The Spoken Truth

Chapter Four: The Family

     Clyde and I became friends in the next week. He is so friendly and loves to do things other than surf. Like the classic, Monterey guy does. He still does surf competitions. They are very exciting! He invited Kacie, Maggie and me to one. He didn’t win, but I bet he could have.

“So, what did you think?” he said still wet from the surf. “Did I do good?”

“Yeah, I thought you should have won,” I commented.

“Yeah, but Gabe’s pretty great too,” he replied. “Do you want to go for a walk?” I tried to figure out what time it was with the sun. It was almost gone, so maybe around seven.

“Sure,” I answered and walked on in front of him. “I used to look for seashells with a hole in it to make a necklace when I was a little girl. When I finally found one that I liked, they weren’t always pretty, my mother would get a piece of old string and put it through the hole and tie it. I thought it was the coolest thing.”

         “That sounds like fun!” he said picking up a beautiful seashell with a perfect hole in it.

“Wow,” I said in astonishment.

          The next day Kacie drove me to school like usual. We stopped at a coffee shop; I got a hot chocolate, with extra whipped cream and caramel topping. As I sipped, my now warm drink, Kacie and her mom fought over their spring break trip. They were going to Los Angeles. They had asked me before; obviously I didn’t want to go. So I stayed out of it.

“Hey.” Clyde said at lunch.

“Oh, hey.” I said. I realized that I didn’t sound very happy right after I had said it.

“What’s wrong?”  He asked very curiously.

I used the classic response. “Oh, I’m just tired.”

“OK. Well do you want to go to the Blue Bird with me and my family today for lunch?”

“Ummm, sure, but I’ll have to ask Kacie and Maggie if they don’t mind.” I tried to act happy. I don’t think it worked, because he didn’t smile back. I was sick of him following me around, always being with me. I want to be with my friends some too. He’s like an obsessed boyfriend, and we’ve only been friends a week. I just hope that he will back off a little bit in time.

I hear as we walk in, “So this is Marcie.” It’s a guy talking; he looks to be about nineteen, or maybe eighteen. He appears to be one of Clyde’s many brothers. He looks almost identical, but just older, than Clyde.

“That’s, Mark, he’s nineteen,” he whispers in my ear. There were many others at the table. There were seven teenagers total at the table, three girls and four boys. All the girls looked younger than Clyde and the boys except for one and older than him. The youngest would probably be eleven. And oldest looked to be at least twenty. They all looked very intimidating.

As if reading my mind Clyde says, “My parents are at work. They usually stay until really late, so that’s why my older brothers stuck around.”

“Yup, that’s right. Gotta look after the little ones,” said Mark loudly.

“Let’s eat! I’m starving!” Clyde interrupted and the conversation stopped. He waved down a waiter that I recognized from work.

         I got spaghetti and meatballs, Clyde got the same. He had said earlier that he had never been here before. I wasn’t surprised; their family was very high quality. He also mentioned, when I asked, that his parents were travel agents. So they are gone a lot.”

“Yeah, I can understand that,” I mumbled under my breath.

         “You can?” He acted surprised. “Why?”