School trips were usually a cause of distress in Michelles family with her step father not wanting to pay for them and Michelle usually not being able to do so by herself. It took a lot of convincing for her to do so, unless it was for competitions. Those were, thankfully either easy to argue for or covered in the scholarship. This one here was surprisingly easy to get funding for, too, because her former stepfather was a good soul and once he heard of it, he simply decided to throw in a bit as well so it was less hard to convince her stepfather to carry the rest - it did involve the fact that it meant she wasn’t home!
Driving to the mountains, living in tents and spending time together as a team would be good for them, mostly. Learning about nature and origins was something she was looking forward to a lot. And of course there was the fact that at night at the campfire there was a promise of peace and quiet with a book and that was something that was extremely tempting to her.
She did, however not expect to be made to share a tent with Sally. She and Sally didn’t mix. Sally would probably rather be caught dead than to pick up a book and in her world a girl who didn’t put on make up or follow trends, she might as well stop living. They were polar opposites, in essence. But then again, she had no intention to speaking to her.
As it turned out, she would not get the chance. With such a big group and only two teachers it was easy for the kids to make some of their own rules and it seemed one of them was working essentially against MJs desire to have a quiet time here. Flash came into the tent she shared with Sally and decided MJ was to vacate. Given Sallys overall behavior, Michelle obliged, rolling her eyes. She never particularly wanted to spend time with her anyway and if she would go against it, there would be way too much fuzz than it would be worth. So after several hours of drive she stood outside of the tents, alone after being basically kicked out of her own. She weighed her options. She could rat them out. Or she could just go to another tent. And there were two options: Flashes best friend probably had no one to bunk with. But he was an ass and stupid, so no chance. And then there was the fact that Ned Leeds was in hospital - harmless appendicitis, but it meant he couldn’t be here, which in turn meant Parker was alone. And Parker was a loser, yes, but a kind one. She even considered him a friend, or well something like the closest thing to a friend she had. So that decision was easy.
Michelle didn’t warn him, she just opened the zipper to the tend and put her bag in before crawling in herself. “Hey loser, so I guess you got the jackpot here, you get to share this tent with me, because Flash and Sally want to play hide the Zucchini, apparently.”
