Hi hi everyone! Somehow, I have finished this chapter, and so I thought I should post it.

Today's topic was suggested by a guest reviewer a long time back, and then it was suggested by a guest reviewer again recently. Funnily enough, I just reached this suggestion. So here it is!

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon in any way, shape or size!

At The Beach

(Summer before) Grade Two

May (7), Drew (7), Gary (7), Ash (7), Misty (7), Paul (7), Leaf (7)

There was one more week left until school started again. True, May and her friends were excited of the fact that they were going to be in grade two now, but they were also a bit disappointed that summer was about to end. And then, a very significant point was made.

They had not gone to the beach all summer.

Of course, the seriousness of this situation was acknowledged by all seven friends, and they proposed that the upcoming Saturday be the day they would spend time by the ocean. Arrangements were made, and that weekend, Ash's mother, Delia, and May's mother, Caroline, decided to take all of them to their destination, with Delia driving Ash, Misty, Gary and Leaf in one car, and Caroline driving May, Drew and Paul in another.

And so, May, Drew, Gary, Leaf, Ash, Misty, and Paul all arrived at the sandy ocean shore. The sun was shining, shells were cluttered all over the sand, and the gentle waves were just begging them to come over for a swim.

After a minute of standing there, admiring the area, May spoke.

"So what are we going to do first?" she asked excitedly. "We can build a sandcastle, or go swimming, or-"

"Let's build a sandcastle!" Leaf said. "I want to make a very big one!"

"Not as big as mine's gonna be!" Gary said instantly. "I'll make a bigger, better castle than you can ever make!"

"No you won't!"

"Yes I will! Wanna have a contest?"

Gary and Leaf both ran off to find suitable spots where they would create their masterpieces.

"I'm going to go swimming!" Misty declared. "Anyone want to come?"

"I'm in!" Ash pumped his fist in the air enthusiastically.

"Yay, swimming!" May cheered.

"I'm going to go take a nap," Paul said bluntly, walking to a spot under a beach umbrella, where he laid his beach blanket.

"Yeah, I feel like relaxing in the sun at the moment," Drew said, as he settled down on a beach chair, arms folded behind his head.

"Come on, guys, let's go swim!" Misty urged, immediately getting into the water.

"Hold on, I brought a beach ball! Lemme go get it!" May ran off, coming back with a huge, colourful ball in her arms.

"I know! We can play a game!" Ash suggested. "We have to pass the ball around, but we can't drop it in the water!"

The other two agreed, and the game began. They passed the ball around for a long time, until an argument broke out concerning the rules of the game. Ash had been trying to catch the ball when Misty had thrown it, but when he had succeeded in doing so, he had fallen backwards into the water, ball in his arms. Misty had announced that he had lost a point since the ball had touched the water, but Ash protested because he argued that the rules saidt they weren't allowed to drop the ball, and he hadn't dropped it.

Eventually, Delia and Caroline called all of them over for lunch, which put their quarrel on hiatus. May, Ash and Misty left the water, dried off, and sat at the picnic mat the two women had lain out. Gary and Leaf took a break from their contest, coming over as well, their stomachs growling. Paul and Drew left their relaxation to get a bite to eat.

They all munched on the sandwiches they had packed, and snacked on strawberries, and enjoyed smoothies. The second they were done, Gary and Leaf ran back to their castle competition, though Leaf remembered to turn around and yell thank you to May's and Ash's mothers as she left. Paul lazily took his smoothie back to his beach blanket, and Drew decided to go for a walk.

The green-haired boy was strolling around when he noticed the colourful shells that littered the sand. He bent down to examine them.

"What are you doing?" May, who had been heading back to the water with Ash and Misty, inquired curiously.

"These shells are pretty cool."

"Yeah! They're so pretty! I wanna make a shell collection!" She immediately began gathering the best-looking shells in her hands.

"Aren't you coming?" Misty asked.

"You guys can play without me. I want to collect shells!" May replied.

"Can we use your ball?" Ash asked.

"Okay, but don't lose it!"

"Okay! Thanks!" As Ash and Misty began heading for the water, Delia called her son back.

"Ash, you didn't put on enough sunscreen!" Delia scolded.

"What? No, I did!"

"Hm... No, it doesn't look like it. You look a teeny tiny bit tanner than before."

"Mom, I did!"

"Ash, you know you can get sunburned! Hold on, I'll get more sunscreen."

"Mom!"

As his mother began forcing him to apply more sunscreen on his face, arms and legs, an embarrassed Ash muttered to Misty to go on ahead. Mostly because he didn't want her to stand there when he was being submerged in a layer of cream.

While Misty was heading to the shore, she noticed something.

The waves.

The waves had become huge! They glistened in the sun as they rose up high, and then came crashing down with a huge splash. They seemed to be calling her, and Misty felt the temptation of answering to their summons, and running off into them, swimming with the waves. But she knew that wouldn't be a good idea.

The waves were much bigger than before, but they still weren't that big. Normally, their size would be deceptive, making people believe they could easily handle them. But Misty knew waves, even small ones, could be very powerful, and drag you out to sea.

Suddenly, a colourful round object caught her attention. It was May's beach ball! They had left it by the shoreline, and now it was being carried away by the tide! Misty and Ash had told May they wouldn't lose it, but they would if the tide caught it. Misty and Ash were responsible for it, so a rescue mission was in order!

Misty ran to the water, and dove in. She stubbornly swam against the waves that were pushing her back, and succeeded in grabbing the ball. With the ball under one arm, it became harder to swim back, but Misty was up for the challenge. Suddenly, there was a yell.

"Misty!" It was Ash. He was running toward her, eyes wide in panic. Misty felt a shadow fall over her, and she turned around to find that there was a wave about to come down.

Great.

It threw her off her course, and opposing the current was no simple task. She managed to bring her head out of the water, coughing, but all right, the ball still in her possession. She would have swam back with little difficulty... if it hadn't been for one thing.

"Misty, are you all right?" Ash. Apparently, he had jumped into the water after her, and was beside her now.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she assured him.

"Come on, I'll help you!" Ash, determined to help his friend, tightly held onto her upper arm, and began dragging her with him, heading for the shore.

But Misty hadn't needed any help. If anything, this was making it even harder for her to swim.

"I'm fine, Ash!" she insisted. "I can swim by myself! Let go!"

But he didn't, because in the next instance, they were submerged completely by the water, as a wave crashed down on them. Ash struggled to pull himself to the surface, but he didn't realize that the reason this was so hard for him was due to the fact that he was still holding onto Misty. It was preventing the both of them from swimming properly.

Gasping, the two finally emerged, and the black-haired boy tried to valiantly drag his friend to the beach.

"Ash, let go-!" Misty attempted to say once more.

However, she felt something different. Yes, it was a hand that had grabbed her arm, but it was much bigger and gentler than Ash's. She found herself being pulled to the shore. She and Ash coughed and spat out the salt water that had entered their mouths. Finally, Misty looked up to see who it was.

"Are you two all right?" It was Ash's mother. She had brought both her and Ash to the shore. "You two shouldn't have gone out so far! What if you hadn't been able to come back?"

"I was saving Misty," Ash explained. "She got caught in the waves!"

"I was fine!" the ginger-head insisted. "I would have been able to come back perfectly if you hadn't come along!"

"No way, I saw you! You couldn't come back, and got pushed so far away! You were trapped!"

"No, I wasn't!"

"Ash," Delia interrupted. "If it had looked to you that Misty was in trouble, you should have come to me, a grownup, instead of jumping in as well! What if you had gotten stuck too?"

"I was fine..." Ash mumbled.

"No, you weren't!" Misty piped up. "You were the reason we couldn't get back!"

"No, I-!"

"That was some amazing swimming, Delia!" Caroline complimented, walking up to them, looking relieved. "It was a good thing you could swim so well!"

"Well, you are looking at an ex-lifeguard! Many years back, I was a lifeguard for about a month or two before deciding I wanted to run the Pallet House Restaurant instead."

Ash and Misty had brief fantasies of the woman before them as a lifeguard, swimming out to rescue someone on a surfboard.

Gary and Leaf suddenly began walking toward them, both arguing about something. May and Drew, their arms full of many different shells, were following after them.

"Did you guys have the contest?" May asked.

"Yes! And I won!" Gary declared irritatedly.

"No you didn't!" Leaf crossed her arms. "My castle was way better!"

"Why don't you guys show them to us, and we can decide," Drew suggested.

"That's the thing. We can't." When Drew looked confused at Leaf's statement, she elaborated. "We finished making our castles after lunch, and then went to do something else. Were going to ask you guys what you thought of our castles, but then, when we came back, our castles had been washed away by a wave! Now, we're castle-less!"

"Oh. That's too bad," May said sympathetically. But then she beamed and held out her shell collection enthusiastically. "Look at all the shells Drew and I found! Aren't they so pretty?"

"I found most of them!" Drew said smugly, as he placed his shells into a plastic bag Caroline gave him and flipped his hair.

"I helped too!" May pouted.

"You know, I think it's about time we go home," Caroline announced. "It's getting late."

Delia agreed, and despite the kids' protests, they all began packing up. Soon, they were in the parking lot, about to board the two cars. When suddenly...

"WAIT!" May shrieked. "We forgot Paul!"

There was a pause, and then everyone's eyes widened in realization. They all immediately turned around (only one of the parents really needed to go bring him, but the excited kids wanted to go as well), rushing back to the site where they had been set up. Paul was still dozing under the beach umbrella, although he was... buried in sand?

"Um, Paul? Wake up. It's time to go." Delia shook him awake. A groggy Paul opened his eyes, only to find he couldn't move.

"What the-!" He tried and failed to get up. "I'm buried in sand!"

Gary and Leaf burst into laughter.

"Sorry, we couldn't help ourselves!" Leaf managed to say as the others got to work releasing him from his tomb. "We were done building our castles after lunch, so after you fell asleep, we just had to!"

The second he could move again, Paul abruptly stood up, sending sand flying everywhere. He glared at the two culprits.

"Oh, you are going to regret that!" he hissed.

"Run!" Gary yelled, and the two took off, Paul in pursuit. The others just stared after them.

Finally, they were all boarded in the two cars, ready to head for home.

In Caroline's car, May and Drew were comparing and trading their shells, while Paul continued to look grouchy over the getting-buried-in-sand incident. In Delia's car, Ash and Misty were arguing about whether Misty had needed rescuing or not, while Leaf (who had somehow escaped Paul's wrath) was giggling at Gary, whose hair was filled with sand from when Paul had caught up to them.

Overall, it had been an eventful and quite satisfactory day at the beach.

Ah, the beach! So wonderful, the beach!

Okay, so, so far, what I do when I receive a suggestion is add it to a list of suggestions, and then write on those topics in the order I get them. However, when I receive multiple suggestions from one person, I find that it might not be fair that I'm doing only their suggestions for a long time. So starting from the next update, here's what I'm going to do:

I'm going write down all the suggestions I receive. But if I get multiple from one person, I will pick just one topic that I get from him/her and write on that before moving on to the next person. But don't worry! I'll come back to the other topics too, eventually. I just want to make sure I write for at least one topic for different people, so they get a chance to see their ideas being used.

I just thought I'd tell you guys that, in case you're wondering why I'm taking so long to get to some suggestions. So yeah.

Okie dokie, now that that's said...

Please review, and thanks for reading!

Bye bye for now! Have a splendiferous day, and smile all the way! :)