Former Glory

"What the hell do you bunch think you're doing?"
The shout was an infuriated one. Loud, too. It carried across the backyard, from the back door of the shadowy house to the pool. The pool from which three guilty girls clad only in their underwear shot out of the cool water in a tangle of arms, legs, and bodies.
Laya Sterling almost fell on her face as she grabbed one end of her towel in her haste to get out of the place, and accidentally stood on the other.
"Quick! Hurry! Let's go!" Kirsty was already running for the side of the house. Laya broke into a desperate sprint after her, but it was short-lived when a short, dark figure seemed to materialize out of the dark, cool midnight air. Heart pounding, she slammed on the breaks.
Malindi let out a scream and shot sideways, vanishing into the darkness. Kirsty bolted after her.
The figure charged after them, clearly enraged. But it only took the person a second to realise that the skinny, fleet footed sixteen year old would easily outdistance their plump, short legged sixty-something selves.
So, they turned to Laya.
"You're trespassing," Mr Clarke grated, something Laya was, in fact, very well aware of. Part of the fun, she thought. But it was a fleeting thought, because Mr Clarke was coming at her, looking very, very angry. She glanced about for means of escape. He'd cut off the path her friends had taken, so she needed an alternative. Preferably very quickly. "I don't know what you kids have gotten into your big heads these days, but you sure are bold, arrogant, conceited little devils."
Laya continued to look about wildly. Trespassing on the sour old man's property wasn't exactly unheard of among the kids at school. In fact, it was a common activity. A few dumb blond cheerleaders, one of which Laya had fair reason to passionately dislike, had got caught because they didn't know how to run properly, and they'd gotten into serious crap over it. Mum had heard about it, claimed it was 'utterly disgraceful' and threatened that if Laya or Zena dared to trespass and swim naked in the pool, they would be grounded for a year to do nothing but homework and to clean the house. Little did Mum know that Laya had already trespassed on Mr Clarke's property four times prior to the dumb girls getting caught. But Mum didn't need to know that. She also didn't need to know that Laya had snuck out in the middle of the night to repeat the actions for a fifth time tonight. Or about all the tales and stretched truth of her whereabouts during late hours of the night and early hours of the morning. All of which Zena had done many more times than she had. Laya wasn't exactly keen on being grounded for one year, let alone the five that Mum would probably deal out for every time she'd trespassed, so she wasn't too thrilled on the idea of being caught.
Mr Clarke was only a couple of metres away, and Laya was currently finding herself getting cornered inch by inch in the weedy, overgrown garden that stretched along the base of the two metre high wooden fence that marked the boundary of Mr Clarke's property and the neighbour's property. There was no way forward. There was no way right. And no way left.
After wondering vaguely if it was worthwhile breaking her neck in her escape from the man, Laya decided to take the fence. Grasping the top rail of the fence, she hauled herself upwards, using her feet to propel her along. She didn't have much time to take a breath before she crash landed headlong into the hard surface of this solid thing called Earth, on the other side of the fence. Mr Clarke was swearing at her, and shaking his fist in frustration.
"Language," she taunted, realising she was safe. It came out as more of a rasp because she was slightly winded from her fall, but it came out nonetheless and that was all that mattered.
Mr Clarke thumped on the fence, and suddenly worried that Mr Clarke was getting all agile on her, fear of being found out lent her wings. She sprinted into the shadows of the neighbouring house and crouched behind a statue rising out of the gardens. After a few heart pounding moments, Mr Clarke's figure disappeared from the other side of the wall. Playing it safe, Laya stayed very still for a few more moments, taking the time to catch her breath. Her entire body hurt, including her chest and ribcage from her racing heart. It wasn't until the light went off in Mr Clarke's house, the life of his place seemed to die down and the threat of him catching her had faded considerably, that Laya began to relax. She almost laughed in relief. Swimming in her underwear with her two friends at one o'clock in the morning on a Friday night wasn't a new event to her, but this was the closest they'd ever come to being caught. Heck, one time, he hadn't even woken up at all.
Realising Kirsty and Malindi were out there somewhere, and that she’d lost her towel in the escapade, Laya stood up slowly and quietly. She need to get out of here as quick as she could. Seriously, who wanted a girl in her underwear in their garden? Peeking out from either side of the statue to make sure the coast was clear, though she was pretty sure it would be considering it was just after one in the morning, Laya went to move out into the open.
Where she was suddenly swamped in light that hadn’t been there a split second ago. And then a voice was asking, not in a shout or even loudly, but in a slow, low voice that was laced with pure astonishment, for the second time that night,
“What. The. Hell?”