The Red Artefact

Chapter 3

The wind softly drifted along the sand dunes as Claire sat cross-legged on the bright pink beach towel, her sketch pad on her lap and gazing out to the ocean.  Ollie was out on the waves, looking out to sea for suitable waves to catch, his hands paddling through the salty water. Claire was drawing him and the other competitors out on the waves, occasionally smudging the charcoal into the sketchbook, which left traces of black on the sides of her fingers. She looked up and saw Ollie paddling for a wave, she relaxed her hand, stopped drawing for a second and watched him for his run. He reached the wave right as it was about to break and stood up on his feet, racing his board down the wave. She grinned at him flying across the water, she didn't really know the rules or how exactly surf competitions applied points or what-not, but she felt, and from his resulting smile after the wave crashed, that it was a pretty good run. She smiled, paying her attention back to her drawing. Using the thin edge of the charcoal pencil she started creating little curved lines on the paper to create the movement of the waves. After a while she heard a horn, which resulted in all the surfers coming back in to shore. She saw Ollie running up the beach and she put her sketch book onto the towel beside her.

"Have fun?" She asked. Ollie just shrugged, laying his surfboard down onto the sand and then laid, well, pretty much collapsed down onto the sand next to her with a big 'oof', covering his eyes by putting an arm over his face. She leant back onto her hands, staring up at the bright blue sky.

"When do you know if your in finals?" Claire asked, closing her eyes against the glaring sun. She heard a slight shuffle from him so she turned her head and opened her eyes slightly to look at him. He was looking at her with a slight disbelieving smile with his arm lifted slightly from his eyes, casting a shadow over the top half of his face.

"That was the finals."

"Oh," she replied, frowning slightly. She didn't really even remember when Ollie came up from finishing his first round. She just must have gotten too caught up in her drawing to notice what was actually happening around her. Which actually happens quite a-lot unfortunately.

"Then, when do you find out the placings?" She asked. At her words the speakers along the beach buzzed and came to life, a woman's voice came through them which was heard down the majority of the beach.

"I guess now," Ollie said, sitting up to lean on his hands.

"Before announcing the winners of todays competition, I would just to like to thank-you Tannah Abbot and Chris Halt for organising this event and everyone who served as volunteers. I would also like to thank Rip-curl and City-beach for sponsoring us for this amazing event, which I believe went really smoothly (Ollie laughed slightly at this comment) Now the moment everyone has been waiting for the place winners, if your name is called up please come to the tent collect your gift-voucher and ribbon. Under 18 girls, 3rd place Anna Full, 2nd place Olivia Molten and 1st place Racheal Lace."

There was a slight clapping and cheering as the girls walked up to the tent to receive their prizes. Claire glanced at Ollie, who was watching Racheal walk up to the tent. She laughed slightly under her breath, which made Ollie look at her.

"What?"

"Nothing," she smiled.

"Congratulations girls. Now for the under 18 boys. 3rd place Samson Young. 2nd place Oliver Bland and 1st place Andrew White. Congratulations."

Claire cheered and clapped along with some of the crowd when Ollies name got called and he got up to retrieve his gift voucher.

"Cool, second place," Claire said grinning. Ollie, however, doesn't look as impressed. He had a slight scowl to his face.

"You and Andrew still don't have that feud going on do you?" Claire asked in disbelief, picking up on Ollies slightly bad mood. Ollie scowled even further and just walked towards the tent. Claire didn't exactly know the quarrel that was going on between the two boys and she hadn't asked either. Ollie would tell her if he wanted to.

As he went to go get his voucher Claire started to pack up, putting her sketchbook safely into her bag and shaking the sand off the towels. Ollie returned not too soon after, a gift card to city-beach in his hand which he put into Claire's bag.

"Wheres your phone?" He asked, standing next to her. Claire looked at him suspiciously.

"Its in my bag, why?"

"No reason." As soon as the words flew from his mouth, he grabbed Claire around the waist and chucked her over his shoulder.

"No! Put me down you bastard!" she whisper shouted, squirming in his grasp and hitting his back. Her braid was falling over her face which made it difficult to see. He readjusted his grip on her, grabbing tightly onto her legs and started jogging towards the water. Flinching every time she hit his back.
"Nope, have a little fun Claire."
"This is not what I call fun! I have an entirely other definition of fun!" She only felt Ollie shrug.
"Is this necklace you got me waterproof? You don't want to ruin the necklace," she said as a last line of defense as he ran closer to the waterline.

"It'll survive," was all he said as he chucked her into the freezing cold water.

They came back to the beach-house a few hours later, Claire shivering enough that she thought she could feel her bones rattling. The wind had a slight chill to it as the sun started to set, which heavily contributed to Claire's freezing state. It didn't help that Ollie had chucked her in clothes and all. Ollie seemed fine though, not cold at all in his wet suit which was nearly dry. Claires clothes however were still soaking and were hanging heavily on her freezing body. She had her hands wrapped around herself as she entered the doorway into the house, leaving Ollie to put his surfboard into the garage. She dropped her bag onto the kitchen bench and pretty much ran to the room she was saying in to grab a towel and a change of warm clothes. Her teeth were rattling dangerously as she closed the door to the bathroom and stripped, leaving her soaked clothes to lie in a depressing pile on the tiled floor. She stepped into the shower and desperately turned on the hot water, letting the steam warm up the small bathroom. As she was making sure the temperature was right, she saw a slight glow from the corner of her eye. She froze. The droplets of water hitting the ground echoing through the bathroom. It was now completely dark outside and a light was coming through the blurred bathroom window, the light moving with a shadow. She exited the shower, not caring that she was dipping water all over the floor. Her steps were hard against the floor as she walked as fast as she could to the window without slipping, wrapping a white towel around her as she went. Her face was set in anger. If someone was that close to the window, someone must be trying to look in, or get inside the house. She tightened the towel around her quickly as she grabbed the handle to pull the window open, sucking in a gulp of air to get ready to start yelling... But as she opened the window, she released all the air she was holding into a gasp, nearly dropping the towel. Standing in the garden, right in front of the flowers was a gnome like creature, holding a tiny flashlight type object and wandering along the grass as if it was searching for something. Occasionally stopping somewhere to pick at the grass, then waddling on. It was only about the size of a CocaCola can. It had on a dirty hat brown hat, light brown skin and had abnormally large pink ears which were slightly pointed. Its nose was also overly big for its face and pink in color. The creature hadn't even noticed her yet as she stood was her mouth open, seeming to have lost her voice. She watched him as he stopped yet again, dug his hand into the earth and pulled something that was long and thin out of the ground, putting it into his tiny satchel which was tied at his hip, waving his flashlight around. It seemed pretty content with itself after its find, waddling on with more determination. She knelt down onto her knees, closed her eyes and pinched herself hard on the leg, to make sure she wasn't dreaming. When she opened her eyes, she sighed with relief to find that the gnome like creature had disappeared, though she didn't really check, and ignored the gaping holes in the grass. She suddenly felt the cold draft that was coming in from the window, leaving goosebumps along her arms, not having have felt the sharp cold until then. The warm water of the shower seemed even more inviting then it did before. She stood up and went to shut the window, nearly closing before she heard a small boyish voice coming from underneath the window which caused her to still.

"Don't squish me!"