“I said no, Pixie, and that’s final,” Lion admonished from his place at the head of the table.
“I told you so,” Chess gloated from the other side of the table, hurriedly ducking as Pixie threw her un-peeled orange at his head.
“All the other normal kids get to go on field trips,” Pixie muttered under her breath, pouting sullenly next to me.
“Pixie, I’m not kidding. I told you no last night, and if I hear another peep out of you about going on a field trip, I’ll restrict your extra curricular activities for the entire month,” Lion warned, giving Pixie a meaningful look, as he finished off his bacon and eggs.
“Fine,” Pixie huffed, rising from her seat so quickly that the chair went flying backwards and hit the wall. “I’ll be in my shop.” Turning sharply she stormed out of the room.
Lion let out a heavy sigh and dejectedly looked around the table at the rest of us.
“What? Why are you all looking at me like that?” he questioned, as we all gave him the same pitying look.
“Well dude, I’m glad you stood up to her, but I would hate to be you right now. She’s probably plotting your demise as we speak,” Who informed him.
A hard look crossed Lion’s face. “I will not be scared into doing something by a 16 year old girl.” The hard expression disappeared and one of failure replaced it. “Have I really spoiled her so much that she thinks she can get anything she wants?”
The three of us nodded in unison, and Lion hung his head. “Fine, I’ll go talk to her. I need to turn this around before it gets even more out of hand and she needs to learn a lesson.”
“Lion, what are you going to do?” I could practically see the wheels turning in his head, as he devised a way to punish the spoiled brat, and I knew there was no way this could end well.
“You’ll see,” Lion replied, a cruel tone to his voice, as he rose and left the kitchen.
Who and Chess looked at me and I shrugged, I guessed we were just going to have to take his advice to wait and see.
I sighed in annoyance; I was tired of standing around doing nothing. We’d been waiting at the flat over an hour now, for the hover craft that we were using for our field trip to arrive.
Glancing around me, I found that everyone minus Pixie seemed to mirror my thoughts. Who and Chess were once again tossing knives as each other with bored expressions on their faces and Lion was studying the galaxy guide that he knew by heart, for the 15th time. Pixie on the other hand was cheerfully scribbling away at the screen on her tech-pad, keeping up her end of the deal.
Lion had informed us that he would allow us to go on a field trip to visit a few of the different galaxy’s, as long as we promised to keep up on our school work, and Pixie had to catch on everything that she’d fallen behind in, which was sadly quite a lot.
The other hitch in the plan that Lion had devised, was that if we wanted to do the same things as normal kids our age, we would have to act normal. So the use of our powers was forbidden for the duration of our trip, which, if everything went as planned, would last a little over two months. We’d all given Pixie the evil eye for that, but as expected she’d just ignored us.
“Finally!” Chess threw the last knife in the air and caught it deftly by the handle. “I told you I could win if we were on equal ground. Now grovel at my feet, worm,” he demanded, pointing the short knife threateningly at Who. Who ignored him and went to pick up the dropped knives. I was glad to see he seemed a little deflated; it was about time he lost, even if Chess did rub it in a bit much.
“Ok guys, wrap it up, I can hear the hover craft headed this way,” Lion announced, and all of our faces turned skywards as a light hum broke the peaceful silence.
The craft that appeared over the wall was nothing like what I’d expected, it was much smaller than the ones I’d seen flying overhead, and it hardly seemed like it could hold all of us and the necessities we had. Truth be told it wasn’t all that much bigger than the one Pixie currently had in her Fix-it Room.
“You’ve got to be joking,” Who said incredulously, his expression mirroring the one plastered on my own face. “You can’t honestly expect us to spend the better half of two months stuck in that sardine can, right?” he finished, turning towards our smug torturer.
“You’re the ones who wanted to go on a field trip, and this was the only thing available for long term use right now,” Lion explained, folding his arms as the hover craft landed on the makeshift landing square, three times bigger than it needed.
“That’s it, I’m out,” I informed the group gathered before me and grabbing my back pack and duffel bag, I turned back toward the house, intent on leaving the planned torture behind me, alive.
“Oh no you don’t.” A strong arm tightened around my throat, halting my escape and cutting off my airway.
“Pixie, what the. . . let go of me!” I managed to choke out.
“Nope, you’re coming and that’s that. Lion said we all have to go, or we don’t go at all,” Pixie replied, fighting my resistance.
A string of colorful words crossed my mind, but I kept my mouth shut and went limp. Fine, if she wanted to play mean, then I could play too. I’d had enough of her pushing me around and there was no way I was getting in that undersized death trap. It didn’t help that I suffered from a mild case of Claustrophobia, and Lion had probably taken that into account hoping for a similar outcome, and a shift of Pixie’s focused wrath. That dirty little coward, he was gonna get what was coming for him one of these days.
Relaxing, I thought of sand running through my fingers and in the next second Pixie let out a shout, and I hit the ground running as her arms slipped through me. I dropped my bags, and taking a quarter of a second to activate my ability to shimmer, I pelted headlong for the house.
Hearing wings flap, I looked upward and found a huge golden bird zooming past me. It made a hasty landing and, as the dust it raised cleared, a massive yellow tiger faced me, glaring at the empty space to the right of where I stood.
“Girls!”
I glanced back to where Lion stood next to the boys, an exasperated expression on his face.
“Key,” he said, turning in my direction. “Don’t worry. We’re only going to be using the hover craft for transportation, as we’ll be making frequent stops throughout the journey, we won’t really be in it that much. And Pixie, if I ever see you force someone to do something against their will again, I’ll deactivate your powers, understand?” Lion lectured harshly, giving Pixie a hard stare.
Pixie morphed back into herself, arms crossed and glared sullenly back.
I, still overly annoyed, went back to my discarded bags and, shimmering them, headed back in the direction of the hovercraft, under desecration of my powers, while Lion still ranted at Pixie.
“You almost blew it, you know. If I wasn’t so forgiving, Key would have her way right now and we’d all be headed back to the house. Just let me make this clear, if we get started on this expedition you wanted to go on so badly and you pull that little stunt of yours and break the promise to not use your powers, I will turn this hovercraft around faster then you can assemble a light-gun, and that’ll be the end of your exploration of the galaxies.”
Pixie said nothing, but, tromping up to the hovercraft, gave Lion a mutinous look before disappearing inside.
“Ok everyone, load up.” Lion rallied the rest of us, grabbing a couple of the larger totes and followed Pixie. Stopping before he entered, he turned back to my general direction. “Key, powers.” I rolled my eyes, but, knowing I had no choice in the matter, let the shimmer dissolve. This was going to be the worst field trip in the history of field trips and I was stuck smack dab in the middle of this soon to be perpetual nightmare.
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