Angels

South Beach Barbecue

"Mum?!"  I yelled down the hallway, I was standing in my underwear, 7 minutes late for the barbecue already. "What honey!?" I rubbed my eye as she came walking down the hall towards. She gasped and started to inspect my eye closely. "Is your conjunctivitus coming back!? Did someone have it again as surfing!?" I pushed her away, she could sometimes be a little overprotective. Because I spent a lot of time out of the house, whenever she saw she she was checking me or taking me for vaccines or protecting me from a newly discovered, rare, tropical disease. Okay, so it's not quite like that. She just liked to know I was okay, and that I was safe. She did the same to Claudia too. 

So anyway, I was standing in the hall with my Mum, when Claudia came plodding in, playing with her barbie, trying to tame the uncontrollable frizz on top of the plastic head. She gasped when she saw me standing there, undressed, she screamed and ran away. My Mum laughed "now what did you want?" I scratched my head, she looked shocked for a moment, but I calmed her "no, no, there are no headlice." She smiled. "Where's my shirt and dress trousers?" She frowned, at that point I don't think I had informed her about the beach barbecue. "Their awful fancy for the beach don't you think?" She raised one eyebrow. "It's the annual barbecue, I'm serving drinks for the kids, Josh wants me to." My Mum sighed, and shook me by the shoulders. "Sometimes I think you do too much for that guy, don't let him ever take advantage of you. Okay?" I nodded and she trotted upstairs to collect my outfit. I lingered in the hallway, thinking about how fly I was gonna look in that outfit. Okay, okay, a bit sad. I know, but it's what I was thinking! Mum brought them down on a coat hanger. "Does the shirt need ironing?" I took it off of her and looked at it. "No, it's fine. I'm late anyway. Thanks Mum." I said with a quick smile, I dashed up to my room. Luckily our house was very close to the beach, just behind the rows of beach huts, only about a 5 minute walk. I shrugged on my shirt and slipped on my trousers. I was about to run out of my room when something caught my eye, it was my school homework planner, with my summer project peeping out of it. It had been haunting me since we were assigned it. After that PSHE lesson, the teachers decided that we were all to write a series of letters to someone. Friend or family that live a suitable distance away. I had nobody to write to, and I didn't want to ask my Mum, she'd have me get in touch with some crazy relatives that I'd never met before. I felt like making someone up on the spot, so I did. Angel, that is, at least, I thought I had made her up. Anyhow, I picked it up and shut it in my desk drawer, I didn't want it where it could worry me. Sounded odd, how a piece of paper could worry me, but it did. I went downstairs and slammed the front door behind me, I strapped up my bow tie, although I was already boiling. It was 20degrees centergrade. And I was wearing long trousers and a shirt with long sleeves, topped with a waistcoat and bow tie. I ran down onto the sand. The sand was spilling into my dress shoes creating a horrid chaff. I must have gotten some awful strange looks because I was walking in the oddest way, trying to drive the sand out with my toes. Josh came running up to me, all the hosts, hostesses (I was a host) and award nominees were dressed the same as me. "Where have you been, I've been waiting for ages! Those kids are thirsty and unentertained!" I panicked, but tried to calm him down at the same time "I-" I started but he stopped me as I was about to explain about not being able to find my things. "You know what, it doesn't matter, they want 2 apple and raspberry J20s 2  apple and mango J20s 4 cokes and one Dr Pepper. Step on it buddy." He was very flustered, it seemed that it had turned out larger than expected, larger than ever in fact and it was all out of Josh's now very small seeming hands. He needed my help, and badly. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and went into my contacts, Eddie. It rang three times, then he picked up "what?" Don't be fooled, he wasn't angry, he wasn't very good at phone call etiquette is all. "I need your help, do you have a tux?" He laughed slowly through the phone, I heard him stand up. "Do I have a tux? Beau... I have five." I must say I was a little shocked, I was silent for a minute, listening to him laughing. "Well just put on one and get down to the beach." He stopped laughing and I heard him chewing on something soft, probably a starburst. They were his favourite "naw, I can't right now, I just had an epic kill streak and I'm in line for a new high score." Call of duty, he was talking about if you're wondering, when he wasn't out with friends, that's what he was doing, generally talking with strangers through his headset, he just sat there in his underwear. All day. "I don't care, I need your help, and I don't care how many tux's you have, you can tell me where you got them all, just put one on and get down here, preferably a black one." He sniffled, I heard him sit back down, balance the phone between his ear and shoulder and resume his game. "Fine, I'll be there in 10." I hung up the phone, Eddie was always late for everything, so it would be at least half an hour till he showed up, so I rang up Justin, he was always pretty punctual. "Hey Justin, I need your help buddy." He was out somewhere, I could hear people talking in the background, and footsteps. "Urm yeah, shoot, what do you need?" I walked over to the bar and started preparing the kid's drinks. "Do you have a tux? I know it's a weird question but it would help if you did." He sniggered. "Of course, but it'll have to be a tie rather than a bow tie, I had to wear it when we went to this fancy hotel a couple months back." This was a little more normal to Eddie's response seeing that not many 13-year-olds had piles of tux's mounting up in their wardrobes. "Awesome. Slip it on and meet at the beach, you're gonna be waiting on kids with me," There was a very, very long silence, then he sighed slowly. "Well I'm at the mall with Adalia right now, can she come to the party too?" This time it was me who was silent. "Adalia? Who's Adalia, does she go to our school?" I asked, I didn't really want to be inviting strangers willy nilly. "Yeah, she's in our maths set. B-but we're just friends right now." I sighed. "Ah, I see.... I guess she can come if she dresses up nicely. Maybe a black dress so she can help too!" This time I heard a girl whisper something to Justin. I assumed that was Adalia. "Naw, she's not waiting." Justin said, "I will, but she's not. She you there in a few." He hung up. I pulled a bottle opener out of a drawer in the bar and popped the tops off of the J20s. There were so many people, how did I know who to give these to? I dodged through crowds and saw a small group of children, about 9 or 10 of them. These were my guys. "Here you go." I said, placing the tray of drinks on the table where they were sitting. It was the girl from the other day, the small one from the younger class. "It's about time." She said and snatched her coke from the tray. I frowned. "You won't be getting anymore." She squealed, the other kids looked suitably embarrassed. "I am entiled to drinks." I can only assume she meant entitled. "Call me when your manners come in." I let the other children take their drinks and stood up, I walked back to the bar. I saw a boy, in a tux running down the promanade. It was Eddie, I waved to him and he started running even faster. His tux was fancier than mine, he had a proper jacket rather than just a waistcoat, he hadn't meant to outdo me, but had, very unintentionally. He was wearing his glasses, he didn't always wear them, but tonight he had decided to. There was someone walking slowly along behind him. Julia? Eddie came striding across the beach. "I brought Julia along, she was round my house anyways, so I thought I might bring her." I squinted, at the moment she was just a speck in the distance but I could just about make out what she was wearing. Her hair was in a low messy side bun as always, but tonight, she had spent time on it, you could tell. Then she was wearing a playsuit. A frilly one, it had ruffles around the low neckline, then it sinched in at the waist and the shorts on it were quite baggy and frilly. It was dark green and dark pink, a green background, leaves I think and pink flowers. It also had frills around the sleeves, sort of, the frills were the sleeves, if you know what I mean. She looked very nice. She waved, she had a brown leather bag slung over her shoulder. She shouted so loud that I could only just hear her. "Hi Beau!" She started waving frantically and laughing, she looked to her right and jumped over the fence, Julia ran down the hill onto the beach, weaving in and out of crowds of people. I looked at Eddie "yeah that's cool, Justin's bringing some girl called Adalia and Georgia from surf club is here, so all the girls can chat, I guess if we put them all together they'll make friends." Eddie nodded and looked over at Julia, she was almost with us now, she was being very slow due to the huge wedge heels she was wearing. "Hiya." I said, "what can I get you?" She looked at all the soft drinks in the bar. "Hmmm..." She pointed to a can of grape fanta. "Fanta... Grape please." She said, I grabbed it out of the mini fridge and opened it up for her. "Here you go, the barbecue is over near where the award nominees are standing, feel free to grab yourself something to eat."