The Tour

one / airs

I gasped as I came up on the other side, blinking rapidly to clear the saltwater from my eyes. My older brother Evan was up ahead, and I paddled hard to reach him and his friends. It had been like this for years; I tagged along with all of Evan's friends to surf, and after I did it enough times they realized that there was no getting rid of me. Eventually I had become a member of the group, and there weren't enough people on the island for them to think about ditching me.

    Evan was up and driving down the line of his first wave of  the day, and I narrowly managed to avoid him as I paddled up the wave. I had gotten in his way enough times to know that the after-effects were not pretty.

    "Finally made it out, Riv?" Noah turned around on his board as I reached the lineup, his mouth turning up in a grin. He had been Evan's best friend since they could sit on a board together while our dads pushed them through the whitewater. His younger brother, Will, lifted up a hand as a greeting.

    "Well maybe if I had more than a thirty second warning I wouldn't have taken so long. We can't all live in boardshorts."

    Noah laughed before turning around to catch the next wave. I eyed set, noting the third wave out and my relative position. Will took off on the second one wave of the set, and I was free to cruise on into the last one. A few quick paddles was all it took before the wave swelled underneath me, and my feet swung under me to plant themselves on the board. The wave wasn't monstrous, maybe six feet or so, but I managed to get a nice bottom turn in before eyeing the lip. I rode straight up to it, my hair slapping behind me as I whipped my hips around. Unfortunately, it was at this time that I realized that my back foot was slipping, and right when I tried to snap off the top my foot came off the board completely, landing me in the water behind the wave.

    A series of whoops reached me as I surfaced, and I attempted to send daggers at the boys. However, I couldn't compose myself for long and was soon laughing at my amature mistake.

    "That was sick, man, I've never seen anyone send more spray off the lip in my life. Wiping out might be the new way to go," Evan laughed at me, slapping at the water as he doubled over.

    "Don't get too cocky, Ev. Remember that your little sister out-surfed all of you last weekend at the mock competition," I winked at him as he shook his head.

    "Speaking of comps, when is your next one?" Will spoke up once we had all quieted down. He was a year older than me, putting him in the same grade as Evan. Will and Noah were brothers, and Evan split the difference between them in age. The three of them did almost everything together, but they were nice enough to include me most of the time.

    "I'm flying to Maui this weekend. Should be a pretty decent one, it's a QS 10,00 so there's the opportunity to pick up a few points," I shrugged, squinting out at the waves ahead.

    "You're pretty close to top ten, yeah?" Will wiped his soaked hair back onto his forehead in a hopeless attempt to get it from falling back into his eyes.

    "Yeah, I'm thirteenth now. Just need a good result and then we'll see, but it will be tough competition. I know there's going to be a good group of girls from the championship tour there."

    Evan paddled up to me, giving me a hard slap on the back. "Just keep charging kid, you've been surfing great recently. No big deal."

    I nodded, eyeing a wave that was shaping up and moving to catch it. It was easy for him to say that it wasn't a big deal, but it was. I was closer than I had ever gotten to qualifying to the Championship Tour, but a lot of things still had to go right if I was ever going to make it. I needed a top three result on the Qualifying Series, which meant a lot of heat wins this weekend. Possible, but rather unlikely.