Getting over Gabe

C H A P T E R 16

C H A P T E R     16

‘Joe, have you packed a bag for the journey?’

‘Yep!’

‘Let me see!’

Joe handed Kyle the bag.

‘Joe, all you’re taking are a packet of peanuts, and an action figure!’

‘Whatever.’ Said Joe, clearly copying one of the older kids.

I suppressed a smile.

We were all standing in line while Kyle checked we had enough to entertain us for the journey. It would have been Sue instead, but the minibus had broken down in our drive way, so she was talking to a repair man.

‘Joe, at least bring a comic or something.’

Joe scowled darkly. ‘Fine!’

‘Next!’ called Kyle obnoxiously.

Kayla passed him her bag.

‘Oh, hello, little mute gorilla!’ Kyle cooed.

‘She’s not a gorilla!’ called Reece. ‘Today she’s a dinosaur!’

Kayla nodded. ‘Of course you are!’ Kyle said in the most patronizing voice possible, and he tapped her nose.

He opened her bag, but unlike with Joe’s, he barley looked.

He chucked it to her, took Reece’s bag, glanced at it, and said ‘Everyone over ten can go even if I haven’t checked… Wait, Ava, new girl, and Cam, you stay. So, in fact, only Jake and the red-head can go.’

Ava scowled. ‘Great! So Leah and Jake get to go, but we don’t.’

I looked behind me. Cam was still leaving, but when Kyle noticed, he just shrugged, and carried on checking out our bags, and Ava’s boobs.

The car was fixed, and we piled into it. Ava Leah and I went in the middle, Cam and Jake in the back, and Sue in the front. Kyle and the triplets couldn’t all fit in, so Kyle drove separately in Sue’s four seater.

The journey was long, and there wasn’t much leg room. Ava, Leah and I talked the whole way, not really using anything we’d brought in our bags except a magazine of Ava’s.

It took an hour and a half to get there, because the traffic was good, and we only got lost once as far as I could tell. Kyle and the triplets arrived a few minutes ahead of us, and were waiting outside the car for us when we arrived.

It wasn’t cold, in fact it was rather humid, but it was drizzling when we stepped out of the vehicle. We stood there, slightly dejected looking, I imagine, and each of us took a bag or two down to the beach with us. It was about a three minute walk down a path, and some steps, and then over some sand dunes, or it should have taken three minutes, but Kayla dawdled and Joe threw sand in Di’s eyes, and Jake was playing ‘mercy’ with Cam. Needless to say, Cam won.

We arrived though, and laid down some rugs, and the picnic hamper I was carrying. The sand was flat, and there was a small stream running from some rocks nearby into the sea.

Joe, Kayla, Di and Reece were about to run off to the sea, but Sue put sun cream on them first, even though it wasn’t sunny, and was, in fact, raining, because Sue said that the sun would come out in a minute. She was right, it did, but it carried on raining. Still, it meant there were less people on the beach.

We put up a tent, one that we’d brought with us to shelter from wind with, one of those quick pop up ones, and sheltered from the rain instead. Cam was scowling hard, muttering that he could be with his mates, or at home, and Kyle was just grinning.