Taking Off

Chapter 20

The next morning, Tia and Elijah rode the elevator down to the lobby rather early.

"I guess I proved you wrong, huh?" he said. She looked at him, confused.

"In what way?"

"You said I was incapable of waking up early. But here we are riding down to the lobby more than ten minutes before we're meant to be there," he explained, proudly.

"Congratulations," she said, rolling her eyes. But Elijah noticed the corner of her mouth turn upwards. He had amused her, and he was happier about this than he thought he'd be.

Finally, in the lobby, Figg waited until they were all calm, fed, and quiet before telling them all what was on the agenda for the day. "I'm sure you all know that today is – yes – fear day. But I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that today is the final fear day of the trip!" she exclaimed, which made everybody cheer rather loudly. Elijah prayed this fear was not his fear. "Yes, yes. Settle down. Now, the final fear to be conquered is – spiders!" she revealed, excitedly. Almost everybody made a disgusted face, clearly not looking forward to it. Elijah gulped. This was his fear. He was rather afraid of spiders, but he couldn't show it. Tia would never let him hear the end of it.

"Yes, I understand a lot of you are a little squeamish, but it'll be fine, I promise. You're going to go to bed tonight, completely in love with spiders!" she assured. Elijah gulped again, quite sure he wouldn't become infatuated with spiders by the end of this activity.

-

Figg had the group pile into their minibus and Maurice drove the group to a warehouse quite far from the city. This made Elijah more nervous, still. He felt like he was on Fear Factor where there was no room for any fear.

"Okay, gather around, everybody!" Figg called to the group as they walked into the warehouse. Everybody was busy looking around. The ceiling was higher than any ceiling Tia had ever seen. Behind Figg there was an enormous white curtain concealing something and everyone was itching to find out what it was. "Listen up, guys, come on," Figg urged. She had been joined by a man about a metre taller than her.

Finally, the group quietened down and directed their attention to Figg and the stranger.

"Thank you. Now, this is Steve. He will be going through the activity and the rules with you all," Figg explained. "I think I'll leave you to it, then," she said, craning her neck to look up at him. "Have fun," she smiled at the group. She then sat on a chair on her own and proceeded to pull out a book from her bag.

"Excellent," he replied, flashing a grin. Elijah looked at him. This guy looked very excited about this activity, a little too excited. That wasn't a good sign, since the activity involved spiders. "First up, I just want to welcome you to Australia," he said. There were mumbles throughout the group.

"Thank you," Tia replied, enthusiastically, to which Steve smiled, appreciatively.

"I know the other activities you're going to be doing, and let me tell you, they're amazing," he said, earnestly. Tia beamed but wished he would say more. She could die of the curiosity and anticipation. "Of course, the activity you'll be doing today is quite thrilling too. Today it's about spiders, though. And I understand some of you don't like them very much," he said. Elijah squirmed. Tia noticed but didn't react. She would bring it up soon, though. She had to. "But just know that the spiders we have today aren't poisonous and won't harm you at all. So, you'll all be fine," he assured.

Steve moved closer to the white curtain behind him. "Now, I'm sure you're all wondering what's being hidden by this white blanket," he said. Everybody nodded and leaned forward, some excitedly, others nervously, waiting to see what horrors awaited them. "Then maybe I should show you," Steve added. With that, he pulled a string on the right side of the curtain and it was pulled upwards.