Part 3

  We're Here!

  After the kids took their bags that were filled with spare clothes and swimming equipment, they finally departed from their bus and made their way to the water park entrance through the pine forest (Which was used as a parking lot.) After a lot of walking, passing by many heats and breezes, they finally made their way to the entrance of Uprise Down. The entrance was like a tunnel. A beautifully decorated tunnel. With its fishy mascot cutouts and its astounding blue ceiling lights. But the awe-inspiring decorations and brilliant construction don’t allow them to avoid the fact that there’s a huge line waiting at the ticket booth. Families were there, couples, husband and wife, children, and many more.

  “Do we have to wait!?” Thomas complained with his hands cupping his cheeks. The other kids were starting to release their complaining groans into the air.

  “This is the end for us…”

  He thought to himself in fear of time eating itself.

  “There’s no way out of this infinite line…”

  “We’re gonna eat some rocks to survive, boys!” Dean spoke energetically. As if this situation isn’t some sort of joke (Which it is.)

  “Oh, don’t worry, you guys!” Mr. Arlon commented on his students’ groans. “The ticket booth in this place is fast! You’ll never realize that your turn is next!” His tone was cheerful. Cheerful enough to make his students wait. And so they did. They waited for roughly fifteen minutes before they even had a chance to notice.

  “Welcome to Uprise Down!” The ticket girl warmly welcomed them from her booth. “How can I help you today?”

  “One school pack ticket, please.” Mr. Arlon ordered.

  “For what school?”

  “The Light Atoll School—. The Light Atoll Private School.”

  “Alright, sir. For how many students?”

  “Nine students.”

  “Okay! That’ll be 20$!”

  He then grabbed his wallet from his pocket and gave her his debit card for the payment method. The girl carefully took his card, swiped the card into the EDM machine, and let it do the rest.

  “Success! Here’s your card back, sir. And please line up the students to get their wristband.”

  The students were then told to line up by their teacher to receive their wristbands from the ticket girl. One by one, they reach out their right arms toward the girl as she skillfully wraps it around the students’ arms.

  “Alright! All set!” The ticket girl smiled as she took a receipt of the payment and gave it to Mr. Arlon. All of the students did not forget to thank the girl. In which the girl replied with a smile and said, “You're welcome, and have fun!” The students then walked through the small gateway. They then ran through the blue, dimly lit tunnel. Passing by the colorful blue lights as they went through. And from halfway down the tunnel, they all saw the end of the tunnel. Shining brightly as the sunlight blinds their eyes from seeing the outside view. Their legs are now filled with more excitement. Giving out small, adorable dashes as they kept progressing. Until they all finally stepped out of the tunnel. From a blinding light view by the sunlight, their eyes adapt to its luminosity, giving them a spectacular view of the many wonders of the water park. They were finally here.

  “OH MY GOD! WE’RE HERE!!!” Thomas shouted with flabbergasted awe. The places that he dreamt of going here have finally become a reality.

  “There it is! The tallest water slide! There it is! The scariest rides! It’s the same rides from the pictures!”

  Seeing the places in person seems to make Thomas’ heart swell with joy. The sounds of kids laughing and playing, teenagers hanging out with their gangs, and parents taking care of their children with bright smiles on their faces. There was only joy in this place.

  “FWEEEEEEET!” The high-pitched sound from Mr. Arlon’s whistle was blown away for the second time. “Alright, students! Gather up!” All of them quickly assembled without any funny business, which surprised him for a second before turning back into his ‘cool teacher’ state.

  “Alright guys, since we have our time here until late afternoon, we’re going to have fun in this place to the max!” Mr. Arlon's voice resonated with authority, tinged with a hint of excitement as many visitors passed by them.

  “Oh yes, I forgot to ask you guys about this. Do you have any information about this water park?” Mr. Arlon asked. “Anything. Any details or stuff?” To his surprise, all of his students did not raised their hands. He expected some of his students to know about it, but most of them didn’t.

  “Wow… So, since you guys don’t know much about the park, I want you to take a look at this map.” He then points at a medium-sized map placed inside a glass board on the side of a bus stop. And once the kids saw the map, they all had a glimpse of the scale of this water park compared to their existence. Some of the kids’ excitement skyrocketed in a few seconds. At the same time, some of them got scared due to that glimpse.

  “Holy crap, this place is huge!” Dean shouted excitedly, though his voice was muffled by the sounds and chatter of passing strangers.

  “Yeah! No wonder people wanted to play in this place so badly…” Raoul added.

  “Hey, looks like there are a lot of plays we're going to do!” Jason spoke with his high-pitched voice as he nudged Thomas' shoulder with a slight curve on his lips.

  Thomas was just stunned by how wide this water park is. His mouth was agape by the time he saw the map.

  “So… What rides should we take first?”

  He asked himself.

  “I really don’t know. But let's randomly pick from that one to that one!”

  He looked at the pinpoint rides on the map. His eyes shifted gaze from the map to his friends, and finally to Mr. Arlon, who was smiling at all of his students. Maybe Mr. Arlon is happy because he can bring his students to this amazing water park.

  “Oh! Excuse me,” Mr. Arlon’s phone was ringing from his pocket. He quickly grabbed his phone and took his call. “I have to take this. You guys wait here, okay?” He then walks away to the other side of the bus stop to take his call privately. “Yes, Miss Jess—…?”

  After Mr. Arlon took his call privately, the last few boys who hadn’t been introduced stepped in to take a look at the map. It was Ray, Al, and Basil. They were the ones who created the idea of the ‘screaming every time they pass a billboard’ game on the bus. All of the boys kind of agree that when it comes to decision-making, they will go for Ray.

  “Hey Ray, take a look at this map, will ya?” Al asked Ray with his finger pointing directly at the map. As a response, Ray nods as he rubs his chin softly with his eyes squinting.

  “We’re toast?” Basil asks as he looks at Ray from his side. They’re all waiting for Ray’s answer.

  “Yup.” Ray nods again. But this time, he clapped his hands to tell them, “We’re toast.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Hohohaha. How? How are we toast?” Gio asks with a slight goofy laugh, which makes Thomas want to join the conversation as well. Eager to be part of the discussion, he exclaimed, “Yeah! How are we… ‘toast’?”

  Ray responded by giving Thomas a quick sideways glance, signaling with his eyes before giving all of his friends his opinion. He then turns around to face his friends.

  “Alright, you guys. Right here, you see this?” Ray points at the map with his finger. Specifically, the top right of the map gave readers the exact length and width of the whole water park. It reads "12 km x 12 km."

  “Do you see how HUGE this place is?” Ray’s eyes widen as he exclaims with his tone. Obviously, his friends did not understand the part where Ray was mad at. A kid’s dream would always want to visit or own a happy dreamland place. The bigger the better. So he must have thought something nagging about this whole place.

  “Why? This place is big and awesome! Why are we toast, Ray?” Thomas asked again, looking confused. Ray had an answer.

  “Don't you guys get it?” he asked, spreading his arms and hands in a gesture. To which his friends replied with a clueless head shake. Especially Gio, his mouth makes an exaggerated agape.

  “We’re toast because I think we don’t have time to play all of the slides.” His reason made all of his friends look into a deeper view. Thomas did not care about this because he thought that a bigger place meant that he’d have leftover rides that he hadn’t tried out yet once he returned to this place. ( It takes more than three and a half hours for them to arrive at Uprise Down. Two hours if there’s no traffic jam. )

  “I mean… What time is it now?” Ray looks at his surroundings, hoping that there's some sort of big clock stuck onto a wall.

  Thomas, knowing that his friends currently don’t wear watches, needs some kind of way to tell the time. He starts by looking around to see if strangers passing by them are wearing a watch. If you think that Thomas would ask them about the time, you’d be wrong. Instead, he only wanted to see the time by looking at those people’s hands who wore a watch. Hoping that he could see it by just looking at it.

  “Please, someone use a digital watch instead of those pointy-arrow ones.”

  He doesn't hope for not one, not two, but five people who wear a watch. But even when there are, most of them are walking too fast. Faster walking means faster arm movement.

  “Gah… they're walking too fast… need another way to tell the time.”

  He then faces towards the sun that is shining brightly with its summer heat, forcing him to squint his eyes. Why did he do this? Because he thought the sun could tell the time by just looking at its position, if the person knew how to do so.

  “Oh no…! I don't remember where East and West is!”

  He kept staring at the sun, hoping that he could instantly know what time it is by doing that. But staring long enough, he can feel his eyes start to sizzle from the brightness. So he instinctively moves his gaze away from the sun. But he knows one thing after that. He knows that the sun is at the center of the sky, slightly positioned on the left. Thomas’ left obviously.

  “Oh! I get it! I know what time it is!”

  He made up his mind that it is currently “Noon! It's noo-”

  “Damn it, I know it's noon, Thomas!” His excitement was only to be cut short by Ray. Which made Thomas let out a simple “Oh,” afterward. Hearing this made Jason and Alex laugh. Which shook Thomas’ instinct to let out a slight giggle. A way for himself to distract from his so-called ‘Failures.’

  Moving on from the time discussion, Basil began to notice that some people were fond of taking a glance at the back side of the map. Wondering if there was something interesting behind the map, he decided to take a good look. And when he did, he was astonished.

  “Umm, Ray?” Basil spoke with his hand, gesturing for Ray to approach him.

  “What??” Ray replied as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “You gotta see this, man.” As Ray approaches Basil, he sees him pointing at the back of the map. Ray’s eyes widened as he felt one of the most shocking things he had ever felt.

  “You… Got to be… KIDDING ME!” Ray cups his head with both of his hands, leaving his mouth open for a while. This scene made all of his friends curious and made them want to see the back side of that particular map for themselves.

  “There are two other parks inside this water park?” Raoul asks as he sees the back side of the map. It was, in fact, another map of Uprise Down. This part of the map shows a more detailed version than the previous had.

  “WHO MADE THIS MAP!?” Ray shouted in disbelief. He could not even begin to start thinking about how the higher staff in Uprise Down could approve this kind of design choice for the map. People all around Ray had a quick shock because of his sudden shout.

  “What kinda—... Who thinks—... Why did they—...” His thoughts rapidly change with his words, unable to make complete sentences about this discovery. He flung his arms left and right each time he tried to speak, his gestures growing more frantic with every failed attempt at forming a sentence.

  “Wow… HA! Okay! So there's TWO more, hah!?” This map causes Ray to question more about the origins of the map.

  “Yup. There’s a lot to explore, kids.” Mr. Arlon spoke as he walked towards them. He turned off his phone and then slipped it back into his pocket.

  “Sir!” Ray shouted, in need of help. “The place! It’s too big—”

  “—large, Ray. Large. Big is quite small, to say the least.” Al interrupted, cutting Ray off. This caused Ray to create a slight smirk before returning back to worrying about how they were going to spend their time here more efficiently.

  “Well… Yeah. That’s why I brought you guys here.” Mr. Arlon smiled as he crossed his arms. “Even if we left too early before we could try out other slides and rides, this place will be waiting for us when we have another chance to revisit Uprise Down!” His students brightened up when Mr. Arlon spoke those words.

  “Well, if we want to make a plan to explore Uprise Down much nicer, we can—~~~~~~...”

  “How many feet long is the water park?”

  Thomas asked himself as he slowly walked without noticing that he was straying away from them. The conversation between his group of friends and Mr. Arlon began to fade from his ear. The same went for strangers around him. He began to walk step by step towards the bluest areas far ahead. Then he slowed down again to reconstruct his steps.

  “How many feet long is the water park?”

  He asked again while he walked forward and moved his right foot to step in front of his left foot. His right heel touched the front of his left foot. Then he repeats with his left, then right, and his left again. Moving forward ever so slightly as he counts in his curious mind.

  “1… 2… 3… 4… 5…”

  He counts the steps that he has taken.

  “Kilometers? I’d rather count with my feet! It’s easier, comfortable, nic—”

  “Thomas!”

  From the horde of visitors, Dean, accompanied by Alex beside him, called out to Thomas from a distance as they approached him with their feet running. Thomas noticed Dean's left arm was holding some sort of paper with it’s edge poked out from Dean's palm. Alex, too was holding the same type of paper as Dean's.

  “Where have you been?” Thomas asks.

  “Oh, we've been searching for a map,” Alex answered as he handed the paper map to Thomas. He swiftly took the map with excitement.

  “It was a pain in the butt to find this.”

  “But we got lucky when we accidentally bump into this guy that was carrying a lot of maps.” Dean spoke, stitched his sentence with Alex's.

  “This is sooo cool!” Thomas spoke as he accidentally tilted the map slightly. Gravity was doing the rest of the work by unveiling the full map’s layout, fold by fold. The map can almost cover his whole upper body. This made him more excited than before.

  “Oh, it can do that?” Standing next to Thomas as he looked at the paper map, Alex remarked.

  “What? That a map can be folded and unfolded?” Dean asked sarcastically, a perfect chance for him to attack.

  “Haha! Yeah! You don't know that!” Thomas spoke with a laugh that was followed by Alex's slightly embarrassed giggle.

  “N-No, you nitwit! I'm talking about the map! The paper! That foldy— Agh forget it.” He immediately gave up trying.

  A sharp, piercing whistle sliced through the air. “FWEEEEEEEEET!!!” Its familiar sound echoed across the grounds, immediately drawing students’ attention. “Alright, everyone, gather up!” Mr. Arlon’s commanding voice followed, authoritative yet calm, as he let the whistle drop from his lips, dangling from the tie loosely looped around his neck. Not wasting a single second, Thomas, Alex, and Dean immediately rushed towards the gathering area.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9-Qk8f-nbU