to paris with love

[coeur_de_lion]

Alli's school is not a terribly interesting school. It is, as far as Alli is concerned, a perfectly boring and average school in all possible respects. But some alumnus went and made themselves a bunch of money, and apparently they think it's a good idea to spend some of this money on "improving the cultural exposure of today's youth". (Alli has never met the alumnus in question, much less heard them speak, but she persists in picturing this spoken with a haughty British accent.) What this means for Alli is that she and a number of other 'deserving students' are being shipped over to France for free for a week. Alli's not quite sure why she counts as deserving- because her mom's single, maybe?- but she's hardly complaining. It's a free trip to France, after all.

In her usual style, Alli packs an hour before she has to leave and ultimately makes it out the door only ten minutes late after forgetting at least three vitally important items (her eyeliner!). But she makes it through Pearson security with plenty of time... well, more like barely enough time. But the important thing is, she's safely ensconced in her seat when they take off.

Once she's gotten her bag stowed and her legs rearranged in a doomed attempt at comfort and generally considers herself suitably settled, she turns to her seatmate. "Is your brain doing an Eeeeee France! thing too?"

Comments

[hatchedplan]

"Ew."

[coeur_de_lion]

"Yup. This is why Fight Club exists. To be rewatched a lot."

[hatchedplan]

"I don't think I've actually seen that one. I've read the book."

[coeur_de_lion]

"I am beginning to think you read a lot."

[hatchedplan]

"What, who, me, no, Fight Club is the only book I have ever read, I otherwise absorb media via cosmic ray."

[coeur_de_lion]

"And now you're in a plane eleven kilometers high. Are there extra rays now? You're closer to space and everything! Double the cosmic rays!"

[hatchedplan]

"Yes. I am getting a wave of miscellaneous eighties pop bounced back off the asteroid belt."

[coeur_de_lion]

"Ugh, you poor thing. Eighties pop. I'll take my non-cosmic music."

[hatchedplan]

"The quality variance is a major problem when you have my media consumption habits."

[coeur_de_lion]

"Please tell me there are cosmic ear plugs."

[hatchedplan]

"Nnnnope."

[coeur_de_lion]

"You are doomed to terrible pop for all time. A moment of silence for your sanity."

[hatchedplan]

"I'm holding up pretty well, I think."

[coeur_de_lion]

"For noooooow. Dun dun dun."

[hatchedplan]

"Any minute now the cosmic rays will marathon Teletubbies. I'll be doomed."

[coeur_de_lion]

Alli regards the pile of cards in her hand. Pile is a strong word; there aren't very many of them. "Hey, at least then I'd have a shot at winning."

[hatchedplan]

"I feel like I might be able to kick your ass at Egyptian Ratscrew regardless."

[coeur_de_lion]

"Our one game says you're probably right. Meh. Not like it's a game of skill, I'll live."

[hatchedplan]

"We can play something else if you rather."

[coeur_de_lion]

"Oh, I don't care. I'll switch if you like. Luck games are just nice cause then I have something to blame if I lose."

Or really, when she loses. Alli is not very good at cards. Luckily she does not consider that the point.

[hatchedplan]

"I'm good for a few more rounds of this and then I'll require variety."

[coeur_de_lion]

A few more rounds occur. Alli wins! ...once.

"What next?" she asks when it looks like they're running out of steam. "Different game, attempt to sleep, blatantly gossip? We could swap life stories, I suppose, I don't actually know much about you other than 'that May girl is way better at homework than I am'."

[hatchedplan]

"We can swap life stories. Do you want to know more about that May girl first or would you rather go?"

[coeur_de_lion]

"Merde, I don't care. I will say you just so we don't do the but no really I don't care dance for the next six hours."

[hatchedplan]

"So, fun fact, May is actually short for Mabel and I spell it like the month, it's not as Asian as it sounds. Though I know how to write 'Mei Mariko insert-Japanese-translation-of-swan-here' in kanji of my choice. I don't speak Japanese, let alone really read it, but I've picked up bits because every now and then my mother manages to be nearly as embarrassing about investigating her own cultural heritage as a white person who watches a lot of anime and eats sushi and I collect information by osmosis. Dad is more consistently assimilated and a few generations more native and is why I have the English last name. They got divorced when I was really little, too little to remember, and Mom moved with me to Toronto from an eensy little town in B.C., but I visit Dad summers, they get along okay and everything. I got my first chair when I was, I want to say six, but I could be off by a year either direction. It was an autumn, nobody wanted me to try to toddle around on the ice another winter. And I have had a fairly conventional schooling history except that my mother teaches kindergarten so I kept calling my first grade teacher Mom out of habit even though he was a man. There is not a lot of exciting narrative structure to my life to plump up this story, I do a lot of reading mostly."