What Remains Here

Chapter 12

"Of course," I replied, and he stepped into our home. "You need to borrow a jacket or anything–"

"Naw, Mom or Dad will bring one over soon," he responded before pointing at his outfit. "I didn't bring one because I wanted to show you this. What do you think? Had to borrow the shirt from the Shepards. Think I can pass as the all-American ground beef Texan cowboy?"

I looked down, hoping that that'd hide my blush because it's like he had plucked those words from my wildest thoughts. "I think Wyoming is the one known for cowboys, and you're kinda missing the cowboy hat."

"You got one?"

"Ehh, I think so," I replied. "But it's going to require some imagination."

I dashed down the hallway and to Mom and Dad's closet, where they had stored all the summer clothes, all the cargo shorts and flip-flops and tank tops. On top of the mound of clothes was Mom's floppy straw hat that I quickly grabbed before bounding down the hall, passing May, who took one glance at Caspian and another at the hat before muttering to me, "God. You and Caspian are such weirdos. You've turned him into a dork."

"Whatever," I said back to her as I dodged Mira, who furrowed her eyebrows when she saw the hat, before making my way to Caspian.

"Here you go," I said, and I got so caught up in the rush of finding the hat that instead of handing him the hat, I just flat-out semi-threw, semi-placed the hat on his head messily, causing the brim of the hat to smack into his face.

I grimaced a bit. "Sorry about that."

"No worries," he said, taking off the hat and looking at it. "This isn't a cowboy hat."

"I said you had to use your imagination," I replied. "Anyways, instead of being the 'all American ground beef Texas cowboy,' you can be the 'all American corn-fed, I don't know, Kansas farmer, you know?"

"Alright. I'm liking that," he said, placing the hat on his head, tilting it a bit back, and even though I expected him to look completely ridiculous (I mean, I could never pull that off), but strangely enough, he didn't look too shabby. "Wait a sec, wasn't Superman from Kansas–"

"Don't flatter yourself," I said, and he gave me a friendly shove that I was able to block as I caught a glimpse of May grimacing and Mira winking at me. I shook my head at both of them before resuming packing all the supplies we'd need to carry the fish.

When the sky began glowing a brighter gray and the deep ceruleans of dawn started fading, everyone in our family, except for Dad, who pretended to be busy working on May's balloon game, went down to the ocean. When we reached the tidal zone, we were also joined by Dean and James since both of them were assigned to keep watch of the area around our net to ensure that no one stole anything. Of course, they wouldn't be able to see anything at night, making their efforts to prevent looting pointless since that's when the net is up, but we do whatever makes Mom and Dad happy.

While we were walking down to the net, I scanned the ground for pieces of seaweed and kelp that are attached to small chunks of rock. I'm pretty sure the free-floating seaweed, unattached to a surface, won't be able to grow in the same way that leaves picked from trees will eventually die. But if we got kelp that is attached to stone, giving its roots a stable surface to grip on, then maybe we'll be able to grow them in buckets or something. I mean, I remember in my biology class that seaweed is supposedly the future, so it shouldn't be too hard to grow.

When we reached the net, the first thing that I had noticed (beyond the gaping holes that have been torn into it) was that there was less catch compared to before and a whole lot more junk. Planks of wood, some seemingly freshly splintered while others were dulled and squishy, pierced through tangles of kelp. We spent a significant amount of time just carrying wood and dumping it on the ground so that we could reach the seafood buried within the kelp.