Runaway

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“Wake up, Zander!” Ben was shaking me awake. I groaned, smacking him off. It had to be what, three in the morning? Why couldn’t he just let me sleep? It was the summer, was it not? “Zander, I need to tell you the rules of Aira or you’ll be in huge trouble in a hurry! Now wake up!” he smacked my face a couple of times. I groaned again, pushing myself up.

“Fine. I’m up.” I mumbled. I shoved my feet out from under the blankets and sat on the edge of the bed. “Give me everything you know.” I rubbed my eyes, yawning.

“Okay, listen very carefully, kay? You can’t forget any of this or you might just get thrown in jail.” He warned.

“All right, swing it at me.” I nodded.

“Okay, here it is. You must never look at a girl in the eyes for longer than seven seconds. Never. If you do, it signals that you like them, and they start to pursue you. And trust me, you don’t want to get into that. Next, you must never hold a girl’s hand, unless you really like her. Now if it’s family, then it’s a different story. In Aira, you NEVER wear sleeves. So we’ll have to rip off your sleeves before we get off the boat, the same with mine.”

“That doesn’t make sense to me.” I gave him a weird look. “What’s wrong with sleeves?”

“We have to leave them off, so the girls can see our muscles. It’s more like, giving the girls a chance to scout out the good meat I guess.” Ben shrugged. “And lastly, you must never, ever, suck up to a male adult.”

“Why?” I held my ‘y’ out for a while. I was still a little out of it.

“Because you never know if they have a daughter or not. If they do, and they like you, you’re in deep trouble.” Ben explained.

“Ah. I gotcha now.” I nodded.

“Do you have all of that? It’s not a lot, but they’re all extremely vital if you’re going to survive in Aira.” Ben said.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve got all of them. No looking in girl’s eyes for longer than seven seconds, no holding hands unless really like, no sleeves, and no sucking up to male adults.” I listed off, counting them on my fingers.

“Good. You’ve got it. If you follow those rules, you’ll survive.” Ben nodded.

“Oh, Ben! Your home is in our sights!” a voice barked down the stairs. Ben perked up, a grin coming to his face.

“C’mon Zander! I wanna show you MY home!” He grabbed my arm and started dragging me out of the room at an alarming speed for a person still half asleep. I felt like I was riding a horse on steroids.

“Slow down, Ben.” I insisted weakly, but he didn’t stop until we were on deck and we could see Aira in the distance. My guess at the time had been pretty accurate, considering all we could see of the land were blazing fires by homes. “Looks homey.”

“Hardly.” Ben snorted. “But it is home.”

“Will Lezlai be waitin’ for you, like every year?” Sparky was suddenly next to us, admiring the land with us.

“I don’t know.” Ben admitted. “I hope she is though.” He turned to me. “Now we need to rip off our sleeves, since we’ll be getting off.” I held out the sleeve of my shirt.

“I might blind you.” I warned. “I’m extremely white, and there’s no muscle there, I can guarantee you.” Ben rolled his eyes and got a good hold on the fabric. I heard it rip and I shut my eyes. I really didn’t want to see my flabby, fleshy arm. I felt him grab at the other sleeve and rip it off effortlessly.