Lavender Blu

Chapter eleven

Day one

We arrived in France a little after 11:00 (still morning), which is actually a little after 12:00 in Paris. We waved goodbye to Sam then called for a taxi.
"You have lots of cool friends." I said to Rupert after we'd got in the taxi, he was sitting up front.
He laughed "Weird friends you mean."
I turned to Justin beside me "what do we do now?"
"Honestly? I have no idea. Ask around maybe. Some sorcerer has probably seen him."
"I guess, so where are we staying? Please tell me we're staying somewhere."
He laughed "my parents have sorted that"
"What!? Your parents? Are they here?"
Justin laughed at my reaction, "yup, they're here. I've been wanting to introduce you." He put an arm around my shoulder and I lay against him.
"And I've been waiting to meet them." We drove into the city where there where a lot of graffiti sprayed walls, which I actually liked. They were fascinating although some of the words were either hard to make out or ones I didn't actually want to make out. The whole place was all very fascinating. You could tell I liked it by the way my face was eagerly pressed against the glass. Justin laughed.
"You've never been to Paris before huh?"
"Never been out of Britain."
"Well that's a shame, the worlds so big it needs exploring."
I turned to him, "I know! I love the world." I turned back to the window, "I just wish I could see it"
Rupert and the driver were babbling in French. I only did a bit of French, and that was before my GCSE's when I dropped it, I regret that now.
"So is Rupert fluent in French then?"
"Oh, yea. His mum is a linguist. She's fluent in every language she hears."
"Is that her power?"
"I think so. Well, she taught as many as she could to Rupert so he knows English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and I think he's currently learning Chinese but he's not fluent yet."
"Wow. That's so cool."
"Yea." The car started to slow "I think we might be here" I looked out and saw a pretty neat hotel which was called 'Melia Colbert'
"Wow mum and dad, nice taste." Justin mumbled so quietly I don't think I was suppose to hear. But I did.
"Ahh, I'm so excited." I pulled annoyingly on Justin's sleeve, "I'm in Paris!! Oh, can we go and see the Eiffel Tower?? I really want to see it, have you ever seen it!?" Justin laughed at my enthusiasm.
"When i was younger, and if you want to see it that much sure, we can go and see it, but remember why we're here."
I lay back down "oh, yea. But still I would like to see it."
He squeezed my hand, "and so you shall! Come on." Rupert had already paid the driver and was climbing out of the taxi. So we both got out as well got our bags out the back then and walked over to the entrance. We walked in and everything looked lovely. I gasped at it all. We spotted Rupert already at the desk and started walked over when Justin stopped and
looked at a couple coming out of the lifts.
"Wow, is that your mum and dad!?"
He sighed "yea"
"Why the sigh?"
"I haven't seen them face to face in five months. I guess it's nerves"
"Seriously?"
"Yup. Hey mum and dad." They turned and Justin's mums face spread into a huge smile.
"Justin!!" She came over and hugged him tight, I took a step back trying to avoid the awkwardness when Justin's dad came up to me and stretched out his hand,
"you must be young Lavender, we've heard so much about you."
I shook his hand and not sure what to say I simply replied "good news I hope."
"You're an amazing girl."
"That she is." Rupert came over and shook his uncle's hand, "uncle Daniel, aunt Alice."
"Rupert dear! How good it is to see you again, how is your mother?"
"She's doing pretty well, loving the hotel by the way!"
"I know! Isn't it wonderful?" Justin's mum did a little twirl making her long summer dress twirl making her look younger, I guessed her around 40. Then she saw me. She stopped looked at me suspiciously for a couple of seconds then as if realizing who I was rushed towards me. "Oh, you must be lavender!" She showed a lot of energy for a women of her age (not that she was very old, like I told you) she shook my hand excitedly, my hand clasped in both of hers.
Justin stepped forward before I could get a word out, "yes, this is lavender." He smiled fondly at me and I would have smiled back was I not getting bombarded with attention.
Thankfully Rupert jumped in "Shouldn't we be getting on, now that we all know each other." I mentally thanked Rupert.
We followed Justin's parents to the suite, which I'll admit was beautiful. It was a two bedroom suite, a girls room and a boys room. As 'Alice' had already unpacked I wandered into the room alone. I dumped my bag down and flopped onto the bed, 'man I'm tired' I thought. At least because of the time change we get to go to bed an hour early. But right now we had to figure out a plan. I slowly got up and wandered into them main sitting area where everyone was waiting. Every one stopped and looked at me when I walked in. When nobody spoke and it started to get a bit awkward I went and sat down next to Justin.
"So what's the plan?" I asked
"Well it's not so much a plan but all we can do." Justin's dad said, or Daniel. "We've been looking up all the sorcerers in this area, obviously your father wasn't one of them, but we can go and ask around, we've found out where the sorcerers are most likely to be tomorrow, so that's when we'll go."
I took a second to process what Daniel had just said.
"You can hear the wheels turning in her head!" Rupert said laughing at his own joke, I on the other hand glared at him then said. "So what are we going to do today?"
"Today? We rest." Justin's mum (Alice) said. "Or we could go shopping for an hour?" She looked at me hopefully.
I laughed, "that sounds great!"
Alice smiled then turned to the men, "anyone else?"
Justin quickly put up his hands and said "never" in such a way that made me laugh. Rupert next "sorry aunt, but you can count me out too" and finally Daniel "as much as I love you Alice there is no way I'm going on a girlie shopping trip with two craz..... Yea best stop there." He went and kissed Alice on the cheek then walked into the other room. Soon followed by Rupert and Justin.
Alice laughed "oh well, we didn't want them anyway, imagine a shopping trip in Paris! Just us girls!"
I laughed "it'll be fun"
"Fun doesn't even describe it, come on let's go" she pulled my sleeve like she was a two yeas old. So we grabbed our coats and walked out the door.
"We'll be back for dinner and you can sort you own lunch out guys." Alice called over her shoulder. We heard a groan from the other room. Before Justin started complaining.
'Aren't you little miss nice'
'We're in a hotel you can easily order something, ring a bell, ask can I have pizza, and hey presto there's a meal. Now stop complaining.'
'Yes your highness.'
'Good boy'

For lunch me and Alice shared a pizza between us. It had quite a weird tasting pizza, but it was nice. Thankfully the person who was serving us could speak English because neither me nor Alice can speak French. After we ate we went to some of the shops, trying on clothes. Me and Alice, I found got on really well, she's great. She's got Justin's humor and his enthusiasm, but in a girly way. The clothes we tried on were a bit stupid but it was fun. I didn't buy any clothes although Alice did buy me a new top which was really cute. It was a denim shirt with buttons down the front and folded up sleeves. I liked it. I bought her in return a nice sun hat she liked. Not one of those really big floppy ones just a small one that really suited her.

"We're back" Alice called as we walked in the door of the hotel at about six o'clock (French time)
"We're in here" I heard Daniel call. We followed the voice until we came to the boys room. I smiled. They were playing chess. Justin and Rupert were playing, Justin loosing miserably. I sat down on the bed next to him.
"You're not very good" I whispered in his ear.
"Thanks, princess" he leant and kissed my cheek gently. I quickly looked up at his parents and saw them both a busy and Rupert had his head down planning his next turn so I secretly thanked Justin for his good timing.
'My power comes in handy for quite a few things, I can time things perfectly.'
'Yea, you're right about that'
It wasn't really luck then, he used his power to check what they were all doing before he kissed me. Well, anyway with my help Justin actually managed to win the game. Man, I'm good. Rupert was really impressed with my chess skill, one of the very few things my step-dad taught me. After we finished our game we ordered some dinner a typical French dinner. The only thing I got for dinner was a baguette. Seriously. That's the only thing on the menu I felt safe getting, but I did get cheese for it as well. All my other companions got real meals and I didn't envy them one bit, they looked gross. Now, for dessert. I got loads of stuff, I'm telling you it all looked amazing. First I got some Crêpes, which is pretty much a pancake. Then I got an eclair then finally I got a Fraisier, which is basically a strawberries and cream cake. I'm telling you, if you ever go to France you'd better get a Fraiser. Sooooo good. Having had a very full day that by 8:30 I was falling asleep, so excusing myself from the movie we were watching. I have no idea what it was called or what it was about, that's one of the problems being in France. Too much French.