“Hey Jeremie, are you all packed?” asked Odd. “We’re leaving in about five minutes.” 

“Yeah…I am,” Jeremie answered. He stuffed the last of his belongings into his suitcase and sat back on the bed, his head resting against Albert Einstein’s neck. Not the real Albert, obviously. That would be a little bit creepy, especially considering Albert’s current living status: non-existent. 

Odd walked into Jer’s room. He sat on the bed next to Jeremie. “Mind if I see what you packed? I might need some extra sunscreen.” 

“Sure, but I don’t think you’ll find any sunscreen in there,” Jeremie said even as Odd was opening the suitcase. 

Odd stared at the contents of the suitcase for three seconds before shutting it again. He looked at Jeremie and motioned for him to come over and look inside the suitcase, which he did.

“Jeremie…what do you see in there?” 

“Um…I see what I packed.” 

“Which is?” 

“Uh…” 

Odd closed the suitcase again. “One toothbrush. And one sock.” He shook his head sadly. “What are you going to do with one toothbrush and one sock?” 

“Change my sock…and brush my teeth,” Jeremie said.

 “One sock? What about the other one?” 

“I wanted to pack light,” Jeremie supposedly “explained”.

Odd continued looking at him like he was crazy. “That’s not light. Light is when you have maybe a couple sets of clothes and your cellphone or something. Light is not packing one toothbrush and one sock.” Odd sighed. “Okay, let’s repack…” 

“NO!” Jeremie cried, tackling Odd. 

“What are you doing?” Odd shrieked as they fell off the bed. “I’m saving you from having only two things in your entire suitcase!” 

“Don’t do it!” Jeremie yelled. “When I start thinking about what I should pack, I end up packing way too much, and I don’t want to run out of bags on the airplane, and maybe if there’s too many bags the airplane will crash and we’ll all die, and-” 

“Jeremie, the plane will not crash if you pack more than just a toothbrush and a sock!” Odd tried to make his friend see the truth. “There have been more than enough cases where planes crash, but that’s from pilot error or severe turbulence or the wings fall off or—” 

“WINGS FALL OFF OF PLANES?!?!” Jeremie screamed. If you hadn’t noticed by now, he had an extreme fear of airplanes and the fact that they could crash. 

“You’re more likely to choke to death on airplane food than to crash in one!” Odd said. 

“YOU CAN CHOKE TO DEATH ON AIRPLANE FOOD?!?!” Jeremie went into a whole new panic attack. Odd rolled his eyes and restrained Jeremie from running away to an underground shelter where he didn’t have to go on a plane. “LET ME OFF LET ME OFF LET ME OFF THE PLAAAANE!” 

“We’re not on the plane yet,” Odd said. 

Jeremie wasn’t listening to anything. 

“What are you guys screaming about?” Aelita asked as she opened the door and came in, only to find Odd and Jeremie squirming around on the floor. She covered her eyes and ran out of the room. “I’ve been blinded! My boyfriend loves another…GUY! And they were doing it on the dorm floor!!” 

Ulrich, who was walking through the halls for a morning stroll, came into the dorm. “Hey guys, you just traumatized Aelita for life…she’s never going to be the same. What are you doing anyway?” 

“Jeremie’s scared to get on the plane and he’s having a nervous breakdown,” Odd said. “Can you find out SOME way to stop him?” 

“Jeremie, Aelita wants you to go,” Ulrich said. 

Jeremie went completely still, then said “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?” He managed to get out of Odd’s restraint, muttering a “Geez, no one told me you were gay,” and then he took his suitcase, rolling it out into the hallway. 

“Van’s loading,” Ulrich said. “Hurry up and get down there.” 

The two boys exited the dorm and headed down to the van. Odd was left alone pondering what exactly to do so he could procrastinate until it was five seconds before he was supposed to be downstairs. Hmm…I see some marbles, a Lego, a whoopee cushion…hey, what’s that doing there? That’s mine! Oh well. Hmm…what else…a cellphone? Odd picked up the cellphone and turned it on. After pressing a bunch of random numbers, he got bored and ran to his room to pack. Yeah…he hasn’t packed yet. 

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o 

The group of pathetic superheroes was on the van. This was pretty much the worst part, because once they got on the van they were locked in the same vehicle for about two hours while they drove to the airport. The passengers: 

Odd Della Robbia (purple boy extraordinaire and King of Car Games)

Ulrich Stern (boring guy who stares out the window)

Yumi Ishiyama (writer in the diary…even though handwriting always sucks in the car)

Aelita Hopper (happy skippy talky person)

Jeremie Belpois (fine-until-he-gets-to-the-airport-and-then-hyperventilates person)

William Dunbar (who miraculously reappeared in Season 5…which this would be. Just strange.)

Sissi Delmas (the most annoying reincarnation of Satan ever)

Nick…uh…what’s his last name? (drone of Sissi)

Herb, aka Mr. Pimply (drone of Sissi)

Tara Anderson (crazy person who thinks this is the greatest thing since pancakes)

Ratiosu (alter ego who plays Mind Charades with Ratiasu)

Ratiasu (alter ego who plays Mind Charades with Ratiosu)

Mr. Delmas (driver…but he keeps falling asleep)

Yolanda (chaperone…but not a very good one)

...and various other people who are too unimportant to mention…like Milly and Tamiya. 

“Hey!” Milly yelled. 

“Who are you talking to?” asked Tamiya, who was composing another news report about their trip. “No one said anything to you.”

 “I’m talking to The Voice,” Milly said. 

“Oh…that again,” Tamiya said. Milly had lately been hearing some kind of voice that she said sounded like God. But really, it was the author’s, obviously. However, Milly didn’t know that: it was safer just to let her think it was God. She was too stupid to know that God was not able to sin…therefore He couldn’t insult people. 

Anyway, getting back to the plot, which happens to be almost non-existent. An hour later, everyone was getting on everyone else’s nerves. Car rides can do these things to you. Odd was flirting it up with the various unnamed girls, like Milly and Tamiya. Just kidding; they’re only like 11. He was being generally annoying, like Odd is. Like we established, Ulrich was staring out the window. Yumi was writing a whole novel in her diary, and Aelita was in a chat room on her cellphone, having run out of things to talk about with the rest of the girls. William was…doing something unidentifiable, and Jeremie was playing with the sock for amusement. The rest of them weren’t really important. 

Before long, they were at the airport. Jeremie was absently playing with the sock, so he didn’t notice where they were until Yolanda said, “All right, everybody out in an orderly fashion. Let’s not make this like it is at Kadic, please.” 

Jeremie looked out the window and started screaming, which gave everybody else reason to scream. Yolanda gave them all a death glare, and everyone except for Jeremie shut up. He just continued screaming. 

“Shut UP, Jeremie!” Aelita yelled, frustrated at being torn from her chat room where, unbeknownst to Jeremie, she was flirting with another guy she had never even seen before. “Just get out of the car and stop being such a baby!” 

Jeremie wouldn’t move. He was literally fastened to the seat. 

William rolled his eyes, and then went back to being antisocial. 

“Good Lord in Heaven,” Tara said, and pulled Jeremie from the seat with a sound like ripping paper. Unfortunately, she pulled a bit too hard and they ended up face to face, lips to lips. 

Tara threw Jeremie down to the ground. “Euuuuu! I just kissed a NERD!” Tara had issues about even touching Jeremie because she was apparently “popular” and he was such a computer nerd. 

“Hey, I didn’t like it either!” Jeremie protested, even though everybody likes kissing Tara. It’s one of her special abilities. Being one of those people who worries about their appearance like all the time.

“Okay, now that that display of affection is over…” Yolanda said, rolling her eyes, “…can we please form an orderly line with our suitcases and then with ourselves?” 

“It wasn’t supposed to be a display of affection,” Tara said, getting in the line after putting her three suitcases in the other line. “I was just trying to get him out of the seat. It’s not my fault he’s terrified of planes.” 

Jeremie all of a sudden remembered where they were and started screaming. “I WON’T GET ON THAT PLANE!” 

“Oh crap…”

The airport officials were standing behind their desks, watching hundreds and thousands of people mill past on their Friday morning. The sounds of their conversations were all blending together to become a loud murmur. It was the same as every day; adults on business trips, bored-looking teenagers being shipped across the country, and screaming ones that refused to go on planes—

“NO, I WON’T GET ON THE PLANE! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME! GET MR. DELMAS TO DRIVE ME BACK!” The voice resounded off the walls, making it sound fifty times as loud as the officials were sure it was. A crowd of teens were walking close to him, and a blonde woman was trying to force the screaming boy into the airport. 

“Excuse me, ma’am, do you need help?” Officer Felipe Fortescue asked, coming up to the blonde. 

The blonde, who, incidentally, was Yolanda, said “Yes, thank you very much.” 

Officer Fortescue took Jeremie and grabbed him by the shoulders. “What is it?” 

“I DON’T WANNA GO ON THE PLAAAAANE, IT’S GONNA CRASH AND WE’LL ALL DIE!!!” 

“Listen to me, kid,” he said. “These planes are safe. You won’t crash; I guarantee it. We’ve just done test runs and all the planes are working fine. Now, if you can’t behave yourself, I’ll have to put you in the restraining cabin.” 

“The…restraining cabin?” Jeremie sniffed, temporarily calm. “There’s really such thing?” 

“Yes,” Officer Fortescue said, obviously lying. “We can put you in there and it’s completely dark for the entire plane ride. And then you won’t have to see anything. Now, are you going to calm down and get on the plane like a normal person? Or are you going to have to be put in the restraining cabin?” 

“I’ll be good,” Jeremie promised. 

“All right.” He released Jeremie’s shoulders and turned to Yolanda. “He should be fine now.” 

“Stop talking about me like I’m not right here!” Jeremie said, annoyed at having to be normal and not be scared of the planes anymore. 

“Yeah, I don’t know what I would’ve done if it wasn’t for you,” Yolanda said, batting her eyes and ignoring Jeremie’s remark. 

Jeremie looked up at the two adults with a look of frustration on his face from being ignored. 

“Well, you had him covered pretty well,” the officer said. 

“Eww…everyone, let’s go,” Tara said, pushing the crowd of Kadic teens forward so they wouldn’t have to see icky adult romance. Knowing your school nurse can have a crush is pretty much the equivalent of finding out that your parents had sex with each other to have you…or if that doesn’t freak you out, that they still do have sex. 

“Aw, but I wanna see Yolanda get engaged!” our favorite idiot, Theo, said. 

“Theo Gauthier, please just remain with the group,” Yolanda said, not taking her eyes from Officer Fortescue. 

Theo “humph”-ed. “Yeah, whatever.” I bet everyone forgot about poor Theo, huh? I didn’t even know his last name until I looked on Wikipedia.

“It’s okay Theo, I love you,” Tara said, hugging him. He just looked like he needed a hug. Theo turned pink. “Thanks, Tara.” 

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo 

Nothing much happened until they were in line waiting for the plane to board. “You all have your passports, right?” Mr. Delmas asked.

Everyone except Tara held up their passport. 

“Tara, what about you?” 

“It’s my home country, I don’t need a passport,” she said. 

“You need one to leave this country,” Yolanda said. 

“Relax, I have it.” She took the passport out of her purse and held it up, rolling her eyes. “You guys are so paranoid. I have my passport, okay?” 

“You never know,” Yumi said. “Last time you ended up dropping it in between the seat and the door when you were on your way back to Kadic from summer vacation.” 

“I told you never to MENTION THAT!!” Tara yelled. She chased Yumi around with a mallet. “Bring it on, geisha girl!!” 

Yeah, as you can tell, Tara has a serious problem with Yumi. 

While those two were forming an unlikely friendship, the intercom crackled to life and said, “Begin boarding the plane, please.” 

“People, people!!” Yolanda yelled. “Can we please settle down and get on the plane? Look at your boarding passes and get onto the correct seat which is marked in the center of the pass.” Hey, if the nurse thing ends up not working out, I can always go into flight attendant business. 

Tara and Yumi continued their lovely dance of friendship. 

“TARA ANDERSON AND YUMI ISHIYAMA, DISCONTINUE THAT AND GET OVER HERE!!” 

Tara and Yumi stopped in mid-step and looked at Yolanda in shock. Who knew she could yell like that? Who knew she could actually assert herself? 

“Yeah, I said it. Get over here and stop the bickering.” 

Tara and Yumi sadly walked over. 

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo 

“Bonjour, passengers, this is your captain speaking. Please watch the flight attendants for a brief announcement on how to apply the oxygen masks in case of an emergency.” The intercom died and the four flight attendants who were lined up in the aisle, in different parts so everyone could look at the nearest ones, started motioning how to put on the oxygen masks and how to escape as a video played along with the audio. 

“In…case…of…an…emergency?” Jeremie said slowly. He slowly started panicking. Sissi, who was sitting next to him, sighed and said “We’re over the wing; we’re at the safest part.” 

“Actually, the wings aren’t the safest part,” Aelita said, popping her head over the top of her seat, which was in front of Jeremie’s. “The tail is. You know how in crashes you can always see the tail still there. And they have the black box in the back…you know, where they keep the flight records? The tail has to be safe so the black box doesn’t get destroyed.” 

Jeremie looked in the back to see if there were any empty seats he could sit in. His panicked eyes searched but the seats were all filled up. 

Tara, who was sitting next to Aelita, punched her in the shoulder.

“Oww!” Aelita said, rubbing her arm and looking down at Tara. Since Tara was still sitting faced forward in her seat, Jeremie and Sissi couldn’t see her. So it looked like Aelita just got hit with nothing and was looking down at the seat, annoyed. 

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Tara hissed. “He’s going to panic now.” 

“Well,” Aelita continued. “The wings are safe too. Like, if there was a fire? The carbon monoxide wouldn’t be as serious if you got out of the wing exit right away…which you’re next to.” She pointed. “And if we were going into a dive or something.” 

“We don’t have parachutes,” Jeremie said. 

“Well…you never know. I bet one day a plane will dive and someone will jump out the wing exit and they’ll land on a nice fluffy pasture of sheep.” 

Tara rolled her eyes. “Stuff doesn’t happen like that.” 

“Look who’s talking about ‘he’s going to panic now’,” Aelita said. “Anyway…we’re safe. Don’t worry, Jeremie.” She sat back down and started texting again, now that she had charged her phone in the airport. 

“Merci, and we hope you enjoy your flight with us,” the captain said, and the flight attendants went back into the back room. 

“See, we’re going to be fine,” Aelita added from her seat. 

“The movie playing today will be Nimh’s Island.” It looked like the captain wasn’t done speaking after all. 

Everyone cheered. That was like the newest movie in France, and they had finally translated it from English to French. Of course, Tara could understand it both ways, but whatever. 

Jeremie was immediately drawn into the movie. Sissi looked at him once or twice to see why he was so quiet. What she saw was Jeremie staring at the TV with a look of adoration. Sissi tapped his headphones once to see if he would respond. Which he didn’t. 

“Aelita, something’s wrong with Jeremie,” she said, not really caring but not wanting him to do something weird that would get them all killed. You never knew when he started looking like that. 

Aelita popped up and looked at him. “Oh, that’s just the look he gets whenever he sees something he really loves.” 

Tara popped up too. “Hey, that’s the look he gets when he sees you,” she said. 

Aelita's face turned pink. 

“Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff.” Everyone settled back and got ready for the plane to start barreling down the runway. The engines fired up and it started going at a little less than biking speed. It slowly picked up and then started going down the runway. Before long, they were shooting down it. Jeremie didn’t seem to notice it until it was going as fast as it could and they still had half the runway to go. He looked outside and saw the trees and the buildings and the cars going past and he gripped the seat so hard his knuckles turned white.

“We’re going really fast! Are we supposed to go this fast?” 

“YES!” Sissi yelled. “Okay? We are supposed to be going this fast!” 

“Is she lying?” Jeremie asked William, who was across the aisle from him. 

“Huh? Oh…no,” he said, and then went back to absently staring at the seat in front of him. 

“I feel bad for William,” Sissi said. 

“Why?” 

“Because he has to hang out with Tara the entire time,” she explained. “And anyone hanging out with Tara has to get tired of it sometime.” 

Tara spoke from her seat without turning around. “Sissi, do you want your head to remain connected to your body?” 

“That would be nice,” Sissi said. 

“Then SHUT UP.”

The plane came to a landing a few hours later, after the gang had eaten their airplane food (dear God, how could anyone stomach that stuff and not throw it up?) and Jeremie had panicked about turbulence and demanded to get off the plane RIGHT NOW. It was night, and certain members on the plane were not exactly happy to be flying through the darkness. 

“How does the pilot see? How does he know where to go? He can’t see in the dark!” Jeremie kept saying. 

“It’s called radar, stupid,” Sissi said, rolling her eyes. 

“I can’t even see!” Jeremie continued, paying no attention to Sissi and looking outside the window. “All I can see is that blinking red light at the end of the wing. Is that all the light he has to go by? We are all gonna die!” 

“Shut up!!” William yelled, talking for the first time in the entire book…I think. He turned to face Jeremie and prepared for the longest rant he had ever said. 

“You…are…annoying.” 

… … …I didn’t say it was long. I just said it was the longest rant that he had ever done, and it’s true. William doesn’t talk much unless he’s in love. 

Jeremie turned around in his seat to face front and sighed. Back to the present or whatever. 

OH EM GEEZ, PRESENT WHERE 

So. They all got off and walked into the Miami airport. The gang was extremely confused as to what everyone was saying. Tara had taught Jim and Jeremie some limited English, and Odd the words that meant ‘candy’, ‘food’, or any variety thereof, but that was it. Jim wasn’t even on the trip. Considering how Jeremie was basically an Alakazam in a human body, he remembered everything she ever taught him, so at least that was good. But he didn’t know much. Tara had gotten tired halfway through. 

“What are they saying?” Ulrich, who no one even knew had come on the trip, asked. (A/N: Whenever the Code Lyoko gang or Kadic Academy is speaking, it’s French, unless I say otherwise. Thanx u cookie pplz.) 

“Do you really want me to tell you guys everything that everyone is saying?” Tara asked in amazement. 

“Sure, why not?” Aelita asked. 

“You can understand English, ya dope,” Tara said. 

Aelita, who had spent her time in Lyoko studying every language, even the dead ones, and was fluent in every one, looked at the floor. “Sorry.” 

“I’m not going to tell you guys everything that everyone is saying.” Tara shook her head. “Maybe once in a while something stupid will be said and I’ll repeat it to you in French.” 

“Hooray!” Yumi threw up her hands and accidentally hit Odd in the eye, who dropped to the floor sobbing. It wasn’t really serious…Odd just liked being a drama queen.

Yumi, not knowing this despite all the time she spent with him, went down beside him and said, “I am so sorry, Odd. Soooo sorry. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do for you?” 

Odd lay there on the floor until… 

“What…is that delicious smell?” he asked, sitting up. 

“Uhm…” Tara looked around the huge Miami airport. “…that would probably be…cinnamon buns?” 

Odd looked to have seen the light of heaven. “Cinnamon buns?” 

“They’re good,” Tara said absently. 

Odd shot up and grabbed Tara by the shoulders. “Where are the cinnamon buns?” 

Tara looked at Odd. His eyes were crazy and he looked as if he would faint if he didn’t find out where the cinnamon buns were. She meekly pointed over to the Cinnabon restaurant where they were selling them.

Odd looked over and suddenly he was gone. 

“Oh, great,” said Tara. “We better go keep an eye on him.” 

Team Lyoko left Yolanda and the others to go make sure Odd didn’t spontaneously combust out of excitement when he reached the place. Despite the fact that they were all supposed to stay together, Yolanda was taking care of some kid that had gotten sick on airline food. Being Yolanda, she didn’t think to sue the airline company for everything they got, making her poor student sick. Yolanda’s too nice for that. 

So. 

“Wait up, Odd!” Team Lyoko called. They all rushed over to where the strange blonde boy was running to.

He jumped up (being short isn’t a great thing) and looked at the menu. Mostly by the pictures considering he couldn’t read English (didn’t we already go over this?). He pointed to a cinnamon bun practically covered in icing and said, “I want that one, can you buy it for me, please Tara???” 

Tara rolled her eyes and pulled out a couple dollars. “We are not going to make a habit out of this, Odd.” She reluctantly paid for the cinnamon buns and was handed some napkins with three steaming pastries on them. Mostly because she knew one would be for Odd, one for her, and then one for the rest of the cannibals she called friends. They were almost three dollars apiece now and she was trying to save her money from being a prostitute… I MEAN UHM SELLING LMNADE LIK ZOMG …so she didn’t run out as soon as they stepped outside. 

Yolanda led the way, the sick kid being miraculously healed (it helps to have a nurse on the trip), and the small group headed out towards the customs area. The security guards took one look at Tara and let her right through. 

“Yes!” Tara said, and pumped her fist into the air. “It pays off to be an American.” 

After customs (where Sissi got half her lotion confiscated and screamed at the guards in French), the pathetic group of superheroes and normal people went to the entrance/exit of the airport to get into the taxi that would drive them to their THUPER AWETHUM BEACH HOWTH! 20 points for whoever finds out what that was supposed to mean. It’s not that hard xP 

So.

I’m just going to skip to the THUPER AWETHUM BEACH HOWTH because nothing really exciting happened between then and the other then. Yes, I know because I was there, don’t ask me that. 

After putting away all their stuff in their respective rooms (the girls’ was upstairs and had like 3 rooms and the boys’ was downstairs and had like 2 rooms…why am I tellin’ you this?), the group assembled on the main floor, the one you went up the stairs to and had the kitchen and TV and everything. 

“Now guys, I want you to remember that this is America, and there’s going to be a lot of different things that French people don’t do…and vice versa. You’d all be best to ask Tara about how to act here.” Yolanda looked very pleased with her ability to be authoritive. Everyone looked to where Yolanda was gesturing but Tara wasn’t there. “Ugh…now where’d she go?” Yolanda asked herself, knowing this girl was just slightly insane and could be anywhere. 

From the roof of the airport, Tara spread out her arms. The wind from the storm that had just picked up blew her hair and clothes back. “I…am…GOD.”