Stairways | A Surviving Summer FanFiction

Part 57 - The Ferry

On Thursday morning, you head downstairs at 5:30 AM, and the sun hasn't even begun to rise yet. You grab some toast for breakfast, and pack your backpack with some snacks and necessities for the journey.

You're meeting Ari at the bus stop at 6:00, so you get moving. As you get to the end of the driveway, there's a little more light now as the sun warns that it will make an appearance.

You make the two mile trek to the bus stop in twenty minutes, making sure you have enough time to catch the 6 o'clock bus. When you arrive, Ari is waiting, his surfboard in a bag under his arm.

"Hey." he smiles as you approach. When you're close, he bends his neck down and kisses you in greeting. It's starting to feel more...normal now. There's still that excitement like the first time he kissed you, in the sea that time when you were messing around with the others, but now it's not as surprising when he does it - not as unfamiliar.

Just as the bus pulls up, there's a call from down the road.

"Hey! Wait up!" Summer shouts.

Ari sighs. "Oh, no, no, no, what is she doing here?" he exclaims, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. "Haven't you got to wait at home for your mum to come get you?"

"That's exactly why I'm not staying at home," she replies with a grin. "Hey, what's your name?" she asks the bus driver, who is probably losing patience by now.

"Stan." he replies confusedly.

"Well step on it, Stan!" she exclaims, strolling on the bus without even bothering to pay. You and Ari share a glance as you both step forward and you put some change on the counter for the driver.

As you're about to take a seat next to Ari, Summer sidles in beside him, leaving you to sit on the row in front of them.

"Aren't you meant to be covering for me right now?" Ari asks Summer.

"Relax, I put Honey on it," she replies. "See what I did there?" She smiles wryly.

"Anyway, you can't lecture me about breaking the rules; from what I remember, you're pretty banned from surfing right now," neither you or Ari have anything to refute her allegation, considering Ari has snuck out to a surfing comp despite being banned from surfing.

"So where are we going?" Summer asks enthusiastically, probably desperate to go anywhere her mum isn't.

"Jarrah Island." Ari replies.

"I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I'm guessing we can't get to an island on just

a bus. So what's the plan?" Summer asks.

"Yeah, we've got to get a ferry. Then another bus." Ari says warily - even he must realise we're probably going to be very close to being late for his heat, if not miss it completely.

"Wow, I guess you've really thought this through." Summer grins.

From the front seat, you get this weird sense of bitterness, like you're missing out on something. You shuffle round in your seat to face them. "If the ferry's on time and the bus isn't late, we should make it with ten minutes to spare." you say, with a slightly confused nod from Ari. You had a lot of time to spare last night.

"Wow, sounds like you got this all figured out, huh?" she replies, and you shrug in response. It's not a crime to want things to go well today, for Ari's sake.

Summer seems to spend the whole bus ride talking to Ari in that weird way where it sounds like she hates him but is actually just friendly banter. Probably. Eventually the bus pulls into the ferry port, where suspiciously there's no cars. Maybe they're all already on the ferry, you think. And that suspicion is confirmed when you arrive at the ticket desk which is embellished with a 'SOLD OUT' sign.