Bart's Friend Diggs

Chapter 4

"Let's go into the national park," Diggs had said while we headed back inside, "Let's climb the mountain and see the world below us!"

This seemed totally random, and he looked between both me and Lisa to see if his idea had any support from us.

"Er..." I hummed out, thinking through his plan.

"Definitely!" Lisa said, almost swooning at the thought, "I mean, we won't have nature forever at the way the world is going."

"The world is always going," Diggs told her, making a circle in the air with his index finger, "It's spinning on an axis."

"Yes," Lisa said, crooking a coy smile up one side of her lips, "I know. A tilted axis to be correct."

"You're not wrong," Diggs replied wisely and clasped his two hands together as he eyed the forest far off in the distance, "You in, Bart?"

I blinked my eyes, surprised to be included back into the conversation, "Hey, I have to have something to eat first."

"Alright, alright." Diggs said, pulling out his phone and looking at the time, "You have five minutes, staaaarting NOW!"

"Wait- what?" I yelped, and saw he had put a timer on his phone, "At least give me ten minutes!"

"Thirty seconds have already passed!" He shouted at me, and I bounced back and forth on my feet, growling angrily but ran inside and pulled out a nutrition bar from the cupboard. I ripped open its wrapper and came back outside, shoving the nutty bar into my mouth and swallowing it whole.

"Bart," Lisa said to me worried, "It's not safe to eat like that."

"Did I beat the time limit?" I slowly asked Diggs, panting from the fright of the sudden challenge.

"Yes," Diggs said to me, nodding his head once and grinning widely, "Almost by three minutes!"

"YES!" I cheered and he chuckled in response. Lisa, however, frowned at him, and he held back his laughter, saying.

"You should be very proud of your brother."

"Hmm... yes." She replied back coldly, folding her arms and Diggs came between the two of us, swinging his arms over our shoulders and directing us to the mountains far off in the distance.

"Breathe the air in." He told us, taking a deep inhale in with his nostrils, "Y'know what that smell is? FREEDOM!"

Lisa grinned, looking with smart eyes into his, and I could pick up on something about her... she, I think she actually liked Diggs.

That's crazy! I thought to myself as Diggs released his arms from our shoulders and pointed ahead, yelling.

"MARCH!"

Diggs is crazy, too crazy for her.

I shouldn't have held that prejudice, but Diggs was more eccentric than a normal fourteen-year-old.

"Aye, aye, caption!" Lisa cooed after him, following him as he marched forward to the forest which was at least thirty minutes on foot from our house.

I watched the two walk on, and I wasn't sure what to do. Something told me I had to stay with Diggs, protect him from himself. Lisa didn't know him the way I did.

I groaned pathetically and ran over to them, catching up.

~x~

We soon reached the top of one of the lower-lying hills and could see a ceramic view of the town down below. There hadn't been much talking on the journey there, as Diggs had almost seemed to become one with nature. Plus every time someone made a noise he would go "Shhs!" And that would silence us again.