Chapter Text
“Okay, kids, you got everything? Phones, extra clothes, umbrellas?”, a blue haired woman in her late thirties asked, turning to her kids amidst a mostly empty parking lot, bathed in the shadows of early dawn.
“All here!”, Sam chirped happily in response, going over her things one more time to make sure everything was in order. “Mhm…”, Mo nodded with his eyes closed, without even bothering to look.
“And your good attitudes?”, their mother persisted, eyeing her oldest. “Too early for that…”, he responded sleepily, now leaning onto his sister for support who grunted in effort as she tried to hold him up. They have always had a big size difference, but his recent growth spurt left him even more taller than her, and damn heavy too!
Selina smiled at her kids, the three of them standing outside of her yellow car, about to say their goodbyes for the road. She leaned in to embrace them, an arm around each one. “Just remember to have fun out there. And know that I miss you.”, she said, then gave both a kiss on the forehead. Sam took it with a smile, meanwhile Mo flinched, waking up from his slumber. “Ugh, mom! I'm thirteen!”, he reminded of his recently acquired official teenager status as he squirmed away from her hold, but the woman only shook her head and adjusted his trademark red cap in a motherly way. “You're still my little boy.”
With that, the small family said their goodbyes, and the two siblings began to make their way across the parking lot towards the gathering group of middle-schoolers, the dawn starting to paint the scene in lighter blue hues as the sun prepared to show itself above the horizon.
The two of them quickly merged into the group, passing the familiar faces of their classmates and less familiar ones of the kids from the secondary class going on this school trip with them. There was Amber, pirouetting on her tiptoes around the adults accompanying them on this trip. “Oh, Mr. Brick! I just got a MARVELOUS idea of how we can maximize the educational potential of this trip! We turn it into a MUSICAL!”, she threw her arms wide as she yelled the last word out, eyes shining when she envisioned it. Mr. Brick, the principle and head teacher of the 6A class, sighed as he tried to avoid a headache, jotting down something in his notebook amongst a tightly planned schedule, student list, maps, addresses, phone numbers, and everything else necessary and unnecessary for a trip like this. “That's great, Amber, but it's a little too late to change our plans now.”
“Oh, come on, Horace! Loosen up, I'm sure we can fit a song or two in that schedule of yours!”, Mrs. Haile, the head-teacher of class 6B that was also going on this trip, cheerfully exclaimed, making the ginger girl in front of them squeal in happiness. They both then bounced as they chanted “MU-SI-CAL! MU-SI-CAL!”, and Mr. Brick pinched the bridge of his nose. Yep, the headache was coming on already, and the bus hadn't even arrived yet.
Moving further, there was a group of said class 6B kids. The two classes didn't interact too much, therefore they didn't know each other well. But they seemed nice enough, as one blonde girl waved at the two passing siblings with a smile. Though, she seemed to be looking mostly at Mo as she did so. Mo waved back out of niceness, but didn't pay much attention to it. As they left, she giggled, making her purple-haired friend next to her sigh. “Kate, seriously? We haven't even left on the trip yet.”, she said in slight annoyance at something that seemed to happen often, and Kate just shrugged innocently, “What? Am I not allowed to wave at a cute boy?”
At the edge of the circle of teenagers, away from everyone, stood one person that was indubitably not nice like the rest. Instead of friends, he was surrounded by way too many bags and suitcases, covered in shiny gems and fancy patterns. “Hey, dorks!”, John Cedric called out with a malicious smirk and a wave of his golden fly swatter, always looking for an opportunity to make their day just a little bit worse. “I thought this bus was going to Paris, not to Loser-ville!”
He snickered with that annoying laughter of his, while Mo and Sam simply rolled their eyes. If there was one thing that they weren't looking forward to in this two-day trip, it's spending it with J.C. They did feel just a little bit bad for his trusty ‘sidekick’ though, Tom, more of a servant to the spoiled brat than anything, currently grunting and huffing as he fulfilled his order of holding up one of the expensive (and overly heavy) bags so it wouldn't get dirty on the ground. Not that there was a need, but J.C. was worryingly sadistic like that.
On the other side, away from all of that, stood another small group of the class B students, containing three boys dressed in dark leather. “Can't believe we're skipping so much band practice for this… It's supposed to be summer! OUR time!”, one of them with spikey light brown hair complained, arms crossed at being forced to go on this trip. “Don't be like that. Think of it as an opportunity to find inspiration.”, the second one said calmly and collected, authority radiating from him, seemingly the leader of this small group. “Come on, Jerry, what inspiration can be found in Paris? Don't tell me you gonna start writing songs about feelings or somethin’.”, the last one asked with a heavy slavic accent, raising his eyebrow in question. “I'll be dead before I do.”, Jerry replied resolutely, and all three shuddered at the thought of a feelings song. Perhaps, with all their punky looks, they were trying a little too hard to appear edgy and unbothered.
Speaking of punky-looking teenagers, Mo had finally spotted the one he was hoping to see. “Lenny!”, he called out happily, running up to his buddy who immediately beamed from seeing his best friend arrive. Once in vicinity, the two boys did a fist bump, which turned into a special handshake, ending in a quick side hug.
“So good to see you, man!”, Lenny said cheerfully once they separated, giddy at his every move. “Isn't it exciting? Whole two days in Paris! Two days with no parents!”, he enthused, and Mo nodded eagerly in agreement. “Sharing a room together!”, the blue-haired boy added with a smile, wrapping an arm around his friend’s shoulders. “Breakfast in the hotel!”, “Walking the streets of Paris!”, “Pulling pranks on the other rooms!”, “Oh, you betcha!”, the two of them kept throwing excited statements, while Sam rolled her eyes at their simple statements. “Of course you're excited about everything BUT the thing we're going there for in the first place.”, she tutted, and when the boys gave her a lost look, wondering what else they could have forgotten, she exclaimed, “The learning!”
Mo and Lenny exchanged unamused glances, but that didn’t stop Sam from going on a rant of her own, “Don't you realize the historic significance of Montmartre? The architectural beauty of Sacré-Cœur? The sheer amount of masterpieces to be explored in the Louvre? Da Vinhi, Eugène Delacroix, Michelangelo! Oh, there's just so much to see, I could float from excitement!!”. With that, Sam jumped up with a giddy bounce to illustrate it… But just like her words predicted, she didn't feel her feet touch the ground.
Panicked that his sister was floating away like a helium balloon, Mo quickly caught her by the shoulders, bringing her back down to Earth. “O-kayyy, I know we recently got a few exciting powers each, Miss Flight, but I thought you told me we couldn’t flaunt them in public!”, he jokingly complained about the injustice, looking around to see if anyone had noticed. Thankfully, the rest of the students were too sleepy or too busy chatting to look their way. Sam eyed him with a pout, the bright blue magic in her eyes brought by the previous eagerness disappearing, turning to her usual darker blue hue, “I wasn’t flaunting it! You know we can’t control these yet!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m very in control of mine!”, Mo boasted proudly and Lenny nodded along, making the girl roll her eyes again and mumble under her breath, “We’ll see about that when someone gets here…”
Speaking of that someone, as if on cue, a familiar food truck with a giant pizza logo on top of it drove into the parking lot, but not with the intention of selling some Italian food to hungry customers this time around. Instantly cheered up, Sam exclaimed an excited “Stella!”, running off to greet her best friend. Mo stopped in his tracks, his heart skipping a beat at the mere mention of that name. Lenny quieted down too, sensing the immediate mood shift that always followed whenever that girl was in the vicinity.
Mo watched with a caught up breath as the raven-haired angel stepped out of the truck after giving her father a goodbye hug. No one else paid much attention to her arrival. Not as much as he did. To him, she lit up the parking lot brighter than the sun that was now coming beyond the horizon line. Warmed the cool morning air with her mere presence. Made his heart beat faster without an ounce of effort.
“There's… another thing I've been looking forward to on this trip…”, Mo confessed quietly as he kept staring, eyes half-closed in utter love. Lenny smiled knowingly, patting his friend on the shoulder. “I see. Finally gonna make it official?”
“I-I mean, I'll try…”, the boy chuckled, blush creeping onto his face now. Then, doubt. “If only… she'll say yes this time.”
“Oh come on! You two have been on how many dates since then?”, Lenny asked, taking a second to perform difficult calculations in his head, only to give up immediately. Mo bit his tongue to not blurt out a ‘three movies, nine outings, and one school project, but who's counting’. Instead, he sighed. “I guess… but you know how my last try went…”
Lenny toned his enthusiasm down for a moment at that reminder. Yes, that attempt over half a year ago was quite a disaster in so many ways, and neither wanted to reminisce on it much. Instead, Lenny decided to remind his friend of one very important fact, doing so a little too loudly as he bumped his fist into the taller guy's shoulder. “You're forgetting, it's a city of LOVEEE! No better place to finally SMOO-!”
Mo appreciated the support, he really did, but he couldn't allow his friend to yell to the whole parking lot about him kissing his crush while the girls were quickly approaching, making his heart hammer even faster with every step they took. He shushed his friend over-dramatically, then straightened up, wanting to strike a cool pose for when they reached them… Only to stumble and almost fall onto Lenny, who now held him up awkwardly. With no time to change the position, he just went with it.
“H-hi, SteLLA…”, he attempted to sound normal and chill, but his voice cracked at the worst time, making him blush and sweat even more. Why, puberty, why now?
Sam cringed at her brother's attempt to rizz her best friend, then eyed Stella for her reaction. Though, she already knew what to expect. So all she could do was sigh knowingly when she saw the girl's face turn soft at the sight of him, eyes squinting in that way that indicated she was suppressing a big smile, and even so the corners of her mouth curled up a little more than Stella would like to admit.
“Hey, Mo.”, she said with that little bit of sweetness in her voice reserved only for him. Then, she turned to Lenny, and now one could really see the difference in her face as it returned to her regular calm expression. Well, one could see it as long as your name wasn't Mo ‘Oblivious’ Goldfinger.
“Hey, Lenny.”, she said casually, and Lenny greeted back as he tried to bring his friend up on his own feet. Then, he elbowed him, a silent nudge to ‘say something!’, making the boy flinch and stutter, scrambling for a conversation topic.
“Oh, um… E-exciting trip, isn't it?”, Mo smiled sheepishly, a few drops of sweat on his forehead as he awkwardly fidgeted with his hands. But his lovestruck brain immediately made him regret that. Was that a good opening line? Should he have said something else? Complimented her appearance maybe? She did look dashing in her white-top yellow-bottom summer dress, pretty sun hat with a bow, and a purple light jacket. Oh, why were the nerves making it so hard to have a simple conversation with her all of a sudden? Not that he was ever good at it, but now it seemed harder than ever!
But Stella smiled again, and Mo let out the breath he had been holding in. “Actually, it really is!”, she stated, one hand on her hip, the other on the strap of her backpack. Mo wondered how she always looked so effortlessly cool. “I've never been to Paris before in my life.”
The guy perked up at that. An opportunity! “Oh, you haven't?”, he asked, a spark of an idea shining in his eyes. “Well, I have! A bunch of times! My dad takes me there ever so often to visit my uncle and cousin.”, he rambled for a bit, then realized it must have sounded like he was bragging, so he quickly changed the direction to his point with a sheepish but hopeful smile. “M-maybe I could, uh… Show you around?”
Stella had to avert her gaze, for if she hadn't, the barely visible blush on her cheeks would've turned into one the color of his red cap. She wanted to scream ‘YES, IT’S A DATE!’ but instead answered quietly with a nonchalant “Sure.”
And it still set his heart ablaze as he grinned ear to ear. Maybe… it could happen after all.
“Well, that's lovely and all, but I'm not sure how you're gonna pull that off.”, Sam suddenly interrupted. “I doubt Mr. Brick would let any of us too far out of his sight on this trip. Just look at him!”
The quadruple of friends turned towards their teacher, who in the span of ten seconds managed to hastily reread and correct some plans on his notebook, recount all the students currently in the parking lot, impatiently look at the time while grumbling a ‘don't you dare be late, Reggie, not today’ under his nose, and frantically yell out for some kids who were running around excitedly to stay in line. To say he looked stressed about this would be a massive understatement.
“True… But that's why we're bringing this bad boy on the trip!”, Mo excitedly exclaimed his counter to the problem, as he swung his backpack to the front and opened it, showcasing its contents like the most precious of treasures for the group’s eyes only. The spectral sceptre shone dimly inside of it, barely sticking out from the pile of hastily tossed clothes, a few sparks of magic fizzling off of it and disappearing into the morning air.
“Uhh, no it's not, and you know it!”, Sam shot him down, closing his backpack before anyone else could see. Mo rolled his eyes as he put it away on his back. “Yeah, yeah, we're bringing it to use ‘for GOOD’, I know.”, he crossed his arms, voice mimicking hers for a moment. “But if no one needs it, which let's be real, is highly likely, I'm using it!”
Before Sam could protest against her brother's words, their argument had to come to a stop, as suddenly, a loud yell from one of the students erupted across the parking lot, bearing only one word: “BUS!!!”
And then, silence fell upon the lot, one not to be expected from a group of around thirty excited teenagers. Every conversation ended half-lived, every action stopped, movement halted, even breathing ceased for a moment, as the kids stared at the upcoming bus in pure concentration. Everyone had one thought, one goal, one determination: get the best seats on that damn bus.
When the large vehicle parked heavily in front of the group, Mr. Brick made his way to stand before the closed doors of the entrance. “All right, children, let's form an orderly line in alphabetical order, and then-”, he started with a determined expression, but the moment the doors behind him opened, all hell broke loose. An impatient pile of sixth graders rushed forward, getting stuck at the entrance, squeezing each other and their teacher as they all fought for the right to claim the best seats of the bus. As far back as possible, where all the fun happened.
Mr. Brick, after much struggling, managed to break free from the crushing force. He stumbled out towards the sympathetically looking Mrs. Haile and Amber (who didn't find the need to rush, as her favorite seats next to the teachers were always free). “Animals…”, Brick mumbled, fixing the toupée on his head.
The fight, consisting mostly of pushing through, elbowing and squeezing as far as one can, was relentless. And by the time our friend group had made it onto the bus (quicker than they would've, thanks to Stella's badass moves), most seats out back for sure would have been taken. Mo looked around as he stepped on the oddly patterned carpeted floor of the bus, noticing that they were one person short now. “Where is Sam??”, he asked with worry, afraid his sister got crushed in the pile of kids. The remaining two shrugged in response, not easing his mind. But a head of familiar blue hair had already popped at the back of the bus, waving a hand to get their attention. “Over here!”, Sam called for them, and once they reached her, she proudly presented the three empty seats nearby and behind her. When she saw her friends’ confused expressions, the youngest member attempted her best sassy look as she explained: “I guess being small has its perks! No one saw me sneak in from below!”
The remaining group chuckled at that. “Nice work, tiny!”, Mo ruffled her hair, making his sister try to push away with a laugh. “Hey! I got you good seats, show some respect!”, she cried out jokingly, and Mo gasped, then bowed down exaggeratingly in the middle of the aisle. “Oh, I'm so sorry, your tininess! How could I be so SMALLminded!”
Lenny laughed at the joke, Sam stuck her tongue out at the teasing, and Stella… Stella suppressed a giggle, instead sighing with a small smile, a bit of longing in her eyes. A few years ago she would be rolling her eyes at his puns. Now she couldn't help but find them oddly adorable, somewhat funny even. Oh, what was this boy doing to her?
“Come on, get to your seats already.”, Stella hurried the two of them, and Mo immediately straightened up, nodding excessively as he nudged his friend to take his seat first so he himself could sit behind Stella. When the raven-haired girl sat down, grimacing as she fought the blush on her cheeks, Sam next to her raised an eyebrow. But didn't need to say anything, Stella knew what she was thinking. The girl was struggling, hard, just like she did during their school play. This trip was not going to be easy for her yearning heart.
Once everyone took their seats, the teachers finally made their way onto the now safer bus and did one last headcount of the present students. Without another moment to waste, the bus roared, setting off on its journey across France, from their small town out west all the way to the heart, to Paris. The four friends stared out the big mucky window as they watched their hometown pass by, slowly turning into suburbs and eventually, forests and fields of the open road.
And so, the trip that would change their lives forever had begun.
