REVIEWS:
mysticalruby,
JyouraKoumi,
Rayana Wolfer
Thank you three for the reviews. For sticking to this story when I didn't even. I hope you enjoy the last chapter, the end of the story.
Cheers
Story:
The next two days went by rather peacefully. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing, which was what I did not want them to be doing. I wanted us to do things together. We did however have a nice lunch that Mimi had managed to cook for us. The picnic table were completely full of food; we had to actually eat at another table.
I glanced around the table, watching my friends settle down with their food. Mimi had a lot of salad with some kind of meat sliced in it. Tk had sloppy joes and potato chips with pickles. Joe was eating potato salad and a hamburger. Sora couldn't make up her mind and had the sloppy joe and a hot dog. Lucky for her, she is athletic and doesn't put on the pounds. I am not sure what Davis was eating, he drowned it in ketchup. Matt seem more interested in having Sora then his lunch, he couldn't keep his hands off her and I do not mean in the obscene way. He sat side ways on the bench facing her and he kept rubbing her back, or lightly touches on her arm. I had even seen him pull back a few strains of hair and tuck them behind her eye. He kept whispering things to her that made her grin and blush. I glanced at Jun who also notices this behaviour; she turned to look at me with sad eyes.
"You know what I was thinking?" Davis splattered half of his food out of his mouth.
"I doubt we would want to know," Tk munched on his lunch.
"Shut of KR!" Davis hissed.
"BR?" Matt took his eyes off of Sora to look at my little minion. "How did you get that out of TK?"
"Never mind about that," Davis kept going, "I found a sled in the shed."
"How nice for you," Tk rolled his eyes.
"Just listen!" Davis glared, "I had this idea…"
"Great there goes the world as we know it," Jun rolled her eyes.
Davis glared at her for a moment before continuing with his story, "I thought that we could mud slick that hill by the pond. Then slid down it right into the pound." He looked around, waiting.
"There is that path up the slope," Matt said slowly, his hand making small circles on the small of Sora's back and his chin rested on her shoulder, "It is pretty well manageable, kind of smooth. I think there are few rocks we could easily remove less then twenty minutes."
"It is a bad idea, someone is going to get hurt,'' Joe interrupted.
"I did observe that we have five garden hoses in the shed as well," Izzy laid his sandwich down on the plate, "If my calculations are right, which I am sure they are, the connections should effortlessly reach far enough up the path to allow us this pleasure."
"We could have a continuous water flow," I grew excited.
"I have to agree with Joe,'' Mimi shook her head, "It doesn't sound like this is a good idea. Do you know how hard it is to get mud out of your hair?"
"I thought mud was good for your skin," Kari inquired.
"Not that kind of mud!" Mimi's eyes grew large.
"It's a straight shot to the pond," Matt pointed out, "No turns."
"A mud slide," I sighed, "Sounds great."
"We could get started now!" Davis stood up and the other boys followed suit.
"What about lunch?" Mimi cried.
"Err…" Everyone glanced at each other.
"Let them go play, Mims." Sora smiled, "I'll help clear up things."
"That is not the point!" Mimi pouted but I was already headed up the path to toss rocks off to the side. Matt was right behind me. Izzy took care of the hose connections. Tk and Davis decided to get along enough to cover the base of the path, making sure there were no obstacles in the way.
Four hours later, we were ready. It was more difficult then we first thought. We did several test runs with a sack of potatoes Matt stole from the cabin. After the first run, we realize we would have to dig out a cradle for the sled, smooth it down to keep water flow. In the end, the mud was deep enough to cover our shoes. Another test run made us realise that we would have to spray the bottom of the sled water, to slick it for the run. It worked for a while, but on the forth run, the sack of potatoes stuck half way down. That is when we moved to criso oil. We oiled the bottom of the sled and to our delight, it worked!
Davis took honours to be the first one down. The rest of us thought that it would be easier to explain any mishaps by throwing his name into the story. I am sure anyone who puts Davis, sled, mud together would completely understand and to Davis' delight, my sister was down below waving my red shirt in the air, cheering us on.
Matt gave Davis a hard push on the long sled and that boy flew down the slop. He did hit a small bump somewhere and went air borne for a split seconds, landing hard and actually turning side ways the rest of the way down the hill. He skidded over the top of the water a few time before it sunk. Davis stood up, grinning and holding the sled up in the air in trumpet.
Izzy went down next; he hit the bump and almost fell off when he landed. Somehow, he kept it straightforward but once he hit the water, he then took a tumble but came up smiling.
Tk went next; the smart ass grabbed Kari at the bottom, taking her into the pond with him. She screamed the whole time but, as Davis had done, she was smiling ear to ear. As Tk tromped up the slop, I made sure I gave him a cold glare. I saw where his hands were, there was no need to grab her butt.
I rolled my eyes when Sora talked Matt into going down with her. The sled was long enough for him to keep his legs, although slightly bent, she settled between his legs and they were off. When they hit the water, the sled skidded sideway before unloading its burden into the muddy water. Matt came up rubbing his soaking wet hair and Sora was laughing.
Then it was my turn, I had to show off. I balanced the sled on the slope, took a few steps back and ran forward, slammed my body onto the sled, getting enough force to speed down the pathway. I hit the bump, sending me half way down the pathway before reaching the bottom where I skidded further then the rest into the pond.
"WHOOO!" I raised my hands in the air.
"You are going to kill yourself!" Matt yelled down.
"But not today!" I yelled up.
Mimi and Joe even took a turn, which surprised everyone. We all took our turns good naturally. Davis and I were trying to out shine each other, taking turns thinking up new movies. The whole group wore mud caking onto their bodies, but we were all smiling. Until…
"Davis, what is that on your leg?" Matt pointed to the back of Davis's calf.
"Um…" Davis kept turning different ways trying to looking behind him. "I dunno."
"It's a slug," Kari wrinkled her nose.
"I don't think so…" Matt frowned as Joe bent down to examine it.
"It's a leech." Joe confirms what I thought it looked like.
"I'm being sucked dry!" Davis cried.
"Enjoy it now; it's the only time anything is going to suck on you…" Matt winked at Davis, Tk laughed and Davis grew furious.
"That's not true! There are plenty of people who want to suck me…" Davis frowned and looked around at us. "Err…I didn't mean that."
"How do we get it off of him?" Kari leaned down to examine the leech.
"Rubbing alcohol will help." Joe shrugged, "It really isn't a big deal."
"Yeah you're not the one getting a hickey from a parasite," Davis frowned.
"I bet he is," Matt quirked up an eyebrow. "We all went into the low end of the pond…" Matt proceeded to take of his shirt. Sure enough, he had a leech sucking on his rib cage. Tk grimance but left up his shirt, to poke his new found friend.
"OH MY GOD!" Mimi started screaming, checking herself. "Oh, I don't have any." She smiled.
Sora slowly walked up to her and moved her hair away from Mimi's bare back, "Don't worry Mimi, they don't leave a scar."
"WHAT!" Mimi started crying, "Get it off!"
"Calm down…" Sora said.
Mimi started crying, trying to reach her back and dancing around at the same time. I am not sure what happen after that but I woke up at the bottom of the hill, Matt staring down at me.
"Hey, how you doing?" Matt asked softly. At once, I noticed 'how are you doing,' not 'are you okay'.
"What happen?" I asked while trying to move but a flair of pain shot up the length of my leg.
"Mimi knocked you into the sled. You kind of went down wrong…" Matt looked over towards the cabin and back to me. I notice that he had a mixture of mud and blood on his face and hands.
"Where is everyone else?" I asked, trying to sit up.
"Just lay back," Matt put his hand on my chest.
"Easy for you to say, you're not laying on a rock." I tried to wiggle but that pain in my leg was too great. "OW! Damn it." Then I froze, I tried to move my leg but all it did was send an unbearable pain through out my body.
"Don't Tai. Just lay back," He said softly.
"Where is everyone else?" I asked, "Where is Kari?"
"She's in the cabin calling your parents;" Matt smiled gently, "Joe is getting into touch with the emergency camp centre."
"Matt," I focused onto him.
"Huh?"
"Your bleeding, right here." I pointed to my forehead.
He wiped at his own and shrugged, "Just a scratch."
"Matt."
"Huh?"
"My leg is killing me," I whined.
"I bet it is," Matt relaxed beside me, sitting his ass in the mud.
"How bad is it?"
"I don't know but Joe looked concern." Matt shrugged, looking down at my leg, which I could not see.
"How bad do YOU think it is?" I asked him.
"It looks bad Tai," Matt said honestly. "You're bleeding a little but Joe said not to touch your leg." My pointed to my jeans, " It's broken, that I am sure about."
I groan, my soccer games! I had been on crutches once before from a broken leg and that almost killed me! Never had I even been so bored!
"This isn't how I wanted my summer to end!" I but my hands through my hair, sleeking it back with mud.
"Maybe not but you got what you wanted," Matt grinned.
"Did I?"
"Sure, you got us all together Tai." Matt patted my shoulder. "You had woken me up. I forgot what I had." I knew he was referring to his relationship with Sora and maybe with the others. He forgot who his friends were, took us for granted.
"You still are going to be an astronaut?" I asked.
"Hell yeah," Matt quirked up an eyebrow.
"No way to talk you out of it?"
"Nope."
"What if I locked you in a room painted like the moon for a few months?" I felt sleepy.
"I don't think so," Matt said softly. I felt cold and tired. I could feel my body relaxing into the mud, going deeper as it oozed around me. My eyelids grew heavy but I remember hearing Matt talk to an unfamiliar voice.
When I woke up, my leg was up in a sling with a cast around it. It still hurt, felt like it was trapped, trying to swell within the white hard shell.
My mother was on the chair next to me, her head on my father's shoulder. He was rubbing her arm up and down. Kari was on my other side, reading some kind of book.
"Hey sport," My father must have notice that I was actually awake, "How are you feeling?"
"I'd love some pain killers," I mumbled.
"I'm sure." He smiled softly, placing his hand on my arm. "What the hell were you kids thinking?"
"What do you mean?"
"He's talking about the mud slide," Kari leaned forward. "I told him it was Davis idea and…"
"This makes it worse. I thought you knew not to listen to that boy and his ideas."
"But it worked!" I argued.
"Look at you," my father, pointed to my leg.
"It wasn't because of the slid," I sighed, "It was because of the leeches…"
"Which I had four," Kari made a face.
"Did I have any?"
"Yea but only two. One you your stomach and one on you arm." Kari shrugged. "Mimi had only that one but it was huge!"
"Did you keep it?" I asked.
"No…" Kari gave me a funny look.
"Did she have the biggest?"
"Oh yeah, that was the momma, I swear." Kari puffed out her cheeks and whistled.
"Hey I got flowers!" I finally took notice to the room filled with all sorts of flowers.
"Oh yeah," Kari giggled, "Those pinks ones are from Sora and Mimi. Those orange ones are from your kiddie soccer you help with. Oh and Davis and Jun sent you the one with the balloon. Matt sent candy…"
"Did he eat any?" I asked, taking the box of chocolate from her and examine them.
"I don't know…" Kari glanced at our mom.
"Honey…" Mom tried to take the box from me.
"NO!" I growled at her. I am chocolate aggressive, I cannot help it. I blame it on mother, always taking the 'real' sweets from us as we were growing up.
"He'll bite," Kari, warned her.
"Tai you'll ruin your appetite," mom warned me.
"Honey let him eat some," my father spoke up. "Not like he is actually missing anything." He made a disgusting look at the hospital food. Secretly, I thought it looked better then mom's food.
When I was able to come home, I had a small welcome party waiting for me. Tk and Davis circled Kari. Mimi had her arms around Joe's waist to my suprise. From another sourse, I later learned that the "unleeching" of Mimi made Joe realise just how much he liked her. Matt had his arms around Sora and it didn't look like he was going to let go anytime soon. Jun seem to stand apart from everyone, however it was my illusion. For the first time, I found myself looking at her more then Davis sister, more then a former rock star stalker. For the first time, I notice Jun for the girl she really is and what she allowed me to see. We made eye contact, she blushed a little but didn't look down. More flowers, more chocolate and more importantly, I had my friends. Time is changing for us. I can't stop it, I can't roll back the timebut I briefly gain control of it and I learned from it.I glanced at Jun, who returned a warm smile. Maybe change isn't all that bad. After all, it isn't the end just the beginning of a new chapter in my life and I can't wait to start it.
The End