CHAPTER 7 - SOMETHING ABOUT CHEATERS AND KARMA
The final chapter is now up as the devious Sabrina attempts to make good on her plans to ruin grom initiation for the other new groms - but little does she know...
As six o'clock was approaching, Greg, Ash, Trevor and Bonnie were all marching together toward the new staff house, where they were to meet the seniors to report their progress on their keychain hunt at the end of grom initiation. None of them were happy because they had all been unsuccessful in finding their keychains, but they also had gripes to make about what had happened to them during the search for their keychains, unaware of the sabotage jobs done on them by Sabrina beforehand.
Meanwhile, Sabrina was in a good mood as she strode toward the staff house by herself, revelling in the success of preventing the other groms from finding their keychains. It sure feels good putting those losers in their place by making them go on wild goose chases for keychains they couldn't even find, the blonde girl thought to herself with a grin. The pranks I pulled on them for the added kick made my getting back at them all the better, especially when I made Bonnie look and feel like the loser she is earlier in the restaurant. As she got closer to the staff house, she then thought, But keeping the other groms from getting to see the Office isn't enough. If I think of some ideas, maybe I could find a way to keep those loser seniors from having chances to use the Office too, then I could have that spot all to myself.
The new groms soon arrived at the staff house, where Fin, Emma, Johnny and Ripper were already out on the front porch awaiting the groms' arrival. "Okay guys, it's about five minutes to six," Fin said as she saw the group of five approach. "How'd you do with the keychain search?"
"It sucked," Greg spoke up first. "None of us were able to find our keychains where we were supposed to."
"What?" a puzzled Emma said. "I don't understand. If you followed the clues you got as they were written, you should've been able to find your keychains with no problems. What happened?"
"I'll tell you what did happen," Greg said. "I went searching for my keychain in a dumpster when I got shoved inside and got its lid closed on me!"
"How did that happen?" Fin wondered. "The dumpster wasn't one of the spots we planned for the initiation."
"I was digging around for my keychain at the seventh hole sand trap at the golf course when I got snagged by an ankle snare and hung upside-down by my ankle from a tree branch!" Trevor complained.
"I went to look in the stock room at the gift shop for my keychain when a bucket of fish guts fell on my head as soon as I opened the door!" Ash said next. "Bonnie couldn't find her keychain either because..."
"Wait a minute," Sabrina interrupted, keeping Ash from revealing why Bonnie could not find her keychain. "The rest of you might not have been able to find your keychains, but I found mine," she said, then producing her own keychain from the pocket of her maid's apron. "Now if I remember correctly, you said that only those groms who found their keychains by six o'clock would get to see the Office, right?"
"Yeah, we remember," Ripper said.
"Well, I got mine," Sabrina said smugly, holding up her keychain to show the seniors. "Did any of the others get theirs? Did they?" she added, glancing toward the resentful-looking groms. "No, I didn't think so. So by your own rules, since I'm the only one who found my keychain, that means I'm the only one who gets to see the Office."
"Hey, no need to rub it in, Sabrina," Fin scolded her. Turning to the other groms, she then said, "But what I don't get is what happened to you guys during the initiation. How did you all end up running into the problems you had?"
"That's what we'd like to know," Greg said. "We thought you said you guys were scrapping hazing for grom initiation."
"We did," Emma said in the seniors' defence. "We told you that this morning at the beach. But I've got a pretty good idea of what was behind the stuff that happened to you."
"Yeah, Emma knows, all right," Ash said, about to reveal her suspicion of Sabrina being behind the pranks against her and the other groms. "That's 'cause..."
"Sure, Emma knows what happened," Sabrina then interrupted again, preventing Ash from finishing. "That's because she lied about taking hazing out of the initiation. She and the other seniors only said they were getting rid of hazing to try to get us to let our guard down so they could get us with pranks when we weren't expecting it!"
"What?!" an astonished Emma said. "That's not true!"
"What's not true?" Lo, who had just arrived at the staff house with Reef, Broseph and Kelly, then asked.
"You and the other seniors lied about getting rid of hazing from grom initiation," Sabrina lied again. "Just ask Greg, Trevor and Ash about what happened to them! You were behind those things!"
"Sabrina, that's a lie!" an indignant Emma said. "We didn't do anything to the groms during the initiation!"
"Hey, if you're so sure the seniors did those things to us, then what happened to you during initiation, huh?" Ash said, determined to catch Sabrina in her lie. "What did the seniors do to you? And what about what happened to Bonnie earlier in the restaurant?"
"Yeah, how about that, Sabrina?" Lo said. "I was there when it happened, remember?"
"Hey, don't go changing the subject," Sabrina said, still intent on shifting the blame for her wrongdoing onto the seniors. "This is about you and the other seniors, remember?"
"You know, if you're lying about what you're saying, Sabrina," Johnny joined in, "we'll find out, and we have ways to do so."
"Right, like I care," a dismissive Sabrina said. "But it makes no difference. All that matters now is that I won and the other groms lost, so if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go change so you can take me to see the Office." She then walked with an arrogant swagger past the other groms and the seniors, none of whom looked pleased to see Sabrina gloat about being the only one to pass the grom initiation or to have her falsely accuse the seniors of hazing the groms after they had promised to get rid of it.
As she went up the steps leading to the staff house front porch, however, Sabrina ended up tripping on the top step and fell to the porch deck. When Sabrina got up, Fin noticed there were four other keychains sprawled around the spot where the snobby blonde landed. "Wait a minute, what's this?" Fin asked as she spotted the keychains.
When she looked down and saw the keychains, which had fallen out of the pocket of her maid's apron when she fell on the porch, Sabrina let out a gasp of mock surprise. "Now how did those get there?" she said in an insincere attempt at playing innocent.
"I think I got a real good idea how they got there," Ripper spoke up. "She must've found out where the keychains were beforehand and she snuck around the hotel to steal them from their hiding places before initiation. Maybe that's why she wasn't at the beach with the rest of us for dawn patrol."
"What? As if," Sabrina said in denial. "I told you I slept in while you were all at the beach 'cause I don't surf, remember?"
"And the only way Sabrina could've pulled that off would be if..." Emma said, then she gasped as an epiphany dawned on her. "...would be if she broke into our room and found the clues we wrote for the groms!" she added, turning to Fin.
"Which can only mean Sabrina was the one who set those traps for us," Trevor said.
"And that she sabotaged Greg by switching a fake final clue that she wrote for the real one we did," Emma added while looking toward Sabrina, who realized she was busted but tried not to let it show.
"So that explains everything," Fin then said. "Sabrina, you had to cheat to give yourself an unfair advantage in the initiation while keeping the other groms from getting ahead. That violates the spirit of grom initiation."
"You're still wrong," Sabrina said tersely, still trying to deny her dirty deeds. "I still got my keychain and there's nothing you can do about it but to show me the Office!"
"Oh, yes there is," Fin said. "For cheating in the grom initiation, Sabrina, you're disqualified. That means you failed the initiation and you don't get to see the Office - ever."
"NO!" a petulant Sabrina snapped while stamping her right foot on the porch. "You can't do that!"
"We can, and, uh...we just did," Fin deadpanned to Sabrina. "As for the other groms," she added while turning to Greg, Ash, Trevor and Bonnie, "since the four of you would've found your keychains anyway if not for Sabrina's interference, that means you all passed initiation and you'll get to see the Office whenever you're ready."
"YEAH! WOO-HOO! Awesome!" Greg and the other overjoyed groms yelled out gleefully as they celebrated their victory with Fin, Reef, Emma and the other seniors. However, a disgruntled Sabrina, acting out of sour grapes, decided to play the spoilsport. "Yeah? Well, who cares about your stupid Office?!" she said out of spite as she threw her keychain down on the porch deck at Fin's feet. "It's probably just a dump anyway!"
Sabrina then turned around and stormed into the staff house in a huff while everyone else watched, but Greg simply shrugged his shoulders. "Hey, who cares what she thinks?" the big Hawaiian said, blowing off Sabrina's spiteful comment. "We're gonna get to surf the Office! Now how hu'i hu'i is that?"
"Hu'i what now?" a puzzled Reef said to Greg, not knowing what he said.
"It means 'cool' in Hawaiian," Greg explained.
"Ah, now I get it," Reef said. "We felt the same way last year when we were groms and we passed initiation."
"Then what're we waiting for?" an enthusiastic Ash said. "Let's go check out the Office and shred some waves!" The other groms and the seniors echoed Ash's sentiment as they whooped it up while heading inside the staff house to get changed.
A few minutes later, seniors Reef, Broseph, Johnny, Ripper and Ty and groms Greg and Trevor were the first ones out the front doors of the staff house with their surfboards to head toward the Office, with Greg and Trevor both feeling stoked about their first opportunity to surf the spot long considered by those who knew of its existence to be the best surfing zone in Canada.
Moments later though, Sabrina, who was still chagrined over being denied what she thought was her "right" to see the Office, appeared in the doorway to watch the guys sprint into the woods nearby and hit the trail toward the fabled surf spot. "Hmph, they think they can deny me my chance to see the Office?" she grumbled as she looked on. "I don't care what they say, I earned my right to see it! And if they can find it, then so can I! All I have to do is follow them from a distance and watch where they go, and I can brush the rest of those losers off! I will see the Office!"
Sabrina, determined to get what she wanted despite being disqualified in the initiation for cheating, walked off the porch and snuck discreetly toward the edge of the woods where the trail to the Office began, watching as the guys headed along the trail toward their destination. Just as she was about to make her move, however, Sabrina felt something land with a splat on top of her head, eerily similar to what happened to her at the hotel entrance on her first day at Surfer's Paradise. With a gasp, Sabrina looked up...and once again spotted the seagull that had "bombed" her then. With a scream, the snobby blonde took off running, yelling "AIEEEEE! Get away from me! Get away from me! Get off me!" as the seagull chased her away from the trees and around the staff house.
Just then, Fin, Lo, Emma and Kelly, along with groms Ash and Bonnie, ran out of the staff house to see what the commotion was when they saw Sabrina being chased by the seagull toward the hotel. "Hey, looks like Sabrina found herself a new playmate," Kelly remarked while watching the scene.
"Looks like they're suited for each other," Emma quipped.
"Couldn't have happened to someone more deserving than her," Ash added. "Especially after all the trouble she's caused."
"I wonder if she'll have enough shampoo handy for her hair when the seagull's done with her," Lo said, making the girls laugh as they remembered Sabrina's first encounter with the seagull.
"Now that's what I love about karma," Fin said, reasoning that Sabrina got what she deserved for her actions. To the other girls, she then said, "Come on, we can't let the guys have all the fun at the Office now, can we?" With a cheer, the girls then grabbed their boards (except for Bonnie, who did not have her own board) and made tracks for the Office, while elsewhere around the hotel grounds, Sabrina continued running and screaming as the seagull kept chasing her.
After the girls arrived at the Office, the entire group of the seniors and most of the new groms hit the water to start surfing. While Reef, Broseph, Fin, Lo, Johnny, Ty and Ripper went through their move sets, Emma showed how much she had improved as a surfer since her first summer at Surfer's Paradise by pulling off some complicated surf moves on the waves. Likewise, Kelly put her own surfing improvements on display with a few tricks, capped off by her execution of the Vortex, the airborne corkscrew spin she first unveiled to the rest of the gang at the Office last Christmas.
Of the new groms, Greg, Trevor and Ash also showed off what they could do on the water with a few moves of their own. Greg successfully surfed the green room again, shot up the wave face and rode along its top edge for a few seconds, while Trevor, like Reef before him, attempted to impress the gang in general (and Lo in particular) by doing some grandstanding, which made a bemused Fin wonder sardonically where she had seen those moves before. To Trevor's chagrin, however, he discovered that Lo had not been paying attention when he did his moves - but, unknown to him, Bonnie, the only one of the groms watching from the shore, had seen Trevor in action and was impressed by his surf stunts, as well as by his short, spiky brown hair and lean, buffed physique.
After their surf session was done, the seniors and the groms were gathered around a bonfire to roast marshmallows on the Office beach, with the groms chatting excitedly about their first time surfing the Office. "That was amazing!" Ash declared. "It makes the whole initiation keychain hunt and what Sabrina put us through totally worth it!"
"Yeah, other than Sabrina shoving me into a dumpster after misleading me with that fake clue, it wasn't that bad," Greg said.
"And she thought she could put one over on us," Trevor said of Sabrina's cheating and her pranks on the other groms, "but in the end, she brought herself down when she tripped on the porch stairs and exposed herself as the keychain thief."
"And maybe that'll teach Sabrina a lesson," Emma said.
"If we're lucky," Fin added. Turning to Bonnie, she then said, "Hey Bonnie, how come we didn't see you out on the water with the rest of us? You like surfing, don't you?"
"Sure...I think," Bonnie said. "I've just...never done it before."
Bonnie's confession made the rest of the gang gasp in shock. "What?!" "No way!" "Are you serious?" were among the comments the others made in response.
"Whoa, chiquita, that sounds so wrong," Broseph said to Bonnie. "We gotta get you out on the water, stat."
"And I'm just the one to show you how it's done," Reef boasted as he stood up. "Reef Garcia, surfing instructor extraordinaire at your service."
"You don't want to learn surfing from a kook, do you Bonnie?" Fin said to the pale-skinned brunette girl. "Just get a board and I'll teach you."
"Okay guys, I got a toast to make," Emma announced. "Without Bummer bossing us around anymore, I think our second summer at Surfer's Paradise is going to be a great one."
"Uh, correction," Ash pointed out. "It's the first summer here for us groms, remember?"
"And it's the third summer here for me, Johnny and Kelly," Ripper added.
"And Lo and I've been here most of our lives 'cause we live at the hotel," Ty joined in.
"Okay, same difference," Emma said. "But Sabrina aside, this summer here's going to be a big improvement over the last one. We have a cool new boss replacing that jerk Bummer..."
"Yeah," Fin agreed, "and the waves are still as awesome and the beach just as beautiful as they were last year. You're right, Alberta, this summer's gonna be awesome." Raising her marshmallow on her stick, Fin declared, "To Surfer's Paradise!"
"To Surfer's Paradise!" the other seniors and the groms replied with enthusiasm and a few cheers and whoops while standing up, then they sat back down on the logs around the bonfire for a singalong as Broseph and Ripper provided the entertainment with their acoustic guitars, with all looking forward to another summer of working and surfing together at the hotel.
THE END
Thanks for all the comments on this story, folks. As they say, keep 'em coming. :D
