Halapatov

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

"All packed Abi?" Sophie asked, poking her head in my doorway, and looking down at where I was just fastening the straps on my backpack. I stood up, swinging the heavy bag onto my shoulders.

"All packed." I replied with a grin, moving out into the hallway. "How about you?"

She scoffed, and rubbed the back of her neck. "Of course I'm packed." she tried to lie, uncomfortable under my knowing gaze. "Well, actually, there are a few things I need to add in. I'll just be a minute."

"I thought so." I commented smugly as she headed into my room, where half of her stuff littered the floor. She'd been busy planning the trip itself and had forgotten all about preparing herself physically for it.

Marching into the main room, I took in the scraps of paper strewn across the table where my mum sat, writing evaluations and calculations for the next month of work on a notepad. I plonked myself down beside her, and surveyed the amalgam of maps and notes Sophie had made. Apparently paper wasn't used very much on Earth any more, so she was having a lot of fun writing stuff down on ours. She hadn't understood why, with all our advanced technology, we didn't put everything 'online' or store it in our data devices, but, you see, paladanian reasoning is that technology can malfunction and writing by hand is a good skill to have. Besides, unlike humans, paladanians know not to waste paper, and only make as much as is needed, so as not to harm the environment.

Sophie's notes were mostly rather unnecessary, and we did have digital maps, but I wasn't going to take Sophie's fun away from her. I could tell she'd been writing everything and anything, and on one scrap of paper she'd even drawn a little stick figure with wild eyes and a few strokes of hair. She'd labelled it LMHM, whatever that meant. There was one pile of notes that lay in one corner of the table, that she'd taken down for her report. Interesting; ususally she just typed everything straight into her digi-file. Seeing a few phrases I didn't recognise, I picked up the notes and stifled a laugh as I read through them. Of course she'd written stupid little jokes on them. Ah, the strangeness of Earth humour.

At that moment the jokester herself tripped into the room, backpack on top of her head. I stared at her, eyebrow raised. "Why are you doing that?"

Her face went red. "It's an efficient method!" she earnestly defended herself, pulling the bag down as I laughed. "It means my arms don't get sore."

"Maybe you should just stick to wearing it normally." I advised her.

She beamed in a lopsided manner. "Duly noted." Then she scooped up the map and a few notes off of the table and stuffed them in her pockets. She grabbed a container off the kitchen counter and swept the rest of her papers into it before setting it on what had recently become her designated chair at the table.

"I think we're ready now." she asserted.

I went through a mental list. I'd packed everything I needed clothes, utility and camping-wise, bid farewell to my father in the morning and logged onto our data unit (a combination of devices that worked like a computer and had access to the systemwide communication network) to send a message to Leila, updating her. We'd been keeping vaguely in touch, though it seemed she was usually too busy for an actual conversation, whilst I was generally pulled away from the interface by some idea of Sophie's. We'd only exchanged messages a few times, but even so, I wanted her to know where I was. I needed to still feel connected to my friend, especially after recent developments in the friendship area.

Knowing everything was accounted for, I nodded. "Yes."

Mum rose from the table, placing down her device and walked over to us. "You'll be heading off now then." she noted.