THE JOURNEY

The sun slowly rose on Tuesday morning. The bags were packed and at the bottom of the stairs; the cat had gone to the grandparent’s house yesterday, mum and dad were up bright and early. The smell of bacon and eggs wafted through the house. But, to me, none of this mattered; it was 4a.m, I was tired. I had not slept because I thought it would be clever to stay up all night, and being a grumpy stereotypical teenager, I longed to stay in bed until 12 o’clock. It was the holidays for God’s sake! Why should I be up earlier than I am for school? The smell of bacon seeped under the door of my room and over powered the smell of old socks that lurked menacingly under the bed. But still I did not move, it was far, far, far to early!

It was the third cry from dad that made me lumber out of bed. Slowly, still half asleep, I got dressed, having to take my t-shirt off once, as I had put it on inside out the first time. I lugged my body into the bathroom and washed my face, cold water trickled down my back giving me icy chills. I cleaned my teeth and then I trudged down the stairs. The smell of bacon became intoxicating as I neared the door, I needed a hit, and bacon was my drug. I slowly ate and took in all the pleasure I could as it was going to be plane food later. Mum rushed manically around the house checking she’d packed everything and nagging my ear off.

The taxi arrived at 4:20 am. Still asleep I dragged the bags towards the car. It was going to be two hours in the taxi; I caught up on much needed sleep. We reached Gatwick South, quickly checking it was the right terminal. I stumbled out of the taxi, feeling slightly worse for wear due to lack of sleep, and we rolled our cases to the check-in desk. I searched the terminal desperately for McDonalds but that was on the North side. Our flight was leaving at 10:15 am. I wandered around; I had several