fearless

eight; you punched a shark?

The first thing Lettie does when she wakes up, like any other morning, is check the swell reports around the island. Her grin is so wide she can't contain herself. The first good swell since Agatha. Cheering to herself, Lettie puts on her favourite bikini, a loose t shirt over it, and a pair of shorts, dancing while she does so.

Lettie practically skips out to the garage, where her beloved board collection is. She doesn't have an obsessive amount of surfboards. But, when she would win money in competitions she would usually use a portion of it for new equipment. Her eyes immediately dart to her favourite board. It's a white tri fin shortboard, also known as a thruster, with blue paint along its rails, and a simple black surf leash. What makes it her favourite is the faded writing along the middle of the deck that extended along the stringer to the nose. When she moved to the OBX, she was training for nationals. Her new Pogue friends couldn't make it to the competition, besides Kie who made a brightly coloured sign despite barely knowing the girl, so they wrote on the stringer, 'Pogues for life, make us proud, Frenchie - JB, Kie, Pope & Jj'. She had won that year, a lot like she did every year. Smiling at the memory, Lettie tucks the board under her arm, walking to the bug and strapping it on top. Lettie had started competing when she was seven, and finished last in the first contest. Competitive, driven, child-Lettie vowed never to lose a spot on the podium again, and she hadn't. She trained her ass off every single day. Every competition since then, Lettie had finished top three. Now, recently retired from competition, Lettie surfed purely out of love for the sport.

When Lettie heads back inside, her excited, joyous bubble is popped by her mother.

"I need you to watch Donavan today, s'il te plait," Lynette requests, in her work uniform and about to leave the house.

"What? No!" Lettie immediately shouts causing her mother to raise a brow at the teenage girl, "Maman I can't! Where's Dad? Can't he watch him?"

"He's at work, doing teacher training."

"Well that's stupid, he's a principal!" Lettie yells, feeling frustration growing in her chest.

Lynette digs her car keys out from the bottom of her purse, "Scarlett, he's training the teachers. What do you have that's so important anyways?"

Grumbling, Lettie crosses her arms over her chest, "There's a swell coming in all day today. The first good one since Aggie."

Lynette nods, a ghost of a smile on her face. She hasn't surfed in years, but she remembers the addiction, "Ah," She sighs, "Je comprends (I understand). Why don't you take him to the beach with you? Take the soft top and get him in the water, and I'll come pick him up this afternoon après mon quart de travail (After my shift)."

"Il a peur de l'océan (He's scared of the ocean)," Lettie complains, sitting by the kitchen counter, a frown on her face.

"No he isn't," Lynette defends, heading towards the door, "Il a peur des requins (He's scared of sharks), please, just try to get him in the water."

"Do I have a choice?" Lettie calls after her mother. The response she got was the door closing. SIghing to herself, Lettie pushes herself away from the counter, and heads down the hall to Donavan's room. She lightly knocks, not hearing a response. So, she slowly opens the door, finding her little brother still sleeping, tucked under a spiderman bedspread.

Lettie approaches the bed and sits on the edge of it, lightly rubbing her brother's arm to stir him from his sleep. The blonde boy opens his eyes, the brown meeting blue as Lettie smiles at him, "Morning Squish," Lettie says, "You need to get up, we've got places to be."