Saturn's Changes

“Honey, we’re home!” said mom. 

“Coming!” I said with my hand on my pencil and my eyes looking out the dark framed window that still had raindrops on it. Finally, they’re here, they had been gone for a few weeks now. My babysitter, Amanda was taking care of me, but it seemed more I was taking care of her. I spun off my rolly chair and stepped out of my room to my parents, holding gifts from Paris. They make the same face every time they come home from a trip, an uncanny surprised face with both their jaws dropping to the floor, and of course bearing presents.

“So many magnificent items!” I say a mirrored sentence everytime they come back and then start to list off the names of the things I got.

“Yeah the stuff looked cute so, like I got it for you.” 

Jeez, thanks mom! She ‘like’ got it for me? I smiled at her and then I took the big basket filled with European candy and other luxury gifts into my room and plopped it on my bed. I sat back down in my chair and looked at them going down the stairs in the little sliver of the mostly closed door. My parents are famous for acting in a handful of Emmy awarded films. Sure, it is really fantastic to be the only child of actors Michelle Ross and William Ross- but it comes with its disadvantages. They are almost never around to help me with school work and when they did travel, they think all I want when they come back is their gifts. 

From a distance, I heard my parents both arguing on the phone and the echo is so loud even with my door mostly closed. That's weird they never usually fight about phone calls like that. I look back to my homework and let out a deep sigh. The only time I do my school work is when my parents are gone, it actually seems normal when they are gone. I walked down the slippery clean steps of the wooden stairs, all polished up from different cleaners. I looked to the corner of my eye when I saw my parents in the dining room. I crouched down to have a view from the space in between the spindles. My mom and dad were sitting with tea and my mom was crying, holding a tissue to her eye. For my dad, he looks as if he was writing something. 

“Maybe its a divorce paper oh no!” I shouted aloud as my mother and father looked at me with both their mouths wide open. 

“Honey? Come down why are you hiding?” Said my mother, sobbing.

I went down the stairs, slowly but I only have a few left until I don't want to anymore. The face they made is the same face they make when they need to tell me something important. I also know that my teachers emailed home today as a check up of how bad I am doing in school. 

“Come down, Hailey Ross.” said my father with a concerned look on his face. I step down the last three steps and look at the ground and put my hand on the finial of the railing and spin around. Once I stepped into the room with my parents I knew that I was in trouble. My parents hate coming home from a work trip to bad news. 

“Do you know what we are talking about?” said my mother.

“Not really.” I lied, I had an idea of what they were talking about. 

“Well, we got the email,” said my dad. “..and we talked to our friends while we were in Paris and most of them took troubled kids to Saturn.” 

“Haha! Funny one. I was just doing my homework! Mom?” I declared.

“I agree with your father on this one, and I’m sorry these grades are not passing by us this time! It seems like it’s the thing we need to do.” My mom pronounced and her eyes squinted as she said that.

“You guys are EVIL!” I screamed and stomped up the stairs with my heels stepping first. 

“Pack up your things, the spaceship will be landing where our hover cars are parked.” Said my dad, eager for me to leave.

“W-what? You guys can not be serious!” I screamed in my closet to them, still sitting there downstairs. I was so mad that I wanted to leave and go to the dejected planet, so the next thing I know I was all packed and I even took some of my mom's jewelry just to annoy her. I flew down those wooden stairs faster than I had ever and I should have just ran away. I stared at the inside of the house for a little while, my hand still touching the knob but my eyes tearing up. My infuriating, immoral parents waved to me with their eyes filled with sorrow but they were determined I was toxic. The spacecraft was weird, and there was an attractive looking kid in there, most likely a famous person’s son. The mystery boy looked up at me and nodded. I didn't understand the nod but I proceeded looking out the window. I had been crying so long the petechiae is all exploiting. Petechiae is the blood vessels in my face, and they burst underneath my skin. It was worse when I was younger, every sneeze I would get the blotches. 

“Im Danny,” The no more mysterious- yet still mysterious boy said. 

“Im Hailey, and I am 16.” I explained. He looked surprised, but his expression was bland and hard to figure out. 

“Im 18,” Danny exclaimed. We kept talking for a few more hours until I went to sleep.  Suddenly, my solitary self woke up to what looked like a rock in a really dark space, actually maybe even space. I zoned out for a second to think of memories my mom and dad shared when they were away from me. They are probably in Gelfling, a visionary islet on the other side of the world they had been babbling about for weeks. Way back when my parents were babies, somewhere near 2080, it took 6 whole years. Now, luckily for me it takes about six hours all together to get to smelly Saturn. Saturn is not a lovely place, tales have been told its muddy and the food there is what middle classmen eat. Personally, I don't care what I am eating if it isn't vegetables.

 Danny had a misted askance look that felt eyes on him. My poor indigo eyes! I tried to dissimulate the fact that I was, caught staring at him for too long but I couldn't conclude my staring. My optics had a mind of their own. 

“Staring at me Hailey?” He laughed as he said that with an eye roll. Then he looked at me, expecting me to say something back. I'm not sure what I did with myself then but I knew my face was blushing. The awkward moment was getting too long so I had to say something.

“Yeah seeing if you were crying about not being close to your parents, that's all!” Phew, that went ...horrible! Danny will hate me forever, and what if there is no one else on the planet to be my friend since he will be everyone's friend and tell them what happened!

“We’re here,” said the driver who didn't talk the whole time but probably decided he wanted us off since I am so cringy. Woo-wee thank the lord we are here!

“Hey man, do you think that Saturn has any internet or something? I'm just wondering,” was the idiotic question Danny asked, and the driver just grunted.

“Oh my,” I rolled my eyes and laughed at the weird question. Once my feet were on Saturn a sudden heat wave hit and I hear some kids laughter from far away and see them over on a bridge with water and guard there. A giant cluster of kids my age came over from nowhere and didn't seem to notice I was there. The boys and girls talked so fast, I had no idea what to do. 

“Hey guys I’m Hailey!” I said but it felt like a shout once they all stopped talking. They smiled at me, it was friendly but not enjoyable. Then, I saw Danny behind me and he moved his head towards the direction he wanted to go with me and so I followed him. Danny lead me to an empty space, and the sun was further away, so far it reminded me of how much I wanted to go back. Danny had tan skin and dirty blonde hair that sparkled in the sunlight. From a distance, I saw an adult telling everyone to huddle up around her. Danny and I moved ourselves to others and the adult was talking about the trip and that this was a good week for it, so there is a lot of people. As she was talking, I started to look around at everyone else and try to figure them out. I'm really good at doing that, unless someone is like Danny, hard to figure out. 

My mind was going in circles and we had to head into the main building. Saturn was dark orange on the ground, looking like brown but had a slight orange look to it. The sky was getting dark, with a light purple on the horizon. Danny and I found a group of friends that got together and talked. There was Kayla, Chris, Maya and Sophie that I found to have the most in common with me. They weren't all famous, which was a little annoying at first- a slight fangirl moment. But then they noticed they were not too different from me. I was relieved that I had found some positive people that I can relate to since at first I wasn't getting any luck. I had perceived that Danny was looking at the really popular kids in the camp. I pulled Danny aside since I didn't want this to be a terrible experience for him.

“Danny, are you okay? You know you don't have to be with me and my friends,” I said with a deep sigh. 

“ Do you mind? can I go just see-” I cut him off.

“Yes of course you can,” and then I turned around and told my peers Danny saw someone he might have known. 

The problem was that I saw my friends all looking down, especially because Chris was now the only boy in the group. Looking over, I didn't see Danny at first but then heads moved, and I saw his golden hair. He was laughing at some jokes they were telling. Danny was popular, he went to school, and was popular there too. He doesn't want to be with some 17 year olds- almost his age because he was too fantastic for us. The popular group was in the middle and that's where all the tall girls and boys were inside all the other groups of kids. When I was gaping at all the groups I saw Danny, the tallest boy in there waving me over. I didn't want to be wicked to the friends I had just met but I was eager to go see Danny- the boy I was crushing on. 

“Woah.. Jessica?” I say a random name and skidaddle away from Maya, Kayla and Chris. I went over to Danny, and he smiled at me and moved some people out of the way creating a hallway that I went in. 

“Guys, this is Hailey,” All eyes were on me. Maybe they all forgot they rolled their eyes at me when I first came or just fake ignorance. All the girls smiled at me, heads facing me but their eyes turned away. The sky was now dark blue and the glistening moon was out. A vast moon meant Shelby, a guard had to speak. 

“Quiet down little children, you have one day left of this short camp. Anyways find a group of 10 to be in your floating tents, don't float away!” The counselor laughed after she had said that. Danny introduced me to a group of people and everything was going fine, until Maya, Kayla and Chris came over and looked at me. They just walked away before I could say anything back to them. Danny saw them but wasn't too dejected since he was with who he wanted to be with.
“Wow! A pretty pink color, that we can sleep in don't you think Adam?” said Mary.

“Nope black like your soul, I think right?” said Adam. Mary and Jessica were too tongue- tied so they didn't say anything else. 

“Blue.” said Danny and everyone followed us. We got into the tent up in the sky and Danny took his nikes off next to the bed I sat on.  The exhausting and infuriating day went past too quick and I was disappointed that Danny and I went on the spacecraft together, but I didn't know where he was going or where he lived. and I was downhearted. Sobbing at the hours passing by, Danny sat next to me. He looked sad because he knew his parents would just want him to go away. His parents were the opposite of mine, mean when they want and they have a lot of money but just don't want to use it on him. Danny waved me goodbye as I went down those steps, and I never saw him again.

“Hey mom!” I exclaimed.

“Hey honey, we are very sorry! Let's talk?” I was worried about Danny to answer. I learned to take my parents for granted, because you never know what everyone else’s dealing with.