Fifteen and a half hours later I am shaken awake by the small dirty blonde beside me while incomprehensible words spew out of her mouth.
"Get up lazy ass!" Tori spat shaking my shoulders viciously.
"Huh? Wha?" I say trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes.
"Get up!" Mere pipes in, giving an awkward smile to the old lady in front of us.
"The plane landed 15 minutes ago!" Tori groans extending her delicate hand for me to grab. I take it with caution and jump out of my seat, grabbing my bag from the overhead compartment. I sling it over my shoulders and make my way to exit the plane doors, making sure to thank the flight attendants as I get off.
Much to our groggy unwillingness, we are forced to go through the fiasco of getting off a plane, in which we meet up with our group of grade 11 students and head towards customs. After what seemed like a lifetime of waiting, we finally got outside and the immediate heat of the unairconditioned oasis hits, making us all instantly regret our outfit choices. One by one each student's taxis arrive ready to take the eager teenagers to their new home for the next nine months.
Eventually Summer and I's taxi arrives, causing us both to squeal in excitement.
We both get into the backseat and a calming silence fills the air as we admire the beautiful nature around us. After a while of driving, we finally arrive at the Hemmings' household. Both our jaws drop at the beautiful beige beach house. Windows of all shapes and sizes scatter across the front of the home, leaving little to no beige siding to be seen. We get out of the cab and Summer pays the driver. I mouth thank you as I open the back to retrieve our overflowing bags. Summer politely thanks the driver, and he pulls away wishing us luck. We walk up through the beautiful front garden to the old oak door. A wave of anxiety washes over me as I ring the doorbell, anticipation building up in my stomach. Summer looks over at me and catches my nervousness, reaching over and quickly grabbing my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. The door cracks open revealing a small, short blonde woman in maybe her mid 40's. A large smile appears on her face, causing her light wrinkles to become evident.
"Hello, welcome!" She says, her unmistakable Australian accent coming through. "You must be Cassidy." She says pulling me into a tight hug. I tense up into the hug but slowly relax as she rubs her hand across my back. Letting go of the hug she smiles even brighter than I even thought possible and turns to Summer and does the same "And this must be Summer!" She exclaims, her long blonde hair shining beautifully in the sunlight. "Come in, come in!" She says ecstatically, grabbing both of our hands and leading us straight into the stunning home. "I'm Liz by the way!" she smiles leading us up the curved staircase. As we reach the top my jaw only drops more, to the left of us is a beautiful living space with a large L shaped couch and huge TV. Around the corner was two bedrooms, the doors facing each other. Liz turns to us and gestures towards the one on the left.
"That's Ben's room" she says calmly "Luke is sleeping in there at the moment, considering that it's pretty late right now" she says looking down at the beautifully crafted watch on her wrist. Turning to the door on the left Liz slowly turned the handle.
"And lastly here you are darlings, we cleared out Luke's room for you two, hopefully you guys like it" Liz sighs happily.
My eyes scan the room as I try to to compose my thoughts. Before me laid a picturesque room. The walls were bare and painted a very light grey-blue. I followed the large wall with my eyes and noticed that facing directly in front of us was a giant window overlooking the ocean. I start to walk around the room in awe and begin to examine the large golden double bunk bed in the corner of the room. Beside it laid a small matching wood bedside table with a lamp and an alarm clock. In front of the large window sat a beautiful, long glass desk with room for two. On the opposite side of the room were two doors. Curious, I shuffle over and open the first one, letting out a small gasp as a beautiful walk in closet was revealed. I hesitantly opened the second door thinking that this magnificent room couldn't get any better, but to my surprise, it did. I stared into the modern looking bathroom with disbelief. I swiftly closed the door and turned to Summer, raising my eyebrows in shock.
"Thank you! It's beautiful!" Summer grins as she put down our bags.
"Do you think we could we go to the beach?" I question looking back at Liz who looked at me as if I had three eyes.
"Sweety it's almost 11:00pm, why don't you girls rest up first, the jet lag is horrible from up there to here." Liz chuckles,
"That's okay, Mrs Hemmings." Summer says reassuringly, waving it off and sharing a sheepish smile,
"Please, call me Liz," she says with one of her infamous grins. "And welcome to Australia." She says wiggling her eyebrows, slowly backing out of the room. "Oh and don't forget! You have uniforms at this school." She says, popping her head in the bedroom, causing us to burst into a fit of giggles.
Calming down we begin to unpack our things into the large closet. With a groan of exhaustion I climb the ladder up to the top bunk of Luke's bed, setting up all my things. Summer decides to take a quick shower and heads into the bathroom. After half an hour of playing Candy Crush, she emerges in her towel and signals to me that it's my turn to have the bathroom. I quickly wash my face and tie up my brown hair into a messy bun, not caring whether or not it looked cute. After finishing my regimen, I walk back into the room to see Summer laying on the bottom bunk wearing her oversized Foo Fighters tshirt, almost completely passed out.
I bend down and pull the large fluffy throw blanket over her body and giggle as she groans in response. I crawl back up the ladder, trying my best to make no noises and flop down onto my bunk thinking about everything and anything that came into my head. Summer's sleeping moans and endless tossing and turning keeps me awake. Groaning I pull myself out of my comfy spot in the bed and make my way back down to the bottom bunk. Looking at a sleeping Summer I smile softly reaching down and pushing her over, crawling into the double-bed with her. After a couple minutes of settling, I finally become overwhelmed by the sweet escape of sleep.
