Chapter 6A Chapter by Doctor_Blind
“Janey!”
Twice in one day, and Decker looked excited for it. “Janey,” he repeated, getting a long-fingered grip on her elbow. “Can we talk really quick? Taylor said she talked to you last night.”
“Yes,” said Janey.
“And you guys worked it out?”
“Yes.”
“How much will it cost? I’m willing to pitch in, I don’t want to put it all on her. Or you. Whatever you guys decided.”
Janey shrugged. “She said she could cover it. You won’t need that much, it only takes a little for it to get rolling. Just make it go a long way.” It was here in the conversation that a ladies’ room appeared to her right, and she dove for it, only to be prevented by Amber.
Amber was the dark clouds to cover Decker’s sunny disposition, the opposing rock in his garden, the antithesis of him entirely. They had hated each other throughout middle school, resolved the conflict on the first day of freshman year, and started dating the next. No one was entirely sure what had happened between the two days, but according to Decker it was “magical”, and according to Amber it was “just what happened”.
But it had been, at the very least, a political match made in heaven. Amber was the captain of the girl’s basketball team, Junior Prom Queen, moderately raging feminist and wrote a biting criticism of any subject Decker was too nice to say was bothering him for a column in the school newspaper called the Amber Slam.
Of all the people Janey tried to avoid meeting, Amber was at the top of the list.
But today Amber seemed inclined to give Janey a breather before completely laying into her. “Taylor said she called you,” said Amber.
“Yes,” said Janey, and escaped as Decker hooked his arm around Amber’s waist and inquired as to her night’s sleep.
“Terrible,” was her usual reply, but today she said, “I was thinking about you. How did the twins behave?”
“They were fine. You know. Helped my mom with the dishes, said please and thank you, asked about everything.”
Amber snorted. “For now, anyway.”
“Are you jealous that they are getting my attention for so long?” said Decker. “Come hang out. Three red heads are better than two.”
Amber rolled her eyes. “No thank you.”
Decker grinned. “Red-head envy. That’s what the problem is. Well, I have other turn-ons besides red hair that they haven’t got, so don’t get all worried.”
The other red heads were tucked into a private corner Decker might have envied for a personal moment with Amber. Edan was being very serious, as he tended to do and Kelly was being a downer, as he tended to be.
“It’s not even on the beach,” he said, pouting. “A whole town set right on the bay, and they can’t even throw a decent party near the water.”
“It won’t be the last party.”
“We don’t have that long, and they’re all studious. They’re throwing the all-out for this one, and after that there will be nothing.”
“Maybe sometime in the night, when they’re all…you know,” said Edan, “we can suggest it, very casual, and they would probably go along with it.”
“But that is so much effort. This was supposed to be easy.” Kelly glared at his brother. “You said this would be easy.”
“You listened to me.”
They bothered Decker about it later, in a clever, twin-like method they had learned to adopt when they wanted something. Kelly started it, by imitating Edan’s perceptual frown and asking for Decker’s attention, at which Edan promptly whined something in Kelly’s voice and looked vaguely sincere about it. While Decker paid attention to Edan, Kelly began to whine, and Edan became serious again, and back and forth and back again until they were sure Decker was so confused that he couldn’t refuse them a single thing they asked for.
“Decker, we were wondering if we could move the whole operation,” Edan said finally. “Houses are fine, but we have castles in Ireland. Architecture in general we find very boring. We were hoping to do something on the water.”
Decker shrugged. “We can do something on the water. I’ll drive you guys out to the best part of the bay sometime, you can do whatever you want.”
Kelly threw Edan a particular look, indicating that surely their host was being ignorant on purpose. Edan tried again. “We meant about the party, actually.”
“We had upperclassmen bragging for years about the things they did at the beach. Upperclassmen who traveled to California,” Kelly added meaningfully, for the brothers had found that any comparison to California drove the poor Oregon kids to great lengths to prove that California had nothing on cold, grainy, gray Oregon, which the brothers found highly amusing.
“Janey’s house is way better than any beach,” Decker assured them blithely. “Adults go down near the bay all the time. It wouldn’t be much of a party if we went down there.”
“Surely they don’t go to all the parts of the bay,” Kelly insisted. “We could explore.”
Decker’s cheer faltered, and he said, rather seriously for him, “That’s not a good idea.”
“Well, why not?” The brothers cried in tandem, a trick they had meant to save for later. Decker was surprised, but not shaken from his resolution.
“Stuff happens. Kids used to go down there, but then the adults figured out what they were doing, and it’s just no good anymore.”
“What were they doing?” said Edan.
Decker faltered again, and he said quickly, “Nothing out of the ordinary. Just…stuff happened.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“People got drunk and did really stupid things.”
“And?”
“Girls went off by themselves and didn’t come back.”
The brothers exchanged a look.
“So, no one’s really gone down since.”
“Since when?” Kelly asked eagerly, and Edan elbowed him.
“Oh, it was like,” Decker gestured vaguely in the air. “A while ago. Maybe five or six years?”
Later, the twins discussed Decker’s information at length.
“Clearly we judged it wrong,” said Edan. “We should have waited longer.”
“Not at all,” said Kelly. “This is perfect.”
“Perfect? They’re all paranoid.”
“And we’ll be the brave foreign kids who usher paranoia out the door and welcome in a time of happiness, prosperity, and parties on the beach.”
For once, Edan’s frown broke into a sick little grin. “Not exactly.”
© 2009 Doctor_BlindAuthor's Note
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Added on March 29, 2009 AuthorDoctor_BlindSacramento, CAAboutHello! Well, I've found that I'm relatively new to writing my own fiction; apparently all the other teenage writers got a huge head start on me. I mostly sing and act; I love performing Shakespeare pa.. more..Writing
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