Again, I'm sorry I'm getting so lazy with my updates… I really do try, but, as you can see, my attention span isn't the largest. I'M JUST ONE 13 YEAR OLD GIRL! Anyway, thank you all for not complaining, and, to Meggy, patience is a virtue :D

Chapter 13- BEATRICE

I reached Mulletfingers' boat and began to pull the food and clean clothes I had brought for him out of my bag. "Here's the stuff you wanted," I said, without even a hello. That's just how our relationship worked. We communicated, just not so much with words, and we were close, without showing it. "I also brought my special banana-mango loaf," I added, with a hint of a smile.

"Special?" he asked, grinning devilishly. "I don't think I'd feed that to a gator." He pretended to inspect it in disgust while I shot him a look. "I'm kidding," he said, looking up. "You know I love your cooking."

"You know," I said, after a moment of silence, "you can't stay out here forever." The smile drained from his face.

"What? Is there anybody looking for me?"

"No," I said, shaking my head, "not yet, but I can only cover for you for so long before you get caught."

"I know. And I've been trying to stay out of sight, but I've only got a few days left to stop them." I cared about the owls just as much as he did, but it seemed as though our efforts were just going to get him sent away again.

"Hello?" a voice cried out suddenly, breaking my train of thought. It was a voice I knew. A voice I knew well. It was Roy Ebberhart. "Hello?" he called again.

"That's that kid that's been following me around," Mulletfingers said. I stood up and began walking towards his voice.

"Don't worry. I'll keep him out of your hair," I said. "But we are not done discussing this." I rounded the corner of his boat and found Cowgirl, with his annoying little face on his annoying little bike with his annoying little voice yelling over and over again as he rode towards me. It was enough to make my heart flutter and my stomach do somersaults. And then I realized something. For once, Melanie was nowhere to be seen. It gave me a glimmer of hope. But that was gone just as soon as it arrived, because I reminded myself that thoughts like these were useless, because nothing was ever going to happen between us. Not as long as my pride stood in the way.

As he drew closer and propped his bike up against the boat, I hurried back to hide. He knocked on the boat's side. "Hello?" he asked. I watched as he went over to the fire pit and felt to see if it was still warm or not. "Hello?," he called again, louder this time. "Look, I'm not here to hassle you!" As he said this, I crept around the boat, snatching his bike. But, as I was pulling it away, it hit the boat with a clang, causing me to curse. Of course, Roy heard. "My bike!" he yelled, running towards the noise. I pulled myself onto it, and waited for him to find me.

"Looking for this?" I asked, when he did.

"That's my bike," he said matter-of-factly, glaring at me. I gave him my biggest fake smile.

"Yeah, it is," I said, and then let my smile drop. "Now hop on."

"What?"

"The handlebars. Get on the handlebars, you dork. We're going for a ride."

"No. I can't. Mela—" he started, but long before then I had already found Melanie and her bike, stuffed in the bushes behind the boat.

"You can come out now," I called over my shoulder, cutting him off. She emerged from behind the tree, where I, in my most threatening voice, had told her to stay. As she dragged her bike from the bushes, I turned back to Roy. "Now, get on." From his face, I could tell he was still angry, but he did as he was told.

We rode the bikes, Roy and I in the lead and Melanie following, down a dirt road. Roy, being the baby he is, perched awkwardly on the handlebars with his backpack in my face, whining and saying, "Ow." whenever we ran over even the smallest bump. "What's in your backpack," I asked, suddenly. He jumped because I had unexpectedly broken the uncomfortable silence.

"What? Nothing," he said, but I knew he was lying. I made sure we went over a big bump in the dirt road, just to punish him. He just about flew from the handlebars.

"Ah! Can I get off now?" he asked.

"Sure. When you tell me what's in the box." But I let him off anyway.

"Nothing," he repeated. Rage bubbled up inside me and I threw myself off the bike, blowing past Melanie.

"Come on, give it up, Cowgirl! What's in the box?" I shoved him and grabbed the backpack, ready to pull it from his shoulders.

"Shoes," he said finally, pulling away from me.

"Yeah, sure," I said, grabbing the box and running. I heard Melanie throw her bike to the ground.

"I swear," he said, following me. They caught up to me, and I was forced to stop. I lifted the lid of the box and there they were. Shoes, just as he had said.

"Why are you carrying around an old pair of sneakers?" I asked, my voice suspicious. "That is weird, Cowgirl. Really weird."

"They're not for me. They're for this barefoot kid I met." It seemed as though he still hadn't made the connection between Mulletfingers and I.

"Maybe he doesn't want shoes," I said in exasperation. "Did you ever think about that? Why do you care so much about this kid anyway?"

"I don't know, okay. He looked like he needed help," Roy said, and he looked so genuinely concerned about Mulletfingers that I couldn't take it anymore.

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," I said. "I'll make sure that the barefoot kid gets these sneakers. Now get out of here!"

"So you do know him?" Melanie cried. Until then, I had forgotten that she was even there. For once, she had stayed quiet.

"Well who is he?" Roy asked, following me into a big gazebo by the swamp.

"You just won't leave it alone," I mumbled under my breath. I turned towards them and took a deep breath. "Can I trust you?" I asked.

"Of course," Roy said, peering into my eyes and making me, to my own disgust, melt. I looked down, suddenly nervous. "He's my brother. Well, my step-brother."

"Why doesn't he live with you?" Melanie asked.

"My step-mom shipped him off to some military school. He lasted two days and then ran off. Then he hitchhiked back all the way from Alabama." Suddenly, I narrowed my eyes, glaring down at them. "Nobody else knows he's here and nobody's going to tell them, right?"

Roy put up his hands, smiling. "Not me." It was just so hard not to trust him that I continued on with my story.

"About four years ago when my dad was still playing pro-basketball, he went to this celebrity golf show where he met some cheerleader named Lana." Roy and Melanie sat down beside me. "At the wedding, she showed up with this son that she didn't seem to like at all.

"She didn't even like her own son?" Melanie asked incredulously. I just shook my head.

"I'm the only one he even talks to anymore."

"What's his name?" Roy asked.

"I call him Mulletfingers," I said, smiling.

"Mulletfingers?" he asked. "Why?"

"I think you've heard enough for one day. Besides, it's getting late." I got up, taking the shoes with me.

"Yeah," Roy said. "Looks like I'm, uh, gonna be late for dinner."

"Me too," Melanie said.

"Here's your excuse," I said, eying a nail lodged in the wood of the gazebo that would be perfect for making flat bike tires. And with that, we said goodbye, leaving me to think about all that I had told them and whether it was a good choice. I decided it was. As I watched Roy and Melanie walk away, I realized that this might be the start of an actual friendship. Not the type of friendship that I had with my soccer friends where they did whatever I told them to, but a real one, where everyone was equal.

And it didn't even bother me that much when Roy offered carry Melanie's bag for her.