The Odd Sister Out

Grinding to a Halt

I don't remember falling asleep, but I opened my eyes to find that I was in Dashi's arms, and she was carrying me up to my room. I blinked sleepily.
"Dashi," I asked, "What time is it?"
"Around 4 in the morning," She replied, "Most of us fell asleep in the living room, you better sleep for another hour or 2 if you can. By the goodness of Inkling's heart, we have a train at 8 AM instead of 7." She held me tighter to her.
"I still remember carrying you like this when you were a puppy, Jane, barely 1 hour old." She said wistfully, "Where did that time go?"
I looped my arms around her neck gently and lay my head on her shoulder. My eyelids suddenly felt heavier. It wasn't everyday that I got special one on one time with my big sister, usually she was busy and had better things to do. Plus, when she wasn't busy, I was usually with Tweak fixing stuff that Kwazii broke. She went up the flight of stairs that led to the girls' rooms, and carefully opened the door to mine. She carefully set me down on the bed, and sat down beside me.
"C'mon, budge over!" She said playfully, poking me in the back. I scooted over, and she lay down beside me. I rolled over and snuggled into her shirt. I could barely keep my eyes open at this point. She rubbed my back gently, and pulled the quilt over the 2 of us,
"Close your eyes, I'll wake you up when it's time." She whispered, and I knew no more.
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"Get up!" Someone yelled, and shook me roughly. Koshi was shaking Dashi and me with as much force as her small child body could. Dashi sleepily blinked her eyes open.
"Kosh, what happened, sweetheart?" She asked groggily.
"Tweak says it's time to get up." Koshi said, looking at us weirdly.
"Koshi, I'm sorry," Dashi said, rubbing the front of her forehead, "I must've fallen asleep in here a little while ago." She pulled me off of the bed and out the door, toward another day of stress, and away from a small, safe haven with my big sister.
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We sprinted like there was no tomorrow toward the shuttle to the train station. No matter how early we got up, we always ended up running late. This was the Octopod for you, so many different needs to consider; only Captain Barnacles could handle all of them and keep his sanity. Kwazii, like yesterday, hopped onto the shuttle before us. But as he did, he stretched his paw out the door so they couldn't leave us behind. Once the final Vegimal and suitcase made it through that door, the shuttle took off. Only, it went a little too fast for Professor Inkling's motion sickness, and this time, no one was prepared. Everyone who was sitting anywhere near him immediately rushed to the opposite end of the shuttle. But thank goodness for Peso's medical, and basically overall brilliance. He and the Captain immediately sprang up from their seats and rushed to help him. Peso sat by him, calmly telling him to take it slow, and the Captain was apologizing to all the people near Inkling and helping the Vegimals clean up the vomit. This should've been the first warning we should've never gone on this train, but no one heeded this warning.  Things only got crazier and more stressful from there. First, Kwazii made an idiot out of himself in front of Security when all his pirate gear earned him a frisking. Professor Inkling and Shellington said that vacations were amazing opportunities to learn new things, and I learned that Security officers of any species in any country anywhere have no sense of humor. Then, we lost our way in the station. It was so big, and we had only taken a train once, so we were horribly confused. After the Professor demonstrated his superior communication skills with some very foolish looking miming, and the marmot we were trying to ask responding in equally bad miming, we finally worked out where we were supposed to go. And finally, when nothing else could go wrong, we got on the train, scrambled to find our seats in a crowded train, and having to switch every couple minutes because the Vegimals couldn't decide who's lap they wanted to sit in.  The nice parts of the trip was having each other to joke about the chaotic mess that is transportation, and that the compartments we had were slightly too small for us, meaning that the Vegimals had to sit in our laps, adorable. Once we had finally found a seating arrangement that worked for everyone, which is very rare, the train screeched to a sudden, grinding, halt.