Eager Beaver

Chapter Fifty-Nine - Big Feelings

Alex showed me a befuddled frown. "That was weird." she commented.

"Uh huh." I agreed, still a little shaken from the encounter. I frowned at the state of the trophy cabinet, trying to awkwardly rearrange the few fallen trophies before Alex pulled me swiftly away.

"Come on!" she insisted. "We have exploring to do!"

Alex and I were walking pretty quickly through the halls when we walked by the music room. This time I stopped Alex, going low to the ground as I peered inside.

I felt like a real spy this time, crouching on the floor with my ear against the wall and my neck craning around to peek through a crack in the open door. I could just about make out that there were three girls inside. I recognized them from the Christmas festival - it was Amaya, Abigail and Amelia, the Girl Guides. I swallowed a little nervously knowing that Alex had some history with them.

"I don't know, should we really be here?" The youngest of them in the pink necktie, Abigail, said with a worried tone.

"It's fine." Amaya dismissed, she was wearing her orange necktie. "I've been here before."

"We're going to get in trouble." Abigail went on, clearly worried.

Alex snorted, clearly enjoying this a little too much. "They're so dumb." she tittered.

"Shh." I whispered and put my finger to my mouth. I pushed her back so we were fully out of sight, but could still hear. Alex let out an exasperated sigh, lounging over me and rolling over to the other side of the door.

"What was that?" Amaya asked.

Alex and I sat there still as a statue, both of us holding our breath. She couldn't hold out for too long though, betraying herself with a mischievous snicker. It didn't take long for one of the girls to come out and inspect the hallway for herself. "Oh..." She said almost sounding relieved. "It's just you."

"Yup." Alex said, standing up. She roughly dusted off her red velvet dress, but there were already a couple of prominent dirty marks which wouldn't come off - her reward for rolling around on the grimy school floor. "Watcha gonna do bout it?"

Amaya didn't waste time pulling us both into the music room. "You gonna tell on us?" She demanded from Alex, then looked at me. "What about you... Rudolph?"

"His name is Rascal." Alex corrected her, unhelpfully.

"It's actually Cooper." I told them, not wanting to cause more confusion. "Rascal is my Beaver name. Her's is Ringtail."

"Yup! I'm Ringtail." She said proudly.

Amelia let out a disapproving tut. "The way you're dressed you actually look like a girl." She sneered at her unpleasantly. "Like an actual girl guide."

"Apart from all the dirty black marks!" Abigail cut in, prompting a few mocking giggles.

"I'm not a girl guide." Alex snapped back. "All they do is sell cookies."

"Cause apples are so much better." Abigail scoffed.

"Alexis was a Girl Guide." Amaya blurted out unprompted, looking at me with a broad tattle-tale smirk on her face.

Alex's face scrunched up into an unhappy frown. She balled up her fists, looking like she was about to explode. "Fuck you!" She spat.

Amaya, Amelia, Abigail and I all gasped at the swear. Abigail even covered her ears. The same foul language we'd heard from Nick and James sounded downright illegal coming off of Alex's lips. Alex's face went bright red, her cheeks almost matching her velvet red dress. She looked even more shocked than we did, like she couldn't quite believe what she'd just said. She still looked plenty angry though.