nearby bench amongst all the other students struggling to see where they were going. he took this opportunity to check out his surroundings. behind him was a small tuck shop, where some kids were eyeing drinks and sweets that had been long forgotten from the bus trip over.

in front of him was a small concrete box with a climbing wall inside. to his left, was the great hall (which he had decided was its name). further down on the right was a shack with equipment. at the end of the grass on the far side, he could just see a river running down.

nick was too distracted to hear anything, let alone the almost-silent footsteps making their way towards him. he had his eyes on the ground, counting the hours he'd be spending in this place, when a pair of white converse came into view.

-

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii another update. duh. dig. ok bye.