What's So Great About Being A Trainer Anyways?

Chapter 16 - Why Does Everything Have To Be A Puzzle?

The giant boat's horns jolted me awake. I felt really hungry and drowsy. My eyes panned around the room, and found out that Flora was packing her luggage.

"Oh good, you're awake," she said. "Sounds like we're here, so you better hurry up and pack your stuff too!"

I grunted while wiping the sleep from my eyes. "We're here already? Good grief. And here I was expecting a nice few day cruise. When's breakfast? I'm starving."

She giggled a little. "Breakfast ended about two hours ago. You slept right through it!"

I couldn't believe it. Did I just miss the opportunity for one of the best breakfasts of my life?! "Why didn't you wake me up?!"

"I tried, but you were to zonked out in the comfy bed of yours. I didn't think that I could wake you up without hurting you because of how out of it you were."

I almost wish that she tried using pain to wake me up. Such the opportunity wasted! I sighed, then pushed myself out of bed. Well, hopefully lunch will be good.

Flora shoved the latch on her second suitcase shut, but not without some effort, and wheeled it out of the room. She was completely wrapped up in jackets, scarves, and the like, and looked more like a marshmallow than a human. When she opened the door, a wave of frigid air burst in, and it took all of my might to fight my primal urges to hop back in the warm covers of the bed. "I'll meet you outside. Hurry up and get ready before they have to force you off the boat!"

I don't even get to shower first do I?... Oh well, I guess that's my own fault. I put on my heaviest clothes that I had. I wonder if this'll be enough. Maybe she was actually smart in bringing all of that clothing... Na, there's no way that was reasonable.

I gathered my stuff and in a few minutes found Flora outside. "Come on, people are already leaving the boat!"

"All right, all right, I hear you." We made our way down the gangplank and found the usual two bickering again.

"No! I say snow is more like land," argued Maxie.

"No way! Snow is just frozen water, which still makes it water," returned Archie.

Those two can really get at each other's throats on anything, can't they?

Brandon found them and separated them. I think I was starting to see a theme here. "You fools," he said. "Snow is like both water and land from a survival standpoint! You can eat it for your supply of fresh water, or you can build shelter with it!"

There really was snow everywhere though. Sometimes it was thin, sometimes it looked like it could swallow a person up. It was on the trees, the ground, even the ice chunks floating on the ocean. It was a blindingly white winter wonderland.

Flora picked up some snow as soon as we hit land and formed it into a snowball. I expected for her to throw it at me, but instead she threw it at Maxie as soon as his back was turned.

Just as would be expected, he immediately saw Archie as the culprit. "Why you!" He formed a snowball of his own then pelted it at him.

"What was that for?!" Archie and Maxie commenced a miniature snowball war. Brandon laughed at the two fools, but was then caught in the crossfire.

I stood watching the battle, awestruck at how playful and childish these grown men were behaving. That's when I felt the back of my neck get cold.

"You left skin exposed," jested Flora.

"Better than being consumed by a mass of fabric!" Now the five of us were throwing snowballs everywhere, and got a few of the normal human being workers involved as well. It was all fun and games until the boss shut us down.