Everblue

Chapter 7 - Ash

ASH

 

As soon as practice was over, I went directly to the dance chairman and asked to be removed from the ballot. With a puzzled expression, he informed me voting had already begun. My time to decline needed to have happened when nominations took place in homeroom earlier in the week.

I'd been late to class Monday. Georgia insisted we talk to Coach Madsen after practice because someone stole her swimsuit out of her locker over the weekend—which she later found at home. The vote must have taken place then.

Colorful signs requesting support for Brooke and other candidates littered the halls and mocked me as I left his office. Whoever nominated me had played the worst joke ever and when I found out who, they'd get a piece of my mind. Even still, I wasn't attending.

Shivering from my wet hair, I jumped into Mom's car parked in the student parking lot and cranked on the heater. Work duties prevented her from picking me up as usual.

I zipped through town, anxious to talk to Tatchi. With a screech, I parked on the pier and briskly walked across the wooden railroad ties of the dock toward the life-sized cutout of Captain Jack, Tatchi's dad, propped next to the door. He and Fin would more than likely be on an excursion, showing tourists the bay. Oblivious of the closed sign, I yanked on the locked door with the wrath of a woman scorned, and hurt my arm.

 "What?" I mumbled as I looked through the plate-glass window into a darkened interior. "Where are they?"

Confused, I knocked hard against the glass, but there was no answer.

"Mom?" I asked, while walking into Gran's shop and dropping her keys on the counter. "Did they run any charters today at Captain Jack's?"

She looked up at me over her bifocals and took the pencil out of her mouth. "What?"

I pointed towards Captain Jack's. "Are they closed today?"

"Ummm. Are they?" She glanced behind me. "I don't know. Could you help me organize these?"

In a box at her feet were oodles of new T-shirts that said "Don't messy with Tessie." I pursed my lips. Last thing I wanted to do was fold shirts. I had to find Tatchi—quick. I'd go to her house if I had to; my life was at stake.

"I need to get home. I've got a lot of homework—"

"Ashlyn Frances. You can help me for fifteen minutes."

"Fine." I dumped my gym bag and marched over. "What do you want me to do?"

"That's my girl. I'll inventory the shirts and put them in piles. Tag a price on these, then hang them on that rack by size. The leftovers go in bins over here, folded."

Fifteen minutes, yeah, right.

"Mom, I'm only helping for a few minutes, and then I seriously have to go."

The pencil was back in her mouth and she was counting again. With a roll of my eyes, I started on the first stack.

After thirty minutes passed, I was still hanging shirts on hangers. It took all my self-control not to rip down the papier-mâché plesiosaur that hung over the top of the display.

This is all your fault, you know.

She stared back at me with empty black eyes. Tessie, the biggest hoax in history, was an invented monster to trap tourists into buying the kind of crap Gran sold. The dinosaur's picture covered everything: cups, hats, bottle openers, stuffed animals, postcards, calendars, key chains—you name it. And every week, Gran and Mom were thinking up new slogans and promotions to spin the fad. They even worked out a special "Tessie watching" charter with a free shirt if you saw the beast, which everyone did because there was a mini-golf dinosaur statue planted underwater.