Red, Blue, Me, and You

Natural History

I scramble off the bus, dragging my friend, Olivia, along with me. The other third of our trio, Hannah, calls after us, "Geo! Liv! Wait up!"
I ignore her, obviously, and continue to run as she hurries to catch up with me before jumping on my back.
"Georgia Read! Hannah Kallen! Walking please!" Our teacher, Mr Evans, yells before addressing the entire group. "Year 11! Could you please gather to my right. This is a public space. Please do not block the entrance to the museum."

School trips are always chaos, and this one is even more so because it's not just our school, but also our "sibling" school too. Most people would agree that our two schools are rivals, even our parents, but the principals are determined that we "work together to produce excellence in all areas". This basically means that we have inter-school sport days, and the occasional academic competition. Aside from that, the only reason us students interact is for the ongoing prank war we have. Unfortunately, there'll be none of that today, after someone was stupid enough to get caught passing a note in class.

"Is she going to be here?" Olivia asks me as we wait for further instructions.
"Who?" I reply, even though I know exactly who she's talking about.
"Williamson."
"I guess so." I shrug my shoulders. I don't keep track of her. It's not like I know her that well, but everyone knows about our "rivalry". She plays for Arsenal. I play for Chelsea - not professionally yet, obviously. Although I've properly talked to her only a couple of times, the entire student population of our schools think we hate each other. It's partly our fault if I'm being honest. Ever since we realised what people think about us, we've put on a show for them whenever we can. I don't think today will be any different.
"You guess so?"
"She's here," Hannah cuts in while very obviously pointing over towards her. Leah looks across at us, and gives me a glare which I return immediately. I never know if she's being serious or not.

Once everyone is off their buses, and the teachers have quieted everyone down, we're told the plan for the day.
"Alright. We have a bit of a scavenger hunt organised," there's a collective groan, but Mr Evan's carries on, "at least pretend you're having fun. Now, everyone needs a buddy from the school you don't go to. Once you've found one, come to a teacher for a bit of paper. Hopefully, you all have a pen or pencil already. Oh, and one more thing: It is a competition. Any questions?"
"What do we win?" A guy in my class calls out.
"Bragging rights." Everyone's faces fall as Mr Evan begins to grin, "off you go! Have fun!"

Although there's no prize, I'm competitive and need to prove I'm good at everything, so I make a beeline for the person who I know will help me do this. It looks like she's had the same idea.
"Williamson," I acknowledge her.
"Read," she mimics.
"Ready to win?"
"Ready for the potential social repercussions?" she asks, and I take a moment to consider this.
"Maybe it's time to pause the rivalry?"I suggest.
"Did it ever really begin in the first place?" she questions.
I laugh, "let's not forget who you play for."
She jokingly pushes me for the few people who have been watching us talk's benefit, so I lightly push her back. Then she grabs my arm and runs towards a teacher. If we're going to work together, then we need to win this, so we need to start as soon as possible.

Leah gets the paper while I find a pencil in my rucksack. Once we're ready, we enter the museum.
"You have 3 tasks to complete today. 1st you must find 4 blue objects and learn what they are called, then you need to learn about the life cycle of 3 different species, before finally searching for the most creative fun fact about meteors. " Leah reads aloud.
"What is the point of all of this?" I ask.
"Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't think any of this will be relevant to any of our exams, but you never know. Something could come up, and then we'll be able to write about it," she thinks for a moment, "blue objects is rather random. Should be red objects."
I ignore her comment. "You're thinking about exams already?"
"They're only 5 weeks away."
"Yeah. 5 weeks is ages."
"No it's not. Especially when you're balancing both football and school. You of all people should understand," she says this seriously, and it stops me in my tracks.
"Yeah, but I don't care if I pass my exams or not. I want to play football for my entire life."
"Doesn't seem like a very stable career plan though. Always good to have a back up option."
"I'm not smart enough for that."
She looks at me in shock, "don't ever say that about yourself again."

I'm silent as we continue to walk down the corridor. She has a point about having a back up option. Being a footballer isn't a very stable career path for a girl to aspire to walk down, but there's no way I'm going to do anything with my life other than play football. So either I become a footballer, or I end up working at a supermarket for the rest of my life. Leah spots something, and grabs my arm, dragging me out of my thoughts and down the hallway.

"Minerals!" she says dramatically, and I laugh at how unexpected this is, "what? Look, there's a blue one, and now we only need 3 blue objects. Tanzanite. Write that down."
She chucks the piece of paper in my direction, and I write down the name of the mineral. I look at the case of minerals on display and spot one she'll like.
"Rhodochrosite. Look, there's your red, Leah."
"Georgia Read! Are you being nice to me?" she exclaims.
I roll my eyes, "shut up. Come on. We need to keep moving."

We walk towards a crowded display room, where we find another blue object, and learn about the life cycle of a flamingo, before making our way to a less crowded part of the museum in search for the volcano and earthquake displays. Leah has the map, and I'm sort of frustrated at her insistence that she knows where she's going, when she obviously does not.

"Leah! Just give me the map!" I shout as I try to grab it off her.
"No!" She lifts it up as high as she can, out of my reach.
"You're impossible!" I jump up and grasp the bottom of it. Unfortunately, the map tears apart.
"Now look what you've done!" She says, and she storms off.

I chase after her, this competition ever present in my mind. We don't have time for an argument at the moment if we want to win. I know it's probably a bad thing that the only reason I'm going after her is so that we can win some silly competition, and I suppose I do care slightly about her feelings, but only because I'm a human being. Nobody likes it when someone's angry at them.

As I run after Leah, I lose track of where we are. Suddenly there's a loud bang, and I turn around the find that the door I just walked through has closed. I turn back round to where Leah is standing and see the look of concern in her eyes. I walk over to the door, and try to open it. It won't budge.

"Let me try," Leah pushes me to the side. Her efforts also fail. She sits down, resting her back against the door, and I sit down opposite her.
"Great," she complains, "now we have no clue where we are, and we're going to lose this competition."
"We're also stuck," I point out.
"I know that already," she rolls her eyes.

I look around the dimly lit room, and see scaffolding, crates, and a half finished exhibition. We are definitely not supposed to be here.

"Alright how are we going to get out?" I ask.
"If I knew that we wouldn't be stuck here."
"They'll notice that we're missing eventually."
She looks down at her watch. "It's only just gone ten. Looks like we'll be stuck for a few more hours."
"Brilliant, just brilliant," I control myself from saying anything worse, such as it's her fault that we're stuck here. Apparently she can't do the same.
"If you'd never tried to take the map we wouldn't be in this situation."
"It's not my fault. You're the one who stormed off."
"You're the one who didn't trust me to know how to read a map."
"Because you don't know how!"

She places her half of the map on the floor. I look at it not knowing what to do next.
"Well, are you going to take it or not?" she looks at me as if I'm stupid. I pull it over towards me and put my half next to it. I find where we were, and then figure out where we could possibly be. I'm fairly certain that if we keep walking into the darkness, we'll end up in a corridor that will take us back to the main part of the museum. I'm about to tell her this, but then she speaks.

"I'm sorry for getting angry at you, even though I was the one who got us lost."
"It's alright," I reply, "I'm sorry for judging your map reading skills."
"They are pretty bad," she admits. She's quiet for a moment, so I decide to speak.
"I know we have out 'rivalry' going on, but I think you're a cool person Leah, and if we weren't on opposite teams I'd want to be friends with you."
She looks across at me as is she can't believe what she's hearing, "I think you're a cool person too, Georgia. You know while we're stuck here, we may as well get to know each other better."
"Okay. How about this? We each get to ask each other 10 questions, and the questions can't be Chelsea or Arsenal related, or else we'll probably end up fighting," I suggest.
"And we have to answer truthfully," she adds.
"Deal," I reply, putting the map to the side, and choosing to forget that I know we're not actually stuck.

It takes everything within me not to be disappointed that we're not going to win this competition, but I think getting to know Leah may be a better decision in the long run. We may play on different teams, but we both have the common goal of wanting to play football professionally. Maybe we'll be better as friends than rivals.