The Troubled Ones | ✔

Chapter 7. Elevator Struggles

[a/n]: urgh. sorry for the long wait in an update. school's been keepin me busy and what not.

Chapter 7. Elevator Struggles

                As our English class loads onto the large, yellow school bus, Mrs. Welsh - our English teacher - begins to pair off our "class buddies" for the day. Today our class is taking a trip downtown to go to the Florida Museum of Natural History. And it is thirty-three minutes away from Caesar High, therefore I better get a good partner.

"Aaron Hector and Lisa Hallaway; Drew Tate and Caleb Hart; Aspen Pollard and Dawson Keller," she begins to name people off of her clipboard.

Dawson winks at Nathan and whistles lowly at Aspen and she rolls her eyes as the both of them climb onto the bus. Because of the buddy system, Mrs. Welsh is being very strict on every pair of buddies must sit together on the bus and the pairs will be with each other for most of the day.

"Jasper Ross and Noelle Bishop,"

I peer over at Noelle; the same girl who was a prissy little brat to me when I came to sit down at her table for lunch. My gaze moves over to Jasper who is a few feet away from Noelle and he sighs as Noelle jumps up and waves at him with a perky smile.

"Jason Gardner and Aria Davidson," Mrs. Welsh announces and continues on with the list.

I search around our crowd of students to find Jason; the nice boy who let me sit down at lunch who is also dating Noelle, I am assuming. My eyes land on Noelle who angrily glowers down on Jason as he walks over to me and then she furiously flips her hair when she sees me watching her.

"Hey, buddy." Jason grins boyishly.

We both climb onto the bus and sit near the back while Noelle pushes a pair of people out of the way so she sits right beside Jason and I. Jasper hesitantly sits beside her and leans back into the uncomfortable leather of the bus seats.

 "Jason," Noelle comments sharply.

"Noelle, don't make a big scene for nothing." I hear Jason whisper, sounding irritated.

"Why are you with her?" she snaps.

"Because I was paired up with her; didn't you listen?" he sighs and sends me an apologetic smile.

"Then get out of it and tell Mrs. Welsh that you'd rather be with me." she narrows her eyes at him and I practically scoff aloud at how impossible she is being.

"What is your problem?" Jason retaliates as I stay quiet and sneak a glance over to Jasper who is keeping silent as well.

"Everyone settle down, find your seats!" Mrs. Welsh quickly hushes the class down as students pile into their seats.

After giving a ten minute lecture about the rules that she expects us to follow while we are on this field trip, we finally lurch forward and dash down the streets and towards the museum which is about a half hour away. Once we arrive, all of us students shuffle out of the large, yellow vehicle and enter the museum with Mrs. Welsh in front of us and our "buddies" beside us.

We all enter the museum and many statues and painting surround us as well as various types of things in glass cases. A large sea of people crowd the museum; old people, children, and young adults. Many students from our English class all split up and move around with their buddies and I glance towards Jason who stands beside me.

"Where to, first?" I ask.

"How about.. the paintings." he suggests and I nod along in agreement.