I unwilllingly cracked my eyes open. The light coming from the windows nearly blinded me, I blinked hard a few times, and my vision cleared. My neck ached slightly from the position I was sleeping in. It was dark outside, and for a second, I forgot where I was. Then I remembered, we were in Venice, Italy! I looked around, mostly everyone except for a few of us here and there were still sound asleep.
"What time is it?" I asked Tweak, who was sitting across from me, wide awake playing on her Nintendo Switch.
"It is bout 10 P.M., lil hellhound, got another hour before we get to our hotel."
"I slept for..." I calculated in my head, it was about 2 in the morning when we landed, which made it, "18 hours?!" She laughed quietly, as not to wake anyone else.
"No, silly! We're 8 hours behind Australia. It was 6 P.M. here when we landed, so you've been asleep for about 4 hours, you still tired?" I nodded.
"Sleep a lil more, you'll regret it if you don't." She said, "The jet lag's gonna get you."
"Says the person who's been playing video games for who knows how long!" I teased.
"She's been playing for 2 hours." The driver chimed in from the front.
"Thank you!" I called out to her as Tweak tried to shush me, reminding me that others were still sleeping. I mouthed a silent sorry, but Bella just giggled.
"Professor Inkling told me all about you, you're the famous Jane Doxter, the one who brought down the sky!"
"Not the sky," I joked, "just Tweak's tool cabinet." She laughed.
"What about me?" Pinto hollered from the back of the bus, Shellington, who was in front of him shushed him.
"Oh, he'd never forget you!" Bella said, "You're Pinto, the one who stowed away on the Gup C, and took care of an oarfish!" Pinto beamed. A growl resonated through the bus, scaring us all,
"What was that?!" Pinto asked.
"Oh, that's my tummy," Shellington said, "I'm quite hungry now, hardly ate anything on the plane."
"Well we better find a place to eat then!" Professor Inkling said, "Bella? Anywhere you recommend?"
"Oh, there are too many" She replied, "But most of them are closed by now."
"Then take us to the one that's closest to the hotel." the professor responded. After driving for some time, we arrived at a small but homely looking cafe or bar.
"We're here!" Bella announced, "Welcome to Giorgio's Pub! Everyone who wants to eat, get out!" Mostly everyone else was still asleep, so Bella said to Pinto and me,
"Oh, this won't do, we can't have so many people miss this place! Since you 2 are the prank monsters of the Octopod, I was wondering if you 2 had any ideas?"
"Honk the horn?" I suggested.
"As loud as you can!" Pinto chimed in, practically yelling in joy, waking the Vegimals up in the process. I nodded enthusiastically.
"NO!" Tweak and Professor Inkling hollered at once.
"Should I?" Bella asked, teasing the adults.
"YES!" Pinto and I yelled.
"Alright then little ones, cover your ears!" We did as we were told for once.
The horn blared loud enough to be heard in Rome, and of course, it woke everyone up. And for the one person who could sleep through that, everyone who was just woken up all yelled at once in panic. After Captain Barnacles and Professor Inkling calmed everyone down enough, Professor Inkling called to the back of the bus,
"You all have 2 options. The captain could drive you back to the hotel or you could get off now to eat, which do you choose?"
The captain stepped in here, "If you want to eat, please get off of the bus and wait for Bella, if you want to go to the hotel, you may stay on the bus and by all means, get some more sleep. We'll bring you food in the morning." At that, everyone bustled about, trying to figure out what to do. Dashi came up to me and asked,
"Jane, what do you want to do? Koshi wants to go to the hotel, and I'm kinda tired too." That may be a problem.
"Oh, actually I kinda want to stop and eat here." I replied, fidgeting with the drawstrings on my shorts. My sister grew silent, and worry was clearly etched in her face, but she pasted on a smile.
"Don't worry, we'll figure something out!" She said, gripping my paw in her own.
"Here, I can take her, Dashi." Tweak said, fighting her way back to us, "Don't worry, I won't let her anywhere near those espressos!"
"Alright, thank you so much, Tweak." Dashi said, relieved.
"Don't mention it!" Tweak replied, and ushered me out of the bus, past Peso trying to convince Kwazii that he didn't count as a "responsible adult", and couldn't babysit Pinto. Professor Inkling, Shellington, Grouber, Sharchini, Squirt, Pinto and Kwazii came too. Bella followed us into the pub, and went up to the surly looking hedgehog at the counter.
"Chao, Giorgio!" She said, beaming to him, his grumpy expression brightened up at the sight of Bella.
"Bella, mi amici!" He exclaimed, along with a bunch of Italian I couldn't make out. She responded back in equally incomprehensible Italian, and then turned back to us.
"He says that he's about to close, but we can eat in the back." So we went to the back, he served us lasagna, salad, and bread. I didn't know what I was expecting with the food, but it was the most delicious Italian food I ever had, and it turns out everyone else agreed, all the food on the table was gone within 10 mins. And the atmosphere of the room quickly became sleepier. The professor yawned,
"Well, that was amazing, I can't possibly tip enough for how delicious that was, but we best be going, it's way past the children's bedtime."
"Understood" Giorgio said, "Good night, ma'am!" The professor looked dumbfounded. Pinto and I couldn't control our laughter, Bella looked like she was trying not to laugh, and whispered something to him.
"Sir, apologies, not very good English yet!", the professor just smiled understandingly, dropped a 20 dollar bill on the table, and we left. We waited outside for the captain to drive back to pick us up, but he didn't come for 2 hours. After walking up and down the street looking for him for a while, Tweak found a payphone, Shellington dug out a few coins, and she tried to call the captain. She was on the phone with him for about 15 minutes, and when she came back, she did not look happy.
"Well, we're in a bit of a pickle," She said, "We're stranded in a foreign country, in the middle of the night, with no idea where we're s'posed to be going."
ŞİMDİ OKUDUĞUN
The Odd Sister Out
Hayran Kurgu"The middle child has it worse" Janine Margot Doxter knows that this is a lie. Being the younger sister of Dashi and Koshi, who were known as inseparable, mystery-loving sisters in their hometown. Therefore, she has always been the third wheel to he...
