To the Stars and Back

Chapter 8

Alyssa

"That was crazy." Dawn says. "I could NOT get you to wake up, and I didn't want the ceiling fan or something falling on your face while you slept."

"Come on, I was dreaming! It was about a cat and- oh my god, that cat was me! Sorry. Anyway, I was being chased by a dog. And I was chased up a tree, and then-"

A knock on the door interrupts me.

"Hey, it's me, Hazel. Is Alyssa here?"

I open the door. "Hi, Hazel!"

"You didn't interrupt anything!" Dawn says, and I glare at her.

"Great! Do you want to get breakfast together? I'm kind of lonely here."

"Oh! Sure. Dawn, dear, you wouldn't mind me leaving you alone here, would you?" I smile at her sarcastically.

"You're so annoying." Dawn says. "Go ahead, though. I'm not hungry yet."

"Thanks." I follow Hazel out the door.

"You guys seem close." Hazel says.

"Yeah, she's always been super protective of me." I tell her.

We get breakfast, then go back to her room. The wall is mostly fixed, back in its normal position but still pretty banged up. They must have pretty great technology here. Hazel's suitcase is on the other side of her bed, next to her backpack and her things are neatly stacked on the bed and the nightstand. A few candy bars are lying on the bed next to the tv remote.

"Have you been watching more Marvel?" I ask her, laughing. She has good taste in candy.

"Yep."

"So what do you want to do? We have so much time, yet so little... I hate this space shuttle!" Hazel says.

"I don't know, I brought so many things, but somehow I still don't know what to do."

"Oh! I brought Cardstealer with me, do you want to play that?" Hazel asks.

"I've actually never played that before, but I've heard of it." I tell her.

She jumps off the bed and pulls a small box out of her suitcase. She presses a button, and the box unfolds and opens to two stacks of cards and a little map with rows of spaces.

"So, we each have twenty cards, and you roll the dice to see who goes first. When it's your turn, you take one of their cards and answer the question on it. If you get it right, you take the card and put it at the bottom of your deck. Then you repeat that, and it only ends when one of the players has all the cards. You can also play with more players, but you just have to split the cards evenly."

"Wow. That's kind of complicated. But let's try it!"

We play Cardstealer for three hours while eating our breakfast. The first round, she beats me pretty badly, even though she's probably going easy on me. The second round, I somehow manage to beat her, but it takes about four times longer than the first round, because she keeps getting super close to winning, but then answering something wrong. I win the third round, but then at the fourth round, she must've realized I was actually tough competition, and she goes all hardcore gamer and beats me in half an hour. After that, we were going to play another round, but then Dawn comes in.

"Hey, guys. Alyssa, we need you back in the room."

"Okay. Sorry, Hazel." I say.

"It's fine. See you in a bit." Hazel says. "Bye, Dawn."

I follow Dawn down the hall to our room, where Mom and Dad are waiting.

"Hey, Lyss. We just need to talk about the plan on Awe with you." Mom says.