Malen'kaya Zemlya [2] [P. Parker]

3.17 Catching Up

McDonald's was loud at noon.

The five of us had slept in and decided to go out for lunch to catch up, so there I was, with a double cheeseburger in one hand and a frozen Fanta in the other, my eyebrows raised nearly higher than they ever have been as Bran told me what had been happening in the past few months for them.

"I still can't believe that you got trapped in an unused mine shaft." I mused.

"I was trying to help a baby deer!" Bran protested.

I shrugged. "Still got trapped in an unused, locked, mine shaft."

He rolled his eyes. "Took me three hours to get out with a baby deer on my back."

"Why on your back?" I asked.

"How else would I get it out?"

Mark cut in. "Well, that baby deer is now his pet so we've named him Bambi 2.0."

I laughed and shook my head. "Useless. You're all useless, I swear."

"What would you have named him?" Noah asked sceptically. "Hm?"

"Probably Bambi 2.0." I relented. "Or Gerald."

They all pulled faces. "Gerald?"

"Don't frick fracking judge me, losers." I teased, pointing my frozen Fanta at all of them in turn.

Marina snorted from my left.

The three of them scoffed in protest.

"You're the loser, loser." Bran tossed imaginary hair over his shoulder.

I grinned. "Sure. Keep dreaming. So, where have the three of you been these past few months? Other than an abandoned mine shaft-"

"-For the last time, there was a baby deer!-"

"-Sure, Brandon. Hopefully not planning on betraying us. I'm sure you heard what happened to Jess when she tried that."

Noah's eyes narrowed. "Are you threatening us?"

I leaned forward and narrowed my eyes in return. "That depends. Are you planning something?"

"Only the best party in the history of parties for your birthday." he leaned back as if he'd just said the best comeback in the world.

Bran and Mark groaned and pushed his shoulders as Marina laughed.

"You weren't meant to say anything, dude," Mark muttered.

I shrugged. "Too late now. And my birthday was last week."

The four of them turned to look at me in shock.

"No..." Bran murmured. "Your birthday's on October 25."

"No, my birthday's October 15." I laughed.

They were silent until Marina reached across the table and hit all of them. "Idiots. I told you."

I shook my head. "See, Rina's the smart one here. She knows things we can only dream of."

She nodded with a smirk on her face.

Days passed in near uneventfulness.

It was school two days later that something finally happened.

I stood, leaning against my locker, watching a report play on the TV from the Midtown Student News.

Some dude named Jason Ionello said, dramatically and somehow, at the same time, monotonously, "This past weekend, Midtown's Academic Decathlon team defeated the country's best to win the national championship. Later that day, they also defeated death."