On the Road Again

Chapter 12

"You're kidding! Four hours!" Donnie exclaims, staring at up at me. I look back at him, my eyes just about to seal, sending me into a sleeping trance. Everyone in the Ripple family received at least three hours of sleep. Everyone except me. I stayed awake the entire journey, trying to form a cozy position on my chair. But this proved to be a difficult task when you are restricted within the boundaries of an armrest, wall and the backs of two chairs. In the end I may as well have been in yoga class. Except I would've been one of the people at the back, loudly tripping over my feet with every move.

"Yep, we're waiting in here for four hours." I confirm, dropping my head softly onto the metal chair. I most certainly do care about hygiene, but in times and situations like this, I really don't mind letting my body sprawl across the overly-used chairs of Singapore airport.

"Awh," Donnie whines, flopping onto a metal chair beside me. I snatch my travel pillow off the handle of my backpack and shove it under my head. It relieves so much pain that the cold, hard metal brought me that I become ten times sleepier. My eyes begin to flutter shut, a sensation that I truly cherish. I feel my head adjust into an even more snug position and that combined with the fact that the whole airport has seemed to have fallen dead silent only further urges me into a deep slumber. Just as I feel a snore escaping my mouth and my eyes tightening, I feel someone place something over my ears. I silently thank God for this random act of kindness, automatically assuming that I have been given a pair of headphones to block out any sound, adding to the serenity of my sleep. But the scenario that arises soon after is quite the opposite of what I had in mind.

An explosion of noise bursts in my ears, shouting at me at a volume much too high. I immediately rip off whatever was covering my ears, shoving it to the floor without hesitation. My eyes fully open to the scene of Mimi retrieving what looks like her headphones from the ground. I glare at her.

"What was that all about?!" I growl ferociously. Mimi rolls her eyes.

"You need to do your video log and you'll stuff up your internal clock." She says whilst helping herself through my backpack. I grunt unhappily and flip onto my stomach.

"I never wanted to do this dumb video log anyway." I mutter supposedly under my breath. Well at least I thought it was under my breath, but Mimi begs to differ.

"What's dumb?" She asks sarcastically and I make a mental to note to work on my loudness. It seriously gets the best of me like all the time!

          "Nothing." I reply, not willing to take the conversation any further. She shoves my camera into my open palm, obviously annoyed about my rudeness towards video logging.

          "And you know you don't have to put on some fake personality in front of the camera." Mimi adds, tapping her foot on the carpeted floor. I squint up at her threateningly.

          "I'm not the only one who puts on a fake personality in front of the camera." I spit back, keeping my glare solely focussed on Mimi.

          "Whatever, just do it." She huffs before walking away and taking a seat beside my mum. I turn on my camera and try to adjust the angle in such a way that my dishevelled hair looks less frizzy. Once I feel comfortable with my appearance, I inhale deeply and hit my finger down on the record button.

"Hi everyone, we just arrived in Singapore and I didn't sleep at all on the plane so here I am, laying on the chairs of the Singapore airport." I start, in no way attempting to hide my grouchy and tiresome tone. "And in about four hours we should be boarding again for Dubai so I'll check you in on that soon." I finish, slamming my finger back down onto the record button to stop the filming. I smash my head into my travel pillow and slowly fall into a peaceful slumber. Until Mimi comes along.