Please, Miss (GirlxGirl) ✔️

13 | field trips & fainting

                The following week all the history students stood outside the front of the school by the coach, shivering as the driver loaded our bags into the luggage compartment and wishing they were anywhere else. I glanced around at the numerous miserable faces and sighed. This certainly wasn't my idea of a good time.

"You've definitely packed too much," I stated, eyeing Megan's full suitcase and two navy tote bags. "We're literally going for two nights."

She rolled her eyes. "You can never be too prepared, Evie."

Once everyone's luggage was loaded into the coach, we filed in, taking our seats. Megan slumped down beside me with a huff. Clarice had already passed history last year, so she was reluctantly being left behind at school, though I knew I'd much rather be there than traipsing round museums for two days.

The teachers gathered in a cluster at the front of the coach as Mrs. Kidman stood, holding a navy clipboard and pen. "Okay, can I have your attention please girls," she called, tapping the pen impatiently on the metal hold at the top of the board. "Now, when we get there, we'll be heading to the hotel to drop our things off before going straight out again to the museums. You've been placed in groups of your classes, so whichever history class and teacher you have currently, is who you will be spending the day with. Is that understood?"

Loud groans filled the bus, Megan joining in. "So we're not even going to be able to spend the day together? Well that's bloody brilliant. I hate my class. And Miss Palmer is so strict, as well."

I pretended to be as annoyed as she was; truthfully, I was quite looking forward to spending the day with Miss Bowen. That might have been the one good aspect of this entire trip.

"At least we're sharing a hotel room," I shrugged, and she nodded, agreeing. "God, this is going to be a sack of shit."

The journey into London was long and tedious, and I spent half of it trying to swerve questions from Megan about my love life, or lack of, should I say. I'd never really had a proper relationship before, aside from a few casual girlfriends back in high school, though none lasted more than a few months. I'd always heard the saying that when you're in love, you just know. Just know what? I'd wondered, and now I knew. I'd never before experienced the strange and suffocating pull of being absolutely infatuated with another being. I'd never realised how tiny, minute details of their appearance could seem so incredibly beautiful. I'd never understood how someone's words or actions could make you feel a hundred different emotions all at once. And I still didn't understand, not really, but I felt it, I experienced it, and I just knew.

Arriving outside the hotel three and a half hours later, we had fifteen minutes to find our rooms, leave our bags and return to the coach. Megan and I headed down the winding corridors until we found room two hundred and four. Admittedly, it wasn't the Ritz; it was basic and bland—clearly the school budget couldn't stretch to a little bit of luxury—but it was clean and simple enough. A double bed was sat in the centre of the room, a small ensuite attached to the side. It had a mahogany chest of drawers and matching wardrobe, but neither Megan or I bothered to unpack anything, considering we were only staying for two nights. Leaving our bags on the bed, we headed back down to the coach, joining the crowd of other students being head-counted by Mrs. Kidman.

Thirty minutes later we were outside the Natural History Museum, being herded like cattle into our groups for the day.

"Anastasia Adams, Lois Beckett," Miss Bowen began calling names from the class register. Once she'd realised we were all there, she led us up a flight of stairs and into a dinosaur exhibit. The rest of the group seemed to spread out in pairs or threes, while I stayed trailing at the back beside Miss Bowen, already not enjoying myself. The headache I had was bad enough, but having to stare at a pile of bones and somehow relate it to my history lessons seemed like actual torture.