“Xaveivia, Xaveivia. How on Earth did we get Xaveivia?” Angie said pacing around their room.
“Um, Angie, we’re not on Earth, remember?” Jim said sitting on his bed. But he was nervous too. Xaveivia was a planet that no students had ever returned from. The weird thing was that their bodies were never found. They just seemed to have disappeared. The theory on campus was that pirates captured them all but no one was really sure.
“I guess you’re right Jim. But still, what’s going to happen to us? How are we going to get through this?” she sat down next to Jim.
“I don’t know but we’ll make it. We just have to stick together”, Jim said while putting his arm around Angie’s shoulders. She smiled at him.
“We better start packing”, she said softly. “We’ll be leaving in 3 days.”
“Good idea”, Jim said standing up. They quietly started to pack they bags. Soon the silence was really starting to get to them, so Jim slowly asked, “Um, Angie, how about some music while we pack? You know, to pass the time?”
“Sure. I do have this one tape I got from my dad’s collection”, she said. Angie got the tape out of one of her drawers and put it in her tape player. She turned it on and the music started. Unfortunately, the song just made them cringe even more about their situation.
The legend lives on
from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they
called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said,
never gives up her dead
When the skies of
November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron
ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund
Fitzgerald weighed empty,
That good ship and
true was a bone to be chewed
Angie stopped folding one of her T-shirts and turned off the tape. “I don’t think this is a good time to listen to “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, what about you?”
Jim still looked a little uneasy but said, “Yeah, how about one of those CDs instead?”
“I was waiting for you to say that”, Angie said. She grabbed her turquoise blue CD holder and started looking for a good CD to play.
“Ah, I found one!” she said smiling. She found her CD player and put the speaker attachments in. Right before she put the CD in she showed the CD to Jim. “Ike and Tina Turner”, she said smiling. She put in and pressed ‘Play’. The song started out nice and easy but then it sped up.
Working for the man
every night and day.
And I never lost one
minute of sleep
When I worrying about
the way things might have been.
“That’s better”, Jim said smiling.
Think we’ll keep on
turning.
Proud Mary keeps on
burning.
And we’re rolling
Rolling,
Rolling,
Rolling on a river…
On the second verse Angie kept folding and packing her clothes, but sang along with the song.
“Cleaned a lot plates
in Memphis. Pumped a lot of tanks down in New Orleans.
But I never saw the
good side of the city, ‘til I hitched a ride on a river boat queen…”
As she sang, Jim noticed some thing odd peaking out of one of drawers. When the chorus came he walked over to it a pulled it out. “What’s this?” he asked holding up a white dress.
Angie stopped singing and groaned at what Jim was holding, “Oh, that’s just a dress my mom made me pack.”
Jim stared at the dress. “What’s wrong with it? White’s not your color?” he joked.
“Very funny”, Angie said slightly smiling. “For the record I think it’s a nice dress but it’s way too fancy for me to wear.”
“What about on the boat ride to Exaveivia?”
“Jim, there is no way I’m wearing that dress. Especially to a planet where I don’t know if I’ll return from!” Angie shouted.
“Come on Angie, it’s a big event. We have to look impressive.” Jim begged.
“Oh yeah? You’re not packing anything impressive!”
“Hey that’s different! My mom was never able to buy something nice!” Jim said. “Just wear it until we get to the planet. You can change before we land.”
“Jim, I told you I am not wearing that dress!”
3 days later…
“I can’t believe I’m wearing this dress.” Angie said. Jim had begged and begged and gave her such big puppy eyes that she couldn’t say no. Right now they were on the boat to Exaveivia and they were the last passengers left. Exaveivia was a planet that was pretty far from the academy but the next closest planet 3,000 miles away.
“You know, I think the only good part about being sent to Exaveivia is that the Etherium is beautiful on the way there”, said Angie.
“Yeah you do get a good view from here”, said Jim. But he was talking about the girl that was standing to the side of him. “Jim, what are you thinking?” Jim thought to himself. He decided to talk about something different.
“I could never see something like this from Montressor. What about you?” Jim asked.
“Ha! The only time you can see this many stars is when there’s a power outage”, Angie laughed but her smiled quickly faded. She suddenly became very quiet.
“Still worried about Exaveivia?” Jim asked.
“Something like that”, Angie said.
“What is it?”
Angie gave him no reaction.
“Angie come on, we’ve been friends for 6 months. You know you can trust me”
She paused for a moment and sighed. “Ok, I tell you what’s wrong. On my old planet I did have a few friends but I couldn’t really trust them. Every time I was with just one of them we’d get into a fight and I’d have to apologize. I’m just worried that this might be another one of those times”
“Angie, you know that that isn’t going happen with us” Jim said sincerely.
“How do you know?”
“Because”, Jim said smiling. “We’re not on your old planet. This time is different…I’m different.”
“Thanks Jim”, Angie said smiling, too. “Aww, isn’t he sweet? Handsome and caring, and I get to be alone with him for 3 weeks! Yes!” Angie thought. She knew that she shouldn’t like Jim so much but she did anyway. “Quiet you”, she thought back.
Then a voice came through the intercom, “Attention all passengers, oh what’s the point? To the last boy and girl on the boat we’ll be arriving at your death trap soon. So get your bags and be ready to get out.”
“Humph, that wasn’t very smooth” Angie said smirking.
“I wonder where they hired him”.
“Well since we’ll be landing in a couple of minutes I’m going to change”, Angie then walked off to the direction of the bathrooms. When she got there she tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t open. “Great it’s locked”, she said.
With nothing else to do she found Jim getting his bag from the luggage room. “Looks like I’ll be wearing this dress a little longer than I thought”, she said to Jim.
“Door locked?”
“Yep”
Finally the voice on the intercom came again and said, “To the last boy and girl on the boat we’ve landed so get out! *sigh I’m too old for this job*”
“You ready?” Jim asked.
“Let me see”, Angie picked up her bag. “Now I am.”
They walked up the stairs to the first floor then down the ramp onto the planet. Seconds after they got off the ramp the boat took off, leaving them alone.
“Well, this is interesting”, Jim said looking around.
“What do you mean?”
“We seem to be on an island”
“Whoa. So…what do we do now?”
“I think the best thing to do is to find some shelter where we can sleep for the night. And the rest of our stay here is necessary”
“Ok, let’s move!”
So they walked off inland of the island, not at all suspecting what was coming next.
To be continued…