Beach day! :) Enjoy.
"Mmm, this feels great," I said to Nudge, sitting beside me on the beach.
"I know," Nudge said.
Nudge, her family, the Worthers, and I were all at the beach ten minutes away from the neighborhood.
I met the Worthers at their house early this morning so we could head to the beach for a long day of mental repose. We'd brought a huge picnic and a battery-operated radio so we could listen to music. Nudge's two little sisters, her little brother, and Georgia were all splashing away in the away in the waves under careful supervision of the mothers. Raymond and Nudge's dad, Derek, were standing on the other side of the beach, a beer in one hand and talking as they looked around the beach. Fang and Iggy were chillaxing on the other side of Nudge, seemingly fine for the time being.
Nudge and I were sitting back in the only two beach chairs that were brought, each holding a Jones soda and occasionally breaking the relaxing silence to vocalize inconsequential conversation.
One of Nudge's little sisters ran up to us and started whispering in Nudge's ear. I turned my head towards them and watched their interaction, amused. Nudge started to get annoyed and brought her head away from her sister's.
"Keisha, stop it! Go ask her yourself," Nudge said, exasperated. Keisha turned to me shyly, then stopped and ran towards the two mothers. "Ugh, she's so shy," Nudge said. I laughed.
"What did she want to know?" I asked, pulling my hair back and putting it into a ponytail.
"She wanted to know if you liked Pocahontas," Nudge said, re-positioning her ridiculous floppy hat (no offense, Nudge). I shivered at the idea of the movie.
"I used too, before I started babysitting Georgia," I laughed. Nudge grinned at me.
"Yeah, those girls looove indians. Rebekah, Keisha, and Georgia pretend they're indians all the time when we get together. It's kind of annoying. They try to get me and Fang to play too, but I always say no way, hose, because, you know, that's kid stuff. I have better things to with my time." Nudge closed her eyes and soaked in the sun. I saw Fang look up at the mention of his name, but when I caught his eye he shut his eyes and put his head back down on his towel.
"How old are they?" I asked Nudge.
"Keisha's ten, Micah is twelve, and Rebekah is thirteen, almost fourteen. She'll be a freshman next year," she said with an odd expression on her face. "Weird."
I nodded, but didn't say anything.
Iggy and Fang didn't seem to be talking to one another at all, and now that Nudge and I's conversation had come to an end, the only sound I heard was the constant splashing of waves and the occasional giggle of one of the girls being splashed by Nudge's brother.
Half an hour of sun bathing later, Nudge's little brother came over to the two of us. He put his fists on his hips and made a tough-guy face at me.
"Hi, I'm Micah."
"Hello, it's nice to meet you," I said.
"My sisters are shy," he announced, and I looked around him for a second to see Keisha and Rebekah standing ankle-deep in the waves and staring at us. Georgia was in her mother's arms, looking around at the beach with a finger in her mouth. "They want to ask you to play indians with them. You should do it, because it's fun, and I need a damsel in stress to save," he said matter-of-factly. I almost snorted at the mention of me being a damsel, but instead I just hid my smile behind my hand. I heard Nudge mutter something along the lines of, "Knew it would happen eventually."
Then, louder, she said, "And it's damsel in distress, loser," she said playfully. He stuck out his tongue at her and she returned the favor.
"Well, how can I say no to that?" I said. I tried getting up out of the shallow chair and pretended to fall back. "Ugh, I need your help," I wheezed, holding out my hand for his. He grasped it and pulled me up with a lot of help from myself. He kept a hold of my hand and then ran towards the water, towing me behind him. Micah, Keisha, and Rebekah all shared a similar chocolate skin tone, the same as their older sister's. All had big, beautiful, curly hair, Micah and Rebekah each had mini afros, while Keisha and Nudge had longer, black hair, more like tiny ringlets. Their shiny, dark brown eyes all looked at me apprehensively, studying me.
"So, what are we playing?" I asked them. Rebekah spoke up first.
"Well, I'm the mommy indian, and Keisha is my baby," she started. "Micah is the chief leader, but he's not doing a very good job, he's just obsessed with finding a lady to save." This earned a sound of protest from Micah. "Right now we're at the beach and me and my baby are trying to find food, but Micah is on the look out." I nodded vehemently.
"Well, this sounds like a good story so far, what's my role? Other than the stressed out damsel?" I asked with a smile. Micah blushed.
Rebekah spoke again. "Well, you can help us look for food." Keisha held out he hand for me to see tiny little pebbles with a red tint to them. Rebekah pointed the her sister's hand. "The red ones are sea-berries. The blue ones that I have," she held out her other hand for me to see, "are fish. They're harder to find, but they're better for you."
I contemplated my new role and life for a few seconds and then said to them, "Okay, I'll search for food with you two." I bent down to their level and whispered, "But then I'm going to need your help with something." I noticed Micah peering over at us, a puzzled expression on his face. Once I'd told the girls my plan, I set to work searching the beach for red and blue pebbles.
Only a few minutes into the game I'd successfully made a fool of my self by falling into the water three times (it was completely intentional, of course...), and all three times Micah looked at me exasperated, saying, "You're not supposed to damsel yet!" Another minute or two, and Georgia ran over to us and asked if she could play. Rebekah took her into her family as another baby and we continued playing until Georgia decided that Fang needed to play indians with us. I started to feel bad that Fang would deny Georgia and she would come back dejected. But Fang surprised me; he got up, albeit reluctantly, and walked with his little sister to where we were gathering rocks and setting them in little hand-dug holes in the sand.
Fang seemed to know what to do without being told. He sat in the sand in his black swim trunks and started picking out pebbles. He didn't pay attention to the pebbles, I suspect on purpose, because he was about to dump them in the pit with the sea-berries when Keisha slapped his hand out of the way. He looked at her with an unconventional grin and she frowned at him. He grabbed at her and pulled her onto his lap and started tickling her. The cutest, most contagious little laugh erupted from the usually silent little girl that I had to laugh along with them both.
Rebekah walked over to me and whispered in my ear. "We should do it now." I nodded at her, then moved forward a few steps and grabbed Keisha's hand.
"The plan is in motion," I said quietly, so Micah wouldn't hear. Keisha stopped giggling and nodded. I focused on finding the right spot, and then, I heard the cue.
Keisha screamed and I fell back into the water, waving my arms up and down even though I was only sitting on my butt. I saw Fang stand up really fast and almost forgot to wave my arms for a minute. He looked genuinely concerned for a moment, and then his appearance changed to confused, and then back to its regular solemn disposition.
I continued to wail theatrically and watched as Micah ran towards the little cluster, yelling, "What's going on?"
"Help her!" Rebekah cried. "The warrior Bear Heart from the beach tribe has slain her, she needs medical assistance!"
I tried not to giggle as Micah ran to help me up. He was almost big enough to carry me, but decided not to at the last minute, figuring it was better to just support me. I so badly wanted to giggle as I looked down at the facial expression he was wearing, all tough and man like. He walked me in towards the shore and the adults, who had been standing there slightly questioning until now, clapped appreciatively, only stopping when I was safely back in the chair. Nudge looked over at me as soon as Micah left, saying something about getting the right medicine and killing Bear Heart.
"You're really good with kids," she said. I shrugged, finally able to giggle ridiculously, though, if anyone asks, I don't giggle.
"Yeah, I guess," I said. Kids are just... easy. They're immature sometimes, yeah, but... they're sweet, and innocent, and extremely uncomplicated. They say what they want, do what they want... It's just easier to handle them. They don't have it in their minds yet that they know whats best, and they'll only fight you minimally for the things they think they need. I've always been much better with kids than people my own age, and especially bad with people that are older.
"No, I'm not kidding, I never would've done something like that just because my brother wanted to save someone," Nudge said with disregard.
"It's easy enjoyment," I said without thinking. "I mean, I don't really try. I just wanted to get out of the game."
"Yeah, okay, Max," Nudge said, leaning back in her chair with a knowing smile. I rolled my eyes, but knew she wouldn't see it.
Later, after Micah had cover my "wound" with green rocks and sand, Fang had come to sit back down, and we'd eaten lunch hours before, the sun was positioning itself against the horizon. The sky was turning orange and pink and fading back into the blue, and everyone was just listening peacefully to the music. The four adults were still chatting a ways away, the kids were all resting on a large blanket ten feet in front of us, and the teenagers… well, we were just trying not to laugh hysterically.
Iggy had decided to show off and, subsequently, make a fool out of himself. He tried to do a back flip in the sand on a whim, after Nudge and Fang both made comments about their negative disposition in the belief of his ability to do so. Turns out, they were completely sound in their reasoning and Iggy… well, Iggy was completely soaked. He landed badly on his knee and rolled into the water. The mothers, standing twenty feet or so out of the way, gasped loudly and started to step forward as Ray and Derek laughed off his maladroit stumbling. The kids barely noticed, but Nudge, Fang, and I launched into a fit of laugher. Iggy slumped over in an extremely abashed fashion, and insisted on changing the topic every time one of us caught our breath enough to say something, only to burst into another giggling fit every time he deflected our comments.
By the time it was time to leave, I was just super happy. It was the first time in a long time that I wasn't constantly thinking about how weird it is without my best friend here. Not to say that she wasn't missed, but… I just had a feeling that even when she wasn't around, I'd be fine.
That didn't stop me from gushing with her about my day when I got home, though. She told me about her boring day binge-watching Supernatural and I reassured her that I wasn't planning on forgetting her anytime soon after she heard the story about my day. After that, I realized that Nudge had texted me an hour before, while I was chatting with JJ, and hurriedly opened the message.
yo gurl, 2day was super fun, we haf to do ths w El.
I slowly typed back.
yeah, that'd be fun!
I put my phone down on my bedside table and got into my PJs, slipping under the covers for a good, long, rest. I was almost asleep when I heard another bing from my phone. I groaned and expected another text from Nudge, but was surprised.
hey that was fun. thnx for coming.
I frowned.
"How odd," I said aloud to myself, and then dropped my phone back on the nightstand and waited to fall asleep.
Yeah right, guys, I know you know who that's from, it's not like it's a surprise. I won't even say it, because you should know who it's from. I'm building a friendship here! I'm trying, anyways.
Yeah, yeah, I'm continuing the story. Everyone likes this one better anyways, I've gotten like… no reviews though. I hope you didn't stop following the story once I put it on hiatus. :( That would make me really sad, but I'd understand, at the same time.
Anyways, sorry I didn't get this up before Thanksgiving, I was going to wish you all a great holiday, but nonetheless, I hope it was wonderful anyways :)
Hopefully I'll update before Christmas, too! :)