Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

Chapter Three

Before I went to bed last night I sent a message to to group to meet early this morning at our spot. Everyone asked what it was for, but I wanted to keep it a surprise. Carter and Skylar normally go on a morning run before coming to school, so they cut the distance down and came early like I asked. Isaac showed up next as he got an earlier bus.

I was bouncing with excitement, barely able to contain it. Wishing Lucas and Kezie would hurry up, I started to walk circles around the round chair of ours. Isaac's leg starts bouncing, I'm not sure if it's from the suspense, or if he too is excited to tell the others what we came up with last night with Grandma.

Sky puts a hand on Isaac's bouncing leg, scowling at the two of us. She removes her hand, and Zac's leg instantly starts bouncing again. Groaning she slams her hand down on his knee and squeezes.

"Ow!" Zac winces.  "Woman you need to stop hanging out with Greenie and the footy team. It's teaching you bad habits of hurting the opposite sex."

"Well at least they aren't wusses like you are." Sky comes back with, removing her hand once again.

Zac rubs his knee. "Greenie, dude, control your sister."

At this comment Sky whacks Isaac upside the head.

"Sorry man, you're on your own." Carter says, while Isaac now rubs his head.

Chuckling, I continue to walk circles around the chair and my friends.

"Char, just spit it out already. You look like you are going to burst any second now." Sky states, reaching out and pulling me to sit down beside her. Her scowl still showing.

"No." I say with a shake of my head. "We need to wait for Luke and Kenz to turn up."

"The bell is going to ring any second Charlie. Just tell them already. Carter can tell Luke later and one of you girls can tell Kenz." Isaac says.

"No. I want to wait-" I trail off when I see Lucas and Kenzie making their way to us. Kenz is flailing her arms around not looking happy about something. Lucas is just taking it, but still looks guilty.

The fact that Lucas was holding a single rose, it made me think Kenz was giving him a lecture of when and where it was appropriate to be romantic, and school wasn't it. As soon as they noticed us watching them, Kenzie stops lecturing Lucas and skips over. Luke takes his time, a small smile plastered on his tanned face.

"Here you go, my beauty. Sorry I missed our movie night." He says, handing me the rose and winking at me. I smile, shaking my head at his cheesiness. He kisses my cheek before draping an arm over my shoulders. "So why are we meeting here so early?"

Isaac and I share a look, both of us breaking out in wide grins. I jump up from the seat and turn to face my friends.

"Well, yesterday I realised that we only have a few months together." All but Zac give me a funny look. "After graduation, who knows what is going to happen to us. We might all just drift apart." Kenzie comes over to me and gives me a supportive hug.

"So Charlie and I came up with something we could do. With the help of Robyn of course." Zac says, winking at me.

"So what did you have in mind?" Carter asks.

"Well, we all know I love photography and we wanted to do something that would be fun but had a way of documenting our memories." I say, excitement building in my chest again. Lucas extends his hand out and pulls me back to sit on his lap.

"And you came up with?" Lucas trails off.

"A photo scavenger hunt." I exclaim.

"What on earth is that? Is it like, a normal scavenger hunt but you take photos of the item you found?" Skylar asks, clearly confused.

I look to Isaac, he explains things better than I do, so he can take this one.

"Not quite. Think of it kind of like a cross between a normal scavenger hunt and geocaching. We all come up with a list of things to find or do. And we can split into groups of three. When we find these things we take a picture of the item or the activity."

"And what is geocaching?" Lucas asks.

We all turn and gape at him. Out of everyone I would have thought that Kenzie would have been the one to ask that, not Luke.

"Geocaching is basically a treasure hunt. You download an app, and you enter your location and a number of different containers in your area show up. You are then given a set of coordinates that you put into any device that has a GPS. Once you find the container, you, depending on the type of container, sign your name and date in the book or trade the trinket or toy." Isaac explains.

"We could make a new list frequently and go out every week or so. Zac and I also came up with a way we can make it fun and appeal to," I turn to Carter, Skylar, and Lucas. "Your competitive sides." I state.

"How have you done that?" Carter asks.

"Well-" Zac starts. "Every photo taken needs to have at least one team member in it, unless the list states otherwise. One team member in the photo is worth one point, two people is worth five points, and all three members is worth ten points."

"The team with the most points at the end of the day or whichever team finishes the whole list, wins." I continue. "We could also have it that each week or whenever we want to go out, that the groups change. That way we get to hang out with everyone."

"School is about to break up for exam prep so how about we start the weekend it does?" Skylar suggests.

We all nod in agreement.

"Sounds good. How do we make the list of photos?" Carter asks.

"Well," I drag out. "Isaac and I came up with one last night already."

We decide to meet at my place this weekend to discuss the finer details of this adventure. We continue talking about different things until the bell rings for our first classes.

We all split up, while Kenzie and I link arms and head over to English. She keeps giving me sideways glances, I would normally ignore it but both her and Luke were acting a bit off at the roundabout earlier.

"Alright Kenz, what is it?"

"Huh?" She snaps her gaze away, looking at her feet as if she wasn't just staring at me. "Oh nothing."

"Kenz, I've known you long enough to know that you weren't just 'talking' to Luke earlier." I said, using air quotations on talking.

"Oh that was nothing." We arrive to our class and take our seats waiting for our teacher. "How was your movie night?"

"Didn't happen. Luke and Carter got an extra training session so he had to bail, but Isaac came over and helped me with the photo scavenger hunt idea." I said smiling.

"They didn't stay back that late though?" Kenzie says, but it comes out as more of a question.

"Luke implied it would run late. Otherwise I would have told him to come by after and have dinner with Grandma and I."

"Oh Carter met up with Sky and I for dinner at the Plaza. He was probably back only an extra hour or so."

"Oh-" I trail off. Maybe Luke didn't want to come and watch Beauty and the Beast for the millionth time.

"What movie were you guys going to watch anyway?" Kenzie asks.

"The three Beauty and the Beast movies." I say a little defeated.

"That explains the rose." She points to the rose sitting on the desk in front of me. She notices how defeated I look. "Hey, he could have just pushed himself too hard and was too tired. I'm sure you guys will have plenty of time together when we get off school for exams. Plus we have this photo scavenger hunt thing you and Isaac came up with."

"Yeah, you're probably right." I say, my spirits being lifted just by the mention of getting off school.

The teacher walks in and I stare at my rose. I couldn't focus on class, which wasn't the best idea with exams so close, but I couldn't help but keep thinking about going on a photo scavenger hunt with my friends.

'I can't wait for school to be over.'

Smiling I look up at the board, trying to once again focus.