Wakeboarding was fun. I wished I could pull off crazy-cool stunts, but I’ve only wakeboarded a few times. I did get a little crazy and tried to do a flip, which my sister caught with the camera on her phone.
Sis shivered as she wrapped her towel around her shoulders. The slight breeze wasn’t strong, but it was cool enough that with her hair and swimsuit wet, she had goose bumps. The sun would be up for a few more hours, so it would warm her up soon enough.
The Jordanelle Reservoir sat in the middle of some tall, rolling hills so there wasn’t much beach. However, Dylan’s family had chosen a nice, almost sandy, area that wasn’t too steep. The reservoir was big enough that the breeze created some small waves that splashed rhythmically against the hills. Dylan’s mom stood under a pop-up canopy, making sandwiches for all of us while his dad took out a few of the kids who’d been waiting their turn.
Sis sat down on the beach blanket and held her phone up, a paused video of me on the screen. “Check this out,” she called.
All of us crowded around behind her to watch me on the phone’s tiny screen. I practiced little jumps over the wake, then took an aggressive approach and kicked off the rising water with a jump and a twist. Except half way through my rotation I landed head first into the water. My feet and the wake board flung forward and splashed a wave of water into the air. Everyone responded with a mix of cheers and laughs. I had sucked in a mouthful of water, too, but that wasn’t evident in the video.
“That crash was wicked cool,” Dylan commented.
“Glad you liked it,” I flashed him a grin.
Sis shed her towel and started reapplying sunscreen. I wrinkled my nose at the chemical smell. I’ve never really used sunscreen, and not just because I don’t like the smell. My skin is almost as tan as Luiz’s—in the summer at least. I don’t remember ever really being sunburned.
I thought Dylan would bug Luiz and me all day. Instead, he spent the day treating Sis like gold. He’d offered her a water bottle on several occasions, and he’d helped her both on and off the boat. After Sis wakeboarded, Dylan had a towel ready for her to wrap up in after I lifted her out of the water. Now that we were back on the beach, he was sticking to her like Velcro. Surprisingly, I didn’t mind—which was partly because Sis didn’t seem to mind at all either. As long as he treated her better than Austin, I wouldn’t have to knock him around during football practice.
“So what books do you like to read?” Dylan asked Sis.
“I don’t know. I am trying to read all of Jane Austin, lately,” Justine replied. She brushed her wet hair behind her ears and looked up at the sun, trying to warm her face.
“What are you reading now?” Dylan shifted on the blanket, moving a few inches closer.
“Persuasion.”
“Really? Did you know that Jane Austin never once described what Ann Elliot looks like?”
Whoa! Since when could Dylan speak Jane Austin? I may have been wrong about Dylan being too dumb to be a jeek.
Dylan’s mom paused making sandwiches, “You’ve read Jane Austin?” she asked.
“Yeah, uh . . .” Dylan stammered, “I was forced to read it in English class last year.”
Liar! I had English with Dylan last year and that book was not part of it. He’d read it on his own. I didn’t adopt Dylan into the jeek club or anything, but I wouldn’t ever see him as a piss-ant again.
It took Dylan a couple more attempts at conversation before he finally got up the courage to ask my sister out.
“So there’s a youth fireside tomorrow about six. You want to come with me?” Dylan asked my sister.
“Yes, I want to go,” Sis beamed.
Once Dylan looked away, she nudged me excitedly.
Go, Sis.
Luiz tapped my shoulder and quietly asked, “Is a fireside a church thing?”
“Yeah,” I responded.
He nodded.
“Sandwiches are ready,” Dylan’s mom called from under the pop-up canopy and we all grabbed a sandwich.
As I took my first bite, I felt a trembling just below my skin. I’d never really felt it before but somehow I knew something was wrong.
“Excuse me,” a gruff voice rumbled into the canopy. We all looked up and noticed a park ranger, green uniform and all, stepping toward us. The ranger had a wicked looking scar cutting vertically above and below his right eye. Despite the scar, his eye was perfectly intact.
“What is this about?” Dylan’s mom stepped between the ranger and us teenagers as if her motherly instincts also detected something was wrong and she planned to protect us.
“There’s been some reports of a creepy old man in the area.” He pulled out a picture that had a close up of an old guy with a full head of white hair.
“Have you seen this old man?”
“No,” Dylan’s mom replied.
“What about you kids?” the man asked, holding up the picture for us all to see.
We all shook our heads.
The ranger gave a smile which did nothing to ease the strange sensation I was feeling under my skin.
“Well, if you see him, give us a call.” He handed Dylan’s mom a card and turned and left. The weird sensation under my skin faded as the man walked away.
We stayed at the lake until it was almost dark. It took us an hour to dock the boat, wipe it down, and pack everything up, and then another hour for Luiz to drive us home. When Justine and I walked in our front door, the lights were off and Mom was clearly in bed already. The door to the den was closed, but light seeped out the cracks. John was probably hiding inside looking at porn. Sis and I looked at each other and crinkled our noses.
Sis went straight to bed and crashed right away. I watched the second half of the chemistry class. I couldn’t bring myself to study any film of past football games, so I played Xbox with headphones until two. Then I went to my room and crashed too.