CHAPTER 1 - SURFING GENERATIONS
How many of you who've seen the Stoked episode "Fast Times When the Rip Tide's High" remember the scene where Fin tells Reef that her grandmother gets more air than him? Well, here's the opportunity to find out as I introduce Fin's grandmother in this story, where she comes to Surfer's Paradise to see her granddaughter and see what goes on with her on the job and off. This story is also an alternate take on the episode "Boards of Glory", showing what would happen if Fin had not been injured when Reef attempted a Level 10 move with her while practicing for the Tandem Surfing Competition, and if Broseph had never taken her place.
This story's going to be ReeFin-centric, so fasten your seat belts...
A couple of hours after returning from Sunset Beach to Surfer's Paradise with the rest of her friends on a Sunday afternoon, Fin was getting back from doing her laundry at the staff laundry hut and was now back in her, Lo and Emma's shared room at the staff house, sorting through her newly-cleaned clothing items on her bed. Feeling in the need to snack on something, she pulled her suitcase out from underneath her bed and took out a half-eaten chocolate bar, then unwrapped the bar and took a nibble from it while continuing to separate her tops, pants, socks, underwear and a couple of bikinis.
While taking another bite of her chocolate bar and preparing to rewrap it to put away, Fin took notice of a photo she had stashed away in a section of her suitcase and took it out to look at it when Lo came into the room. "I thought I could smell chocolate from out in the hallway," Lo commented as her acute sense of smell caught a whiff of the candy Fin had been sampling.
"You guessed right," Fin quipped good-naturedly, picking the chocolate bar back up and snapping off a small square of it to offer to Lo. "Want a bite?"
"Sure, thanks," Lo said, taking the piece of chocolate and popping it in her mouth. Noticing the photo Fin had with her, Lo then asked, "What're you looking at there?"
"What, this?" Fin said, showing Lo the photo. "It's just an old photo I've been keeping in my suitcase."
"Wow, it looks nice," Lo remarked as she sat down on the bed beside Fin, then studied the photo further. "Hey, I never knew you wore that kind of bikini, and how come the photo's in black-and-white?" she asked, perceiving what appeared to be Fin in a conservative-looking light two-piece suit while she stood holding a surfboard, a different kind from what she currently had with her at the hotel, in the black-and-white photo.
"Thanks," Fin said with a slight giggle, "but that's actually not me in the photo."
"It isn't?" Lo wondered. "It sure looks like you."
"I know," Fin said, "but it's actually my grandmother in this photo. It was taken of her back in 1963, when she was just 18. She gave this to me just before I left Halifax to come here."
"I can see where the family resemblance comes from," an impressed Lo said, looking at Fin briefly before turning back to the photo. "She looks like a dead-ringer for you in this picture, right down to the hairstyle. Was she as good a surfer as you are?"
"I'd be happy if I could be half the surfer Grandma was back in her day," Fin said. "She started surfing in 1959 and she was a real trailblazer for female surfers in Canada back then. At 17, she was the youngest surfer to win the Battle of the Betties and she used that as a springboard to enter more competitions after high school."
"That sounds so cool," Lo said. "How did she do back then?"
"She won every surfing competition she entered, local, regional and national," Fin explained. "She even captured back-to-back World Women's titles in 1966 and 1967, the same year she took a few years off from competitive surfing when she got married and became pregnant with my mom."
"Two World Women's titles? Awesome!" Lo said. "I'd sure love to meet her if I could so I could hear the surfing stories she'd have to tell."
"Oh, you're going to," Fin told Lo. "Grandma called me last Thursday and she said she's coming here tonight to stay at the hotel for a couple of weeks."
"For real?" Lo asked.
"For real," Fin confirmed, nodding her head. "I'll take you to meet her when Kahuna brings her here on the Whalebus." As she reached back behind Lo to grab another top off her bed to fold up, Fin noticed something new on the bed she had not seen before then. "Hey, hold on a minute," she said. "I don't remember seeing this here."
"Looks like a bouquet of flowers," Lo said. "Whoever put it there must've left it while we were talking."
Just then, Emma walked into the room and saw Fin and Lo talking about the bouquet. "I just saw Reef pass by me coming down the stairs when I was on my way up," the redhaired girl said.
"Ah, so that's who left the flowers. They must be for me then," Fin said as she then moved to pick the bouquet up.
As Fin was about to take the flowers though, Emma noticed something sticking from the paper wrapped around the bouquet that set off alarm bells in her head. "Wait, stop!" she said abruptly as she rushed to keep Fin from touching the bouquet. "Don't touch the flowers!"
"Why, what's wrong with 'em, Alberta?" Fin asked, using her nickname for Emma.
"I saw some leaves sticking out from the paper wrapping of the bouquet," Emma explained. "They look like poison ivy."
"What?" Fin said, taking a closer look at the leaves in question. "Oh crap, that is poison ivy!" she added with a combination of shock and disgust. "That's just great! Emma, get me a couple of plastic shopping bags, a big garbage bag and some tongs. I gotta bag and trash the flowers, then I have to rewash both my clothes and my bedsheets. After that," she finished with an angry look, "I'm gonna kick Reef's butt for giving me that poison ivy bouquet."
After redoing her laundry and then grabbing dinner in the staff house (consisting of the same unappetizing slop that the staff staying there had been eating the past few days), Fin then took Lo with her to get some ice cream bars and two bottles of pop at the Snack Shack kiosk by the hotel pool (mainly to get the taste of the dinner out of their mouths, as Fin explained to Lo), then they went through the hotel lobby and out to wait by the main entrance for the Whalebus to arrive.
"So other than being a champion surfer when she was younger," Lo asked Fin, "what's your grandma like? I guess she must be nice, right?"
"You'll see soon enough," Fin said before pausing to take a sip from the bottle of lime pop she had. "She called when she arrived at the seaplane terminal and she'll be on her way soon." A moment later, Fin caught sight of the Whalebus coming close to the hotel on the road from Sunset Beach. "That's got to be her coming now," she said as the bus pulled onto the hotel grounds, then up to the main entrance.
The Whalebus opened its door and, after the first few passengers filed out, an older woman stepped off the bus with her suitcases. Fin recognized her immediately - as Lo had noticed earlier while looking at the old black-and-white photo Fin had, the older woman looked like a nearly 50-year-older version of Fin, including her hairstyle (which was white with some gray instead of blonde) and the same fit physique Fin had. Facially, the older woman even looked almost exactly like Fin, except for a few wrinkles.
"Grandma!" a happy Fin exclaimed as she ran up to her grandmother and greeted her with a hug. "Oh, it's good to see you come here to visit," she added.
"I wouldn't miss this opportunity for the world, dear," Fin's grandmother replied as she hugged her granddaughter back. "How're you enjoying working at the hotel so far?"
"It's kind of a long story, but I'll tell you about it later," Fin said. "This is Lo Ridgemount, one of my best friends and the hotel owner's daughter," she added, introducing Lo. "Lo, meet my grandma, Amanda McCloud."
"Hi, Mrs. McCloud," Lo said in greeting as she shook hands. "Pleasure to meet you. Is it okay if I call you Mrs. McCloud?"
"Either that or Amanda's all right," Mrs. McCloud said. "Fin's told me a lot about you in her e-mails to me since she came here. I can see why she considers you a friend."
"Oh, thank you," a flattered Lo said. Thinking about something Fin told her earlier, Lo then asked her friend, "Wait a sec Fin, if Mrs. McCloud's your grandma on your mom's side, why do you and she have the same last name?"
"Grandma kept her maiden name when she got married, and so did my mom after her," Fin explained. "Partly to do with women's lib, partly to do with pride in the McCloud name." At that point, Fin heard some chatter behind her coming closer and saw Reef and Broseph passing by on their way into the hotel lobby. "Lo, Grandma, 'scuse me a minute while I take care of a little business." Fin then crumpled up the wrapper from her ice cream bar and threw it at the back of Reef's head.
"Hey!" Reef said as he felt the crumpled-up wrapper hit him, then turned and saw Fin marching toward him. "What gives?"
"Hey chowderhead, thanks for the poison ivy bouquet you left me on my bed!" Fin quipped sarcastically at Reef.
"What? Poison ivy?" an incredulous Reef said. "What's up with that?"
"That bouquet of wildflowers you picked and left for me in my bedroom while I was talking with Lo had poison ivy in it," Fin told Reef. "I was lucky Emma saw the flowers and warned me before I touched them, or else I'd have a rash right now. And thanks to your bouquet, I had to wash my bedsheets and run my laundry through a second wash in case the flowers touched any of my clothes!"
"Didn't see the poison ivy when I picked those flowers," Reef said in his defence, "so technically, not my fault."
"Whatever," Fin said with an exasperated sigh before walking away. "Thanks for nothing, kook!" As Fin walked back toward Lo and Mrs. McCloud, Reef simply shrugged his shoulders before he and Broseph turned and walked through the main entrance doors into the hotel.
"Who was that boy you were arguing with a second ago, Fin?" Mrs. McCloud asked as her granddaughter returned.
"No one special," Fin answered. "His name's Reef, one of the staff at the hotel. He's the surfing instructor here and he's a complete self-absorbed pretty-boy doofus."
"Hmm, seems to me from the way you two carried on, I thought you'd both be dating," Mrs. McCloud observed.
"Funny, that's what the rest of our friends think too," Lo joined in. "Fin denies it all the time, but she's totally got a crush on Reef."
Oh no, not this again, Fin thought to herself regarding the rumors about her and Reef as she shot a glare at Lo. "Lo, for the hundredth time, I don't have a crush on Reef! I can't even stand him!" she said to Lo. "Grandma, if you knew what Reef was like, you wouldn't think I felt that way about him either, because I don't," she added, addressing Mrs. McCloud.
"I know, honey," Mrs. McCloud said. "I know all about his type. I knew my share of Reefs back in my time and I even dated a couple of them before I married your grandpa. Still, he may be a self-absorbed pretty boy like you said, but it doesn't necessarily mean he wouldn't make good boyfriend material for you. It's all a matter of knowing how to handle him."
Fin sighed as she rolled her eyes. "Telling you about Reef's going to be a long story," she said to her grandmother, "but let's get you checked in first."
"Don't worry dear, I have the time," Mrs. McCloud said as she, Fin and Lo went inside to head to the front desk. "How about you and Lo come up to my room after I check in and we'll talk more about Reef? I'll order room service for the three of us if you haven't eaten dinner yet."
"Room service?" Fin said, turned on to the idea of having a more appetizing meal after what she and the rest of the staff barely touched earlier. "I'm in. I could go for a bite."
"Me too," Lo agreed, also wanting to enjoy something edible, as Mrs. McCloud and the two girls arrived at the front desk.
Later that night at the staff house after the staff had gone to sleep, Lo got out of her bed in the girls' room and snuck downstairs to the fridge in the common living room in hopes of getting a midnight snack to nibble on. She opened the fridge door and rummaged around inside, but there was little, if anything, inside that was worth eating to her. She then took a look at the pot filled with the dinner leftovers from earlier, an item looking like a cross between gruel and some kind of chowder, which Bummer had been supplying to the staff for their meals over the last few days.
"Eww, nast!" Lo whispered to herself after getting a whiff of the pseudo-edible slop in the pot before she put the pot lid back on. I still don't get why Bummer's been giving us crappy staff food when the hotel's been raking in a fortune, she then thought before making a realization a moment later. Hold on, I've still got some money left over from when I bought the new TV and satellite dish for the staff house last week. Hmm, she pondered for a moment while looking at the leftovers in the fridge, just before she got a gleam in her eye. Maybe I could put that money to good use...
Next chapter, Fin and Reef hear about the Tandem Surfing Competition and enter for the honor of Surfer's Paradise, and Lo becomes the staff house's "secret angel".
Stoked (c) Fresh TV Inc. and Teletoon. I don't own the show or any of the characters.
Reviews and comments are welcome.
