Cats and Cameras

Chapter Two

Lizzie

"Oh my gosh, Cath!" I grin and run to hug her. She laughs and we stand in the middle of the flat squeaking excitedly for a couple of minutes. I still can't believe this is actually happening! At last I can get away from everything and start my life again.

"So, shall we unpack?" Cath asks, after the initial excitement wears off. I shake my head.

"We can't yet, we don't have any furniture!" Cath stops and crosses her arms.

"I knew that," she walks away for a moment, then walks back over with a huge grin on her face.

"Since we don't have anything, we kind of need somewhere to sit..." her blue eyes light up and I know exactly what she's thinking.

"Pillow fort!" we yell at the same time, both running for my boxes. I brought all of the pillows and blankets with me, as I didn't have as far to travel as Cath. I only came from another place in London, whereas she had to come from Bristol. It made more sense for me to bring more because we can just go back and get anything that I forgot.

For the next hour or so, the two of us build a magnificent pillow fort, with boxes of my things for walls, pillows on the floor and blankets for the roof. The previous owners of the flat left us a television stand, so we plug our television and Xbox in. Even with just this, the flat feels a bit more like a home. Minus the giant fort, of course.

Due to the lack of pans and food in the house, we order a dominoes pizza. I have ham and pineapple, she has pepperoni. After it arrives, we sit in our pillow fort to eat it. We discuss furniture, and plan a big trip to Ikea tomorrow. Thanks to his job, my dad owns a van that we can use to get everything here. Cath also had some paint charts with her. We use a black rollerball to circle colours with little notes next to them saying which room they are for. By nine, we know exactly what we want.

I get up and close the long grey blinds over the window. The view from our flat is beautiful. An inky washed sky is punctured by millions of pinpricks of light, stretched far beyond the reaches of the glass panes. In the distance, a meander of the river Thames reflects the entire scene back to me a second time. I wish we could knee the blinds open, but I don't think anyone wants to see Cath and I sat in the living room. They'd probably think we were crazy if they saw our awesome pillow fort.

On my way back, I urn on the Xbox and put in Minecraft. Cath reaches into one of the boxes for the controllers. She holds her green and black striped one in one hand, and passes me my black and purple marbled effect one with the other. The menu displays and we load up our multiplayer world.

"And now the wiki page is loading slow," I sing to myself. Cath laughs and joins in.

"It could be wood or mossy cobblestone. Oh what's the recipe I just don't know," we sing the last part together.

"I'm all alone, saying, how do I craft this again?" the next hour continues with us messing around and chatting about life. I haven't seen Cath in a long time, so it's nice to talk in person and not through the internet.

At eleven Cath turns the Xbox off, yawning. I pick up a blanket and curl up under it, and Cath does the same opposite. I'm exhausted, and we haven't even started unpacking yet! Unless you count the games. They're the most important part.