Searching For A Rainbow

NINE-Carson

Before long we were on the other side of town, back in front of the same house we picked up Humphrey from on Willow Lane. Will turned the key in the ignition and shut off the car. He glanced at me before hopping out of the car, seemingly expecting me to follow. So I did.

We walked in the front door, through a foyer with a picturesque staircase that looked straight out of a Better Homes & Gardens magazine. The house was not huge, but also not small. All in all it managed to look perfect, but still cozy. We walked into a kitchen at the back of the house where a woman sat at the kitchen island eating a bowl of cereal and flipping through a magazine, Humphrey laying on the floor next to her. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders in soft curls and warmth radiated from her face.

"Dude, why aren't you at school?" She looked up from her magazine and a delighted smile spread across her rosy cheeks, "and who's this?"

"This is Carson, and we're skipping," Will stated nonchalantly.

"Okay." I was surprised at how little this bothered her.

"Alright, let's go," Will said, and I followed him like a lost puppy through the house.

"Are you doing what I think you're doing?" his mom called from the kitchen.

"Yep," he called back, then turned to me, "you're going to want to take your shoes off."

He slipped his shoes and socks off and I followed suit. Then he opened the back door.

"We're going outside?" I questioned, wearily glancing out at the still pouring rain.

"Yep," he smirked at me, running out the sliding glass door. Sighing, I followed him and slid it closed behind me. He led me to a part of his backyard that looked like a patch of dirt, except for the rain from the night and the morning had turned it into a giant pool of mud. He held up one finger at me before disappearing to the side of the house momentarily, returning with a running hose, which didn't make much sense to me, considering it was already pouring rain. He sprayed the hose all over the dirt for at least a minute and I watched him in confusion. Then he dropped the hose, still running, into the mud puddle and stepped in, catching me off guard and pulling me in right behind him. To my surprise, it was about a foot deep.

"What are we doing?" I asked him. I felt like I was yelling because of how hard the rain was coming down. Luckily it was warm rain; otherwise I would not have followed him out there.

"This is my mud puddle," he stated simply. He then spread his arms out to either side and let himself fall backwards into the mud. It was arguably the strangest thing I have ever witnessed.

He sat up, his legs covered by the mud and the entire back of his body caked in it.

"Don't just stand there, join me!" he chuckled.

"This is it. This is how I die. I have befriended a crazy person," I said in a monotone voice, only half-joking.

"Don't be dramatic," he grabbed a handful of mud and launched it at me. It hit me and exploded onto my shirt, leaving a big brown blob. I sighed for what was probably the hundredth time since I had woken up that morning, and I pushed all of the thoughts running through my head away with one big, resounding fuck it.

Channeling my inner baby seal, I plopped down into the mud, front first, leaving my head up so as not to suffocate.

Will sat there next to me whooping and pumping his fists in the air. Though he was one person, I felt like I had a crowd cheering me on: him and the rain.

A smile that I couldn't contain made its way onto my face at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation and I let loose. I grabbed a handful of mud, throwing it back at Will as payback. He crawled over to me, scooping up a handful much bigger than mine, and then proceeded to drop it on top of my head.

"So that's what you would look like as a brunette," he laughed.

I launched myself at him and we both fell back into the mud, laughing so hard we were gasping for air and all at once I felt like I had known Will for my whole life.

Within minutes we were soaked head to toe in mud and rain water.

Will was the first to step out of the mud pit, offering me a hand which I accepted.

"Now what?" I asked him. I mean, we couldn't exactly go in the house like that.

He reached down and grabbed the hose, immediately aiming it at me full blast. I squealed and tried to shield myself. The hose water was unfortunately not warm like the outside air or the rain.

"I can't get all the mud off if you do that," he said matter-of-factly.

"It's cold!" I yelled. At this point in time, I went full armadillo.

"Okay fine, good enough," Will laughed. He handed me the hose and spread his arms out to the side.

"I'm ready."

I hosed him down and after a few more minutes of hose-fighting we went inside.

Mrs. Bennett, hearing us come in, rushed toward us with two fluffy towels. She threw a towel at Will and wrapped the other one around me.

"Hun, you look freezing," she said, rubbing her hands on my shoulders quickly, as if trying to warm me up, "and there's still mud in your hair," she giggled.

"Will, why don't you get her some dry clothes and show her to the bathroom," she instructed Will. "She can take a nice warm shower."

I had no time to protest as Will began to walk towards the stairs and she ushered me along after him.

I followed Will into a bedroom with grey walls, where he began rooting through drawers.

"Here, these are probably the smallest things I have," he chuckled, handing me a t-shirt and sweatpants.

"The bathroom is right across the hall," he pointed out his doorway to the bathroom door.

After a warm but very fast shower, I dried myself off and put on Will's clothes. Not knowing what to do with my wet clothes, I brought them with me back to Will's room where he was sitting back on his bed throwing a tennis ball at the wall and catching it as it bounced back at him. Seeing me walk in, he stopped and immediately started laughing. I furrowed my eyebrows at him, even though I knew why he was laughing.

"I'm sorry, you just look ridiculous," he tried to suppress his laughter and failed.

I did look ridiculous. The sweatpants were so long that they completely covered my feet. I had to pull the drawstring hard and tie it very tight to keep them up. The t-shirt reached halfway down my thighs, and the sleeves made my arms look like twigs. Will was tall so it only made sense that I was swimming in his clothes, although anyone seems tall to me at 5'2".

"You look like an angry munchkin," he started laughing even harder and I had to join in.