Molly's - Chapter 15 [Tankiverse Fanfic]

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

Molly’s - Chapter 15

Fanfic in the Tankiverse by Hippin_in_Hawaii

 

I spent most of the next six weeks not at Molly’s, which seems wrong. I met repeatedly with different teachers at the school as they scrambled to lay out a program of remote classes for the coming year. I hadn’t realized how much extra effort it would be on their parts, but they all seemed happy to do it.

 

I tried to spend some extra time with my friends. That was actually kinda weird. I mean, we’d see each other at school all the time, and we’d hang out between classes, and we’d play on the network, and every once in awhile, we’d do something together. Maybe a movie, someone’s birthday, a camping trip. All that was normal. Trying to make opportunities to, I dunno, to store up companionship? Yeah, that got weird.

 

Mom became obsessed with my packing. Olaf allocated me a truck with one-half cubic meter of storage, not to exceed 50 kilos. Mom set up a mock storage locker, made from old cardboard boxes, and began trying to exploit every cubic centimeter by using “storage solutions” from the local mall.

 

Dad limited his contribution to buying me a top-of-the-line NetBook. “Whatever excuses you may have,” he told me, “you won’t be able to say your computer wasn’t good enough.” He also got me a credit card in my name. How cool is that?

 

The last week, I stopped going to school and started living with Olaf’s crew. I still didn’t do much work for Molly’s; I was in deep training about how to live as part of a caravan. The inventory system, the schedules, getting used to a complete lack of privacy, the reality of sharing a bunk with other people… that one, especially, threw me. I had second thoughts. Lots and lots of second thoughts. But I was more stubborn than I was scared; having decided to go through with this, I was going to go through with this!

 

The day was cut into four shifts of six hours each. I was assigned one sleep shift, two work shifts, and had two hours between each for eating, studying, napping, whatever I liked. Everyone had the same structure; each person’s day just started at a different time. When I came to bed, I had to kick Marc awake and wait for him to strip the bed. When my alarm went off, I knew I had five minutes to get up and out of the way before Jaxom would be there, ready to lie down. I had thought that Mom and Dad had been cruel getting me up in the mornings; the first day I overslept, Jaxom simply scooped me out of the bed and put me on the floor of the bus!

 

I learned how to run the inventory system for the tools, how to check things in and out, and where everything was stored. I learned how to read the schedules, which is nowhere near as easy as it sounds. The locations, the job assignments, the estimated hours… I’d assumed that Olaf showed up and Molly just pointed at things to do. No, she had an ongoing list, which she updated daily. They’d been planning this visit’s jobs since last year!

 

And I learned that six hours of personal time a day, when that includes eating and hygiene, is precious little time. It was simply impossible to think I would keep up with all of my studies. I could binge when we were on the road, but realistically, I was going to fall behind. Far behind. Realizing this, I decided to focus on my STEM classes. Literature, art, and the humanities would still be waiting for me when I got home.

 

Olaf’s schedule for the coming year had 18 different locations for the main caravan. There were dozens of side jobs that only needed a small crew; I was surprised to see that I was assigned to one of those. There was one four-day window labeled “Festival;” there was a day off for New Year’s, one for Christmas, and one for Unification Day. Aside from that, every single day was either scheduled for work or travel.

 

The crew could take sabbaticals. Depending on their seniority, each person could take several weeks off. Those tended to be scheduled when the caravan was working smaller yards. I, of course, wasn’t eligible. Looking at the schedule, I would be 1,000 kilometers away for Christmas; about the same for New Year’s; and almost 1,500 for my next birthday.

 

We hadn’t even left yet, and already I wanted to cry!

 

 

Mahalo (thank you) for reading; I hope you enjoyed! This story is part of a series. Information on the series, and links to the other stories, can be found here.

 

[Flexoo 6,980]

Approved ;)

[P.4.R.K.O.U.R 329]

Nice!

Wait, isn't that the fifth time I'm writing nice...

 

Brilliant!

[TankiNoob2000 231]

20!

Thanksgiving special should be next ;)

[Person_Random 4,991]

Feels bad...  Poor kid, he has to get all his leaves far far far away from home.  Last pick belongs to those like me (at least at church)