An Angel in Disguise

Chapter 14

Snow Days

"What in the world are you doing here?" my mother asked as I walked through my front door. "I was sure that you were going to be spending time with Maria and your friends." Mum recovered quickly.

"I was going to but then we got this." I dropped my bag on the floor of the kitchen and handed her the piece of paper.

"A school trip?"

"To the snow." I said with a nod, leaning against the kitchen bench with my arms crossed, a lot like how my father would stand.

"You would think that after the disaster of Jackson's year eleven snow trip, they would learn their lesion and not do it anymore." Mum joked, but I could see the seriousness in her eyes. When Jackson was in year 11 – about two years ago – he and his friends got into a little too much trouble at their snow trip, apparently making a snow ball out of ice and then throwing it at the dining hall was not the best idea, Jackson and his friends were lucky they didn't get into serious trouble but mum and dad did have to pay for some of the window and drive out to pick up Jackson, because he wasn't allowed to finish the rest of the trip.

"I swear right now that there will be no funny business that will get me or anyone else into any kind of trouble."

"You just make sure that Maria and yourself behave and I'll be happy." Mum grabbed a pen and signed the permission slip without another comment.

We had to be at the school at 11pm, and would be traveling until the morning to get to the snow. Maria was so excited, she had never seen snow before choosing instead to stay at home when I invited her and her brother on the family holidays during the winter.

Cody and I followed Gemma and Maria to the back of the bus, where there was an unspoke rule that the gang got the back seats. The girls sat down and we sat behind them, everyone else spreading out around us. "Are you going to wear your seatbelt dude?" Cody asked me.

"Why bother?"

"True that." Just then the girls started laughing in front of us. "Are you two going to laugh the whole time?" Cody asked, sticking his head through the small gap between the seats.

"Only until she swaps seat with you to sleep on Danny." Gemma said.

"We're not swapping Maria."

"You're swapping Cody." Maria and I said at the same time.

"Aww, that's so cute. You're saying things at the same time." I could feel Maria's blush from behind her.

About an hour into the trip a good portion of the bus was asleep, and Maria and Cody swapped seats, pulling up the arm rest that would have prevented us from cuddling Maria tucked herself into my arms.

"Love you Heaven." I said kissing her on the head.

"I love you too Danny." She whispered back, her head on my chest, I ran my hand up and down her back and before I knew it she was asleep and I wasn't too far behind her.

It was probably a little after 7am when Maria woke up a good part of the back of the bus with her little squeal. Having never seen snow before she grabbed her camera out of her bag and took a quick photo.

Gemma and Cody started to talk about not having any milestone birthdays because of the fact that Maria had way too many embarrassing pictures of everyone, the conversations on the bus went from future universities to JFK's assassination by the time we got to the resort everyone was restless from sitting on the bus for too long.