Halfway Around the World [On hold]

Chapter Two

"Hey uncle Dennis, you mind rolling up your window some?"

He laughs.

"Sure thing sweetie." He said as he rolled up his window.

You see, the only annoying thing about my favorite uncle is that he loves the cold. And me, I hate it. I love warmth. I don't understand this man. Other than that, we're alike in every single way. I even look like him. Curly brown hair, hazel eyes, dimples, you get it.

Right now are on our way to the airport. That's right, they finally pulled me away from my home. Well, some other family already bought the house, so I guess its not my home anymore. Omg. I just realized something. I'm homeless!!!

It's not like my dad actually thought this out. We're gonna arrive in the middle of the dessert with no home, no food or water. Nothing but our clothes and electronics. And that's not gonna get us anywhere. I don't even know if they have internet there. Omg, i'm going to die.

We finally arrive at the airport twenty minutes later. As I step out of the car my stomach starts to feel queezy. I've been on an airplane before, that's not why. It's because I know that this means we're actually doing it. We're actually leaving home, moving far away and starting a new beginning.

I start to feel dizzy, as if I am going to faint. Jordan walks up to me.

"You okay lil sis? You look sick."

I look up at him and put on the most serious face I can.

"I look sick? I am sick. Sick and tired of this family making stupid decisions."

I don't dare let my dad hear me. I would be grounded for months.

"Listen layla. I know you don't want to do this. You think I wanna do this? No. Heck no I don't! But, we're doing this for dad okay? We've never ever sacrificed anything for him. He's always the one sacrificing things for us. Don't you even feel a tiny bit guilty?"

I lower my head feeling a tiny bit ashamed of myself. My brother was right.

"Yeah, I guess so. You're right."

"Okay then. Drop the attitude and go with it. For goodness sake, you haven't even given it a chance!"

I choose not to respond. After all, there is nothing for me to say. My brother is right. So, instead I fish my carry-on from out of the trunk and turn to enter the airport.

My brother walks over to help my dad and my uncle with the other suitcases, and my mom follows behind me. She smiles at me softly with her warm eyes when I turned back to look at her. Even though she looks calm, I know my mother, she is freaking out inside. She's excited but nervous and stressed all at the same time. My mother over thinks everything, thats why i'm always worried about her. She could cause herself to have a stroke or something one day if she kept doing that.

It must have taken about a half hour for them to check our bags and everything. They are moving fast today. We are now waiting for them to announce our flight, how long it will be until it took off. My stomach keeps tightening up every five minutes. I thought I was going to throw up a couple of times, but I haven't yet.

We've been sitting here for about forty-five minutes, now they finally announce it. I feel like my stomach is over loaded with butterflies. My neck and face feel hot and I'm sweating all over. I'm trying to act cool, but it's not really working. My mom can tell that I'm nervous, so she comes over to rub my back for me. Okay, that helped a little.

We rushed down a hallway, they checked us again and now we are standing with a long line of people.

It's finally our turn to show the airplane lady our tickets. After she looks at them and counts us she smiles and says "Right this way." We walk into a narrow hallway. The walls are blue swirled with other colors, the rug has the same print. It takes me a minute a to realize that we're now enterig the airplane. Oh god.

By the time we get in there, it's already packed. I really hope that I don't get a seat next to some drooly old person. A petite red headed woman with bright pink lipstick walks up to us. She is an airplane lady, her uniform tells us so. She looks at my dad and says "You'll follow me this way sir." We follow her down the very narrow rows. I try not to bump into people, but it is impossible not to bump into anyone.

After what felt like forever, she stops and points to a seat near a window. An older man-maybe in his sixties- is sitting there half asleep. My eyes almost pop out of my head.

I look up at my dad with worried eyes, hoping that he won't make me sit there. Thank goodness he understood. He looks down at me, smiles and says "Okay, I'll take this seat." I mouth a "thank you" and then turn to see what other seats this lady has for us.

In the middle row is a line of five seats all connected. She points to these and tells us that these are our seats. I let out a sigh of relief and sit at the right end of the line of seats. It was only us three, me, jordan and my mom, so there were two seats left for someone else to sit. The lady says that those seats are already taken. Taken? I don't see anyone sitting there.

I sit next to jordan and then place my bag on the seat next to mine. I don't want to get caught up with another old person.

About ten minutes after we were all settled into our comfy airplane seats, a tall slim girl about My age walks up and smiles at me as she sits in the seat at the end of the row. The only thing separating us is the chair that I have my bag on. Of course she didn't want to move my bag and sit right next to me, so she sat at the end. As I smile back at her and started to feel kinda bad. I don't want her to think anything about me. She looks cool. So I pick my bag up and place it on my lap. She glances at me shyly, but she doesn't say anything.

Thats when I lean over to her and say "Y'know you can sit here if you want." I pat the seat next to mine. "I just put my bag there so I wouldn't have to get stuck with an old person."

She laughs at that. And then she gets up and says "Okay." And she quickly sits in the seat next to mine.

I smile at her once more so she won't feel uncomfortable. Then I turn to the tv screen infront of my face and I sit there staring at the blank screen for a minute and think. Maybe this won't be so bad, maybe I was just overreacting the whole time.

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