Coastal City: The Dream Fish Part III

I know some bits are impossible, forgive me. :D It’s fantasy. I think I missed some errors so please tell me if you spot any.

“Quit horsin’ around, your fish is dead. And you’re lucky it is, I would have hammered the crud out of it, I mean, look at my foot, it’s bleeding like hell.”

“My mum doesn’t like it when people say stuff like that inside the house…”

“You’re sounding gay, Nate.”

“Ah, just come and see the fish before I slit your other foot. You’re really starting to piss me off, you know that?”

“You might want to help me up, chum.”

Halvar was still sitting on Nathan’s bed, letting his blood flow into the space between the floorboards like toxic waste would into sewers. Nathan helped Halvar venture his way to the bathroom, Halvar’s leg bent to keep his foot from hitting anything.

Halvar leaned on the bathroom sink, and then he glanced into the white toilet bowl. He hopped on one foot as Nathan watched him, and Halvar put the toilet lid down to sit on it.

“Looks like you got yourself a new fishbowl.” He stretched his leg forward, the cut extended halfway across his foot from his heel. Nathan stared in wonderment; the droplets of blood contrasting on the piercing white tiles seemed gorgeous, in a very awkward way.

…

“So are we still going surfing?” asked Nathan, Halvar had just finished cleaning the cut and bandaging then.

“You’re nuts. You want me to go surfing with this foot?” Halvar limped out of the room, holding on to whatever he can hold on to. After getting all the way to the door, he looked back at Nathan. “Well, aren’t you coming with me?”

“I thought we weren’t going surfing anymore?” asked Nathan, he wiped his sweat off with his sleeve.

“All my stuff is at Calais’; I only have my wetsuit with me here.”

“You can get them back next week.”

Halvar hissed, his foot hit the side of the door. “Do you know Rosie?”

“Who’s Rosie?”

“Calais’ dog. She bites on everything. And I don’t think Calais would ever stop her demon dog if it decided to chew on our surfboards.”

“Wait, our surfboards?”

Halvar hobbled down without saying anything further, Nathan followed, or rather, overtook.

…

The beach was only across the street from the Mendoza’s house. The two went straight to the beach instead of going to the house. They knew Calais would be at the beach, with their equipment and some food…and Rosie.

Calais, having tanned skin, spent most of her time at the beach, she never wore sunscreen or hats, and she never wore pants, just shorts. She had always remained aloof to her parents, but had always been quite sadistic and loquacious to her classmates. She wasn’t as snobbish as the other Mendozas at school; as a matter of fact, Calais avoided her much wealthier cousins.

As the two blokes doddered down the beach, they were met by Calais’ father, who was strikingly tall for someone whose family had been connoted for midget.

“Hello, boys. Are you looking for Calais?” Nathan and Halvar only nodded, they had already tasted Mr. Mendoza’s strictness before when the two took early bites into the sandwiches prepared by Mrs. Mendoza without saying their prayers.

“She’s at home. You boys aren’t going surfing, are you?”

“No, sir, we aren’t.” answered Halvar. Nathan gave him a curious look after seeing that Halvar had buried his gashed foot into the sand and was shaking quite anxiously.

“Oh. That’s a good idea, lads. You don’t want to get near the water today,” said Mr. Mendoza, he put on his blue cap. “Well, I better be off now.”

Calais’ father immediately went and called a cab. Nathan was supposed to ask him why they shouldn’t get into the water but became frightened of what the old man might answer. Mr. Mendoza looks at the boys very sharply and it wasn’t very comfortable.

“He knows we can surf even when it’s cold, right?”

“There must be something wrong with the water today.” answered Halvar, he pulled his foot out of the sand.

“Let’s go see the water, then.”

“No, you screb. You’re going to kill me. My foot’s sore as hell, you know that? Now let’s go to Calais’ house and ask her instead, alright? My foot’s sore as hell, sore as hell, I tell you.”

…

“So where is our stuff?” asked Nathan. They were already at Calais’ house. Her mother wasn’t home so the two weren’t very given much hospitality.

“They’re in the storage room, I think.” answered Calais nonchalantly.

“You put our surfboards in your storage room?” asked Halvar. He rubbed his left ankle as he sat on the Mendoza’s couch. A straight red line on the bottom his bandage was already conspicuous but neither Nathan nor Calais cared to tell him to change his binding.

“Do you want me to put them in the kitchen and give them to Rosie as lunch?”

Calais left them in the living room, and came back pushing their surfboards. She wiped off her sweat with her handkerchief, and then she put her hands on her waist and stared at the two.

“You know, there are tons of sharks in the water right now. I’m pretty scared.” she said.

“Sharks?” Halvar curled his eyebrows. “You’re kidding?”

“I’m not. I thought you went to the beach first? There are so many of them they can barely swim and they’re very close to shore…and they’re huge.”

Sharks in Coastal City’s waters seemed normal to Nathan, and it seemed to him that Calais was just exaggerating things. After all, the man from the carnival did catch plenty of them there, so the sharks weren’t surprising at all. But his eyes widened as Calais continued her talk.

“I never thought this was even possible. I’ve always thought the water here was too shallow for those sharks. I mean, I can’t imagine how they were all able to get here in just a couple of hours.”

“That’s really weird.” said Halvar.

Nathan just sat there, was it somehow his fault? Did the little shark he freed into the water call its giant brethren or something? The shark incident was definitely very weird, and as he thought about it, he realised how eerie his little Prie was.