The Outcast

Chapter 4: From Canada To Florida

Chapter Four

River Quinn

Three hours, 37 songs and two cans of ginger ale latter we had finally landed at the Jacksonville International Airport in Florida. Oh the joy. The only positive thing about that flight was the hot flight attendant. But I think she started getting annoyed with me after I had asked for a pillow, the ginger ales, extra napkins and a pair of headphones which turned out to be crappy quality. We were currently waiting for our luggage to come around the carrousel and I was feeling slightly claustrophobic with how close the people were jammed together beside me.

I was changing the song on my iPod when it happened.

I was so engrossed with my song that I hadn’t even realized our black and blue suitcases had zoomed by us. My mom snapped me out of my daze when she shouted at me to grab them before they got away and when I hurriedly turned around to catch the luggage, a girl bumped right into me. She had a Styrofoam cup of scorching hot coffee in her hand without a lid. So it spilled all over me. But that’s not the bad part. The worst part was that I was coincidently wearing a white shirt today. So this was my welcome to Florida, great. Just my luck.

“Sh*t” I hissed as the coffee made contact with my body.

“OHMYGOSH! I am so sorry!” the young girl quickly shouted apologetically. But what good was that, the damage was already done. An apology wasn’t going to magically take the huge brown stain out of my shirt. And the funny thing was that I rarely ever wore white shirts.

“It’s fine” I said even though I didn’t mean it. And to top everything off, my mother was still shouting at me to get the luggage. So I ignored the stares I was receiving and chased after the suitcases.

After we had retrieved our bags we walked out to grab a taxi and as soon as we stepped foot outside I instantly regretted it. When the hot Florida sun hit me in the face I instantly yearned to run back inside the airport where the air conditioning was blasting full speed. The temperature must have been in the hundreds or at least that’s what it felt like.  

Mom signaled for a taxi and a couple seconds later a yellow cab was parked in front of us. The driver was a guy from India with a heavy accent who didn’t know a lot of English but after several hand gestures and a long description of the address we were off on the road towards our new home.

Since the drive from Toronto to Florida took about twenty hours mom and I had decided to fly down instead. But the moving truck didn’t have a choice so they would be arriving tomorrow morning.

We decided to stay at a cheap motel that was close by the house since the house was currently empty. 

We checked in and as soon as we were up in the room mom turned up the glorious air conditioning up. And I don’t think I had ever been so thankful for air in my whole life. I was feeling a bit jet lagged and tired from the flight so I concluded that I needed some coffee in my system.

So I decided I would go explore the town and go in search of nearby café but thankfully I remembered I needed a clean shirt before I left. I went to unzip my luggage and I must have been rummaging through it for about five minutes before I realized that were absolutely no clothes in here.

Nothing. Nada. Zero clothes. Not even a pair of socks.

That’s when I remembered that I had packed all the things that were too valuable to risk putting in a moving truck away in the luggage I was taking on the plane with me, like the old Polaroid camera. And I had packed all my clothes in the moving truck because it hadn’t fit in my luggage. Boy was I a genius.   

I considered putting on a jacket but just the thought of going out with it in this extremely hot weather had me sweating.

So I had no choice but to leave with this shirt on. Perfect.