Twilight began its descent through the Amazon River as the club dragged their rafts onto a nearby bank. The calmness of the river was now changing into a lovely shade of pink from the setting sun; the ripples moved back and forth making it look like the colors were spreading around the water.
But no one was paying attention to this; everyone had a task to attend to. Some were putting the rafts in a safe spot so they would not float away, Edwardo was cooking a meal for the club so they could enjoy something while hearing a story, and most of the fathers were busy setting up tents while the children helped or watched as most of them seemed to do.
"Hmm I really should have taken that survival college course, but no I had to take the philosophy of the ancient Egyptians, some help that was for my carrier," said Riley as he tried to figure out which part of the tent went where.
"Yeah I bet you had to pay a butt load of student loans for that course too," said Homer who was actually watching Maggie do his job. Maggie had already gotten angry at Homer for throwing the sleeping bags into the mud so she thought it was safer if she did it.
"Of course still paying it off too, but I really should have taken survival, they explained how to set up a tent, use a compass, first aid and CPR which works out here, you never know when one of us will step on something sharp," said Riley as he dug in his bag for some spikes.
"Or touch a poison arrow frog," said Celia.
"Yeah Dad, you might have to suck out the poison because I will be in shock and someone will have to administer CPR on me," said Maggie.
"But then I will die from sucking out the poison," said Homer.
"Looks like we'll all be lost causes there," said Riley.
"Well that's depressing," said Celia as her head hung low and she began to move dirt around with her feet. "Who wants to sing about monkeys?"
"Ninety-nine monkeys jumping on the tent!" Homer clapped.
"Please don't sing that Dad or I will break your neck!" said Maggie from under the tent.
"Such violence for a twelve year old sheesh, I'm gonna go take a leak," said Homer as he walked away and hid behind some bushes.
'Thanks for sharing," said Riley as he got up and checked the top of the tent to see if it was in the proper position, it seemed alright but he had to ask Celia. "What do you think honey, is it sleep worthy?"
Celia walked over and inspected the tent, she shook the supports that held the tent together and then looked around to see if there were any flaws. "Looks good Dad," she finally said.
"Alright, I'm a natural," said Riley happily as he grabbed his sleeping bag and rolled it into the tent so he would be ready to sleep later.
"Mine's done too, hopefully there is enough room for both me and Dad," said Maggie as she glared at Homer as he returned from his relief duties.
"Hey if your mother and I can share the same bed I say we can share the same tent, and why am I suddenly itchy," said Homer as he started scratching his thighs.
"I don't know, did you walk into some poison ivy?" asked Riley.
"No I barely touched any plants, and oh great now the mosquitoes are after me," said Homer as he started to swat at the tiny creatures who were flying all around him. Maggie quickly handed him the spray bottle which he immediately put on. Homer let out a sigh of relief since it seemed to also help with the itching and made his way over to the leaders of the group who were now finishing up the meal they were going to serve.
Most of the fathers and the kids were finished setting up their tents and now they were all making their way over, ready for a good meal after a long day and a story from Luis. Maggie and Celia made their way over to Lee, Anne, and Haley to enjoy their short group session together before they had to set out again in the morning. Homer and Riley sat next to them, along with a few other Dads who were eager to have a good meal after a long day of paddling.
Dinner was spicy chicken and rice which the kids quickly gorged themselves on, they had eaten very little during lunch and they were all starving. Maggie and Celia even ended up asking for seconds, something they rarely did unless the meal was extremely good or they were very hungry. Apparently tonight it was both.
"Are you all ready to hear an Amazonian tale?" Luis asked once he was done eating.
The children nodded since their mouths were full of food and they knew that their fathers would reprimand them for saying yes out loud.
"Well then, here is the tale of the lady and the dolphin. Now as many of you remember, we saw the Boto, the Amazon River Dolphin today. They are a species of great intelligence usually traveling in pairs in search of food, sometimes with other dolphins but only on those rare occasions like the ones you saw today. But sometimes, they are known to travel alone and usually when they travel alone it's when they assume the form of a human.
Now Rosita was a young girl in her village who dreamed of finding someone to love one day. But it was hard for her, because you see; she was very shy and would always be too nervous to confront a handsome man. One morning after her mother begged her to find a suitor for a husband; Rosita ran from her home and began to cry next to the riverbank believing that her hopes of ever finding someone to love would become fruitless.
'What is the matter, my young senorita?' a voice asked as a hand patted her head.
Rosita looked up in shock to find an older gentleman standing above her wearing a round hat and a poncho. But he had one of the most caring faces, Rosita had ever seen, it was like as if he was ready to help her in her hour of need.
'Oh I am a young girl who is too shy to find a man to love me, but my parents want me to find someone to love or they would find shame in me later in life for not giving them grandchildren,' said Rosita."
"Don't you want somebody to love," Lee began to sing in the girls ears. Anne giggled while Maggie shushed him.
"'Ah shyness is something that is hard to get rid of, but if you want to find someone to love, I know of a good place for you to go,' said the man.
'Where is that?" asked Rosita as she wiped tears from her eyes.
'Come with me and I will show you,' said the man.
Rosita followed the man through the dense Amazon jungle, she had never been through this part before and as she got farther in, she became very nervous. After a while, the strange man disappeared and there was no sign of him anywhere in the jungle, what made it worse was that she had no idea what his name was, so she did not know what to call him.
'Rosita!' a voice called to her from near the river.
Rosita ran toward the call but when she reached the river, she found that there was no one there save for four river dolphins frolicking in the middle of the river. Rosita watched them for a moment wishing she could be like the dolphins swimming happily with the ones they loved and not having a care in the world.
'Fascinating creatures aren't they?' Rosita gasped as she turned to the sound of the man's voice behind her. She had not heard him walk up to her even though the area as covered in branches and vines.
'I know what you are thinking,' the man said as he moved forward and a little too close for comfort to Rosita. 'How did I get here without you noticing?'
'Yes I am wondering,' said Rosita.
'It's no mystery, especially if you know all about shape shifters,' the man said."
Homer was hanging on to every word of the story, it was rare for him to be this way, the last time he remembered wanting to know more was when he was reading the Angelica Button series to Lisa. He had skipped ahead even when Lisa told him not to, of course this time he could not do so, he could only listen and be amazed by the story.
As he listened, he felt what he thought was a hand touching his leg; Maggie was sitting beside him so he turned to her and smiled. "Edge of your seat story huh?" he leaned over and asked.
"Yeah Dad, shhh," said Maggie as she put a finger to her mouth. Homer stared at her for a moment and noticed that both of her hands were on her lap, yet he still felt that something was touching him. Homer turned to Riley, thinking that he may have been so into the story he was not paying attention to what he was doing, but he was just like Maggie and the others listening intently. Finally, Homer looked down, and there on his lap lay a snake.
"Oh God!" Homer exclaimed as he jumped up and backed away really fast. It was only a tree boa and it quickly slithered away once Homer got up and ran. Maggie and Celia were the only ones who saw Homer jump up; apparently he backed away so fast that he ran right into a large patch of congregating mosquitoes.
"Shoo flies!" he cried as he swatted at them all while some began to land on his arms ready to feed. For a good five minutes, Homer ran in circles swatting at mosquitoes left and right and trying to get rid of them around the camp. They simply kept following him no matter how hard he tried to get away.
No one helped, not even Maggie as she continued to listen, the entire club continuing on with the story as if nothing was going wrong. They knew it was nothing to be too concerned over, Homer was just having trouble with the local insect life; he had his malaria shots so all he needed to do was find some spray to get rid of them. Of course when Homer finally found it, he realized that he had used it all up the last time he used it so now he was in trouble. He did not want to bother anyone who was listening, so finally he ran as fast as he could toward the river and dived right in, shoes, shirt and all.
Homer stayed submerged in the water for just a moment, letting out a bubbly sigh of relief, as he was glad the mosquitoes could no longer touch him. He was just about ready to head back up the surface when a small fish swam by the corner of his eye. He watched it for a moment as it began to circle around him, possibly curious that a strange new creature was in its river. It finally stopped right in front of his face and stared at him; Homer only smiled and slowly brought his hand over to give it a small touch under its fin. Suddenly the fish smiled too and a row of razor sharp teeth stared back at him. Homer's eyes went wide, and just as he was about to leap out of the water and run, several other fish appeared.
It wasn't long before Maggie heard a scream coming from the river, everyone jumped up with surprise to see what was going on. Homer ran past them and noticed that there were several fish clinging to him.
"I'll go help him," said Maggie as she walked away letting Luis tell what was left of the story.
Maggie found Homer standing near the tent, trying to pry off what looked like a piranha from his index finger; there was another clinging to his butt, while another kept his jaws tightly clenched on his nose.
"I guess the Amazon is not being nice to you tonight is it Dad?" asked Maggie as she grabbed the piranha who had a grip on his butt.
"No ib's nob," said Homer with a tear running down his cheek as he got the piranha off his finger before proceeding to get the one that was not letting go off his nose.
"Boy he's really staying on there," said Maggie as she watched Homer try his hardest to get it off without ripping his nose off. Homer kept trying but the fish was strong and the only thing he could do was stand there and look pathetic.
"I'll get Brandon," said Maggie as she ran back to the group.
They both returned less than a minute later with Brandon carrying a first aid kit which he quickly set down to look at the fish still hanging on and flapping about wildly.
"Wow, he's really on there what did you do to him?" asked Brandon in a voice that almost made him sound like he was laughing.
"I wad jub tryink do get awab fromb mosquitobes," said Homer while Brandon looked around in his first aid kit for something to use to get the fish off.
"Yeah that happens sometimes, I remember one year a kid jumped in and……well let's just say you are lucky to get bitten on the nose," said Brandon as he found a small packet of pepper. "Now this worked for that kid and hopefully this will work for you, apparently fish are also not fond of pepper."
Homer squinted as Brandon shook the pepper right where the fish was biting down. Homer felt the pepper fall down his nose and he wanted to sneeze, but before he even did so the fish let out a sneeze of its own. It was enough to make it fly off of Homer's nose and straight into the jungle, it was too dark though to see where it fell.
"Uhhhh…" Maggie said worriedly.
"It's now food for some animal," said Brandon as he started putting gauze on Homer's nose where the fish bit down. Maggie watched and noticed that Homer did not look very happy, it looked like he was ready to cry.
"You okay Dad?" Maggie asked.
"Yeah…" Homer said with a sniff as if he was making sure his nose was working properly.
"You should be fine, I don't think it will swell, you'll just be sore, but remember to be careful when entering the water. Piranhas do not take kindly to people like you even if you were escaping from their food," said Brandon trying to sound important but Maggie could tell he was trying hard not to laugh.
Homer only nodded and began to itch his arms from the mosquitoes, Brandon only slapped him. "Itching makes it worse, I'll give you some anti itch cream," he said.
Homer only sighed in annoyance before turning to Maggie. "So what happened in the rest of the story?"
"I don't know, you were making too much of a racket for me to hear anything," said Maggie with a grumble as Celia made her way over.
"Hey I was enjoying it as much as you were, the snake just scared me a little that's all," said Homer as he took the anti itch cream from Brandon and rubbed it on his arms.
"Well I guess Celia can tell us what happened," said Maggie with a grin, Celia only happily obliged.
"The man was a shape shifter; he wanted Rosita to love his son who was a dolphin who had drowned years ago in the water. But Rosita did not want to fall in love with him because she liked living on the land and had a family to care for. The man tried to talk her out of going home but she said she could find someone to love some other day, even if it took her forever," said Celia with a sigh.
"Good for her, who would want to marry someone they didn't love any way," said Maggie.
"Yeah," said Celia.
"Smart girls, now I don't have to worry about Celia coming home with someone I don't care for," said Riley
"Yeah we blame Todd Flanders for that," said Maggie as she rolled her eyes.
"Yeah he taught us all about love and the verses of the Bible while on a hike one day, I have no idea why, we all believed it was because he was out of original story ideas, we all agree though that they sucked any way," said Celia.
"So yeah we know all the verses, Corinthians 13:4-8, Romans 12:9, Ephesians 4:2, John 15:13, and of course the infamous Matthew 19:19," said Maggie.
"Thou shalt not eat seafood?" Homer asked worriedly.
Maggie looked at Celia and both rolled their eyes. "Come on Dad, let's get ready for another big day tomorrow," Maggie said as she made her way to the tent, Celia doing the same.
"But what happens if I eat seafood, I need to know," said Homer in a whiney voice.
"Homer, your neighbor says it's safe to eat seafood," said Riley as he patted Homer on the shoulder before disappearing into his own tent.
A/N: Yeah I was having trouble coming up with a good ending, if you did not laugh then I apologize, apparently my giggle meter is being weird. Anywho it still fits since it has been a year now since the first chapter of Love Thy Neighbor was put up. I thought updating this would be a perfect way to celebrate. So yay!
Now this chapter was just a calm before the storm, the next chapters are going to have some interesting results, unfortunately none of them sexy. So please review when you can, and enjoy your valentines day, or in my case, singles awareness day. Blarg.