The Happening of Things

Chapter 1 - Down to Earth with a Full Vomit Bag

           

'Hey, Dickface!' yelled someone from somewhere.

Falfagen Romplog sighed. 'Same insult every day,' he said to his best friend and semi-bodyguard Jephrey Laurodose as they walked into the school grounds. 'Very creative.'

                'Hey, bat poo-speckled, frog-juice oozing, star-spangled lichen magnet!' yelled Jephrey back in Falfagen's defence. He looked to Falfagen for approval.

                'Frog-juice oozing?' queried Falfagen judgingly, 'I would have called him axolotl-gilled. Just look at his neck, seriously.'

                'Yeah, well you never call them anything, that's why I have to.' Jephrey playfully elbowed his best friend. 'I'm getting better at least, come on.'

                'I have taught you well.' Falfagen smiled up at Jephrey, who was goofily smiling back. 'Let's just get to class,' he said and looked down again, his usual angle.

At that moment a robotic voice came over the loudspeaker*, reminding any and all students who are going on today's Earth excursion to report to the ship bay.

                'Alternatively,' Jephrey said menacingly, with the tell-tale face he makes when he is about to get into a little spot of trouble, 'we could pop over to the-'

                'NO, no we could not. That excursion is for the seniors, we'll get there next year.'

                'Aw, come on, you know we could just sneak on after they finished with the roll, you know how lax they are with these things.'

                'You've already talked me into this once before. Never again.'

                'Yeah, but we didn't get caught did we? To this day no one knows we went on the solar orbital trip, and that was for the senior seniors, not just the seniors.'

                'I wish we got caught, then I'd have an excuse to blame you for it.'

               'But you blame me anyway, don't you?'

                Falfagen looked up at Jephrey again, 'Of course I do you damn hark-calling, thrill-starved, bird of prey,' Falfagen looked back down at the ground, 'It was pretty cool, though,' he said quietly.

                'AHA, you admit it? I'm chipping away at you slowly.'

                'I'm STILL not going on the Earth excursion.'

                'Oops, the ship bay. Would you look at that, I must have gotten distracted.

Falfagen looked at where they were. He hadn't been paying attention to where they were walking, just kind of following Jephrey around because they had the same classes. He looked up at Jeph who was wearing his enormous troublesome grin, then back at the waiting ship.

                'Holy Jimbalooshi Kerman's Saturday morning yoghurt I hate you so much.'

                'I know' chirped Jeph, still with the grin plastered to his face.

Falf and Jeph walked towards the waiting ship, Falf with a scowl on his face grudgingly stomping along and Jeph positively prancing.

                They joined the group totally unnoticed by the teacher bots, and the seniors going on the trip didn't give them a second glance. There were at least 3 other juniors also tagging along with this trip, it was a regular occurrence. The teacher bots never bother to do a headcount, only call the roll, making it scarily easy to sneak onto the ship, leave the group part way through, and sneak back on to the ship when they leave. The bots don't want to inconvenience anyone or waste anyone's time. The roll was called and the group was ushered on to the ship, the seniors making a mob around the handful of juniors just in case a teacher bot happened to be looking their way and recognised them, not that it would make a difference, the bots are always far too polite to call anyone out.