Surfer Girl

My friends Natalie Holland, Leanne Gold, Thalia Rope, Jess White, Kate Marie and I all began to walk over to our usual meeting place by the basketball courts for recess. As usual when we arrived, there were the boys that normally sat there with us too. These boys were Jason Rolleston, Mike Alice, and Eric Shane. Jason was a friend of Natalie’s, they had known each other for a few years and since I had been at this school for my two years I had become a good friend of his as well. Mike was Jason’s best friend. And Eric, he could be just such a boy sometimes, and really get on my nerves, but he was a great friend too and really knew how to look out for his friends. But yes, that was a typical school day in the life of me, Becca Eagle.
Today the boys were all planning a day at the beach that coming weekend, and invited me and the girls along. The weather forecast for Saturday was sounding good, so I knew I would definitely go. I hadn’t had a chance to get to the beach for so long, I was itching to go surfing, and I just hoped that the swell was up that day. They decided on Sunny Beach, which I was pleased about, since that was my favourite beach. The boys planned this for the whole twenty minutes of recess.

The weekend eventually came and Natalie’s dad gave all us girls a ride. We were lucky he had a mini-van; otherwise we would all be on top of each other in Thalia’s small car. When we arrived at Sunny Beach, Eric told us to meet them by the Beach House, so I headed that way and the others began to follow. It was a beautiful sunny day. I eventually managed to fit my surf board into the mini-van, which I was pleased about. Around two years ago my parents had decided to move further inland, as we used to live along the coast, and I hadn’t had a lot of chances to get surfing back into my system. Surfing was a part of my life, and although I really hated it when mum told me we were moving to Swallow Heights, I’m glad we did, otherwise I wouldn’t have met the great friends I have now.
“Becca slow down! Why are you in such of a hurry today? You haven’t been this excited for ages,” Jess called out from behind. I hadn’t realised I was walking so fast.
“Sorry Jess, I just can’t wait to go surfing again, you know how much I love it.” I said this as I caught sight of the boys, and then slowed down a bit for Jess.
“Thank-you,” she said.
When we reached them, Mike pointed out my surf board, and sounded surprised. “I didn’t know you surf Becca. I’ve never heard you talk about it.”
“Yeah, of course I surf; I practically talk about it every day. You obviously don’t pay much attention,” I pointed out, flicking my brown curly hair away from my face.
Leanne and Thalia laughed in agreement.
“C’mon Mike, keep up,” Kate laughed. “Since you all planned this day she hasn’t stopped talking about how she can finally get her surf board out of the shed, and finally feel the sand beneath her toes again and –“
“Okay that’s enough about how much I’ve been talking, can we go down to the water now?” I complained. I hated it when they pointed out how much I talk about surfing.
“Yeah, let’s go! There might be some girls down there too!” Eric said.
The girls all gave him a disgusted look as he gestured toward the water. At least I wasn’t the only one who wanted to get down there.
“Alright guys, let’s go.” Jason ordered.
When we found a spot, I quickly dumped my stuff, put on my rash vest and sprinted toward the water. “I’ll see you guys in a bit!” I shouted over my shoulder. I could feel them staring at me like I was a bit strange, but I didn’t care. I could finally get back to the water; get back to what I love. I just hope I could still surf as well as I used to.
As I paddled out, ducking under the decent sized waves, I saw some other people, about my age, paddling out too. I looked over and smiled, though I didn’t know them, and one of the boys smiled back. I turned around and waited for a wave. I could see my friends on the shore watching and waving at me. I waved back. Then I spotted Jason and Eric attacking each other playfully in the water. Mike walked up to them and separated them effortlessly, I’d never noticed how much bigger he was than them, and it made me laugh.
At that moment, I glanced behind me and saw the perfect wave coming up. I began to paddle quickly, the surf board moving smoothly over the water. The boy I had smiled to watched as I caught the wave perfectly, and rode it until it crashed into white foam, still about thirty metres from the shore. It felt great to be surfing again. I smiled and looked up to my friends. Thalia and Natalie had decided to swim out to me. I waited for them, floating on my surf board.
When they reached me they were panting.
“That was amazing! I never knew you were that good!” Natalie exclaimed.
“Really? That was nothing compared to what I used to do. Was it really that good?” I asked. I was serious, that was nothing compared to what I used to do.
“Hell yeah! It was awesome! And that guy out there seemed pretty impressed too.” Thalia smiled and gestured with her eyes over to the boy on the surf board.
I turned around and watched him catch a wave in. He began to paddle over to me.
“We’ll leave you two alone,” Natalie said, shifting her eyes from side to side. I knew what she was thinking, and I smiled at her sarcastically.
As soon as Natalie and Thalia swam off, the boy reached me, baring a big, lovely smile.
“Hi, I saw you catch that wave just before, and it was great. I’ve never seen a girl surf that well. Oh, and by the way, my name’s Dan,” he said to me.
“Hi, thanks. Catching that wave felt great. I haven’t surfed for ages. And my name’s Becca.”
“Well, Becca, I must say you have a natural talent for surfing. How long have you been surfing for?” Dan asked. He seemed to be more interested in me than I thought he would be.
“Well, thank-you, I’ve been surfing for most of my life, until my parents decided to move to Swallow Heights. This is the first time I’ve surfed for at least a year, and I really didn’t think I was that good. I just love it so much,” I replied with a smile.
His blue eyes met mine, and he grinned again.
“Wow, most of your life, that’s the same as me. But I’ve always lived here, in Sunny Beach. None of my friends were ever like me. They were always the sort who would rather go fishing off the jetty than go surfing. I’m sixteen now and I’ve known them my whole life and they still don’t understand me.”
“I think I know what you mean. I’m sixteen too and surfing is pretty much all I talk about at school. My friends don’t get how each day I can come to school and talk something different about surfing. They think at the end of each week that I’ve talked about everything that there is about surfing, but still I come up with something new,” I laughed as I thought about the looks on my friend’s faces every time I said something new about surfing. That bored, irritated look.
“It seems we have a lot more in common than I thought. Do you want to go catch another wave?” He asked with another lovely smile.
I blushed and nodded. “That would be great.”
“I’ll see you out there then,” Dan said as he started to paddle out.
I looked over my shoulder to Natalie and Thalia, floating nearby, who gave an innocent look like they hadn’t been listening at all. I gave them a look that said I would talk to them later, and then looked over to Jason and Mike. They were looking at me, with their faces saying ‘who the heck was that?’, and I just smiled at them, and began to paddle after Dan.
When I arrived by his side, he smiled once again and looked around, waiting for a wave.
I saw a good wave coming, and so I quickly began to paddle and said over my shoulder “I’ve got this one.”
I knew he was looking after me as surfed the wave that turned out bigger than I thought, and the next thing I knew, everything was black and he was shouting in despair.
“Becca! Becca? Are you alright?” he was shouting.
When I opened my eyes I was draped over my board in the water, with Dan pulling at my top. “Huh? What happened?” I asked him. I really had no idea what was happening.
“You wiped out – big time. Are you ok?”He asked. I heard Kate, Mike and Jason coming then, all shouting my name.
“Yes, I’m fine, but I have a disgusting taste in my mouth.” I said as I poked out my tongue.
“Yeah, that would be the sea water,” he explained and nodded at the same time.
Then Jason was talking to me. “Becca? Are you ok? Are you hurt?” he was surprisingly panicked.
“Jason, I’m fine,” I was now sitting up on my board. “I just fell off my board, I’m fine.” I assured him. I coughed a couple of times.
“Maybe you should go sit down for a while,” Kate said, she sounded worried too.
“No, guys, really, I’m fine. You don’t need to keep worrying about me. I am absolutely ok,” I assured them again. Why wouldn’t they stop worrying about me?
“Just make sure you don’t wipe out again, you’ll scare everyone half to death,” Mike said to me.
I looked at him, my face saying that I wasn’t stupid. He swam off at that moment, with Jason close behind him.
“Just be careful,” Kate said to me, and then she swam off behind the boys.
I turned around to Dan, his face now a bit more serious. “Maybe you should listen to your friends,” he said.
I didn’t say anything, I just turned around and began to paddle out again, assuring myself that I was fine and that they didn’t need to keep worrying about me. I caught another couple of waves, and stayed out there for another twenty minutes, then decided to go back to the shore. “I’ll see you later,” I said quietly to Dan, and gently paddled back to shore.
“Yeah, maybe later,” he said quietly, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

When I reached the shore, I went and sat down next to Leanne and Jess. I sat quietly, staring out at the water, and spotted Dan glancing at me. Leanne was the first to speak.
“So, what happened out there? And who’s the guy?” Leanne asked.
“Oh, that’s Dan, just one of the other surfers. And don’t worry about what happened out there, I just fell off my board, no big deal, though Mike and Jason seemed to make a big deal out of it,” I explained.
“It did look pretty bad from here. So . . . what’s Dan like? Is he cute? I couldn’t really tell from over here.” Jess asked in earnest. Here came her gossip side.
“Yeah, I guess he’s okay, he has hazel eyes like mine, and he’s sixteen too.” I told Jess.
She began to get excited. “So, do you think you’ll see him again? Do you have anything in common? Does he love surfing as much as you?” Jess was beginning to get a little too excited.
“Jess, I know what you’re thinking and I don’t want you to try it. Besides, he lives here, in Sunny Beach. But he does have the same problem with his friends like I do with you guys. His friends don’t understand what surfing means to him, how he can talk about it every day. But I understand, of course.”
We sat in silence after that. As the silence went on, I watched Jason, Mike, Natalie, Kate, Thalia and Eric playing around together in the waves. Although we were sitting far away from them, I could tell that Natalie and Jason were flirting with each other. I giggled to myself. It was a funny sight. I looked at Leanne and Jess, who were also giggling after looking at Natalie and Jason as well.

When they all finally decided to come in, it was lunch time, and so we headed off to a cafe. Somehow the cafe we chose had a table that could fit all nine of us onto it, which took me by surprise. We sat down at the four square tables all pushed together. I sat in between Natalie and Thalia, and had Jason across from me. For lunch I ordered a ham, cheese and lettuce sandwich, while my friends ordered things like pastries and doughnuts. Jason ordered a large chocolate Sunday.
I screwed up my face. “Jeez Jason, you’re never going to be a basketball player if you keep eating crap like that,” I told him.
He screwed up his face at me. “And you’re going to end up like a rabbit if you keep eating crap like that,” he mimicked.
I scowled at him, and he smiled back. He knew how much I tried to stick to healthy food. Almost every day he would comment on my ‘rabbit food’, and he knew how much I hated his comments. But I learned to get over it.
While eating my lunch, the whole time I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Dan, and how much he was like me. Although it probably wasn’t possible, I really hoped to see him again. In my mind I could see his bright blue eyes and his lovely smile. At that moment I snapped out of my trance, and heard Natalie trying to get my attention.
“Hello? Earth to Becca! Can you hear me?” Natalie was starting to get impatient.
“Yeah? What was that?” I answered before she could get anymore annoyed.
“Isn’t that Dan sitting over there? It looks like him.” Thalia said.
I quickly looked up as she said his name, and glanced over to where Thalia was pointing. And she was right. It was Dan sitting over at a table on the other side of the cafe. At that moment his blue eyes once again met mine, and he let out a huge grin. Then, to my surprise, he stood up and walked over to our table.
“Hi, fancy seeing you here,” he said, still baring a huge grin.
“Hey, yeah. Umm, Dan these are my friends; Natalie, Thalia, Jess, Kate, Mike, Eric, Jason and Leanne,” I said, gesturing to each of them as I said each of their names. They all looked up. “Hey, everyone, this is Dan, the guy I was surfing with,” I told them all.
They all greeted him nicely.
Natalie gave me a look. Then she turned to Dan. “So, Dan, are you from around here?’ she asked him. She knew this would annoy me.
“Um, yeah, I live here in Sunny Beach. I’ve always lived here. I love it, especially the surf,” he replied.
Natalie spoke again. “Wow, that’s so much like Becca. Surfing is all she talks about.”
This was really starting to annoy me.
“Yes, she told me how much she loves surfing,” he replied again, his blue eyes glancing at me. It sounded like there was a hint of annoyance in his voice.
“So, are you-?” Natalie began again.
“Nat, I don’t think he came over here just to get questions from you,” I cut her off. She pouted, and turned to talk to Leanne. I turned back to Dan. “Sorry, Nat can get carried away sometimes,” I apologised to him.
“That’s fine, you were right though. I didn’t come over here to get questions, I came to ask them. I was just wondering, what you’re doing tomorrow?” he asked me.
I blushed and smiled. “Um, I’m not sure, nothing as far as I know. I think we’re getting picked up at about five o’clock later today . . . to go back to Angle Vale.” I said to him.
He looked disappointed. “Oh, okay, I was just going to ask if you would like to come surfing with me tomorrow, I’ve heard the surf is going to pick up at about ten o’clock tomorrow morning. But, I guess you probably won’t be making another trip here tomorrow. Never mind.” Now he sounded disappointed.
Natalie turned around to say something. I wasn’t surprised she was listening. “I just remembered, I’m . . . uhh . . . my dad needs to um . . . stay in Sunny Beach for the night for his work and . . . Becca and I are staying with him . . . at the hotel. You remember that, don’t you Becca?” she winked at me, trying to get me to play along.
“But I don’t have any other clothes with me,” I whispered to her. She decided to answer for me.
“She’ll see you at the beach tomorrow morning, say about . . . nine thirty?” Natalie said to Dan with a smile.
He gave a half-hearted smile back to her and nodded. “Uh, yeah, okay. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then Becca. Um . . . bye,” he walked off quickly, with one last glance over his shoulder at me.
I sat there with my mouth open. I turned to Natalie. “Natalie Holland what have you done? You’re dad doesn’t even work on the weekends! And what about clothes? I don’t have any pyjamas, or any other clothes to wear for that matter! And how is your dad going to get a hotel room on a Saturday night?” I almost began to shout.
Natalie quietened me. “Shh Becca, be calm. I have everything under control,” she was speaking to me like I was from another planet. “It can’t be that hard to get a hotel room, even one of the crappy little motels that look like no one uses them would do. C’mon, just look at him,” she turned me toward Dan. “He’s cute, and he’s practically asked you on a date tomorrow, how can you refuse?” she seemed to be giving very good reasons.
I gave a concerned look. “How are the other girls going to get home?”
I could tell that she hadn’t thought about that yet. She looked at the boys. “Well, how did the boys get here?”
Mike looked up to answer. “We caught the bus here, the girls would be safe with us, you know that.” He replied with an assuring voice.
“Well, what about money for the bus tickets?” I asked. Natalie was beginning to get annoyed.
“They’ll figure it out, I’m sure. Just stop worrying about the others and think about yourself for once. How long has it been since you’ve been asked on a date? And how long has it been since you’ve gotten this much of a chance to go surfing for a whole weekend? If it were me I’d be taking any chance I could to get there tomorrow.” Natalie said.
I thought about it, and figured she was right. “Ok, if you’re sure you can get a room and what about the clothes-?” I began again.
“Just leave it all to me. Trust me; I’ll take care of it.”
I did trust her. I trusted Natalie with a lot of things. So I just went on with it. There was no point in arguing anymore. If Natalie was involved in an argument, you knew she would win.

After that we all decided to go back down to the beach and have some more fun. Since it hadn’t been half an hour since I’d eaten, I decided to not go back in the water yet. Leanne, Jess, Kate, Thalia and I were all smart that way, and so they stayed on the shore with me. We sat close to the water and began to build sandcastles and have our own fun while Natalie, Jason, Mike and Eric went and played in the water again. I told them what would happen if they went back in the water straight away, but do you think they would listen to me? Of course not. So I told them that if they came back to us with stomach aches I was just going to laugh. But to my slight disappointment, they came back about an hour later feeling totally fine.
Eric came and sat down beside me. “So, you’re meeting up with this Dan bloke tomorrow. Do you like him? You know, like a friend?” Eric asked me. His questions slightly confused me.
“Um, sure, I guess I like him as a friend. Since when would you care though?” I didn’t want to sound mean when I said that.
“Well, Becca, you hardly know the guy, and you’re going to be surfing with him alone. I’m your friend and I worry about you sometimes. How do you know you’ll be safe?” he said.
“Eric, I was surfing with him today and I was totally fine, what could possibly happen tomorrow?” I asked back.
“Yeah, nothing happened because Mike, Jason and I were nearby. I just want to know that you’ll be safe tomorrow.”
“Eric, I’ll be fine. Besides, what do you think Natalie’s going to be doing? You know she won’t let me leave her sight for one second. You know how she gets.” I protested.
He laughed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right there. Nat won’t leave you. She’s the one you can always trust. Never lose that faith, you hear me Becca Eagle?” He smiled.
I laughed back. “Yes I hear you Eric Shane. Never lose faith.”