rumours | robin buckley

12. mild panic

MILD PANIC
thursday, march 6th

There was an awful noise barging into Beth's dream.

It was a great dream, she had had it loads of times before. She and Robin were running trough a field full of pink and yellow flowers, holding hands. It was always just like that. They were running endlessly, nothing else.

Beth felt herself getting pulled into the real world.

"C'mon Beth, wake up, we really have to go."

"God damn. Since when has she been such a heavy sleeper?"

Beth opened her eyes and registered Cassie and Robin standing above her. What-

"The fire alarm went off. Gather some of your things, we have to-"

"What?" Now Beth was really awake, and she realised the awful sound was in fact the fire alarm.

She got up and started pulling her shoes on.

"Robin, you're making me nervous right now." Kate grunted. She was trying to get her other shoe on desperately.

"I'm sure it's gonna be fine. Probably a false alarm." Cassie said, gesturing calmly with her hands. Kate grunted again and seemed to have real issues with her shoe.

Beth stood up and looked around. She grabbed her jacket from the stool it was lying on and started to make her way to the door.

"How are you so calm?" Robin hissed. She was clearly freaking out internally, Kate's comment had made her keep it to herself.

Beth mumbled something. She was too sleepy for this. Robin let out a stressful sound and Beth grabbed her arm.

"Rob, we're not gonna die or anything." She gently pushed Robin towards the door.

Kate won the fight with her shoe and the girls emerged to the hallway, meeting all their classmates. They were all in their pyjamas, some freaking out, some just looking sleepy.

An announcement cut off the alarm sound:
"Attention, attention. The fire alarm is going off. We kindly ask everyone to evacuate to the courtyard of the hotel. Please do not use the elevators. All exits are marked with a green-"

Wordless, scared shouting filled the hallway and Ms. Grace -appearing from nowhere- lifted her hands and tried to get everyone silent. The alarm was loud and Beth was getting worried now.

Everyone started to move towards the stairs, and Beth lost Robin and her roommates as she was pushed around by 20 other girls. Ms. Grace held the door open for everyone and Beth stopped to wait for her friends.

"Where's Stacy?" Kate asked as soon as she spotted Beth.

"What?" Beth said, her face dropping.

"I haven't seen her-"

"Girls, please move." Ms. Grace gestured for them to go downstairs. Robin looked absolutely terrified by now.

—

The girls hopped outside, cold spring-night air hitting Beth's face.

A group of businessmen and a random old lady came out after them, and Kate was peering into the hallway the just came out of.

"Where is she?"

Stacy was lost. Beth didn't even want to think about the worst thing that could've happened to her.

Ms. Grace was still guiding them forwards, they were the last ones. "Let's see if she's here." The teacher patted Cassie's shoulder and went to wander around.

The girls grouped. Robin was breathing heavily.
"Where could she have gone? Like, Stacy is great, but she doesn't have that much common sense -what if she used the elevators? What if she got lost? What if she took another exit and ended up somewhere else by now-"

"Robin" Kate whined. She was holding her head in her hands.

"She's all right. Let's not panic and let our imaginations run that wild." Beth said, but her voice was trembling. She put her hand on Robin's shoulder. "Everythings just fine."

Suddenly a familiar voice shouted behind them: "Oh my god, there you are!" All four girls turned around and greeted a very-much-okay-and-alive Stacy.

"Jesus! Where were you?" Kate shouted. Stacy's eyes widened.

"I went to find Chris as soon as I heard the alarm. I got out with the boys and Mr. Kennedy."

"What the hell?" Robin cried out.

"Idiot. The things you do for the sake of love." Kate said, giving everyone her biggest smile.

"How on earth did you get to their rooms so fast?" Beth asked.

Stacy shrugged: "I borderline sprinted out of our room. When I got there, half of them were already in the staircase."

Kate wawed her hands around. "The main point is that you're okay."

"I'm okay." Stacy laughed.

They all laughed and tried to calm down, holding onto eachother's arms and shoulders as if some of them could just disappear into air. God, panic spreads quickly.

—

It was a false alarm. After the fire department arrived and hurried to investigate the hotel, turned out that something had just triggered the alarm in the hotel's kitchen. All the highschoolers and other visitors marched back to their rooms, still shaken from all the fuss.

But in the end everyone fell asleep, and even Beth went back to her dreams.

In the morning, they sat in the hotel's restaurant eating breakfast with tired eyes. Everyone was tired.

The day was honestly too exciting for whining and complaining about the night -so, when they all packed into the bus and drove to the streets of Manhattan, everyone was staring out of the window in awe. As soon as the new city guide/driver stopped, everyone rushed to the streets. Ms. Grace was struggling keeping everyone safe from fast cars and stuff. New York probably wasn't the best place for a bunch of teens, and the teacher shook her head.

Beth stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the sky.

"I swear I saw the Empire State Building!" Milton said, excitement in his voice.

"I wanna go to that store." Kate announced, pointing across the street. "Look at that-"

Beth spinned around, astoninshed by the buildings around her. "They're reaching the sky." She murmured, and then heard Robin's laugh.

"Don't be fooled by architecture." The girl said and Beth looked at her. Robin was already staring at her with a smile on her lips.

"Alright, everyone!" Mr. Kennedy raised his voice. "We're walking trough the city, and then we're taking a ferry to the famous statue of liberty!"

Everyone started chatting, anticipation flowing trough the crowd. The city guide they booked started leading the group while talking about their surroundings, and Beth smirked at Robin.

"Were in New York." She whispered as she got closer to the girl.

"Wouldn't wanna share it with anyone else."