Wrong Place, Wrong Time

“Grubs up!”

I glanced behind me and saw that two of Justin’s friends, Brian and James, were holding up badly burnt sausages. Brian noticed me looking over and yelled “Sausage Mace?”

They had given me a pet name after the first barbeque we’d had at Justin’s tent. This was the third, and I quite frankly was getting sick of eating burgers and burnt sausages.

“No thanks, I’ll stick with a burger thanks.” I smiled, “Unless you’ve burnt those as well?” I joked and Brian pretended to be offended.

“Nope, they are completely not burnt.” James jumped in and walked over to pull me up from the grass. I followed him back to the tiny barbeque that had been overloaded with food, there looked to be more then enough to feed the people there, and there were at least fifteen of us. Brian handed me a burger in a teacake and I reached down for the ketchup.

“So, I never knew that Bridget had a little sister?” James spurted. I glanced up at him and then looked back down at my burger, carefully trying to get some sauce out of the bottle without getting it all over myself.

“I didn’t know that you knew her.” I laughed and gave up with the ketchup, to save myself the embarrassment. “But yes, she’s stuck with me.”

Emma came bumbling over then, spilling half of whatever she was drinking all over the floor. She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and smiled down at me.

“You don’t happen to know where your sister has wandered off to do you. I want to ask her about something.” Emma slurred slightly. I glanced over my shoulder to see who had the alcohol, and who the idiot was that gave it to my sister’s lightweight best friend. After two more cans she would probably pass out.

“I haven’t seen her for a while Emma,” I replied, “Why?”

"Because I want to talk to her, silly.” Emma tutted and patted me on the head. I heard James and Brian stifle laughter and I shot them a deadly glare. Emma gave up almost as quickly as she had started and wandered off to talk to someone else. I shook my head and turned back to James.

“You haven’t seen my sister recently have you?” I asked the pair and James shook his head. Brian on the other hand thought my question over for a few minutes before answering.

“Actually I think she went off with Justin somewhere.” Brian informed me. I nodded and took a small bite out of my burger. “I’m not entirely sure where they went though. Probably off for a little romantic walk.”

James chuckled and shook his head, slapping his friend on the back. “You know Bridget doesn’t go for the pretty boys, so if it’s a so called romantic walk, then only one party will be thinking that.”

I rolled my eyes at what you could say were my newly found friends and looked around the campsite. We had ended up staying in one of those less family orientated sites, the ones that are still nice, but not as nice as the ones aimed at families. Everywhere you looked there were large groups of teenagers, all having their own little parties. No wonder my sister had said she felt so at home here.

“Are you guys coming down to the beach with us tomorrow?” I asked James and Brian and they both nodded. They reminded me of some kind of double act.

“I think so, are you still going down even if it’s raining?” Brian asked me. I nodded.

“I think so, Justin said he’d teach me how to surf at some point, and tomorrow supposed to be the best day we’re going to get while we’re down here.” I shrugged. “So I might as well.”

“What about your sister and Emma?” James asked me, his eyes wandering over to where a slightly tipsy Emma sat hugging some random guy whose name I didn’t know. “If Emma has sobered up by then.” He grinned.

“I don’t know about Bridget, but if it rains Emma will be sitting in the tent all day.” I explained and glanced back over at Emma again. “Though maybe she’s found someone to keep her company?” I laughed and the boys nodded in agreement.

“How old are you?” Brian asked a few minutes later. I looked up at him, his brown curly hair blowing about in the wind.

“I’ve just turned sixteen.” I replied. “Why?”

“You really don’t seem to be sixteen.” Brian replied and laughed. “My sister’s the same age as you, and she wouldn’t be caught dead camping in a muddy field.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” I replied with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh yeah! I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” Brian laughed again.

“Well, have you seen the role model I have?” I asked him and then smirked slightly. “Don’t tell Bridget I said that.”

“Why? Would she be mad?”

“Not mad, but she might hit me.” I smiled to myself and shook my head. “She’s got a bit of a temper.”

“Yeah, she was in my food class in high school.” Brian explained, “Once I accidentally spilled some chilli sauce into something she was cooking. I thought she was going to murder me.” He smiled at the memory. “I don’t blame her though; she had spent almost two hours slaving away trying to make this fancy French dish that no one else had heard of. I’d have been annoyed if I were her as well.”

“Do you guys want a drink?” James called over to us. I hadn’t even realised that he had moved away from us and over to the cool box that seemed to be the source of all the drinks floating around here there and everywhere.

“Go on then, toss us a beer.” Brian replied and James rooted round the cool box for a can of beer. He pulled one out and threw it to Brian, who caught it neatly.

“What about you Macy?” James asked. I shrugged.

"Just give me whatever.” I replied. “Though I’d think carefully about what you pick.”

“Would Bridget be mad if you were drinking?” Brian asked and yanked the ring pull on his can of beer. He swiftly placed the can to his lips and tilted his head back.

“She wouldn’t be mad, but she probably wouldn’t approve. And she’d probably not talk to you for a month.” I turned to look back over at a confused James. “Lemonade is your best bet.” I grinned and he pulled one out of the box.

“Most girls have an overprotective older brother, you get a stubborn, slightly violence prone, overprotective older sister.” James laughed and handed me a cold can of lemonade. “Why wouldn’t she approve of you drinking?”

“Because she wants to make sure that I, and I quote, never make the same mistakes she did” I rolled my eyes.

“Oh, right.” James shrugged and then looked at Brian, who looked like he was going to start laughing. “It’s probably a good idea that you don’t then, after what your sister got up to in high school!” Brian burst out laughing.

I frowned at the pair. “You’re not going to elaborate on that are you?” I asked them both and they both shook their heads, doubling over with laughter.

“Fine then, don’t tell me anything.” I frowned at them and took another sip of my drink. The boys both looked over at me at the same time.

“Trust me, its probably better that you don’t know.” James patted me on the shoulder and I raised an eyebrow at him.

“And why’s that?” I asked.

“Because if you knew your sister would kill us for telling you.” Brian explained and took a quick swig of his beer. “And we value our lives too much.”

“What makes you think that she’ll find out that I know?”

She’s a smart girl. Sometimes I think she’s got a sixth sense or something.” James joked and shrugged. “But its best to leave it.”

“Fair enough.” I shrugged as well and looked around the group of people once again.

My sister’s small group had ended up merging with Justin’s rather large group, but even though there were many more of us then we originally thought there would be, I still only talked to a select few of them. My cousin, although he was originally going to be spending time with us, had befriended some of Justin’s friends and seemed like he would much rather spend time with them then with us. It didn’t bother me that much, my sister on the other hand wasn’t too happy about it. She didn’t like the huge crowd that we had somehow become associated with. She knew most of them from high school, and she kept reminding me they weren’t worth our time.

Emma on the other hand had a very different attitude towards the quickly expanding group. She kept telling me exactly the opposite of what my sister did, and I kind of sided with her. After all, I had nothing against all these new people; I just didn’t know them well enough to feel comfortable around.

It seemed, even though there were so many of us, that the only people on the trip were Bridget, Emma, Justin, Brian, James and I. We were the only ones supposedly going down to the beach tomorrow, but I knew that someone else would probably show up a couple of hours later after their hangover had subsided.

I saw my sister walking back over to the tent and I smiled and waved her over to where I was standing. She didn’t look very happy.

“What's the matter Bridget?” I asked once she was in earshot. Brian and James had wandered off by this point.

“If I go a week without murdering that Harrington boy, I will have accomplished something.” She mumbled and crouched down next to the cool box and fished out a drink.

“Care to share?” I asked and she shook her head violently. I decided to leave it at that, considering I knew how when my sister got worked up about things, sometimes it was better if she didn’t talk about it.

“He’s just so annoying.” She announced a few minutes later. When I quizzed her for some more information about it she refused to give me it. “You do not even want to get me started on what an ignorant, vile asshole he really is Macy, you really don’t.”

“Are you talking about me by any chance Bridget?” Justin asked from behind us, I glanced over my shoulder and saw him stood with his arms crossed over his chest, looking rather smug, like he’d won some sort of bet. “I told you that you wouldn’t be able to go five minutes without insulting me.”

“Leave me alone Justin.” Bridget shook her head at him and took another long drink of her beer. “You’re really running my holiday.”

“I wish I could make you feel better by saying that the feeling is mutual dear, but it is really not.” Justin grinned. “You see, I’m getting too much enjoyment out making you mad.”
Bridget’s face dropped even more then I thought would be possible and then she turned to glare at Justin. I felt so out of place, stuck in the middle of their little argument.

“You are such a pain.” Bridget reminded Justin, who just laughed and walked over to stand next to me. He casually draped his arm around my shoulder and watched my profile quietly for a few moments.

“Macy doesn’t think so, do you Macy?” He asked me and then smirked at my sister.

“I... I can’t really comment.” I replied and let my eyes flash between Justin and my sister. Bridget didn’t look best pleased with my answer, but I think she was just happy that I hadn’t taken anyone’s side.

“See, my sister is smart. She knows better then to let people such as you into her life.” Bridget grinned and then stood up properly and scanned the campsite. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go find someone to talk to who I can have a pleasant conversation with.”

With that Bridget turned on her heels and stormed off in the direction that most people seemed to be gathered in. I watched her walk away, as confused as I had been to begin with. I wanted to know why she hated Justin so much, but I knew that if I asked her straight out she wouldn’t tell me. I frowned to myself and then remembered Justin’s arm was still draped across my shoulder. I politely stepped away from him and then smiled.

“Oh, sorry.” Justin laughed, “I’d forgotten you were still there.”

“Yeah, too busy arguing with my sister I think.” I replied and we both smiled. To be completely honest, he didn’t seem that bad, not really. Sure when you first started talking to him he seemed very full of himself, but once you got past that he was a somewhat decent guy.

Justin frowned slightly at the mention of my sister and then quickly replaced it with another smile. “She really does hate me doesn’t she?”

“Oh yes.” I replied. “I haven’t a clue why though.”

“Its probably better if you didn’t know.” Justin replied. “Bridget likes to keep things to herself. I know that much. Plus if you knew why she hated me, you’d probably hate me as well.”
I frowned. “That’s basically telling me that I should really hate you, I think.” I replied and then shook my head.

“Yeah, kind of.” Justin laughed to himself. “But Bridget has the wrong end of the stick, about a lot of things when it comes to me.” Now it was Justin’s turn to frown. “Ok, so I’m not making any sense. All I’m saying is, you might hear things about me that might make you hate me, but they’re not all necessarily true.”

“Right.” I nodded slowly, still a little bit confused.

“Bare that in mind Macy, for future reference.” Justin grinned, his eyes somehow managing to light up in the slowly darkening camp site. “I’m not as much as a bad guy as some people make me out to be.”