CHAPTER TWO
Although she had initially seemed somewhat uninspired by the task she had stretching before her, after a short cat nap under her sunhat Allison re-emerged with a warm smile and a far more relaxed aura. She glanced about, performing the second of what she was sure would be many head counts, and was satisfied to find that none of her charges had strayed off the top deck. They weren't confined, but she knew that the main deck had a group of a half dozen or so island hopping tourists that Steve had made no subtle point in telling her would not appreciate eight rowdy teenagers cramping their day's activities. Not that any of the kids were rowdy. They were actually being very quiet- apart from Li and Paulo over in the corner, who were in absolute stitches about something. Li was wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, her shoulders still shaking with laughter. The pair seemed to be getting along well, but as for the rest of the group…
Allison couldn't help the cringe as she considered the remaining six teenagers. Hex was tapping away madly at the keyboard of the smallest computer Allison had ever seen, his eyes intent on whatever it was that was on the screen. She wondered if he'd even notice if she went and clapped her hands right beside his ear, or did another one of her piercing whistles. Probably not, she decided. Short of snatching the computer from his hands, he probably wouldn't have even flicked his gaze sideways.
Beside him, but not that it looked to be any sort of thought out move, sat Alex who was sharpening a- Allison blinked. Why on earth did the fourteen year old have a knife, and how the heck did he get it through customs without incident? She shook her head, deciding to leave the unravelling of that particular mystery for a later date, and instead turned her attention away from Alex and his knife sharpening to Amber. The willowy girl was half kneeling, half slouching on the opposite end of the bench to the two UK boys, her folded arms on the rail, chin resting on top as she stared out at the water being cut through below them. Her fingers were turning a rather battered piece of gold, strung on a chain around her neck, over and over, like she was trying to imprint the shape of it onto them. Noting that Justin, Ruby and Stella, their final late arrival, were all in similar states of suspended boredom, Allison resolved to dive straight into some team bonding; it was, after all, a core focus of the program, and she had no doubt that the teenagers she'd been lumped with were going to need the full two weeks to grasp even the most basic definition of 'teamwork'.
"Right," she announced. "In a circle, please." She slid off the bench she'd been lounging on and onto the ground, crossing her legs and patting the bits of marine carpet either side of her. "Chop chop. Come on. Look lively."
"What are we doing?" Amber asked, not even attempting to mask her unease as she sunk gingerly onto the carpet to sit cross legged between Justin and Paulo.
"Just having a chat. Getting to know each other a bit better. We'll just… go around the circle, one at a time. Introduce yourself-"
"We know each other's names."
Allison shot Justin a look. "Just go along with it, okay?" Keen to get things back on track, she returned to her explanation. "Introduce yourself. Tell us where you're from. How old you are. How you came to be in the program. What you hope to get out of the fortnight. If there's anything else you want to share, go right ahead. Who wants to start?"
She got no volunteers and on her sweep around the circle to pick one at random, everyone suddenly found a great deal of interest in either the white roof above their heads or the grey carpet beneath them. Paulo even started up a nonchalant whistle, glancing casually around at his surroundings all the while conveniently missing Allison.
"I will, shall I?" she relented. "Okay then. I'm Allison. I'm originally from Bright Island- where we're going to be based for the next couple of weeks- but have done a lot of moving about and living in different places since then. I came back at the end of last year, and around the same time was asked to be a supervisor on this program by some of the founders and backers. I agreed; I thought it was a fantastic opportunity for you guys, I wanted to be a part of it, and what we've got on Bright is perfectly suited." She nodded to her left, signalling it was Ruby's turn.
Paulo stuck his hand up. "You forgot to tell us how old you are."
"Next person," Allison said, ignoring him but passing a good natured smile across the circle.
Ruby and Justin provided rather skeletal introductions, following more or less exactly the outline that Allison had suggested with just a couple of extra tidbits tossed in to round them out, but they really paled in comparison to the truncated set of facts Amber threw out.
"Amber. Fourteen. Boston. My uncle decided this would be good for me." She looked at Paulo beside her, cueing his turn.
"That's it?" Allison asked.
"Yep. Pretty much."
The supervisor opened her mouth to add something but then decided against it, returning to her easy smile. "Okay then. Moving on."
Somehow Paulo managed to make his introduction sound like something out of a dating column- and a classified that the majority of females would sit up and pay attention to- and then it was Alex's turn. The Northumberland lad took a no frills approach and passed the baton on. The questions circulated through Stella and Li, who provided a rather animated set of enthusiastic answers, and finished up with Hex. All eyes turned to the Londoner, curious to see what he'd end up coming out with given his undisguised ill content with the whole experience thus far.
"I'm Hex," he said clearly, earning several surprised blinks from the others, particularly Allison on his left who didn't think she'd heard a single word pass his lips since she'd joined them. "I'm fourteen. I live in London. The only reason I'm here is because my teachers decided to volunteer me as punishment- and I didn't have an option to get out of it. If I don't end up contracting a tropical disease or becoming some wild animal's dinner, I'll be heading home happy. Well," he added after a brief moment's thought, "that might not be the best word."
"That's great, Hex." Alison gave him a warm smile. "Thanks for sharing."
"No worries."
Allison wasn't sure what to make of the strange teen sitting next to her and, if the expressions of the other kids were anything to go by, no one else really did either. She opted to not dwell on it, pressing on with things; with the circle drawing to a close with herself once again she had to think on her feet and come up with something else to do.
Several rounds of Chinese whispers and a disastrous yet valiant attempt at charades later, she let them all go, suggesting that they head downstairs to collect their belongings together as the outline of Bright Island loomed up, ever closer, on the horizon. One by one, the teenagers filed down the stairs to the deck below; Allison pulled Amber to one side before she could follow Alex, though, and waited until they were alone on the deck before apologising.
"What for?" Amber asked, genuinely confused.
"Before… I…" Her eyes turned her smile into one of concern. "You don't talk about your parents? You didn't want the others to know?"
She shrugged. "It's not something I felt warranted a mention."
"It might make Stella feel a bit less alienated."
"She didn't look like she felt alienated. And it's not really the same."
"Her dad's a backer. He's put a lot of money into this program-"
"As did my parents' bequest, yeah. But it's hardly a bonding point, is it?"
Allison tilted her head, still sporting a worried crease between her eyes. "Do you not want it brought up? What happened, I mean."
"Not really, actually," Amber said, hoping that the hint about how she didn't like the current conversation would filter through. "It was a year ago, I've grieved, I've moved on… I don't really want the questions and the sympathy."
"Understandable." Allison nodded, her slight frown finally lifting. "I know what you just said, Amber, but I was really sorry to hear about what happened to them. They were amazing people, your parents. The world needs more of them."
She blinked at Allison. "You knew them?"
"Yeah. We met in Africa a few years ago. I was in my rebellious, eco warrior phase so we had some things in common. I stole a monkey from a lab I was working in, left my resignation behind in its cage and hitch hiked into Namibia."
Amber had a couple of questions- namely what the heck her parents had been doing in Namibia and what 'eco warrior phase' had to do with anything in common to them- but an excited series of shouts from below that seemed to solely come from the energiser bunny that was Li, diverted both her and Allison's attention.
"We're nearly th-ere," Li trilled, bending her neck at a seemingly impossible angle to glance back up at the two people above her. "This is going to be awesome."
Allison returned the grin, finding the girl's enthusiasm completely contagious. Judging from the eye rolls a couple of the other kids seemed to do on reflex whenever Li opened her mouth, her vibrance for life in general seemed to be rubbing them the wrong way, but as far as Allison was concerned it made a nice change. Her grin lost a little bit of its brilliance as her mind strayed to the main reason for her opinion that the world could do with more people like Li: her grumbling twelve year old nephew, and the reason she'd had to pass up the job of a life time and come back to the island she'd grown up on, and a far less ideal career change- or regression, rather. When she shook herself from her reverie and went to fix her attention back on Amber, she found her already at the bottom of the steps, jumping the last two to land lightly on the deck below. Allison watched her disappear down the side of the boat, feeling Li's passed on vibrancy waver even more so; she'd assured the girl's uncle John that she'd keep an eye on Amber, but she didn't think even he had an idea of just how much she believed she'd need to do exactly that.
It was definitely going to be a long fortnight.
She did a sweep of the top deck, double checking that no one had left anything behind, before heading down below to wrangle her group of misfits. She was greeted by a pleasant surprise, finding them in a ragged line with their respective luggage at their feet. Maybe it wasn't going to be quite so bad after all.
Partly because Steve was only doing the drop off as a favour, and partly because she'd ticked him off with the unintentional schedule messing, the motor yacht pulled into the closest bay instead of heading around the headland into the marina- a far smaller set up than the resort's one they'd left behind. It was hardly a negative, though, as far as Allison was concerned; her beach house, and the base for the camp itself, was on the shore of the same bay so it was basically a door to door delivery. The boat bobbed in the crystal clear sea, just before the shallow sandbar that cut a ribbon through the water a couple of metres below the surface. It created a sheltered section of water between it and the beach, where the floor dropped away again before gradually sloping upwards. A deliberately sunk yacht was positioned just past the sandbar, in the deepest stretch of the trench, and around it on the sandy ocean floor lay a hidden world of coral and colourful fish.
An inflatable boat had been released from its holdings on the side of the motor yacht and lowered into the water; it bobbed alongside the back of the boat, nudging against the platform there. One of the crew- Joe, a far more affable man than Steve- was already on board the tender, hand on the tiller, just in case the much revered schedule had been forgotten in a moment of insanity.
"Boat capacity of five- including Joe," Allison told them, nodding at the man in question. "He'll ferry us in to the beach. Stella, Justin, Ruby: in you go. We'll head in first." She turned to the remaining five. "You sort out the next four amongst yourselves. One person stays behind, helps Joe load the bags, then comes in on the final trip. Got it?"
They nodded as one. Something about their silent agreement had her on edge, and she kept her eyes on them as she boarded and Joe took them across the stretch of water to the island. There was little she could actually do, but she could at least hope that they'd just behave themselves for five minutes, indirectly supervised.
The five teenagers left on the boat stood in silence until Hex's manic tapping at his palmtop's keyboard cut through the awkward quiet. Amber's eyes rolled, something which, surprisingly, didn't go unnoticed by Hex.
He scowled at her. "Problem?"
Before she had a chance to bite back, Alex swiftly stepped between the two. He shot them both a look. "Before you say anything," he warned them, "please just think about the fact that we're all going to be stuck on an island for two weeks. Together."
"Can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all?" Amber drawled, unimpressed by his peace-keeping attempts.
"At least we'll have some quiet," Hex muttered, not making much of an attempt to keep his voice low enough so Amber wouldn't overhear.
Her jaw clenched and she took a step forward, almost butting into Alex's shoulder like the lanky lad wasn't even there. "I haven't said two words to you," she snapped, "so what's the deal? Huh? What's your problem?"
"Really? You have to ask?"
"Is this where you say something bog standard about spoilt rich kids?" If Alex hadn't been in the way, she would have snatched Hex's stupid palmtop and tossed it onto the sea. "You don't have a clue, do you."
"That's what you think."
"You-"
"Hey!" Li shouted, sounding as relieved as she looked. "It's Joe! Joe's coming back. Excellent."
The guy in question was still only about halfway towards them, but the interruption had been timely and served its purpose. When Joe did nudge the inflatable up to the rear of the cruiser, Amber was the first on board, keen to get off the same boat as the antagonistic Hex. To her relief, Alex, Li and Paulo followed in quick succession, and Hex barely looked up from his screen as they motored away.
Peace. Finally.
Hex stayed sitting where he was, back against the railings, knees serving as a makeshift desk for his computer, until Joe returned for him and the bags. With more than a hint of reluctance, and some muttered grumblings, he passed the backpacks down and Joe stacked them neatly in the boat in a low, orderly pile in the middle to minimise any chance of them jumping overboard. The last bag Hex had to load was an oversized and overstuffed bright pink one and he opted to carry it with him down the couple of steps to the boat rather than pass it down and then follow behind. The steps were slippery, even with the grip matting glued to each, and he lost his footing on the last one, pitching forwards. There was a single, heart stopping moment that seemed to stretch into eternity when Hex thought he was going to either end up in the water or cracking his head on the side of the boat- or both, which would have really ruined his day- but a desperate, grappling fling from his hands had him stopping his fall against the hull of the inflatable. Unfortunately for the pink bag, it took the path Hex had thought he might, dropping into the water with a splash. Joe lunged for it, snagging the top handle and hoisting it into the safety of the inflatable just before it sunk completely out of reach.
Hex, still poised with his back feet on the platform and arms extended in front of him, hands braced against the inflatable, turned his head to look at Joe. "Nice save."
"You alright?"
"Yeah, fine." He used his palms as a springboard, propelling himself into the boat. The bag lay at his feet, a sad, dripping mess; it didn't look waterproof and he could only imagine the soggy mess that was waiting inside. "Whoever's that is, they're not going to be happy."