Julie and the Jungle Girl

The Training Begins

The next morning, Julie received word from Gina that Kimi was free of her concussion symptoms. So she got dressed in her best furkini—jungle girl's gotta look good!—washed her hair and took off from the treehouse to the research camp.

She arrived half an hour later. One of the guards was busy having a smoke and had their iPod earbuds in. Julie could hear some distorted Rock 'n' Roll coming from the guard's earphones, which made her remark to herself that he either likes it loud or has the worst hearing out of anyone there. The guard looked up and down Julie's figure before settling on her chest. A look of disgust appeared as he looked away, prompting Julie to smack his cheek. "What, are my boobs not big enough for you, pervert?" she asked. "So what if they're fucking average? At least they're real! HMPH!"

She walked away before running into John again. And he was sharpening his knife until he looked up at her, giving her a look that screamed that he heard her accosting the asshole guard. "You're in a fine mood," he said.

"Did no one tell him not to mess with me?" she asked.

"I prefer to let people find out on their own," said John. "Of course, it doesn't always work, but it helps."

Julie didn't have much to say, so she walked past as he took a sip of the Jack he took from Gina's tent the other night. So that's what happened to it.

She came across Gina doing some paperwork in the middle of the camp. Sunscreen was slathered all over her nose and the rest of her body, which looked pale, when compared to Julie's healthy tan and freckles. And Gina recognized that upon seeing Julie standing next to her. "Hello, Ms. Bronze Jungle Goddess," she said sarcastically. "I take it you're here to pick up our guest."

"Yep!" said Julie. "Let's just get this over with.

She found Kimi outside the medical tent, without the IVs sticking out of her arms and looking a lot better than earlier. She was also eating a rather hefty breakfast of eggs, sausage, cereal, mangoes and pineapple, which was a good sign. Julie didn't mind Kimi's disinterest in her. In fact, it was a lot less awkward than the hero-worship treatment she'd been getting for the past couple of days. It felt normal. Wait, normal? In a jungle-girl story?

Comparatively, anyways. I mean, yeah, there can be such a thing as normalcy in jungle girl story—SHOT

A-HEM. Moving on.

A team member handed Julie a peeled mango. The jungle girl shrugged and took a bite out of it, then wiped some of the juice off of her lips and chin before sitting down. She watched Kimi, who was engrossed in her breakfast, wolf it down. She also looked over at some of the other team members watching Kimi. They were staring at her. Well now, that's rude! Julie always assumed that manners were manners wherever you went. Kimi might be snarfing her food down right now, but she hadn't had much to each over the past few days. Didn't give them the right to stare!

She cleared her throat. "It's not polite to stare!" she chided in a sing-song voice.

"She looks like you when you eat," said one of the team members."

"That joke's gotten old," she replied before taking a wolf-like bite out of mango.

Kimi looked up and almost coughed her sausage out before keeping it in. "Julie!" she cried excitedly.

"Picking you up," Julie replied. "Of course, I'm gonna wait until you're done eating, since it looks like—"

"But I can—"

"HEY. Who's the teacher here? Now finish your breakfast!"

She should've gotten a clue when Kimi recoiled in surprise before resuming her breakfast.