The Zachary Donovan Enigma - (( Watty Awards! ))

The Zachary Donovan Enigma - (6)

Chapter six.

(6)

The bell suddenly rang, and I threw down the basketball in relief. In half an hour I had managed to trip twice, get hit in the head with the ball three times, and the only hoop I had scored – was for the other team. Yeah, sport was definitely not my best subject.

The ball rebounded off the timber floor and hit me in the arm. I glared at it furiously and kicked it to the other side of the sport centre. Gah!

I gathered my stuff and trudged off in the direction of the changing rooms. Thank god physical education was my last subject for the day.

I took my time getting dressed into my bikini’s, throwing my school uniform over the top, and emerged from the room to immediately slam into someone’s chest. I looked up to see Eli grinning down on me.

“Hey,” he said, wiping a strand of sweaty hair out of my eyes and tucking it behind my ear.

I turned past him and kept walking. “Hi,” I grumbled. I was not in the mood right now.

He caught onto my foul mood and chuckled. “Sport’s really not your thing is it?”

“No.”

He kept pace with me as I walked to my locker. By the time I got there, Emma had already left for the day so I didn’t get another chance to talk to her.

The conversation at lunch time had gone similar to the one this morning, and she had left to sit with Amy and Faith, leaving Eli and I to sit on the oval by ourselves. I’d taken advantage of the opportunity to force him to translate the gibberish of physics and projectile motion to me. Sometimes having a genius for a boyfriend came in handy.

Eli held open my bag while I piled in my calculus book and the thousands of history notes Zach had kindly given me to read. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do than read pages and pages of boring dates and events that no one cared about anymore.

I slung the bag over my shoulder and nearly fell over backwards from the weight of it. Eli laughed and grabbed me before I crashed to the ground. I sighed and pulled my other arm through the strap.

We passed the homeroom teacher and walked into the parking lot. Once settled inside the car, I began fiddling with the radio dial until I found a station playing a decent song. I smiled and settled back into the seat to calm down from the stressful P.E. lesson as the music washed over me.

Eli watched me with amusement, but kept his mouth shut until we reached the beach, which was less than a twenty minute drive away.

Eli turned off the ignition, and from the car park on top of the cliff, we could see the small specks of the other surfers floating out in the water.  Waves crashed over the jagged rocks which surrounded the point, and that the surfers managed to safely avoid.

I gulped subconsciously as I watched a surfer attempt a barrelling wave, but lost his balance and ended up getting dumped.

“Are you sure this is the best place to go?” I asked, suddenly nervous.

“Nope,” he grinned, “But we’re here now.”

I sighed, watching him climb out of the car, and reluctantly followed suit. Wind whipped around the top of the cliff and down the side, sweeping the waves into white capped peaks. I was starting to have second thoughts about this.

Eli unloaded the boards from the roof rack, and placed them fins-up on the bitumen. I could guess which one was mine. There was a sturdy fibreglass one about half the size of the other, which was taller than me, and made of foam.