Chapter Six

Adventures in Hall Sitting

"And here's your bill, sir," I said, handing a rather rotund man a bill for his lunch. "I hope you enjoyed dining with us. I'll be back to pick that up in just a minute." I walked off towards the counter at the entrance, where Emma and Lo were also sitting. I sat next to them, and sighed heavily.

"Man, the lunch rush can't end soon enough," I complained. "Why do so many people need to eat?"

"Rough day?" asked Lo.

"Can you tell?" I asked. "Man, The Office is calling me right now. You guys are in for a quick sesh after work, right?"

"Definitely!" said Emma, and Lo just nodded. "Do you think Ty will be there, Lo?"

"Ugh, gag," Lo said. "I don't get what you see in my brother, Emma." Emma put her chin in her hand, and gazed off in the distance.

"Oh, I don't know," she mused. "He's just so smart, and nice, and cute, and…"

"Now I wish I had more tables to wait," I said, making Lo giggle. Kelly walked over, her hands on her hips.

"Oh Lo," she said. "Table six needs their check. As in now." Lo, with a sigh, got up to deliver the check. "Doesn't she get that we all want to get out of here, not just you three?"

"Where're you going after work, Kelly?" Emma asked. "We're headed to The Office. You should come grab a sesh." I knew Emma was just begin nice, but I really wish she wouldn't. The last thing we needed was Kelly at The Office. Luckily that didn't seem to be part of her plans.

"I'd rather clean the grease pans with my hair," she said, with a hint of disgust in her voice.

"What d'you have against surfing, anyway?" I asked.

"It's none of your business!" she said, and walked off in a huff. Just then my phone buzzed, telling me I'd gotten a text. I pulled it out and flipped it open.

You and the ladies coming to The Office after work? came the text from Broseph. Reef says there's some tasty swells today. I smiled. One of the many benefits of having a surf instructor for a friend was that you'd always know what kind of wave conditions you were in for.

You know it! I texted back. You think Ty's gonna have his camera. Told my bro back home I'd send him a vid of me shredding at The Office.

I don't know, bro, came the response. I'm off in five. Meet you guys there, yeah?

Alright dude, later. I put my phone away. "Reef told Broseph the waves are sick today." I informed Emma. She squealed, as she often does, in excitement.

"Oh, I can't wait!" she said. "How much more of this shift do we have?" I glanced at my phone again to check the time.

"About ten minutes," I said. "But it'll probably feel like twenty." Just then Lo sat back down next to us.

"I hate people," she said, then made her voice go nasally and mocking. "Oh, miss, can you just deduct that from our bill? It was a little cold. Blegh, tourists are the worst."

"You know," I pointed out. "If not for tourists, your dad wouldn't make any money." Lo thought this over, then slumped in her seat.

"Well, serving tourists is the worst." She corrected herself.

The last ten minutes of our shift dragged on for what felt like ages. Finally, however, Kelly rang the bell, and Lo, Emma and I bolted for the changing room. We changed as quickly as we could, and made a beeline for the staff house to get our swimsuits. When we arrived, Reef and Fin were also there.

"Broseph tells me we've got some tasty swells today," I said to Reef.

"Double overhead at least, dude!" he exclaimed. "Come on, get your boardshorts on, we've got waves to catch!" Broseph and Johnny were nowhere to be found, so we assumed they were already at The Office.

As Reef and I emerged from our room, and quickly made it down the stairs, the girls did the same. The five of us were about to head for the path to The Office, when a stern "ahem" from behind us made us stop.

"Where do you all think you're going?" asked Bummer. We slowly turned around to face our boss.

"Uh, to catch some tasty waves?" Reef tried. Bummer shook his head.

"I need two of you to hall sit tonight," he said. I raised an eyebrow.

"Um… hall sit?" I asked. "What d'you mean Bum—er, Baumer?" Reef and Fin quickly exchanged looks.

"Uh, we hall sat a few days ago, remember?" asked Fin. "I think we should be able to opt out of this one." Bummer nodded. Lo seized her chance, and quickly picked up.

"Yeah, and Daddy doesn't want me anywhere near the hotel rooms," she said. "He wouldn't want me hall sitting." Bummer nodded again.

"Can someone please explain what hall sitting is?" I nearly shouted. Bummer smiled, somewhat wickedly.

"Come on, I'll show you," he said. "You too Emma; this is a job for two." I exchanged a look with Emma, who shrugged. Reef quickly put a hand on each of our shoulders.

"Have fun," he said, and then ran to The Office with Fin and Lo. Exchanging another look of confusion, Emma and I walked after Bummer back towards the hotel.

XxXxX

Room 441 had two children in it; Mark and Todd Marvin, or as the staff called them, the Terror Twins. Across from that room was a small bench, and that's where Emma and I were sitting. I slumped down.

"This is actually the worst thing that could be happening right now," I complained. "I told you how bad I wanted The Office before, right?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Well, check this out," I showed her my phone. Johnny had texted me a video of Reef shredding an eleven footer at The Office. "They're out having all this fun, and we're stuck watching two kids." Emma sighed.

"Major unfairness," she said. Just then my phone buzzed again. A call from my brother. I picked it up.

"What Jackson?" I asked.

"You're not too busy at The Office to pick up your phone, huh?" he asked. He didn't believe that the seniors had actually showed it to us.

"Dude, I swear we know where it is!" I tried. "Here, ask Emma," I covered the phone as I handed it to her. "It's my brother. Just tell him we found The Office. He doesn't believe me." She took the phone.

"He's not lying," she told my brother. "We'll send you a pic tomorrow, 'kay?" She handed the phone back to me. I put it to my ear.

"She sounds hot," Jackson said. "You're having all the fun." I chuckled.

"You have no idea," I said. "Not right now, though. We're stuck babysitting two bratty kids while the others are shredding. You know it's totally going off right now?" He laughed.

"That's rough," he said. "I got to go. Mom just made sloppy joes. Later bro!" He hung up. I groaned.

"Great, missing the waves here, and the sloppy joes at home," I said. "Can this day get worse?" Emma patted me on the back.

We sat for a while, not really saying much, except the occasional complaint. After a while, however, Emma sat up in her seat.

"It's really, really quite right now…" she mused. I listened too, and realized she was right. Earlier the kids had been fighting and making a ruckus, but now…

"I'll check on them," I offered. Bummer had given us both master keys (just until we were done hall sitting) and I used it to slowly open the door. "Guys…?" I called. No response. I opened the door wider, and found the place a mess. "Fin's gonna have a fun day tomorrow." I mused. But then I saw something that made my jaw drop. The door to the balcony was thrown open, and two long ropes, made of bed sheets tied together, were hanging off the railing. The kids were gone.

"Uh, Emma," I called. "We've got a problem in here!" She ran in, and I pointed to the railing. "They're gone." Emma gasped.

"Nate!" she yelled. "We've been in watching these kids for less than two hours, and we already screwed up. The parents are gonna kill us, not to mention Bummer! What're we going to do?" I put my hands on her shoulders.

"Okay, chill out," I said. "Here, I'll text everyone. Get them on kid alert." I pulled out my phone, talking as I typed. "Sending it to Fin, Reef, Broseph, Johnny, Lo, Ripper, Lance, hell even Kelly and Ty. Okay… Terror Twins are out somewhere. Keep on high alert. Text me or Emma if you see anything. And… send."

"Okay, good," said Emma. "Now what do we do?"

"I don't know," I said. "Don't you have brothers?"

"They're all older!" she said. "What about Jackson, he's younger than you."

"By a year," I said. "I was busy causing trouble with him, and when I grew out of it, so did he. Now think, if you were an eight year old little twerp at a fancy hotel, where would you go?" We thought for a moment, then Emma snapped her fingers.

"Pirate ship!" she said. "Kids love pirates, I think."

"It's better than nothing," I said, shrugging. "Come on, let's go!"

We ran for the DR, brushing past guests and staff alike. We walked into the huge pirate themed restaurant, and scanned the area for signs of destruction or mayhem. Nothing seemed abnormal at first, but then there was a shriek from one of the people eating. She was pointing almost straight up, and as Emma and I followed her finger, we both gasped. One of the kids, either Mark or Todd (we couldn't tell the difference) was currently climbing in the rafters.

"We've got to get him down!" Emma cried.

"I'm on it, don't worry," I said. I ran towards one of the ropes that led to the rafters. They were used for decoration, obviously, but who said they couldn't be climbed? So I grabbed on and quickly shimmied up. The higher I got, I realized how crazy stupid this was. But I wasn't about to get fired because some dumb kid wanted to play pirate, so I grimaced and climbed higher.

Reaching the top of the rope, I tentatively stepped onto one of the wooden rafters. I heard it creak worryingly, and I gulped heavily as I slowly moved towards the child.

"Hey buddy," I called over to him. "This is fun, huh? But you know what's more fun? Watching a movie in your hotel room. Let's get back there, yeah?" He blew a raspberry at me.

"Make me, waiter!" he called. He grabbed onto another rope, and climbed higher. For a chubby kid, he sure could move. I sighed, grabbed the rope nearest me, and climbed as well.

"Come on kid!" I yelled. "Get back down and… you can have free desert for a week." I had no idea if I could make this promise, but it seemed like the only logical thing to do. The Marvin kid seemed to think about it.

"Make it two!" he called. I shrugged.

"Fine, two weeks!" I hollered. "Now come here!" Without giving him the chance to respond, I quickly swung off my rope to his. I grabbed the rope with one hand, and his shirt with the other. "Gotchya!" I shouted triumphantly. I slowly lowered myself down, keeping a tight grip on the Marvin kid. When I reached the ground, Emma ran up and gave me a squeeze.

"Nate that was amazing!" she shouted. "You were like James Bond or something!" I smiled.

"Does that make you my Bond Girl?" I joked. The Marvin kid made a gagging noise.

"Oh yuck!" he said.

"Quiet you," I said. "Now, where's your brother?"

"How should I know?" he said. "We split up when I came to the pirate ship." I sighed heavily. Just then my phone buzzed, as did Emma's. We both pulled them out.

Marvin kid spotted at the beach. It was a text from Lance, which he'd sent to both of us. Didn't stay here long though. Looks like he was headed back for the hotel. I put my phone away.

"Lance?" I asked Emma. She nodded. "Okay, now where to?"

"Put him back in the room," Emma said, gesturing to the Marvin kid. "Then we'll find his brother."

We dropped the Marvin kid off in his room, after double locking all the doors, even the one to the balcony. Then we continued the search. As we walked, Emma brought up a good point.

"Why don't their parents do something about their terrible kids?" she asked. "Seriously, they're monsters."

"The parents or the kids?" I asked, only half joking. "But I get what you mean. Maybe if we—" My phone rang suddenly. I didn't recognize the number. I picked it up curiously. "Uh, hello?"

"Dude, the smaller dude got the Whale Bus man!" came a familiar voice. It took me a second to put it to a face.

"Kahuna?" I asked suddenly, realizing who it was. "How'd you get my number?"

"No time to explain, dude!" Kahuna shouted. "One of those kids got the Whale Bus man. That's my bus!"

"Okay, calm down," I said. I put the phone on speaker so Emma could hear as well.
"You're on speaker phone. Now, tell us what happened."

"Okay, okay…" said Kahuna, taking a few deep breaths. "I brought the bus back, and left the keys in the ignition when I went inside real quick to take a quick whizz."

"Okay, too much info Kahuna," said Emma.

"Then when IU got back," Kahuna said, ignoring Emma's comment. "One of those kids got into the bus. I tried to stop him, but he locked the door on me man! I didn't even know that thing had a lock on it!"

"Kahuna, focus!" I said. "What happened next?"

"Oh yeah, right," he said. "Anyway, the kid must've hit the gas, 'cause the bus started rolling away. I got no idea how he's driving it, but he is dude!"

"What direction?" I asked.

"Going into town," he said. "You groms gotta stop him. If that bus does any damage, it's tickets for me. Help the Kahuna out."

"We're on it Kahuna, don't worry." Said Emma, and I hung up the phone. We ran out the front door of the lobby, and then stopped, realizing we had no idea how to catch a bus.

"What do we do now?" I asked. "No way we can catch up to a bus, especially when it had a head start." Emma suddenly snapped her fingers.

"Golf carts!" Emma said. "You've seen people riding around on them, right? Employees use them all the time."

"You want to ride a golf cart after a bus?" I asked. She nodded vigorously. I shrugged. "Why not? But we still need to find a golf cart. Where does Bummer even keep them?"

Just then, as if the universe was finally throwing us a bone, Rosie the maid drove by on a golf cart. Emma and I quickly ran after her. "What is it?" she asked.

"Rosie, we really need to borrow that golf cart," Emma said. "Please?" She smiled sweetly, but Rosie just laughed it off.

"Oh no, I'm not falling for that face," she said. "I'm immune after working for Lauren's family for so long." I sighed.

"You know those Marvin kids?" I asked. She nodded. "Well, one of them jacked the Whale Bus. If anything happens, Emma, Kahuna and me will all be out of our jobs. And now you will too, since you're getting in the way of us catching him. So if you just give us the golf cart, we'll go get him, and we can all keep our jobs." Rosie narrowed her eyes, but sighed after a moment.

"Fine, here you go," she said, handing me the keys. "But if you bang it up, I'll tell Bummer it was all your idea." I smiled, thanked Rosie, and sat in the golf cart.

"Do you know how to drive one of these?" Emma asked me, as I put the keys in the ignition.

"No," I admitted sheepishly. "But I got my license two months ago, so how hard can it be." And with that I put my foot on the gas, and we sped along down the road. Well, sped is all relative; this thing only went about ten miles an hour. But we made good time, and we slowly got into town.

XxXxX

About twenty minutes later, we got into town. We were both bored out of our minds, and the golf cart was beginning to run out of gas. Then, suddenly, Emma gasped and grabbed my wrist.

"There's the bus!" she shouted, and pointed. It was parked outside a store called the Surf Shack.

"Isn't that Broseph's mom's store?" I asked. Broseph had mentioned it a few times in idle chit chat. Said he used to work there before becoming Surfer's Paradise's new bellhop.

"Do you think he's inside?" Emma asked. I shrugged.

"Maybe," I said. "Let's check it out." I pulled off the road and parked the cart next to the shop. I glanced at the Whale Bus. "Wow, that kid parallel parks better than I do."

Walking into the shop, it was clear the Marvin kid had been here. Surfboards were on the ground, boardshorts and bikinis were strung up all around a large tree growing in the center of the store, and tubes of sun screen were emptied all over the walls. A twenty-something year old dude walked over to us.

"You guys here for that kid?" he asked. "Little dude's been causing all kinds of trouble. He's in the back." He gestured over his shoulder to a door leading to the back of the store. Emma and I quickly rushed in the back to find the Marvin kid being held down by another employee. We gabbed him, and thanked the employees.

"You groms gonna pay for the damages?" one of them asked.

"Uh… we're friends with the owner's kid," I tired. This actually worked, as the employees both brightened up.

"Oh, you dudes are friends with Broseph?" he asked. "Cool. Tell him we say what's up." I nodded, and Emma and I left, carrying the Marvin child by his arms.

XxXxX

After getting both kids back into their room, and waiting for the parents to return, Emma and I slowly walked to the staff house. It was nearly ten, and the others were just arriving back from a session at The Office. Emma and I slumped down on the couch.

"Whoa!" Broseph said, seeing the state we were in. "Rough night you guys?" We were too tired to respond. Chasing those kids all over was way more tiring than it sounded (especially considering that, when we had gotten back to the hotel, the first Marvin kid had escaped, and we needed to track him down again).

"Never… hall sitting… again…" I managed, causing Fin and Reef to chuckle. "It's too late to head back to The Office, isn't it?" I asked.

"Way too late," Fin said. "It's pitch black over there, not to mention the woods."

"I didn't surf a single wave all day," I complained. "And I don't even get a pay bonus or anything."

"Don't you mean we don't?" asked Emma next to me.

"Yeah, we," I said. "Emma and I just had the worst day… ever!" The others laughed. I was too tired to complain any more, and I suddenly fell asleep right on the couch, with Emma by my side.