when you say nothing at all... (boyxboy)

Chapter 3: Awkward elevators and world travellers

Hi there!

here's chapter 3! We had lots of fun writing this! And of course we'll hope you'll like reading it. :)

If you have any comments, criticism or anything else, please share it. All help is welcome!

Rolfie and the lady drummer...

Daniel POV

They locked me up with the elephants and said I had to be ready for tonight’s show. I’d better be good, or else they would feed me to the lions, like they did with the other disobedient elephants. I told them I wasn’t an elephant, but they didn’t believe me, because all elephants said that. Which is true, I guess. If I were an elephant, I’d say I wasn’t an elephant, too. But I am NOT an elephant. So I started crying and rolling over the ground. ‘That must be a new one,’ said the biggest elephant, who was somehow pink.  After rolling for a whole hour, I decided I was tired and fell asleep. Suddenly, the door flew open and there was Josh! 

‘Come with me, we have to hurry, fast, before they lock me up too,’ he said.

‘But I can’t leave the elephants,’ I said, ‘they’re my friends now!’

‘Yeah!’ said the pink elephant. ‘We’re his friends now!’

‘Well, let’s take them with us! Let’s go, run!’ Josh answered.

So we ran. Me, eight elephants and Josh. Soon, we left the circus behind us. I turned to Josh and said-

 And suddenly someone was poking my cheek.

‘Erm…buddy?’

I blinked and was almost blinded by the light. ‘Oof!’

‘Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty! We’re finally there!’

Suddenly, Josh’ face was right in front of me. And when I say right, I mean RIGHT. I yelped and fell of his lap. Wait, lap?! O no, Daniel you idiot! Why do you always fall asleep on other people?

‘I didn’t mean to scare you buddy - and may I just say you look adorable when you’re sleeping -  but we really have to go now,’ Josh told me.

O right, go. Right. I stood up and followed my dear buddy, who was leaving the bus. As soon as I stepped outside, the sunshine hit my face. At least Josh was right about the weather. Mr Johnson started yelling at us to shut up. Well that’s not exactly what he said, but that’s what it came down to. Hey, I’m not talking.

 ‘If everybody will be quiet for a moment now, I’m going to explain something important to you.’ He then waited until everybody was listening to him and continued: ‘Paul, the driver, will hand you your luggage. After that, you’ll have to find your buddy and go to Mrs Robins to get your room key.’

Wait. Buddy? Room key? Please tell me those are just random words that don’t have anything to do with each another. I looked at Josh, who looked back at me with big eyes, but then seemed to shrug it off. Clearly, he didn’t really care, but then again, when does he? I snapped out of my thoughts and decided to get my bag. When I finally got there, most bags were already gone, so it wasn’t hard to find mine, especially since it had stickers and buttons all over it. As long as I could remember, my parents would me take to all kinds of places all over the world. Every summer vacation, we would make a big trip. I’d never been to Paris though, so I was very excited to go. That was, until I heard my friend Alex (who was in fact my only friend), was sorted into the London group. Still, I wanted to make the best of it.

‘Let’s get our key, buddy.’

Ough! How did he always show up out of nowhere? It was a good thing I had my feelings under control, otherwise I would be shrieking at him all the time. Apparently, he’d finally accepted that I was not that much into talking, because he just grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards Mrs Robins.

Josh POV

We were off to find room 2.19. It’s on the second floor, she’d said (wow, really? Wouldn’t have expected that.). So now we were waiting for the elevator to come, together with a couple of other kids from our school. There was a ringing sound.

‘I bet on the left one,’ I said to Daniel. He looked at me with an expressionless face, then looked at the elevators again. The left one slid open.

‘Hah! Told you so! And don’t even try to make me believe you thought that too, ‘cause I won’t fall for that!’

Daniel chuckled. Wait, he chuckled?! I’d already started to believe he was deaf. I stared at him with a fascinated face, then realised that was a bit weird. So I started pulling him towards the elevator. I was making a habit of pulling him everywhere, since he didn’t talk or move out of himself.

Let’s just say the whole elevator thing was a bit awkward. There were only three other people in there, and they were having a busy conversation about whatever, which resulted in us just standing there and trying to look everywhere but at each other. It became even worse when we arrived at the first floor, and the other people exited the elevator. I felt the urge to dramatically run after them, grab their ankles and say: ‘Nooo! Please! Don’t leave me!’. But I figured that would be kind of insulting towards Daniel and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. It was not like I had been jumping out of joy when I heard I had to share a room with him for the following week. But I had tried my best to look pleased, because somehow I felt like he deserved a chance. And besides, being mean to him would be like kicking a puppy. Of a cliff. In the ocean. With sharks in it.

*Pling* Thank you, elevator. This was way too awkward. Daniel seemed to think so too, since he practically ran out of the elevator.

‘Okay, so we have to find room 2.19,’ I reminded him. 2.16…2.17…2.18…2.19! I opened the door with a big swing.

‘Welcome home, honey!’ I chirped. To say he was shocked, would have been an understatement. Hahaha. Okay, sorry, I knew it was wrong, but I took a liking in shocking him. I mean, come on, it was just too easy! And besides, I could have been much worse. I could have swept him of his feet and carried him over the threshold, bridal style. But I didn’t, which I was very proud of. Daniel was still standing in the hallway, like he was frozen or something.

‘You know,’ I said, ‘this is the part where you actually enter the room.’ He seemed to snap out of it and marched into the room.

It was quite a nice room, with white carpet on the floor and pretty big windows, which was exceptional for a hotel, so that was a plus. There were two doors on the left, which I guess were the toilet and the bathroom. Then there were a table, a TV and a bunk bed. Pretty basic, but nice I guess.

‘Mind if I take the top bunk?’ I asked. ‘Or do you want the top bunk? Or we could share it! I mean, I seemed to be a very good pillow for you back in the bus.’

He turned bright red and threw his bag on the lower bed. It wasn’t until now that I noticed it was covered with stickers and buttons.

‘Hey, what’s all that on your bag?’

Interested, I took a closer look and realised that they were actually representing different countries.

‘Wow! You’ve been in all those places?’

He looked a bit uncomfortable under the attention, but nodded.

‘Wow! That’s so cool! You’ve been to Greece? How was that?’ Not that I was expecting an answer, but… He just shrugged, but I could see a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. I smiled broadly at him. This was actually pretty cool. A bit unexpected maybe, but still: pretty cool. Somehow, he seemed to be full of surprises.