4

Elisa’s first impression of the city was that it had lots of bridges and stairs and it was dreadful when they had so many luggage. Cray was eager to help Helen with the luggage, and it only added to Elisa’s uneasy feelings. Rachel and Elisa walked behind their team leader, Jack. And that’s when, Helen, with only a small backpack in her hands, caught up with them. “Guys, this place is awesome, don’t you think so?” “Yeah, it would be even better when we don’t have to carry our luggage.” said Rachel sarcastically. She and Elisa high-fived with some difficult because of the luggage. And Elisa couldn’t help but searching Cray behind them, and was not surprised to see that he was struggling with two huge suitcases.

“I thought you said you let the boys join in to help us with our luggage.” Said Elisa. “Yeah, I did. But they are all so dump, so I decided to do it myself.” said Rachel, readjusting her cool hat. “Okay, whatever.” Elisa groaned as they went up the stairs again.

The bus was quite comfortable, and Elisa sat with Rachel again. Helen sat next to the team doctor, who was probably around his twenties. Elisa felt a little woozy from the lack of sleep. She didn’t remember how she doze off, but when she woke up, they had already reached their first scenery. The Five-goat Park. “So this is the place where the most historical statue of Guangzhou stands,” said Elisa, scanning the park, “Not too impressing. It’s no better than the parks back home.” As Helen and Rachel both agreed, they only did a quickly look around and took a few pictures before returning to the place where they started. They were the first to return, and the reward they got from that was a very awkward conversation with Mr. M about how they thought of this place.

“I think it’s such a dump place that I want to leave right now.” said Rachel under her breath after the teacher was gone. “It’s not that bad.” said Elisa, “It’s nice to see something green and smell the fresh air.” “Dude, are you kidding me?” said Rachel indignantly, “we are here in Guangzhou, and its air-quality is like, even worse. And it’s not like you can’t see something green back home.” They both laughed.

Helen broke in, “Rachel, you’ve been here before, and we are basically new-comers. I agree with Elisa, since we had all paid to come here, we’d better enjoy it rather than denying it.” Elisa gave Helen a thankful look and she winked in return. At this time, all of the team had returned and they set off for a Biology Museum in some university.

Elisa had always liked Biology, and she hang out mostly with Helen on the way. But it did spoil her fun a little when Helen complained about how weird it felt to sit next to the team doctor all the time. Rachel acted alone to take pictures with both of their phones and that afternoon went quite peaceful. On the bus, the leader announced that there had to be three people in one room since the girls’ number was an odd number.And Elisa, Rachel and Helen volunteered to take the room.

5

The hotel they were staying that night was a three-star hotel, and it was actually quite comfortable. Except there were only two beds, and Elisa was wondering vaguely if two people were going to share one bed. Because of yesterday night’s experience, Elisa fell asleep pretty quickly. But not before she heard Rachel and Helen running to Cray’s room, pulling back pillows and covers and laughing hysterically.

That night, Helen and Rachel shared a bed. And the next morning, it was Elisa’s turn to sit with the team doctor since Helen just couldn’t stop complaining. It was a bit awkward, felt like you had been kicked out from the group or something. “It’s alright,” Elisa said to herself, “Helen only sat here for one ride, and Rachel would be sitting here soon.” They were visiting that over sea dam that day and it was far more interesting that the first scenery. The waves splashed against the rock, and the ocean swished backwards and forwards and the ground looked as if it was made of gold. The sea wind sent people’s hair flying in all directions and it was a really funny picture looking from a distance.

Elisa couldn’t find more of her classmates, so she and Helen stuck to each other. And since they couldn’t find Rachel, they set off on their own. Of course, Rachel had found them at last, and Helen almost lost her phone at the ice-cream place and things were getting on track again.

But what’s still on Elisa’s mind was the sitting situation, so she brought that up again when they were getting closer and closer to the bus, “Guys, I really don’t like my seat, it’s a little awkward.” “What’s wrong with sitting next to the doctor?”asked Rachel. “Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” agreed Helen. Elisa felt that rage was boiling up inside her. After all, Helen did complain about it for the whole afternoon. And the fact that she was sitting next to Rachel now didn’t mean that seat wascomfortable!

“Don’t worry, Elisa,” said Rachel smoothly, “there would only be on more ride, then I’ll sit there myself. We are going in rounds.” Elisa felt a tiny bit better, though she still felt being left out. The doctor remained quiet on the bus during the ride. Just thinking about it, Elisa had never seen him talk before. She began to wonder if he was a hard and cruel young man. She looked at Helen who was sleeping, and Rachel, who was watching cartoons. “At least they weren’t acting all close and all that.” thought Elisa.

Lunch was pretty good, and Elisa’s desk mate back in school Chris was acting all funny. Chris was very tall, and he was the model student to many teachers. They were good friends. And on the lunch tables, jokes had been made and laughs kept erupting from their group.

6

They were at Shenzhen now and things weren’t much different either. But what all of the students were expecting was the Window of the World. Since most of the students had never been abroad before, the idea of seeing famous sights from all over the world made them extremely excited. Elisa was looking forward to it too. In the sight, it was actually stunning. There were the white house, Easter Island, the golden pyramids. They went climbing and skating. Elisa turned to be quite good at it, while Rachel couldn’t even stand on the ice.

Elisa kept expecting Cyril to come, but he seemed to be in somewhere else with his friends and Fiona. But even this could not spoil the fun of skating. They spent two hours on the ice and the team doctor turned out to be an extremely talkative guy, who was also very interested in gossiping. So Rachel and some other students took turns feeding him bits of information about this. Helen and Elisa, who found this embarrassing and boring since some of the information were about them, skated around and around. So that by the end of the day, they were both excellent while Rachel could barely skate on her own without falling.

On that night, there was a closing show and every class ought to have two shows. And Elisa signed up for singing, and Rachel almost forgot the lyrics on stage. So it was a bit awkward. Their song was the last one to perform, and the team leader ordered the students to turn off the lights and turned on their phones’ torch to make them shin like stars in the dark. Elisa smiled and hoped that one of the shining stars belong to Cyril. It was a small wish, but it meant a lot.

Looked like skating did improve the relationship between the doctor and the students. That night, they gathered around in Cray’s room and stayed there till 12 o’clock in the evening. They did some small tests on Elisa’s phone, to show how much money you would own after ten years. Rachel would get five million, Helen fifteen million, and Elisa five cents! The team doctor would be the richest man on this planet at least according to the phone. And that did send him into a really happy mood. Maybe that’s why he was willing to play truth or dare. But he lost and he happened to be choosing dare, and he had to kiss the window for ten seconds before retreating to the bathroom and spitting for three minutes.

Cray was busy playing on his phone. According to him, he was against at least five people. But this came from a guy who said he had got into Harvard when he was two years old, so no one quite believed in him. Everyone didn’t really pay attention to him. And since this was the last night, every student was having fun.

7

But it wasn’t too good for Elisa and Rachel. First, Rachel accused Elisa of taking the poker card. Elisa，who knew she hadn’t even touched that card once, denied it. Though Rachel was looking so sure, Elisa headed back to the room and double-checked, there was nothing. And Rachel was like, “Elisa, you wait, this is entirely your fault.” Elisa, who was sure that she didn’t do anything wrong, yelled right back. After a while, Helen found the card in her own suitcase, but Rachel didn’t apologize. The atmosphere was tense even though Cray and Helen were trying their best to make every one cheer up.

“At least Helen was on my side.” thought Elisa. “At least Cray was on my side.” thought Rachel. The conversation between Elisa and Rachel couldn’t be called a fight, but it certainly did hurt both of their feelings. To cover up the awkwardness, the played cards with Cray in their room. And when they finally had the urge to see what time it was, it was already four in the morning. So Cray, unable to get back into his room, slept in their room. On the ground of course. None of them thought it was a big deal. And they slept till 7’o clock.

That’s when Fiona rang the doorbell and came in. She saw that Cray was sleeping on a cover in their room and ran back to tell Mr. M. The thing sounded a thousand times worse being told by Fiona. The result of that was that they had to call their parents to school and write a five-hundred words passages saying that they were wrong. On the next day, things made up between Rachel and Elisa as they never mentioned last night’s story. They joked and laughed and everything was just like before. That’s when Elisa learned just how much Fiona was feeding the teacher bits of information about herself. It was all against her of course. No wonder why Mr. M was always looking at Elisa with a worried look on his face these days.

Elisa’s parents had never been called to school because of Elisa’s bad behavior before, and they acted very seriously on that, including a five-minute long lecture and continuous scolding.

Looking back at this trip, Elisa sighed. The birds were still singing, and why did this story have to end with a sad end?

（The End. 3625 words in total）