"Oh my god, I'm dying here, when's the water truck going to come again?" Ivy moaned as she sat out in her half finished hole, staring morosely at her empty canteen. The boys all sniggered. Or at least, most of the boys laughed. Ace didn't seem to hear her. Digging rapidly, right next to her hole, he seemed far too focused on finishing his hole which was very nearly done, despite it being long before midday. Fin, the fastest digger by far, was still only three quarters of the way finished. Coincidentally, Fin didn't seem to be laughing either. He was, instead, standing open mouthed in the hole next to Ace's staring intently at him. Or more specifically at one part of Ace: As the heat of the day had increased, Ace stopped his digging for the first time to undo his jumpsuit and tie it around his waist, his chest still covered by his white singlet. What wasn't covered were the reasonably large, round bruises that seemed to have appeared just below his collar bone. Ivy eyes opened very wide when she saw them. She hadn't even noticed until she saw Fin staring at Ace with his jaw practically trailing on the ground. The poor kid clearly had no idea what they were. When Ivy saw Fin start to speak, she really could have jumped into his hole and smothered him, but she thought that this situation called for a certain amount of subtlety.

"Wow Ace, what happened to you?" Fin sounded understandably shocked, but there seemed to be a slight undercurrent of something else. He sounded almost protective. Ace looked up at him blankly, one eyebrow raised. It was at that moment that Ivy realised Ace had no idea about the rather interesting discolorations on him.

"The hell are you on about kid?" Ace asked, leaning offhandedly on his shovel with a bemused expression on his face. Ivy grimaced, knowing that this conversation was far from over. None of the others had noticed what was going on yet, and Ivy fully intended to keep it that way. She began to climb very slowly out of her hole.

"It looks like you got attacked by a vampire" Fin stated, quite bravely Ivy thought, considering how scared he was of Ace. That didn't really make her any happier with the situation though. She walked quietly down two holes to where Fin was standing and jumped into the hole. He jumped slightly, looking round wide eyed to where she had landed in the hole next to him. She smiled.

"Hey kiddo, you know, I just realised, I never got to finish my story that time, about how I got here" she said, sitting down in the hole, making it quite obvious that she didn't intend to move any time soon. She couldn't believe that she was about to do this for Ace. This was something that she had vowed to never talk about again, and here she was, telling it to Fin, just to stop him from finding out their secret. Well, maybe it wasn't all for Ace. Ivy wasn't quite as selfless as she wanted to believe. Fin raised his eyebrows at her, looking up at Ace.

"Can it maybe wait a little while Rocky, I was kind of talking to Ace?" he sounded pained, clearly realising that he wasn't going to get this opportunity again, but unwilling to give up questioning Ace. Ivy pouted quite convincingly, and remained seated in Fin's hole.

"Fine. I guess if you don't want to talk to me..." she trailed off, looking up at him sadly, and the immediate look of shocked guilt that showed on his face was extremely gratifying to Ivy. She almost felt bad playing Fin like that; there was no fun in it when it was that easy.

"No, of course I want to talk to you" he said quickly, "it's just that... You know what, don't worry, tell your story". Ivy grinned triumphantly, until the realisation of what she had just gotten herself into dawned on her. She sat quietly for a second, thinking. She didn't want to tell her story, she was certain of that, but she didn't really feel right about lying to Fin either. But without lying there was absolutely no way to get out of this. And then the sudden cloud of dust moving towards them through the desert appeared and she grinned. Someone up there must be looking out for her.

"Water, thank god" she cried, and she noticed her voice was slightly croaky. She stood up and watched as the truck moved closer to their holes. Federovski pulled up in front of them and jumped out of the truck. All the boys pulled themselves out of their holes and went over to line up. Ace, with a newly done up jumpsuit, took his usual place at the front, followed by Snake, Sparky, Fro, Eight and then Luke in front of Ivy.

Federovski beamed at all of them. "Good morning Joel. How's the digging going?" This comment warranted a large chorus of complaints from the boys about nicknames. Ivy stayed quiet, fidgeting at the end of the line as she waited for water.

"Are you ready for our counselling session tonight?" Federovski asked, the smile fading slightly, probably due to the horrific prospect of having to spend an hour in close confines with these boys. God knows Ivy didn't find the idea too appealing and she did it every night, "I have a surprise for you all".

Sparky sniggered. "What surprise would that be?" he asked, and Ivy was much happier not knowing what he was thinking. Federovski beamed again, wagging his finger at Sparky.

"Uh, uh, uh Daniel, if I told you then it wouldn't be a surprise would it? You'll just have to wait and see" he said mysteriously and Ivy raised an eyebrow. She had never been much of one for surprises; 

they usually turned out to be something bad. But who knew, whatever he had planned would probably be better than spending an hour talking about feelings.

...

Okay, sorry not very good, I know, but it just with most of the other chapters I read over them a few times first before I publish them and I didn't with this one so it might end up not fitting in with the rest of the story at all. I might have to come back and change it.

But other than that, I like it LOL. At least it was longer than the note this time ;P

Okay, well I'm going to sleep now because I have maths tomorrow and i suck enough, without having had no sleep at all.

cheers

xx

QB