Vol.5, Chapter IX — The School Trip Part III: The Natural History of Us

Something that felt a bit gritty and smelled of frying oil got pressed against my lips, snapping me back to reality. It was Abby pushing a chip against my mouth as a way to call me back to Earth. I blinked at her while she casually greeted me and said that, even if I wasn’t liking the food much, I should still try to eat something.

Us and our friends had gone to a fast-food chain restaurant to get some hamburgers, chicken nuggets and chips for lunch before we had to regroup with the rest of the class for our first visit of the trip: an Art Museum.

Reminding myself of that, I decided to stop thinking about what had been my focus ever since Abby went to pick me up at my room and we got here. In all this time, I had only given my hamburger a single bite while Abby had already nibbled her way to three fourths of her hamburger.

I tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear and accepted the chip she was offering me, Abby letting out a satisfied giggle. The chips were good, but the hamburgers were… disappointing. They didn’t look half as good as in the picture, nor did they taste half as good as the picture suggested. Still, it was food, and I needed that, so I got to eating.

“What’s been in your mind anyway?” Mathilda asked, not knowing any better than asking me that right as I pushed it to the back of my mind. Unlike Abby, Mathilda still needed to figure some stuff out about me.

“How should I put it?” I wondered out loud as I chewed, covering my mouth with a hand and looking around. “I suppose… I suppose that I rejected someone’s feelings?”

“No way!” Mathilda erupted, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Who?”

“Pipe down, will you?” Mathew told her, elbowing her arm.

“Ah! Sorry,” she said, for once not starting to bicker with her cousin. “Anyway, who was it?”

I told them about the conversation I had with Jessy. By the end of it, they didn’t get it why I was still hang up on it. Jessy took it well, we were even playing around during our talk after, and even when Abby came to pick me up, she was completely fine and cheerful. Unless…

“Nope, she looked honestly cheerful to me,” Abby said when I asked her if Jessy’s emotions seemed genuine.

“I still don’t get why you’re thinking about it,” Mathilda hummed, wiping her fingers on a paper napkin, having just finished eating.

“I guess… It’s not that I wanted her to be sad and cry or anything, but… I don’t know… I guess… I guess it just confuses me hearing her admit she has—or had, a crush on me but then being totally fine once I tell her I’m dating Abby and was aware of her feelings for me.”

“That, huh?” Abby said with a smack of her lips. She was having a cup of ice-cream with extra caramel and it’d get stuck to the spoon, so she suckled on it between each spoonful. “Yeah, I get that it’s kinda odd.”

“Aah, now I get it,” Mathilda chuckled. “You see, what Jessy’s crush really is, is like a thing called a ‘celebrity crush’. You know, you having a crush over a celebrity and even daydream of going on a date with them, but if they were to tell you they want to date you for real, you’d decline that because that’d be too much or you don’t feel like you’re worthy of them, so you’d rather cheer on them and love them from the sidelines as a fan.”

“…I’m not a celebrity though.”

“Well, duh, of course you’re not. Still, you’re one of the top three most popular girls in class, and maybe even in our grade, so it’s not that surprising to hear that at least one person feels that way about you.”

That was still super strange to me, but… at least now I knew and understood Jessy’s feelings, and that was a huge weight off my shoulders.

I finished eating since I was the only one left in our group and we got outside after waddling through the flood of people. Never again will I complain about a place in our hometown being “overcrowded”. This was absolutely ridiculous and draining.

As soon as we got outside, I grabbed Abby’s hand a bit more firmly than usual. With how tiny she is and with how many people there were around us—not to mention the noise pollution, if I lost sight of her, it’d be hell to find her again, and I likely would have a hard time hearing her soft voice over the harsh noises around us.

“Maybe I should have asked for another cup of ice-cream,” Abby mused, resting her body on me for extra contact and reducing the space we occupy.

“I really think it was best that you didn’t,” I told her. “Remember your birthday? And don’t let go of my hand, ok? And you guys, we need to hurry, so stick close and call one of us if you become separate from the rest. I brought my phone with me and set it to ring and vibrate, so I’m sure I’ll pick it up.”

“Mumma Violet,” Mathilda laughed.

“Mumma Violet,” the rest joined in, Abby included.

“S-stop it! I’m not you guy’s Mumma!” I protested even though I could perfectly see why they were calling me that.

◊◊◊

The thing that made them want Violet and I in separate rooms? Yeah, it happened, but I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

After we got to the rest of the class, us and half of another class were taken to the Art Museum while the other class and a half were taken to the Natural History Museum, the place we’d be visiting tomorrow.

Violet was disappointed by the front of the building. By the way she described it, she was expecting a building with strange angles and asymmetrical proportions, or something like that painting with the melting clocks. At the very least, she was expecting one of those ultra-modern buildings that look like a pile of glass and metal in sharp angles and that cost way too much for how they end up looking. It wasn’t even one of those high-class carved stone buildings from the eighteenth up to the twentieth century. It really was just a red-painted building with white windows and doors, perfectly symmetrical and, while still pretty, kinda dull. Luckily, the inside was more interesting, apart from a room that we thought it was being used to store the cardboard boxes used to transport the exhibits until Mathilda read out loud a museum pamphlet and we got to know it was art too. I get that art can be technically anything that makes you feel something, but if that something is “this is art?”, then it should be out. That was our group’s opinion at least, with Stephen saying that the backward of his shop is an art gallery by those standards and it also has piles and piles of junk there, Mathilda jokingly suggesting him become an artist instead of a mechanic, stating it’d be just as messy.

Suffice to say, that was a very good time, and exactly what Violet and I were talking about while soaking together in a tub filled with hot water and bubbles. Again, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, but I promise, I’m getting there.

So, the museum took the whole afternoon, so after that, we got to go have dinner. We decided to go to a restaurant where, by a fixed fee, we could eat as much as we wanted, the drinks being an extra. It was Japanese food, and something far better than junk food, Violet being very thankful for it. It was super funny seeing her so excited about a plate of sautéed vegetables, and she earned a few more “Mumma Violet” teases due to how she kept telling us to eat vegetables and her general worry for us to have a good meal without overeating too much. She really is like a mother.

“I know, I know,” Violet grumbles for the fifth time since we settled down after our immersion love-making, making me giggle as she’s also squeezing my belly so I don’t go slipping under the foam and water. “Stop bringing that about.”

After dinner, a bath was in order, and that’s when things got weird. Mathilda was very insistent on me not bathing until I told her to since she had some bath salts and oils she wanted me to try out. Stranger still was that, once I asked for them so I could bath whenever I wanted to, she said no because she needed to get it ready. It all clicked into place once she came to my room and practically dragged me to hers and then pushed me and Violet into the bathroom, telling us she had everything set up, so we could do anything we wanted as long as we weren’t too noisy.

So, what did she do? She filled the bathroom with LED candles that flickered like real ones, set up a diffuser to fill the bathroom with a nice floral scent, set up a portable collum to play some soft music, and of course, set up a bath for me and my wifey who was too stunned to even blink. The rest is history, but yeah, we ended up breaking all the rules that had been set for me and her.

“Honestly Abby, we…” Violet sighed on a lull of our conversation, her silence saying more than words could ever tell.

“Hehe! We are bad girls.”

“It’s no laughing matter!” she scolded me. “What if we get caught?”

“Mathy is standing guard, so it will be fine.”

And as if speaking of the Devil, Mathilda knocked on the door, asking if she could come inside.

Violet kept holding me while I made sure that there was a thick layer of bubbles to hide everything from our shoulders down before we gave her the ok.

She came inside, now wearing one of the hotel’s robes, and saw me reclined on Violet, my wifey using a wrapped towel as a pillow and smiled as she said she couldn’t wait to try that out one day.

We asked what was up, not wanting our peace to be broken, but it was likely time. Our hands and feet were likely all wrinkly by now.

Mathilda said she was going to join in as she saw suspicious movements in the corridor as she waved her tablet. We asked what she meant by that.

“Vanessa walked towards Miss Maple’s room and slid a piece of paper under her door before knocking and running back to her room,” Mathilda said, showing the replay of a video that looked like it was taken with a security camera, which was a bit alarming to say the least. “She also saw me dragging you Abby and has peeked out of her room every time someone opened a door in the corridor. She’s been obviously monitoring this room.”

“And how exactly did you get that footage?” Violet asked, sounding terrified to know the answer.

“I set up a few mini-cameras in the smoke detectors of the corridor.”

“Oh Mathilda,” Violet groaned as she faceplanted my hair, like she heard the most painful thing ever.

“Don’t worry, the hotel doesn’t have security cameras in the corridors, so nobody saw me doing it.”

That wasn’t the problem at all and she knew it, but she chose not to address it and Violet to not pursue this conversation any longer. Instead, Mathilda took out a tube from her bag as she asked if we had washed our faces already. Since we had, she got on her knees by the tub and started applying to our faces some sort of clay, our faces practically turning an almost black brown. If anyone saw us out of context, they’d think we were all doing blackface. Then, after blowing our faces with a hair dryer, she got a pillow from the bedroom and set it by the tub, sitting with her back in the corner positioned in a way that was parallel to us, holding up a fashion magazine. All the while this was happening, she kept checking her tablet.

“Here she comes,” she said, the tablet showing Miss Maple’s door opening and her stepping out, seemingly still finishing getting dressed again. “Let me do the talking.”

A few seconds later, the door to the bedroom clicked open and Miss Maple stepped inside, passing by the ajar bathroom door with quick steps before Mathilda asked if it was Jessy. Not a second later, Miss Maple was looking at us from the entrance to the bathroom, her mind not fully understanding what she was seeing.

“Girls, what is the meaning of this?” she asked, stepping closer and crossing her arms, already prepared for a scolding.

“We are just having a girls’ relaxation night after a long day,” Mathilda innocently said. “We know that Abby and Violet shouldn’t be left alone together, but since I’ve been here all the time, we figured it was all right.”

“Oh, you did?” Miss Maple said, her voice drifting. “And have you really been here all the time?”

“You can tell by our facial masks,” Mathilda said, pretending to check mine and Violet’s. “They are fully dried out, and that takes about half an hour. I’d get up and show you mine, but my butt has gone completely numb from sitting on the floor, even with the pillow as a cushion.”

Miss Maple kept glaring at us, but her face started softening up as time went by. Finally, she sighed and asked me and Violet directly if Mathilda was telling the truth. And of course we lied, but how could we not?

Convinced, she sighed as she held her face with one hand, the other going to her hip. She sounded super tired, but how could she not? Taking care of twenty-four teens must be really hard work after all, and she did that since eight in the morning. That, and putting up with a grumpy senior.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look tired Miss Maple. How about you stay here and relax for a bit?”

“You do realise that I’m your homeroom teacher, right?” Miss Maple asked, sounding almost offended by the invite.

“Come on!” Mathilda laughed, sounding completely casual. “Take a break with us, will you? You can make sure we aren’t doing anything wrong, and you can tell Miss Sourface that—”

“Miss Turkington!”

“—that you gave us a very long scolding and even made us cry. Think about it! You get to unwind a bit away from that old crone, and show her you can be iron fisted.”

Violet was frozen solid as she held me, something she has been doing ever since she learned that our teacher was coming to inspect us and saw me and her still snuggling in the same water we made love in. I was basically equally as stunned, but Mathilda kept her inviting smile on despite the glare Miss Maple was giving her. But then, the biggest surprise of the night happened: Miss Maple sighed again as she said our old math teacher was right about us being a bad influence.

We watched her take off her slightly heeled shoes and try to fold the leg of her pants up, but they were too tight, so she resorted to taking them off, leaving her only in her blazer and blouse, but even her jacket was soon discarded and the top buttons of the blouse undone as she sat on the toilet seat and placed her feet in the tub with a satisfied sigh as they got immersed in the hot water. She did her best not to flash us, but I still could tell that her underwear was a soft pink and frilly, something I didn’t expect at all to see her wearing. Then again, it was clear to us that most of her stern looks were all just make-believe and that the person under them was actually quite gentle and easy-going.

A sigh came from behind me and I looked back to see Violet’s face. I could tell right away that she had reached factory reset, the fact that our homeroom teacher was now relaxing with us with her feet in our love water being the final straw. It could be said that she had reached a state of Nirvana. It was too much for me not to at least let out a snicker that got our teacher’s attention.

“Could you two just put your hands where I can see them?” she asked us with a tired voice.

“But Miss Maple, if I do that, Abby will slip under the water.”

“Now, Miss Evergreen.”

Violet sighed before complying, me trying to hold myself up, but I still slipped as soon as Violet relieved enough pressure, half my face getting under the foam.

“Are you ok?” Violet asked, putting her arms back around my waist and hoisting me up.

I was spitting bubbles and complaining that despite their nice smell, they tasted awful, worse than the school’s bell peppers, Violet giggling as she gave me a final tug.

Miss Maple just raised her hands up in surrender, going back to simply try and relax.

Mathilda not being one with half-measures started asking all sorts of personal questions about Miss Maple, and calling her by name even!

“So, Evelyn, how old are you?” Mathilda began, sounding like she was talking with an old acquaintance. “The class thinks you must be twenty-three or something.”

“They’d be correct,” Miss Maple answered, sounding rather calm. “And call me ‘Miss Maple’, Miss—”

“Nuh-uh! You’re with us behind closed doors and with your pretty legs showing, you’re one of us now! No Misses until you leave, ok?”

“Urgh… fine.”

Like I said, under all that stern act was a very gentle and easy-going person… who is also a bit of a pushover.

The rest of the “interview” went as you’d expect from Mathilda: centred in love talk. Sadly for our friend, Miss Maple, Evelyn, didn’t really have much to share as she had apparently been an ugly-duckling until high-school, but her glow-out coincided with her setting the goal of becoming a teacher, so that, together with low self-esteem until university, resulted in her passing out the one or two chances at love she got during her three years as a high schooler, and when it came to university, she didn’t have the self-esteem issues anymore, but she was still just as focused on her goals. Currently she’s thinking that maybe she could start searching for love, but being a homeroom teacher still is a bit too demanding on her for that.

“Not everyone can be like those two,” she said with a teasing smile as she looked at me and Violet. “Are you getting out of the water anytime soon?”

“Erm… s-sorry, but…”

“But we are naked under the bubbles, and our birthday suits are for mine and her eyes only.”

Violet nodded as I finished what she started explaining.

“Right, I suppose that makes sense,” Miss Maple hummed as she removed her feet out of the water. “I need to be going now, and so should you, Abby. It’s almost time for bed for you students.”

“Right, I’ll meet you at the door in a second,” I told her. “You know, so that my teacher makes sure I obey the rules.”

That pretty much settled the night. The two of them left me and Violet to wash out our faces from the facial mask and dry ourselves out and put on some clothes, and were even kind enough to them give us some privacy for us to share a good-bye and good-night kiss.

“See ya in the morning,” I whispered to Violet’s lips as I tiptoed from her neck.

“Yeah… sleep well, will you?”

“I will… Mumma Violet.”

“Enough with the ‘Mumma joke!” she cried out as I let go of her neck, leaving her in the care of Mathilda with a laugh.

And as I walked back to my room escorted by Miss Maple, I passed by Jessy who waved at me with a bright smile and wished me a good night. I returned the kindness thinking that, were I to be out of the picture, maybe Jessy could be a good partner for Violet. However, since I’m in the picture and never going to leave, hopefully, that was not something I needed to worry about for more than a tenth of a second. Violet and I belonged to each other after all.