Adopted by my teacher

Chapter 30 Summer Days

SOPHIE

"How about this place, it looks nice!"

"Do you really want to take the kids there?"

"How about here? They've got some great-"

"Mooom, I don't want to go to a place with snow! We get enough of that here."

"Well, what about a day trip to the-"

"Now, remember what happened to you the last time we went there..."

"Why can't this family pick a vacation spot!" Austin threw up his hands in frustration, sending the travel brochures flying across the table.

Mom sighed.

I sat quietly alongside my aunt, who was holding James.

Phil sat with his head in his hands.

"Why don't we go to Talveila?" Casey suggested. "Mom tells me they have wonderful cuisine there."

Mom looked up, her crystal blue eyes full of exasperation. "Because," she started, "if we go to Talveila, I'm going to have to deal with you-know-who, who'll probably want us to go visit him and rip us off with food-"

"Abraham's quite a businessman now, he's probably changed."

Mom was about to make some witty retort back to her sister, when I perked up.

"Mom, who's Abraham?"

Before Mom could respond, Casey plowed on. "He's an old childhood friend of ours when we were kids; he moved to Talveila years back and apparently now owns some high-class restaurant."

Mom couldn't help but smile at my lack of enthusiasm. "He's just a guy," mom reassured me, then added, "I don't think Mr. Collen, owner of such a huge estate, would take the time to rekindle old friendships."

"Maybe," Austin said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "But an old relationship..."

Mom frowned, somewhat painfully.

"We should visit Mom and Dad while we're there."

James looked eagerly from one individual to the other. "We're going tho Tawveiwa? And we're going to see grandma and grandpa? YAYY!"

Before anyone could stop him, James had jumped down from Casey's lap over to Phil and was off and running down the hall, whooping, "We're going to Tawveiwa! We're going to Tawveiwa!" the whole way.

"I guess we have to go to Talveila now," Mom said. She did her best to look and sound annoyed as she said that, but I could tell that she was really looking forward to seeing grandma and grandpa again, I was too. Though the thought of potentially meeting one of mom's old guy-friends just didn't sit right with me.

However, I smiled. This summer vacation was going to be perfect.

"Wowww."

Ever since we had gotten on the train, my face had been glued to the window. I marvelled at how fast the train was going. In fact, I never rode on one before until now.

"Sweetie," Mom said, "come away from that window. At the speed we're going, you'll get dizzy if you stare out of it for too long."

I sat back from the window, my short hair slightly dull in the artificial lighting of the train car. "It was getting boring anyway. Nothing but trees to look at."

My family and I were on the Talveila railway, it took a circular path, passing through the city itself. The station there is where we would get off, and also where we would board to begin our trip home.