The Firefly Field Theory

|14| Let The Fun Begin: Part II

PART II:

“But.” Bravo blurts for the hundredth time.

“No buts! Leave!” Z scolds again.

“Yeah get out of here already!” I add.

“But.” Omi adds.

“You too? Don’t make me strangle you! Go!” Z turns away possibly to hide his smile and pulls his white T shirt over himself.

“But.” Bravo, apparently can’t find any other words to use in her defense.

“Stop, making a fuss outta nothing, I’m starving here go get the food from the…um…the…Z help?”

“Dhabba.” Z offers.

“Yeah, go get food from the Dhabba, how far is it?” I ask looking at Omi, because Bravo is going red again and I might smile and give the act away if I look at her face too long.

Omi is his fair share of embarrassed, he says looking down,  “Walking distance, we’ll be back in about ten minutes.”

“You’ll be back if you leave!” I act like I’m exasperated, “And since you’re not leaving I’m losing faith in you two.”

Reluctantly, they part. First dragging their steps and then climbing up the inclined ledge to the crowd of parked vans, jeeps and hummers. Keeping their distances from each other while not completely abandoning each others’ side, like they are in a limbo. Z and I keep watching from the ground, as the two coldly cover the distance and soon I can’t spot their low held heads anymore. They’re gone: one because we are all dying of a bitch named hunger and two because I convinced Z that we should try trapping them both together and it has worked.

 I smile at Z and he smiles back, he raises his hand in the air and I need to jump to land a high five on it. Bravo being Bravo, is super predictable. Very conveniently she told me her plan to send off Z with Omi to get the food. But what she didn’t see coming was my plan to turn the tables on her. Convincing Z was not at all hard, I promised him my pack of Skittles in return all he had to do was say: He didn’t want to go with Omi and insist/force/torment Bravo to go instead. Mission accomplished.

I sit down on the picnic mat next to Z, my legs drawn to my chest. Taking in a deep breath, I force a hand through my wet hair. Short hair is the best kind, it’s tangle free. If I had the hair that I had back before third year high school tragedy, I swear judging by the amount of splashing around I have been doing for an hour, they would be more tangled than head phone wires retrieved from a pocket. I clicking sound makes me turn to catch Z with the camera held in front of his face and directed at me. I smile and he clicks again. And then I stick my tongue out, squint my eyes, try my best to make a duck face which I’m sure looks like a real duck face. Z clicks away and laughs the whole time. He hands the camera to me and then proves to be the God of hilarious faces. I laugh so much the first time he forces his eyes to focus on the bridge of his nose with his tongue clenched between his teeth, the snaps come out blurry.

“Where’s Wall-e?” I ask after I have exhausted my photography skills and my endurance.

“Huh? He’s in the changing booth.” Something about the way Z says this as he slides through the pictures I just took, makes my ears stand. It was almost like he was satiated immensely by the thought of Wall-e going into the deserted booth, but then again I get hunches like this most of the time.

“I hope everything is fine, I haven’t seen him ever since we got out of the water.” I take a peek at his expression, and his face says it all. The most mischievous smile is coupled with a glint in his eyes you can’t mistake for tears. “Yeah, he brought along some clothes so he’s probably changing.”