NOVEL NEXT Chapter 182: Florida Or Bust
If I had known that the entire school would have heard about Crystal getting to fly to Florida for the whole weekend, I would have sent Nat by herself to get Crystal. As it was, I was currently amidst a gaggle of girls in various states of chatting with each other, crying, sobbing, hiccuping, begging, and pleading. Some had fake tears and some had genuine tears, while others had puppy dog eyes and others with pouts so huge that it threatened to consume their faces.
Not even the teachers were able to console any of them or pry them away from the large group of about thirty that was around me and they had a firm grip either on me directly or on the girls around them. Of course, their parents were just as unsuccessful and quite a bit annoyed at me for causing the whole situation.
“Please help me.” I pleaded to Nat and held a begging hand out to her.
“You're such a sucker for little girls.” Nat chuckled and took out her cell phone. “Give me a few minutes and I'll try to pull off a miracle.”
I looked down at the girls and their growing hysteria. “Do it faster.”
Nat laughed and stepped back before she went towards the large group of parents.
“Hey! Don't leave me here!” I exclaimed to her and that made the girls cry a little harder. “No, I didn't mean it like that.” I said to them. “She's going to help us somehow and I don't want her to leave.”
That only made them cry harder, because my friend was leaving me behind and I held in my sigh. I was tempted to kneel and pick Crystal up, except that I was worried that would make me a much smaller target for the little girl assault that I was currently under. So, I stayed standing and waited for Nat to do something, because I was at a loss as to how to fix this.
“Yes!” Nat said loudly, then she seemed to huddle with the mothers and the few fathers that were there and they chatted in whispers back and forth.
Come on Nat, save me. I thought and glanced at Crystal's teacher. She looked both annoyed and sad, which meant she was blaming me, too. I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut.
“I got it.” Nat said as she tried to come over to me. “Excuse me. Let me through.”
The little girls seemed to not fight against Nat passing through, despite fighting against everyone else that tried to wade through them.
Nat reached me and leaned in close. “Okay, here's the deal...” She whispered and then explained what she had managed to do and showed me on her phone.
“Is that possible?” I asked.
“Well, not normally. There's no way a regular person could do it on such short notice.” Nat said and gave me a sly smile. “For someone who's rich and money is no object, anything is possible.”
“Do you want to tell them? I doubt they'll let me say anything without crying more.” I whispered.
Nat laughed. “You wuss.” She said and turned to the mass of little girls around us. “All right, everyone. Calm down. If you don't, you won't hear the important things that I have to say.”
I did a little magic trick and took out a box of tissues and started wiping off the faces of the closest girls, then a bunch of little hands reached for them and suddenly the box was empty and they were all wiping at their own faces with wads of tissues.
I'm glad I've got a ton of them. I thought and crushed the empty box and then stored it. A couple of them laughed, which was a definite improvement.
“Thanks for calming down.” Nat said and smiled at them. “I've counted about thirty of you, give or take a couple of duplicates, and as Damon's friend... and friend only... he asked me to fix this mess.”
“How?” Crystal asked.
I took the opportunity that their calmness presented and scooped her up into my arms. “That's a great question.”
Nat nodded. “It's like this. Damon was going to surprise Crystal with the trip on Friday and she wasn't supposed to know about it until then, specifically so that this wouldn't happen.”
“I'm sowwy.” Crystal said and her face crunched up and she was about to start crying again. She had cried with her friends, because they were sad and she had joined in.
“No, it's okay.” I said and kissed her cheek. “I didn't tell you to keep it a secret and that's my fault. It really was supposed to be a surprise and I'm sorry that I couldn't keep it a secret.”
“Now that's settled, here's my solution to the mess.” Nat said. “Crystal's entire class is going, too.”
A rousing shout came from everyone in the class, even the boys, and about half of the girls in the group started crying again.
“Now, now. Let me finish.” Nat said and they all calmed down. “You girls here get to come, as do your parents and one other person.”
“I only have a mom!” One of the boys said with a raised hand. “Can she bring her boyfriend?”
“Justin!” A woman's voice exclaimed.
Nat chuckled. “Okay, I'll correct my wording. You're each allowed three other family members or friends to come with you and at least one of them has to be an adult that's responsible for you. The packages are for four people, usually two adults and two kids.”
“Packages?” The teacher asked.
“Yes, we're all staying at the theme park resort.” Nat said. “We've got the entire thing booked as well as a direct flight from here to there.”
“What? How?” The teacher asked, surprised.
“When you buy out all the tickets on a plane, they think very highly of you.” Nat said with a smirk.
“I can't believe....” The teacher shook her head. “Everyone in the school's going to be so envious of my class.”
“You're invited, too.” I said and she looked surprised. “It's the same deal for you.”
One of the girls lifted her hand. “What if we can't afford it?”
“You can afford free, can't you?” I asked and a few of the kids looked surprised, as did the teacher and more than a few of the parents. “It's all expenses paid. None of you have to worry about anything except packing and coming along for the weekend.”
“Mr. Smith... Damon.” The teacher said and her face flushed red.
“Before you say anything else, I'm bringing along a woman I'm dating.” I said and her face went sad. “It's going to be our second date, actually.”
“Are you going to kiss her?” One of the little girls asked and a bunch of them giggled.
“Maybe a little.” I said.
“He kisses her a lot.” Crystal said and that made them all giggle more.
“We're all good.” Nat said and put her phone away. “I've already given the details to your parents, so all you need to do is wait a couple of days, pack, and go to the airport for the flight on Friday afternoon.”
“YAY!” The entire group of kids yelled and then they celebrated by talking loudly about what they were going to do and let themselves be corralled by their parents.
I whispered apologies to the parents as they passed and most accepted it and a few shrugged it off. None of them said no or that they weren't going to go, which was a little surprising. Nat, Crystal and I left when the hallway was nearly empty and climbed into the car to drive home.
“I guess Miss Carlyle and the guys are getting the long weekend off.” I said.
“No, we're still taking the plane.” Nat said.
I gave her a look and she gave me a smirk in return.
“You can't deny them a nice vacation, too.”
“Isn't it a waste to take two planes?” I asked.
“Do you want to ride in a plane full of emotionally high-strung kids and their parents?” Nat asked. “Remember... the... HALLWAY!” She yelled and then laughed. “Your new horror show! Ha ha!”
“Yes, very funny.” I said and rolled my eyes.
“You're a grown man and you were afraid of crying little girls.” Nat grinned. “That is pretty funny.”
I sighed and didn't say anything in response.
“You're welcome, by the way.” Nat said, teasingly.
“Thanks.” I said without inflection.
“Aren't you going to ask how much it was?”
“Nope.”
“You're not curious about...”
“Not even a little bit.” I said and reached over to pet Crystal's blonde hair. “It was worth it to stop this beautiful little girl from crying.”
“I love you, Uncle Damon.” Crystal said.
“I love you, too.” I said and put my hand back on the steering wheel.
*
The next two days passed by in a flash and the airport was flooded with people and bags, all of them on the same chartered flight, and they were all boarded without priority or rushing. It was a new experience for them, especially for the ones that were used to travelling commercially. The flight seemed to go by quickly for some reason and they landed at an airport in Florida that was relatively near the resort.
They all disembarked and two large high-end buses were waiting for them when they left the terminal. They rode in luxury to the resort and when they arrived, they were greeted by several tour guides and were shown to their rooms. They were themed rooms and even the families that had been there before, were surprised at how much nicer everything was.
Then the fun began.
The kids had the time of their lives as they spent the entire time inside the theme park. They had priority on the rides, first seating in the restaurants, and even had a bunch of the park's character actors visit them. They even had two hours during the day where they were left without their parents to have fun in their very own space. It was the best.
The parents enjoyed it as well. No cooking, no cleaning, no kids for two hours out of the day and they had their own fun in the adults only sections, and no standing in long lines for hours on end. None of them asked about how much it all cost, especially when they were given an envelope with spending money for souvenirs. Nearly all of them were shocked at the thousand dollars in cash. More than a few of them only bought token things for the kids and pocketed the rest.
The weekend passed by and no one complained on Monday evening when they had to pack and leave. Nearly four solid days of fun in one of the best theme parks in the world had exhausted the parents even more than working all week had. A few laughed when they realized the vacation was more work than they thought possible, and they didn't even have to do anything for themselves.
They all gathered together and boarded the buses to ride back to the airport, climbed aboard the chartered plane, and flew home. Most of them slept during the flight and it passed by quickly again. They landed back home and retrieved their bags, then climbed into their own cars or hired taxis to take them home. Almost no one unpacked and just went right to bed as they finally let their exhaustion overwhelm them.
Tomorrow was going to be another day back to work for the parents and school for the kids. They all had tons of stories to spread around about their mini-vacation and how much fun they had. It had started out as the excitement and aspirations of one little girl that had told everyone her uncle loved her so much that he was taking her to the place that she had always dreamed about going.
All of them knew that they had to thank her for it.