Flight K109 (#1 ¬ Aiello Racing Series )

Mia James

I'm going to do it. I am going to put myself out there. 

It's my second week in Tallinn, and I think that it's time for me to actually get to know my environment a little better. Figure out a cafe where I can go work, or a park where I can read, they exist somewhere, and it's my mission to find them. Dad tried taking me out in the city a couple times last summer, but through a combination of my own stubbornness and my dad being busy at his new job, we only went out once or twice and I ended up spending most of my time in Estonia on his sofa or on my bed.

I had searched up things I could do here before my flight yesterday, before I got interrupted by Airport boy - Elliot. That was a huge surprise. Anyways, I found some pretty interesting stuff that I could do whilst I'm here through my research.

So today I'm standing in front of the Estonian museum of science with a singular entrance ticket and some time to kill. To be fair, this probably isn't what Andy meant when she told me to put myself out there, I assume she was talking about parties or something a bit more socially active than a museum. But I'm taking it slow, baby steps. Plus, I personally think science museums are pretty exciting stuff, I love science, it's probably the one subject that I don't see as work. I don't know what I like so much about it, but it's solid, you know? It's something never changing that helps us make sense of the world around us, unlike anything else in this world which you can just never be sure of. Science was my anchor of surety when the world around me was a storm of confusion and unknowns.

Wow. That is the nerdiest thing I've ever heard. 

Doesn't mean I'm enjoying the museum any less than I am. I read every single word at each exhibit, even though it takes me a while to translate everything on my phone, but even with the language barrier I still try every experiment I see and I even sit in for one of the kids classes going on. I get a lot of strange looks from the half pint goblins that surround me.

By the time I leave the museum it's late afternoon and I don't really have time to do anything else on my list. But I don't think I'm ready to go home yet, so instead I make the proactive decision to take a detour to the nearest ice-cream shop for my daily sugar fill, which I don't realize I need until I'm actually eating it. To be fair I did forget to take lunch whilst I was at the museum, that happens sometimes.

By the time I get home it's almost past time for dinner, I call out to see if dad's home but, predictably, no answer. My phone dings in my pocket.

Speak of the devil.

It's a message from my dad, saying that he'll be working later than usual because something came up in the IT department.

I sigh, but I don't complain. I just grab a bowl of cereal, go to my room and call Andy and Claire.

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Dad comes home earlier the next day. He's practically singing when he walks through the door around half five. He is singing actually, one of the songs from sound of music. I can't help but smile when I see him, that's a thing about my dad, his happiness is pretty contagious. 

He puts his bag down on the dining table and turned to me on the sofa. "Hey kiddo. How are you?"

"You know what, I'm actually doing pretty good right now. Enjoying my time away from school."

"That's good, good...." he stops, and I wonder what he's thinking about. "D'you want to make something together tonight, like we used to do in London?"

The question surprises me, dad and I used to cook dinner together once a week when we were still living in London. We used to get a random food off the internet and try to recreate whatever it was we found. But we stopped doing that so long ago, I can't even remember what we made last.