may shatter on impact (tronnor)

52. Field Trips & Aquariums

all my info comes from the glorious and slightly untrustworthy wikipedia. and sea cucumbers are tHE WEIRDEST THINGS EVER I FUCKING HATE THEM.

Fog masks the cars, little bits of rain turning clear air into a blurry scene. Car headlights shine through the gray air like beacons of light and glowing eyes come to take us away. Bright yellow looming shapes like shadows speeding towards us pull up in front of the school, their doors swinging open with creaks and groans as students pile inside.

They have their phones out, the screens lighting up the 12:00 sky with the blue glow. A laugh echoes through the muted silence, yawns filling the bus, eyes fluttering closed when the slight rattle and rock of the bus lulls them to sleep.

The smell of teenage sweat and deodorant and white out on last minute homework that won't get checked is overpowering, the green eyed Connor wrinkling his nose as Zoe flips her hair behind her ears and finishes the math problem she did in pen.

"Should've done it in pencil," she mutters to no one.

"Yeah, you should have," Alfie says bitterly, having copied down her wrong answers only minutes before Nora pointed out that they were wrong and we were shuttled out onto the bus, leaving his worksheet behind.

"Listen up!" a teacher calls out at us from the front of the bus, swaying slightly as we turn. "When we get there, I expect you all to be on your best behavior!"

"Oh we will be," someone muttered.

"Quiet, Abraham!"

The red haired boy who had spoken sunk lower in his seat, rolling his eyes at the woman and her penciled in eyebrows and stern voice. "Alright. We expect your best behavior. The aquarium is being very generous in closing it down just for us, please don't make them regret it."

"We never would!" someone called out, sending a ripple of tired laughter down the rows of seats filled with the tired students from our grade.

Connor rolled his eyes. "Nothing to worry about with us, Mrs. Henry." Zoe snorted and we turned our attention back to the teacher.

"Now, you all have your worksheets right?"

Zoe frowned, turning to Nora. "Worksheets?"

Nora raised an eyebrow. "You don't have yours?" she signed quickly.

"We didn't get one!" Zoe whispered back furiously.

"I'll just take the notes and you can copy it down later," Nora suggested. "On a blank piece of paper."

Zoe just sighed. "Thanks."

"Good!" Mrs. Henry said. "Get in pairs. That's two people! Not three! Or one!"

Connor turned to me questioningly, receiving a nod from me as Nora and Zoe did the same thing, Dan and Phil pairing up, and Alfie joining Marcus Butler.

"Alright. Now, you have the entire aquarium to wander through, as long as you're able to answer all the questions. Everyone meet in the cafeteria for lunch at noon sharp! No earlier, no later, and check in with your homeroom teachers then! We leave at exactly 2:45, and I expect everyone on time, Zoe!"

Zoe blushed, hiding her face in Nora's shoulder while the other girl laughed. Connor tapped my shoulder, whispering an explanation; "Last field trip Zoe got lost and we almost left her behind, before Nora realized she wasn't there. She's also the reason that we have to check in with teachers ever forty five minutes." I chuckled at his explanation before turning back to Mrs. Henry, who was handing out maps, tripping over her high heels when the bus turned and grabbing onto the backs of seats like ladders.

"Who're the pairs over here?" she asked when she reached us.

"Nora and I," Zoe said, "Alfie and Marcus, Connor and Troye, and Dan and Phil."

Mrs. Henry nodded at that, handing each group a map. "Good. Now no....distracting...activities you two," she said sternly, glaring at Dan and Phil.

I turned to Connor, raising an eyebrow. "'Distracting activities'?"

"Also last field trip, they were caught in the bathroom, definitely not doing their worksheets," he whispered back as Mrs. Henry walked away.

"Last field trip was an interesting one, huh?" I said, laughing as we all stood up and made our way to the front of the bus.

"Oh you have no idea. At least fourteen letters had to be sent home. We don't exactly get out much, so when we do, we make the best of it."

We walked inside the aquarium, the lights casting a blue glow across giant model orcas and the massive skeletons of squids and dolphins and stingrays swimming across the lights dancing on the ceiling.

"Holy crap," I hear Connor mutter beside me. "They're all so much bigger than I thought they might be."

I frowned, glancing around at the similar expressions of awe reflected across the others. "Have you never been to an aquarium?"

He shook his head. "There aren't many here, and I've never even left the state. Most of us haven't, and half of us have never even seen the ocean."

My eyes widened at that. I couldn't even imagine never seeing the ocean, never seeing the waves roll across the endless sea, the clouds glittering in the water, the salt drying on your skin and water crashing against rocks as if throwing itself upon a bed rather than tons of rock slowly being whittled away into nothing. "But what about that beach we went to over the weekend?"

He shook his head. "As students under the care of the school or whatever, we're not technically allowed on the beach, but sometimes you can get away with it by joining people who don't live here. But most of us have been here since sixth grade or earlier, and only a few of us have cars, anyways."

"Wow."

Connor watched every fish, ever splash of water, every shark fin as if it was the most interesting thing in the world, completely caught up in the scales of lutjanus campechanus, shading in the eyes and catching the shine of the scales with neat precise strokes of his pencil.

His eyes traveled across the water enclosed in glass cages, the starfish reflected in his eyes, the artificial lighting turning his skin blue and giving his white shirt a slight glow to it. "The fuck is that?"

I laughed. "That's a sea cucumber. They're really weird and kind of scary, but cool."

He leaned over the sign, the black words the only thing catching his attention after I was done speaking, absorbing information quickly, processing all the Latin names and the species and other facts none of us will ever use in life. "They regurgitate their organs to get rid of predators, what the fuck?"

"Cuvierian tubules, specifically, I think," I told him, not even remembering why I knew that. "Not sure if those are organs, but yeah, basically. Then they grow back."

"With a week!"

I smiled at his excitement, the faint blush spreading across his cheeks, the excitement evident in his eyes, facts scribbled across in worksheets messily. "Imagine if humans could do that. That'd be so weird."

He laughed. "Just every time I got stressed I just expel my fucking organs."

"The math room would be a mess, then."

He laughed, turning away from the sign and leading me to the next one. "Come on, there's like a hands-on thing over there."