Unforetold (Under Construction)

Chapter 16

We had no time and nowhere to hide. We just stood there and waited for the people to show up and report us to police. They were coming closer. We braced ourselves...

For Jared and Braxton.

All of our eyes were as big as serving plates. Our mouths gaped open like venus fly traps.

"Jared? Braxton?" Haydn said as he finally was able to speak.

They snapped out of it too. Then they all did man-hugs and there was a bunch of 'hey man's and 'how ya doin's. Then they finally noticed me. Braxton especially seemed interested.

"Hey, I see ya got that girl," He said, and kinda scooted next to me. I scooted away. Get away from me, you creep, I thought. Jared saw my freaked out expression and laughed. "Aw, don't worry about Braxton, er...uh, what's you're name?"

"Ceilin." I almost whispered. "My name's Ceilin." I don't know why I was being so shy. Maybe it was because I knew they had seen me that day when I was spying on them.

"Oh, yeah, Ceilin. Yeah, don't worry about him. Ever since Abigail broke up with him he's been desperate. His bark is worse than his bite." He chuckled, and Braxton sort of turned away. Jared immediately struck me as a guy who was overly confident and would do anything to keep his cool, including making Braxton look like a desperate girl seeker.

In a ways, Haydn quickly explained our situation and Jared and Braxton wanted to tag along for a while. They seemed to not exactly get the hint that we were going MILES AWAY. They just trotted beside us, happy as clams.

I could tell Braxton was totally hitting on me. Of course I wasn't interested. I wasn't surprised Abigail broke up with him, but I was pretty shocked he would have gotten someone in the first place. Right away you would see him as someone who's...annoying, nerdy, a creep, a freak, plain weird...to put it simple, a doofus. He did anything he could to try and make himself look cool in front of me, but usually just made himself look stupid. To name just a few, first he asked me if I had ever seen a sea urchin and if I thought they were cool.

"Um, yeah, I've seen one, once. And, I...I think they're pretty neat." I didn't know what he was getting at.

"Oh, I've seen them tons of times. I ate them before, too. I catch them, even, and put them in an aquarium." In the long run he told me he was a sea urchin fanatic and was an expert at catching them. I wanted to see him try. After all, the beach just so happened to be right beside the woods, and I figured the police weren't beachcombing for teens that hack into libraries.

"Well, let me see you catch one."

He looked at me, slightly surprised. "Uh, what?"

"I said, let me see you catch one." His facial expression made it obvious he had probably never seen a sea urchin in his life, but he just cleared his throat and led me toward the beach. He took his flipflops off, waded around in the water for a bit, then told me to stand back.

"I see one. Don't scare it," He almost whispered, as he tiptoed toward it. I tried for the life of me not to giggle.

"Hey, Braxton, what kind of sea urchin is it?" Jared shouted. Haydn was holding his head in his hands, laughing.

Braxton looked at Jared and Haydn, up a bit more on the beach, and put a finger to his lips, still wading. "I think it's a, um, Black...er, Florida...urch - YOOOOWWWWW!" He jumped about ten feet, then hobbled back onto the shore before falling and rolling in the sand with pain. Unlike him, I had done my research and saw that luckily the sea urchin wasn't one with venom in it's spines - it still hurt pretty bad to step on, though.

15 minutes later, Braxton limped back towards a dying group of Jared, Haydn and I.

"Wow, Braxton, like a boss!" Jared barely gasped out the words, then started cackling again.