How long had it been since I had felt such warmth? Closing my eyes, I stretched my head back and let the sun slightly burn my face. I didn't care if it pulled my skin a little. I was simply so incredibly glad it wasn't raining again. We thought last year had been bad, but this year was already approaching last year's record when it was only summer! All the weather channels predicted more sunshine to be coming our way, but there still remained too many umbrellas on their reports for my liking.
"Hey, did you finish up your summer homework yet?" I asked Rosey, who sat next to me.
"Yeah. I got the final bits done last night." she responded, lazily kicking her foot.
"Darn it."
"Love homework that much?" she asked with a smile.
"No, but I've been stuck inside too much lately because of the rain. I'm done with television, video games, and reading. I was thinking we could at least bring your homework out here to work on it in the sunshine. I wish I would have brought mine."
"I'll procrastinate more next time," Rosey laughed, "But I think those two are entertaining enough."
She pointed with her foot over to Gilly and Apple. The four of us were enjoying the nice weather on the patio at Rosey's dad's high rise apartment. It was her dad's week to watch her, but some unexpected problems at the company he worked at forced him to come in for a few hours on a day he typically had off. He and our parents had decided it would be fine for Gilly, Apple, and I to basically babysit Rosey while he was gone as even though we weren't that much older than her there were three of us. My sister and Apple were messing around with one of grandpa's old telescopes he'd given Rosey for a past birthday.
"If it wouldn't destroy your eyes and probably ruin the lenses, what do you think the sun would look like if I tried to view it through here?" Apple wondered, slowly moving the telescope in the sun's direction while being sure not to accidentally swing it far enough to risk blindness.
"Probably like all the images on the sun you can find on the internet that have been captured with fancier versions of what you're using?" Gilly shrugged.
"You're no fun. Can't you at least indulge the mystery for a brief second?" Apple sighed, "It's always more spectacular if you can see something elusive with your own eyes."
"I wouldn't exactly call the sun elusive."
"You should considering all the rain we've been having."
"The sun's still technically there and shining. Otherwise it would be pitch black."
"Seriously, fun ruiner. That's what you are."
I smiled somewhat, but those two's bantering had become too common in weeks past as well. More than anything, I was surprised they hadn't grown bored of it themselves.
"Want to print off some worksheets from online to do instead?" Rosey teased.
"How about just some puzzles or mazes instead? I'd be less likely to bash my head into the table."
"Says one of the lucky ones in your family who inherited a bit of Auntie 'Thereal's photographic memory. Shouldn't homework be way easier for you?" my cousin laughed.
"Gilly and I did inherit just a bit of that talent. Just a bit. Besides, I'm also super lazy when it comes to anything that isn't helpful to me being a doctor. I'll do it, but I don't get dedicated to it. Unless it's home economics. That stuff is kinda interesting."
"Maybe we should make some cookies then." Rosey proposed in amusement.
"I thought your dad specifically told us we weren't allowed to use the oven?"
"That means we just eat the dough instead."
"I could go for that." I laughed.
Unfortunately, a big issue got in our way with that idea. There was no sugar in the house. Rosey's dad, Papaver, we just called him Pap, was super healthy about their diet. They ate little meat, lots of fruits and vegetables, and rarely did he buy any sort of junk food. That kind of thing. Rosey got to eat whatever Aunt Mimi thought was acceptable when she stayed with her though, which balanced out the strictness. I hadn't realized just how strict Pap was with what he bought though. Rosey revealed he only bought sugar right before he used in it in whatever rare instance he used it. She'd thought they had some left from the last small bag he'd gotten, but that turned out not to be the case.
"Ugghhh, what to do now?" I whined quietly as Rosey and I walked around, and my eye was drawn east, "The ocean looks so pretty today. I wish we could go the beach. We've only been able to go three times this summer because of all the rain, and we're more than halfway through our vacation."
"I've only been able to go once so far," Rosey nodded along, "This is the first nice day in forever, and that water is too tempting."
"Do you think...do you think your dad might actually let us go if we called him?" I dared to put it out there, "That small beach is seriously right down the road. He wouldn't let you go on your own, but if it's the four of us surely it could be okay?"
"You can call him if you'd like. I don't think he'll say yes, but you never know."
Well, I was determined to go for it. Pap, though strict about stuff such as his diet, was in general laid-back and easy-going. A pretty reasonable kind of guy. I'm sure my argument would at least make sense to him, even if he refused it. Gilly and Apple watched me rush inside to pick up the phone and dial the number on the sticky pad nearby. Three rings tickled my ear, and the call was picked up.
"Rosey?" Pap's voice questioned, although it was sort of echoey and distant, as if he might have me on speaker phone or something. I could hear a lot of background noise like people talking, phones ringing, and carts rattling as well.
"No, it's Dia."
"Oh, Dia. What is it? Is everything alright?"
"Yes, everything's fine. Sorry, I don't mean to bother you. We just had a quick question. Would it be alright for the four of us to head down to the nearby beach? We don't want to waste such a nice day. I promise we'll be super careful and stick together and all that."
I thought the silence, save for all the background noise coming from the other end of the line, was Papaver thinking. Then the silence persisted for too long, and I made out the sounds of him talking to someone else. His company clearly was having a busy day.
"Pap?" I asked after several more long seconds passed.
"Uh, sorry," he replied back, slightly distracted, "What was that? The beach? You know what, that sounds like a fine plan to me."
"Really?" I said excitedly.
"Yeah."
"Thank you so much!"
"No problem. I do have to go now though, Dia."
"Of course."
We quickly said our goodbyes and hung up. I skipped out to meet the other three with a wide smile on my face.
"Rosey said you were asking Pap about us going to the beach?" Apple confirmed.
"Yup! And he said yes!" I beamed.
"Really?" Rosey wondered eagerly.
"Uh-huh!"
"Only Rosey has a swimsuit available though," Gilly pointed out, "It's not like we have any way to get ours."
"You could try borrowing my extras. They might fit." Rosey proposed.
"Nah, I don't think it'll work. Some of us are hitting our growth spurts." Apple declared proudly.
"You've grown like a quarter inch." I reminded her.
"That's more than you, shorty."
"Anyway," I ignored her, "I think it's fine if the rest of us can't go swimming. We can still take our shoes off and go into the shallow water. There's lot of other ways to have fun without being in the water too."
"I do agree with that. Let's pack up and get going then, shall we?" Gilly smiled.
The four of us sped down the sidewalks with glee. I don't know why I felt so free considering mom and dad let us go to the places like the park by ourselves, but I really did feel like I could jump into the air and take off flying. The trees and buildings broke away to bring into sight that blue horizon. All of us took in a deep breath of that familiar salty air, and I thanked all the deities I didn't believe in that I had been born in Berrybrook. It truly was perfection.
Apple stretched widely, Rosey unpacked the towel and music player she'd brought along in her bookbag, and Gilly and I looked around for sea glass. When Rosey was done with her things, we came together to plan out our adventurous afternoon.
"Anyone have any ideas as to what to do first?" Gilly said.
"Satin told me of this fun game she and her friends played at one of their sleepovers. Basically, we each pick a distinctive item from nearby. We show it to the others, hide it, and then we all run around to see who can find everyone else's items the fastest." Apple explained.
"So, a kind of scavenger hunt thing?"
"Yeah."
"Sounds interesting to me." I threw my lot in.
"Me too." Rosey joined in.
There hadn't been any need to worry about not having fun because most of us couldn't go in the water. Honestly, we spent just as much time searching the beach for the prettiest or most interesting objects as we did playing the game. Rosey found a sparkly shell, Apple dug out a rock shaped like half a flower, Gilly came across a 'Y' shaped stick swirled different colors by the water, and I stepped on someone's chain necklace they accidentally left behind. There weren't many decent hiding places given the area we were in was most flat, open land, but we made it work. Apple and Rosey tied for first place after several rounds with Gilly coming in last.
The call of the water couldn't be ignored forever though. Rosey stripped down to the swimsuit she'd put on underneath her clothes, and Gilly, Apple, and I walked along the shallow water in our bare feet. The chill of the water crashing against the sunlight assaulting my legs made for a strangely pleasant sensation. Apple and I could refuse the ultimate call of the water, but temptation lured in my sister. Gilly soon stopped caring that she was fully clothed. She and Rosey ran around and splashed each other like there was no tomorrow while Apple and I tried our hands at making all sorts of sandcastles.
The perfect day seemed to be stretching on for eternity. Then our worst nightmare showed up. Teenagers. A little ways up the hill near the beach sat a small snack shack where the four of us went to get some beverages. When we returned, we discovered two others decided to take part in the good weather. What the bikini-clad girls who looked to be perhaps a year older than Ember were doing, however, was destroying our sandcastles. The greenish girl in particular seemed to take extra delight in smushing all our hard work to pieces.
The four of us all hurried over, but Rosey moved the fastest. She approached the older girls with a massive frown on her face.
"Hey." she called to them disapprovingly.
They ignored her. There were slight glances in her direction, but they continued their loud conversation and irritating laughter as if they were the only ones around.
"Hey!" Rosey spoke more gruffly, lightly kicking a small puff of sand at the Mixed girl's foot.
"Watch yourself, brat." she chided with an air of haughty superiority, "Do something like that again, and we're going to have a problem."
"We do have a problem. You ruined our sandcastles!"
"Those lame things? They've been in our way all morning, and since no one else has been here for a while we chose to get rid of them."
"No, they haven't. We've only been here for an hour, and we only left for three minutes. You weren't here then." Rosey argued firmly.
"Whatever. They were going to get messed up at some point. Just build some more and shut up, okay?"
The girl moved quickly enough to patronizingly pat Rosey on the head twice and move on before my cousin could properly retaliate. Rosey only swatted away air, and when she sent another kick of sand, a more powerful one, the wind blew it in the direction opposite of what she wanted. The two teenagers laughed while they walked back to their spot on the beach.
Rosey fumed, and Gilly and I did our best at calming her down. There were lots of words going through my head about the teenagers that I wasn't allowed to say aloud. However, I believed at first the beach to be big enough for all of us. It was indeed that way in reality, actually. There should have been no problem with us having staying at one end and them staying at the other. Unfortunately, the two girls didn't want things to be peaceful. Their idea of fun was to make us miserable. In our naive belief that we could get along, the four of us didn't pay attention to what they were doing while we remade our sandcastles. Then, Apple turned around and let out a cry of annoyance. The girls had taken Rosey's things and dragged them over to the other side of the area really close to the entrance. The spot where the two girls set up their things? Right where Rosey's stuff had been. Apple started to stomp over there, but Gilly held her back. I supported my sister when Apple protested. There was no doubting they would just laugh us off or ignore us again if we complained. It wasn't like we could tell anyone they were being mean, nor did we have the capacity to make them move ourselves.
There was the option to retaliate by kicking lots of sand over them, but we all knew that wouldn't go over well. It would make the girls really mad, and none of us were sure what they would do if they did get truly mad. They already pretended to be at their wit's ends with the normal stuff we did.
"Oh my god! Would you brats stop running around as if you're possessed! You're seriously out of control!" the greenish girl complained with unnecessary dramatics as we ran semi close by playing a game of tag.
Nothing about the game had any effect on the two of them in any way save for us making a faint bit of noise, but you would have thought we'd run right on top of them.
"Where the hell are their parents?" the gray girl spoke with such an exaggerated disgust it made me want to vomit.
"They're probably those pathetic types that just let their kids do whatever they want and basically be feral. They have to be with the way these four are acting."
It really took a lot of will power to not go over there and drown them in sand at that.
I think all our hearts sunk when more people arrived at the beach. I'd hoped at first that the arrival of more people meant that the girls would have to tone down their terribleness now that other people could call them out, yet it wasn't meant to be. The two teenage boys went straight for the girls, and the brown guy and greenish girl locked their lips together so tightly it almost looked as if they'd merged into a single person. The other two kissed as well, although the gray girl had more of a desire to make us miserable.
"Sorry we're late. How's it been?" the orange guy started it off.
"It would have been fine so far, except for those four over there. They've been running around like wild animals ruining the beach for everyone else. That lighter pink girl even threw a hissy fit- kicking sand all over Mintie because she accidentally stepped on her sandcastle."
It should have occurred to me earlier that the girls were trying to frustrate us enough to get us off the beach entirely, but it only hit me then that such a thing was most likely their goal. I whispered the thought to my sister, and Gilly agreed. We four agreed then to stay as long as possible to totally get on their case. Things worked in a different direction though. Off we went to play, and this time when we turned around it was the orange guy touching Rosey's stuff. He shoved her towel, sand in all, in her bookbag before forcibly pushing her music player on top before yanking the zipper closed.
"What are you doing!?" Rosey cried at him, once again running over with us on her heels.
"Look, Marble and Mintie are patient. I'm not. I'm not going to tolerate your antics, so you'd better just leave. I was even nice and packed your things for you." he answered smugly with fake kindness.
"We haven't done anything! It's all them! They came here, destroyed our sandcastles, messed with my things, and complained about stuff we haven't done! Your ugly girlfriends or whoever they are are big fat liars!"
"Listen, you chubby mistake, I don't really give a shit who actually did what," he continued, bringing out his full jerkishness, "I just know that Marble and Mintie don't want you here, and I don't want you here either. You've got five minutes to leave, or you'll find your bag at the bottom of the ocean. If you want to push it past that, we're going to have bigger problems."
Apple looked steamed, and I was confident she would have leapt at the orange idiot had I not motioned her back. Focusing on keeping her under control was the only thing keeping me under control as I otherwise wanted to take whatever swing I could get towards him too. Especially with how he gave Rosey's bag a hard kick before he walked off confidently. Even more so with how tears started to stream down my cousin's face the further he got away.
"I just wanted to come here and have some fun..." she mumbled miserably as she sniffled and fought against her tears.
"It's okay, Rosey," Gilly comforted, guiding her into a hug, "Give it a few years, and those four are going to be miserable college drop-outs stuck working at Chippy Chicks while they waste away in their parents' basements."
"It is times like these where I wish dad had been able to become a police man though. Having him come down here in uniform is a lot more intimidating than having some owner of a book shop come strolling by." I sighed lightly.
"I don't think we have to rely on him to set things a little more right." Apple spoke with a suspicious glee.
I gave her a look.
"What's your plan?" I asked knowingly, and Apple smiled wider.
"They want to mess with your stuff and get us to leave. I say we mess with their stuff while making it even better by leaving."
"Okay? I don't really get what you mean though." Rosey replied.
"How does that really get them back?" I added, "They get what they ultimately want, and we only mildly annoy them."
"You want to steal some of their stuff, don't you?" Gilly piped up with a sigh.
"Exactly! If we have to leave, why not make sure we leave making a message?" Apple confirmed cheerfully.
"Even if they're jerks, we can't steal stuff. That's wrong." my sister pointed out.
"Oh, it's not like we'd take anything important. Just some sunscreen or whatever. They spend a few dollars to have to get some more, and perhaps they get a light burn. No big deal."
"I'm in." I agreed.
"Dianthus." Gilly said my name with a frown.
"I don't want to do the stealing myself, but if you two want to go for it..." Rosey added her gently hesitant approval.
"Do whatever," Gilly sighed again, "Rosey, get your clothes back on first so we can wait farther away. That way we can have a head start when they inevitably come after us."
Rosey dug her clothes out of her backpack, shook out as much of the sand as possible, and waited out of sight of the other four. Apple and I meandered around somewhat doing our best to look like we were about to leave too while also keeping an eye on the teenagers. They clearly thought the orange guy's warning strong enough. In the water they goofed off without paying attention to us. The girls didn't seem to have brought much with them besides their towels, but the two boys had bags sitting there stuffed full of something good. Apple led us forward at the moment she thought best, and we hurriedly dug our hands in to find something acceptable to take.
"What should we take?" I whispered, hurriedly searching, "I don't see any sunscreen. Their clothes? These ear buds?"
"Ohh, sunglasses." Apple smirked as she pulled a pair of spectacles from the brown guy's bag.
"He has some too," I spotted, grabbing the orange guy's pair, "Should I also take his c-"
"Time to go!"
Apple sprung up, grabbed my hand, and rushed me away with her so rapidly it burned my shoulder. However, I brushed aside the pain as I heard the orange guy shout.
"Hey! They're messing with our stuff!"
I turned into a professional sprinter. Honestly, I had no idea my legs were capable of moving so fast. I even slowed myself down thinking I was going to outrun the others, but the same burst of adrenaline fueled speed had Gilly, Apple, and Rosey keeping pace. The longer legs of the older four did give them a technical advantage, but when I glanced back all of them struggled to get out of the clutches of the dragging pull of the shallow water. They were soon completely out of sight. After a minute of us dashing down random side streets, between houses, and around all sorts of corners it was safe to say we'd made ourselves quite scarce. The route we took back to Rosey's place was convoluted, but just in case one of the older group did have an idea of where we were we didn't want to give them a direct path to follow.
However, never at any single point did I feel scared. The rush of running away from being caught truly excited me instead as the justification for what we were doing largely won over the guilt knowledge told me I should feel. My smile was mirrored on Apple, and the four of us climbed the steps to safety all seeming rather pleased with the way things had gone. Then we walked inside, and I did feel somewhat frightened then. Papaver was back, and the second he spotted us the second he strode over with both worry and absolute anger etching deep lines on his face.
"Where in the world have you four been? I was about to start calling around to see what might have happened to you." he demanded in a voice to match his expression.
"We...we were at the beach." I answered uncertainly.
"The beach? Why did you go there early?" Papaver asked incredulously.
"Early? You told us we could just go."
"No, I didn't."
"But...but when I called you on the phone, I asked if it was alright if the four of us could go if we stuck together, and you told me that was a fine plan." I struggled to say, lost as to what I had missed.
Papaver stared at me, and his expression softened.
"Is that really what you asked?" he wondered, and I nodded, causing him to take a deep breath, "I was dealing with a dozen different things when you called, so I guess I wasn't listening properly. I thought you asked if I would take you all to the beach when I got back. Otherwise, I wouldn't have given you permission. I seriously had a heart attack coming back to find you all gone. I thought something had happened."
"Sorry, daddy." Rosey apologized.
"No, it's alright. I will say again that I definitely don't want your four going somewhere alone in the future, but we can just let this incident slide. Although, why are you all so sweaty, and why did you come rushing in here like you did? And what are those?"
He pointed to the sunglasses, and we froze. They obviously didn't belong to us no matter how we could possibly try to explain them.
"Rosey." Papaver somewhat sternly said his daughter's name, and Rosey shrunk under his prompting stare.
"We took them." Apple went ahead and admitted, going ahead and taking the plunge for all of us.
"Took them? From who?" Papaver asked with a frown.
"From some jerk people at the beach. These two teenage girls arrived, and they started being big bullies. Their boyfriends or whatever arrived afterwards. The brown guy didn't really do anything, but the orange one was a big jerk as well. Pap, they were messing with Rosey's stuff, they were saying horrible things, and they threatened us if we didn't leave. So, we decided to mess with them a little before we went ahead and left." Apple explained our case.
"Even so," Papaver let out his deep breath, and he rubbed at his forehead as if he had a headache, "You cannot steal stuff. That's not how you handle those kinds of situations, and that's not how you four are getting away with this. All of you, into the car. We're going back to the beach."
More than getting in trouble for accidentally going out without permission or getting in trouble for stealing, my skin ached and tingled at the thought of having to deal with the other four in any way, shape, or form at any point in my life again. I also had a pretty solid idea of what Papaver expected from us in forcing us reluctantly back to the beach. My stomach bounced around fervently in rejection. My whole body burned as if I stood next to the sun when Papaver placed a hand on my back to get me to shuffle faster towards the sand and the four teenagers came into sight. My slight hope that they'd departed as well after we took the sunglasses died with a raging whirlwind that bludgeoned my chest. I seriously wished I could melt into the ground when the jerk called Mintie caught sight of us, smiled her smug smile, and motioned her friends over to where Papaver motioned us with such a sickening sweet fake grin.
"I've heard that these four have given you a bit of trouble?" Papaver said to them.
I frowned heavily as my anger flared. I get that Papaver had us on the stealing bit, but was he really going to act as if we were entirely to blame? Surely he would at least stand up for us when it came to the older four being terrible?
"We were trying to share the beach, but I guess these four just had the idea that since they got here first they had control over the area. We asked them to give us a little more space, and the next thing we knew they were running off with some of our stuff." Mintie said with over exaggerated hurt.
"Liar!" Apple snapped at her.
"Apple, stop." Papaver reprimanded.
She shot him an enraged glare, and he only faltered slightly. Apple could look quite scary. I assumed that was part of the reason why he turned his attention back to the others.
"I wasn't here, so I don't know who was doing what. I don't know what's being emphasized and what's being left out. All I do know is that these four took or were alright with taking things that didn't belong to them. I've brought them back for them to return your sunglasses and apologize for the thievery and whatever other faults they might have had in this situation." Papaver spoke, taking the sunglasses he had taken from Apple and Me and placing them in the orange guy's outstretched hand.
"I'm sorry for taking the sunglasses, but I'm not sorry about anything else." Rosey huffed out her apology quickly.
"Rosey." Papaver prompted sternly once more.
"I'm not sorry, daddy! We didn't do anything else wrong!"
"I'm not convinced that there's not fault on both sides."
"You just said you had no idea who did what, so how can you suddenly be so sure that we did do more?" I joined in, "Tell mom and dad that I was being stubborn, but I'm not apologizing either! It's not fair for me or Rosey or Apple or Gilly to ask forgiveness for stuff we didn't do."
"Yeah! Everything was fine until those two showed up!" Apple prodded our stance along, "They only acted as if we were being brats because they wanted us to leave. That one even said he didn't care if we were actually doing anything- he just wanted us gone!"
Papaver faltered in his confidence and looked confused. The teenagers didn't say as much as they had before, because they obviously couldn't act all snooty and superior with Rosey's dad there. It would just confirm they were the jerks. So there we stood in a brief awkward silence while I felt satisfied at it at least seemed like Papaver was about to let us get off the hook about apologizing. However, then the one who hadn't really said anything yet spoke up.
"If I may," the brown guy stepped forward, "I'll be the one to make this a bit easier. I have my faults, which is why I'm friends with these idiots behind me, but I count myself honest at the very least. These three, they're fucking assholes. Pardon."
He smiled a small apology as his swearing made Rosey giggle a bit. It didn't phase me, Gilly, or Apple. We'd spent too much time around Malachite. I was also more focused on how the three other teenagers both looked irritated at the brown guy's words and how they all squirmed in embarrassment.
"I have full faith your daughter or daughters or nieces or whoever they are to you were indeed behaving just fine. This isn't the first time my friends have pulled this kind of stunt. I won't say how you should deal with them in regards to taking out stuff, but definitely don't blame them for anything else."
Once again, Papaver didn't say anything. He appeared too confused with how the situation had changed. He simply nodded, the brown guy nodded in response, and he then got a shocked expression out of Rosey when he took his pair of glasses from his friend and held them out to her.
"Here, you can have these as my apology. I don't know exactly what Mintie and Marble did, but I did hear what Cider said to you. I thought what he was doing was wrong, but I just shrugged it off and let it happen. That was my bad."
"I-It's okay." Rosey replied, gently trying to push the sunglasses back.
"Really, go ahead and take them. They're just sunglasses. Besides, giving them to you gives me a reason to get the new pair I've been wanting." the brown guy smiled.
Rosey looked at him, looked at the sunglasses, grinned, and placed them on her head.
"Thanks." she beamed.
"No problem," he said merrily before turning to his friends, "Any of you have anything you want to say?"
Naturally, there wasn't. The guy called Cider just sort of huffed and began to walk away while Mintie and Marble slowly followed. The brown guy, I never did get his name, just shrugged, said his farewells, and rejoined them with his head held high. Papaver motioned us back towards the street and the car, and I think we all simply decided to let the mess be over with.
"Take good care of those sunglasses, Rosey." he spoke to her as we got to the edge of the beach.
"I will." Rosey promised.
"Just to let you know, that's a really expensive, high quality, designer pair." he pointed out in amusement.
"Really?" Rosey wondered in surprise, taking them off her head and examining them, "I shouldn't have taken them then..."
"He made the choice to give them to you, and if he felt as if it wasn't a big deal for him to give them away then he must not be doing so bad for money." Papaver reasoned, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Rosey held the glasses a little tighter before returning them to her head. Papaver glanced at us, we all glanced around wondering how to address the slight unspoken tension, and he came up with the best idea for how to get us to truly just forget it.
"Who wants to get some ice cream?" he offered.
We cheered our approval.
The four of us all hurried over, but Rosey moved the fastest. She approached the older girls with a massive frown on her face.
"Hey." she called to them disapprovingly.
They ignored her. There were slight glances in her direction, but they continued their loud conversation and irritating laughter as if they were the only ones around.
"Hey!" Rosey spoke more gruffly, lightly kicking a small puff of sand at the Mixed girl's foot.
"Watch yourself, brat." she chided with an air of haughty superiority, "Do something like that again, and we're going to have a problem."
"We do have a problem. You ruined our sandcastles!"
"Those lame things? They've been in our way all morning, and since no one else has been here for a while we chose to get rid of them."
"No, they haven't. We've only been here for an hour, and we only left for three minutes. You weren't here then." Rosey argued firmly.
"Whatever. They were going to get messed up at some point. Just build some more and shut up, okay?"
The girl moved quickly enough to patronizingly pat Rosey on the head twice and move on before my cousin could properly retaliate. Rosey only swatted away air, and when she sent another kick of sand, a more powerful one, the wind blew it in the direction opposite of what she wanted. The two teenagers laughed while they walked back to their spot on the beach.
Rosey fumed, and Gilly and I did our best at calming her down. There were lots of words going through my head about the teenagers that I wasn't allowed to say aloud. However, I believed at first the beach to be big enough for all of us. It was indeed that way in reality, actually. There should have been no problem with us having staying at one end and them staying at the other. Unfortunately, the two girls didn't want things to be peaceful. Their idea of fun was to make us miserable. In our naive belief that we could get along, the four of us didn't pay attention to what they were doing while we remade our sandcastles. Then, Apple turned around and let out a cry of annoyance. The girls had taken Rosey's things and dragged them over to the other side of the area really close to the entrance. The spot where the two girls set up their things? Right where Rosey's stuff had been. Apple started to stomp over there, but Gilly held her back. I supported my sister when Apple protested. There was no doubting they would just laugh us off or ignore us again if we complained. It wasn't like we could tell anyone they were being mean, nor did we have the capacity to make them move ourselves.
There was the option to retaliate by kicking lots of sand over them, but we all knew that wouldn't go over well. It would make the girls really mad, and none of us were sure what they would do if they did get truly mad. They already pretended to be at their wit's ends with the normal stuff we did.
"Oh my god! Would you brats stop running around as if you're possessed! You're seriously out of control!" the greenish girl complained with unnecessary dramatics as we ran semi close by playing a game of tag.
Nothing about the game had any effect on the two of them in any way save for us making a faint bit of noise, but you would have thought we'd run right on top of them.
"Where the hell are their parents?" the gray girl spoke with such an exaggerated disgust it made me want to vomit.
"They're probably those pathetic types that just let their kids do whatever they want and basically be feral. They have to be with the way these four are acting."
It really took a lot of will power to not go over there and drown them in sand at that.
I think all our hearts sunk when more people arrived at the beach. I'd hoped at first that the arrival of more people meant that the girls would have to tone down their terribleness now that other people could call them out, yet it wasn't meant to be. The two teenage boys went straight for the girls, and the brown guy and greenish girl locked their lips together so tightly it almost looked as if they'd merged into a single person. The other two kissed as well, although the gray girl had more of a desire to make us miserable.
"Sorry we're late. How's it been?" the orange guy started it off.
"It would have been fine so far, except for those four over there. They've been running around like wild animals ruining the beach for everyone else. That lighter pink girl even threw a hissy fit- kicking sand all over Mintie because she accidentally stepped on her sandcastle."
It should have occurred to me earlier that the girls were trying to frustrate us enough to get us off the beach entirely, but it only hit me then that such a thing was most likely their goal. I whispered the thought to my sister, and Gilly agreed. We four agreed then to stay as long as possible to totally get on their case. Things worked in a different direction though. Off we went to play, and this time when we turned around it was the orange guy touching Rosey's stuff. He shoved her towel, sand in all, in her bookbag before forcibly pushing her music player on top before yanking the zipper closed.
"What are you doing!?" Rosey cried at him, once again running over with us on her heels.
"Look, Marble and Mintie are patient. I'm not. I'm not going to tolerate your antics, so you'd better just leave. I was even nice and packed your things for you." he answered smugly with fake kindness.
"We haven't done anything! It's all them! They came here, destroyed our sandcastles, messed with my things, and complained about stuff we haven't done! Your ugly girlfriends or whoever they are are big fat liars!"
"Listen, you chubby mistake, I don't really give a shit who actually did what," he continued, bringing out his full jerkishness, "I just know that Marble and Mintie don't want you here, and I don't want you here either. You've got five minutes to leave, or you'll find your bag at the bottom of the ocean. If you want to push it past that, we're going to have bigger problems."
Apple looked steamed, and I was confident she would have leapt at the orange idiot had I not motioned her back. Focusing on keeping her under control was the only thing keeping me under control as I otherwise wanted to take whatever swing I could get towards him too. Especially with how he gave Rosey's bag a hard kick before he walked off confidently. Even more so with how tears started to stream down my cousin's face the further he got away.
"I just wanted to come here and have some fun..." she mumbled miserably as she sniffled and fought against her tears.
"It's okay, Rosey," Gilly comforted, guiding her into a hug, "Give it a few years, and those four are going to be miserable college drop-outs stuck working at Chippy Chicks while they waste away in their parents' basements."
"It is times like these where I wish dad had been able to become a police man though. Having him come down here in uniform is a lot more intimidating than having some owner of a book shop come strolling by." I sighed lightly.
"I don't think we have to rely on him to set things a little more right." Apple spoke with a suspicious glee.
I gave her a look.
"What's your plan?" I asked knowingly, and Apple smiled wider.
"They want to mess with your stuff and get us to leave. I say we mess with their stuff while making it even better by leaving."
"Okay? I don't really get what you mean though." Rosey replied.
"How does that really get them back?" I added, "They get what they ultimately want, and we only mildly annoy them."
"You want to steal some of their stuff, don't you?" Gilly piped up with a sigh.
"Exactly! If we have to leave, why not make sure we leave making a message?" Apple confirmed cheerfully.
"Even if they're jerks, we can't steal stuff. That's wrong." my sister pointed out.
"Oh, it's not like we'd take anything important. Just some sunscreen or whatever. They spend a few dollars to have to get some more, and perhaps they get a light burn. No big deal."
"I'm in." I agreed.
"Dianthus." Gilly said my name with a frown.
"I don't want to do the stealing myself, but if you two want to go for it..." Rosey added her gently hesitant approval.
"Do whatever," Gilly sighed again, "Rosey, get your clothes back on first so we can wait farther away. That way we can have a head start when they inevitably come after us."
Rosey dug her clothes out of her backpack, shook out as much of the sand as possible, and waited out of sight of the other four. Apple and I meandered around somewhat doing our best to look like we were about to leave too while also keeping an eye on the teenagers. They clearly thought the orange guy's warning strong enough. In the water they goofed off without paying attention to us. The girls didn't seem to have brought much with them besides their towels, but the two boys had bags sitting there stuffed full of something good. Apple led us forward at the moment she thought best, and we hurriedly dug our hands in to find something acceptable to take.
"What should we take?" I whispered, hurriedly searching, "I don't see any sunscreen. Their clothes? These ear buds?"
"Ohh, sunglasses." Apple smirked as she pulled a pair of spectacles from the brown guy's bag.
"He has some too," I spotted, grabbing the orange guy's pair, "Should I also take his c-"
"Time to go!"
Apple sprung up, grabbed my hand, and rushed me away with her so rapidly it burned my shoulder. However, I brushed aside the pain as I heard the orange guy shout.
"Hey! They're messing with our stuff!"
I turned into a professional sprinter. Honestly, I had no idea my legs were capable of moving so fast. I even slowed myself down thinking I was going to outrun the others, but the same burst of adrenaline fueled speed had Gilly, Apple, and Rosey keeping pace. The longer legs of the older four did give them a technical advantage, but when I glanced back all of them struggled to get out of the clutches of the dragging pull of the shallow water. They were soon completely out of sight. After a minute of us dashing down random side streets, between houses, and around all sorts of corners it was safe to say we'd made ourselves quite scarce. The route we took back to Rosey's place was convoluted, but just in case one of the older group did have an idea of where we were we didn't want to give them a direct path to follow.
However, never at any single point did I feel scared. The rush of running away from being caught truly excited me instead as the justification for what we were doing largely won over the guilt knowledge told me I should feel. My smile was mirrored on Apple, and the four of us climbed the steps to safety all seeming rather pleased with the way things had gone. Then we walked inside, and I did feel somewhat frightened then. Papaver was back, and the second he spotted us the second he strode over with both worry and absolute anger etching deep lines on his face.
"Where in the world have you four been? I was about to start calling around to see what might have happened to you." he demanded in a voice to match his expression.
"We...we were at the beach." I answered uncertainly.
"The beach? Why did you go there early?" Papaver asked incredulously.
"Early? You told us we could just go."
"No, I didn't."
"But...but when I called you on the phone, I asked if it was alright if the four of us could go if we stuck together, and you told me that was a fine plan." I struggled to say, lost as to what I had missed.
Papaver stared at me, and his expression softened.
"Is that really what you asked?" he wondered, and I nodded, causing him to take a deep breath, "I was dealing with a dozen different things when you called, so I guess I wasn't listening properly. I thought you asked if I would take you all to the beach when I got back. Otherwise, I wouldn't have given you permission. I seriously had a heart attack coming back to find you all gone. I thought something had happened."
"Sorry, daddy." Rosey apologized.
"No, it's alright. I will say again that I definitely don't want your four going somewhere alone in the future, but we can just let this incident slide. Although, why are you all so sweaty, and why did you come rushing in here like you did? And what are those?"
He pointed to the sunglasses, and we froze. They obviously didn't belong to us no matter how we could possibly try to explain them.
"Rosey." Papaver somewhat sternly said his daughter's name, and Rosey shrunk under his prompting stare.
"We took them." Apple went ahead and admitted, going ahead and taking the plunge for all of us.
"Took them? From who?" Papaver asked with a frown.
"From some jerk people at the beach. These two teenage girls arrived, and they started being big bullies. Their boyfriends or whatever arrived afterwards. The brown guy didn't really do anything, but the orange one was a big jerk as well. Pap, they were messing with Rosey's stuff, they were saying horrible things, and they threatened us if we didn't leave. So, we decided to mess with them a little before we went ahead and left." Apple explained our case.
"Even so," Papaver let out his deep breath, and he rubbed at his forehead as if he had a headache, "You cannot steal stuff. That's not how you handle those kinds of situations, and that's not how you four are getting away with this. All of you, into the car. We're going back to the beach."
More than getting in trouble for accidentally going out without permission or getting in trouble for stealing, my skin ached and tingled at the thought of having to deal with the other four in any way, shape, or form at any point in my life again. I also had a pretty solid idea of what Papaver expected from us in forcing us reluctantly back to the beach. My stomach bounced around fervently in rejection. My whole body burned as if I stood next to the sun when Papaver placed a hand on my back to get me to shuffle faster towards the sand and the four teenagers came into sight. My slight hope that they'd departed as well after we took the sunglasses died with a raging whirlwind that bludgeoned my chest. I seriously wished I could melt into the ground when the jerk called Mintie caught sight of us, smiled her smug smile, and motioned her friends over to where Papaver motioned us with such a sickening sweet fake grin.
"I've heard that these four have given you a bit of trouble?" Papaver said to them.
I frowned heavily as my anger flared. I get that Papaver had us on the stealing bit, but was he really going to act as if we were entirely to blame? Surely he would at least stand up for us when it came to the older four being terrible?
"We were trying to share the beach, but I guess these four just had the idea that since they got here first they had control over the area. We asked them to give us a little more space, and the next thing we knew they were running off with some of our stuff." Mintie said with over exaggerated hurt.
"Liar!" Apple snapped at her.
"Apple, stop." Papaver reprimanded.
She shot him an enraged glare, and he only faltered slightly. Apple could look quite scary. I assumed that was part of the reason why he turned his attention back to the others.
"I wasn't here, so I don't know who was doing what. I don't know what's being emphasized and what's being left out. All I do know is that these four took or were alright with taking things that didn't belong to them. I've brought them back for them to return your sunglasses and apologize for the thievery and whatever other faults they might have had in this situation." Papaver spoke, taking the sunglasses he had taken from Apple and Me and placing them in the orange guy's outstretched hand.
"I'm sorry for taking the sunglasses, but I'm not sorry about anything else." Rosey huffed out her apology quickly.
"Rosey." Papaver prompted sternly once more.
"I'm not sorry, daddy! We didn't do anything else wrong!"
"I'm not convinced that there's not fault on both sides."
"You just said you had no idea who did what, so how can you suddenly be so sure that we did do more?" I joined in, "Tell mom and dad that I was being stubborn, but I'm not apologizing either! It's not fair for me or Rosey or Apple or Gilly to ask forgiveness for stuff we didn't do."
"Yeah! Everything was fine until those two showed up!" Apple prodded our stance along, "They only acted as if we were being brats because they wanted us to leave. That one even said he didn't care if we were actually doing anything- he just wanted us gone!"
Papaver faltered in his confidence and looked confused. The teenagers didn't say as much as they had before, because they obviously couldn't act all snooty and superior with Rosey's dad there. It would just confirm they were the jerks. So there we stood in a brief awkward silence while I felt satisfied at it at least seemed like Papaver was about to let us get off the hook about apologizing. However, then the one who hadn't really said anything yet spoke up.
"If I may," the brown guy stepped forward, "I'll be the one to make this a bit easier. I have my faults, which is why I'm friends with these idiots behind me, but I count myself honest at the very least. These three, they're fucking assholes. Pardon."
He smiled a small apology as his swearing made Rosey giggle a bit. It didn't phase me, Gilly, or Apple. We'd spent too much time around Malachite. I was also more focused on how the three other teenagers both looked irritated at the brown guy's words and how they all squirmed in embarrassment.
"I have full faith your daughter or daughters or nieces or whoever they are to you were indeed behaving just fine. This isn't the first time my friends have pulled this kind of stunt. I won't say how you should deal with them in regards to taking out stuff, but definitely don't blame them for anything else."
Once again, Papaver didn't say anything. He appeared too confused with how the situation had changed. He simply nodded, the brown guy nodded in response, and he then got a shocked expression out of Rosey when he took his pair of glasses from his friend and held them out to her.
"Here, you can have these as my apology. I don't know exactly what Mintie and Marble did, but I did hear what Cider said to you. I thought what he was doing was wrong, but I just shrugged it off and let it happen. That was my bad."
"I-It's okay." Rosey replied, gently trying to push the sunglasses back.
"Really, go ahead and take them. They're just sunglasses. Besides, giving them to you gives me a reason to get the new pair I've been wanting." the brown guy smiled.
Rosey looked at him, looked at the sunglasses, grinned, and placed them on her head.
"Thanks." she beamed.
"No problem," he said merrily before turning to his friends, "Any of you have anything you want to say?"
Naturally, there wasn't. The guy called Cider just sort of huffed and began to walk away while Mintie and Marble slowly followed. The brown guy, I never did get his name, just shrugged, said his farewells, and rejoined them with his head held high. Papaver motioned us back towards the street and the car, and I think we all simply decided to let the mess be over with.
"Take good care of those sunglasses, Rosey." he spoke to her as we got to the edge of the beach.
"I will." Rosey promised.
"Just to let you know, that's a really expensive, high quality, designer pair." he pointed out in amusement.
"Really?" Rosey wondered in surprise, taking them off her head and examining them, "I shouldn't have taken them then..."
"He made the choice to give them to you, and if he felt as if it wasn't a big deal for him to give them away then he must not be doing so bad for money." Papaver reasoned, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Rosey held the glasses a little tighter before returning them to her head. Papaver glanced at us, we all glanced around wondering how to address the slight unspoken tension, and he came up with the best idea for how to get us to truly just forget it.
"Who wants to get some ice cream?" he offered.
We cheered our approval.
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