fandomhigh | BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

"You are sure you do not wants me to wait with you?" J.Lo asked, pressing his squooshy frog face against Slushious's passenger window.

Tip's mom leaned past him to wave. "Text when you get there safe, Turtlebear."

Tip rolled her shoulders back, putting on her absolute bravest face. "I will." They'd already done the tearful goodbye part, J.Lo just hadn't read the memo. Tip resolutely turned away, heading toward the lounge where the school instructions said to wait for the shuttle bus.

"I am changing my minds!" J.Lo called after her. She heard her mom start Slushious's engine up, then start to putter away. "I am not too many olds for high schooooooooooooool!"

Tip made it all the way onto one of the lounge's benches, her suitcases tucked underneath, before her shoulders sagged again. Which was good, because if she hadn't, it'd be one of those legs-gone-away, dropped-on-her-ass moments. Pardon her language.

"C'mon, Tip," she told herself, swiping quickly at her cheeks. "Chin up. You drove across the US with an alien when you were 11. High school should be easy."

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"Oh, just waiting for the bus I guess," Steven replied, punctuated with a little chuckle. "Pretty cool how we all get to go to school, huh?"

Steven was really excited about going to a school.

Roscoe interpreted that as sarcasm and responded in kind. "Oh yeah. It's gonna be the best summer ever," he said. "I love summer school."

"Is it better than regular school?" Steven asked, genuinely curious. "I know Connie said normally people get to take the summer off from school, but I guess we're lucky that this place goes year round!"

Weird, but okay. "Seems like it," Roscoe said, shrugging. "I've never done the summer school thing before but it's gotta be better than having nothing to do for three whole months, right?"

"Right!" Steven said with a smile. He was absolutely genuine with his excitement. "Though there's always lots you can do. Even on a rainy day you can play a board game, or watch cartoons, or all sorts of things!"

Okay, the enthusiasm was becoming a bit odd now. "Yeah, and I know that and all but I still get totally bored," Roscoe sighed. His life was so hard. "Don't you?"

"Not really," Steven said with a shrug. "If I feel like I'm getting bored I just go out to the Big Donut and see my friends."

"Oh, I guess I won't be able to do that anymore."

Yeah, Roscoe had been thinking about that too - all the cool hangouts he was going to miss. "FOMO, huh?" he said sympathetically. "I hear that. But the cool thing is at least everyone here is going to be in a brand new town with no pre-existing friends nearby either, right? You'll meet people to get donuts with."

"Yeah, I really hope the local donut shop has nice people. Or, whatever place I start going to. Oh no, I really didn't think about how much stuff I was leaving behind in Beach City!"

"Where am I gonna get my bits?"

Wow, Roscoe was starting to really wonder about this kid.

"You know, I travel a lot with my mom and you'd be surprised the kinds of stuff you can find in other cities," Roscoe said, trying to be comforting. "Like taco bowls in Cleveland? Actually not too bad. And my standards were, like, so low."

"That's good," Steven said. "I guess the important thing is to keep an open mind, right? If you do your best, and try new things, what's the worst that could happen?"

Ta-da, a moral lesson for Steven.

BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

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