The Romance Trip Chapter 2

That afternoon, I walked into my house and looked around for some sign of life. After searching amounst the rooms, I finally found my brother, Olivier, playing one of those monstorus video games. "Where's mom?" I asked him.
"On the computer," Olivier said without taking his glued eyes away from the screen.

I went over to the computer and found my mom payng the bills. I walked over to her with the permission slip in hand. "Hey mom-can I ask you something?"
"Yeah, what's up?" She said actually looking away from the screen, unlike Olivier.
"Well," I said catiously, so I wouldn't get on her bad side. "They're doing the annual class trip to Quebec, and I need you to sign this slip and write a check."
"All right, how much?" she asked discontentedly taking out her checkbook.
"Four hundred dollars," I said wincing, waiting for a responce. She stopped, compleatly froze, and stared at me for what seemed like forever.
"Four hundred dollars," She repeated. "I will pay for the trip." A huge smile extended across my face. "But there's a glitch," she said. The smile fell from my face, and shattered into a million pieces when it hit the floor. I groaned. "You have to pay for half of it," she said almost proud of making the desision.
"Fine," I replied. She signed the slip, and wrote out the check.
"If I don't recieve twohundred dollars from you by the time you're supposed to leave, you can say goodbye to Quebec," she said smilind deviously. She reluctently handed me the slip and the check, and I walked away more upset than ever.

I walked into the room Olivier was playing video games. He hit the pause button and looked over to where I was sitting. "Did she make you pay for half the trip?" he asked.
"How'd you know?" I questioned in suspicion.
"Because I was eavesdropping," he smiled. Olivier was only in seventh grade and was not yet thirteen, so he didn’t know about the fifty-fifty deal, where you have to pay fifty percent of all your expenses, which he will be learning soon enough, at least once he turns thirteen. "I'd, of course, be willing to let you borrow the money, for a small price," Olivier said as persuasively as a seventh grader could.
"Yeah, right!" I said as I got up and went to my bedroom. I sat on my bed and started to brainstorm ideas, but nothing came to me. I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Raphael's number.
"Hello?" He said from the other line.
"Hi Raphael, this is Faustine. I wanted to ask you, what are you going to do to earn money for the trip?"
"Oh, hey Faustine. Um, I think I'm going to do some chores or have a lemonade stand or something." he said apprehensively.
"What do you think about a carwash?!" I exclain into the phone.
"Sounds good," He said. "Maybe Madame Ju'bi will let us use the school parking lot,and we could get a few other French students to help out and split the proceeds."
"That's great! I'll call Lise, Diane and Rosalie. They'll probably want to help. Do you know anyone that would?"
"Uh, probably Ethat, Patrice and Brice." he said. "I can call them. Do you think eight is enough?"
"Sure, why noy?" I replied. "We'll have it tomarrow afternoon. See you later, bye."
"Um, Faustine?" he asked timidly, "I was wondering-" he paused.
"Yes?" I asked anctiously.
"Never mind. See you tomarrow, bye." He hung uo the phone, but it felt like he left me hanging, and I ever so badly wanted to know what he was going to ask. But as some say, too damn bad.