A Walk On The Beach

Chapter 10

Boy

THE FIRST DAY at Hong Kong is boring. We’ve rented a holiday home...opposite a hotel. Yeah, what is with that? I’m pretty sure that renting this home is actually more expensive then the hotel rooms. My parents just like wasting money, don’t they? Don’t you just hate it when parents say one thing and then do another?

Anyway, Evelyn’s dancing in the living room to a couple of Chinese CDs that she had found. Tyler’s getting a dartboard set up in his room. He had asked me if I wanted to play but I said no. He’s a cool brother and all but dude’s ten. All he knows is his Pokémon facts. Caitlyn is in our room, which is down the hall, unpacking my suitcase. I told you before, I can’t pack shit. What makes you think that I can unpack it? The home is part of a block of flats. It’s got one floor and four bedrooms. Caitlyn had insisted on staying with me because she did not want to share a room with Zoe, the grump, or Stephanie, the bitch.

Zoe is sulking in the corner. Yeah, she had to come along. It’s going to be her last holiday with us anyway. I don’t get why she’s such a bitch about it.

Our parents are talking to the Chinese couple who actually owns this place. They’re speaking very bad English. It makes me very uncomfortable. Like I don’t belong. I wonder if the girl on the Island felt like that on the Island. Will she feel more comfortable here? She is, after all, Chinese. I think.

“JORDAN!” Caitlyn calls from the room.

I go to see what’s going on.

“Jordan, what are these?” she asks. I realise she’s holding two envelopes...

My heart speed increases and I freeze. But then I tell myself to be calm. She can’t have read them, even though I know she has. I take the envelopes back. “Nothing. They’re just letters, from Stephanie.”

She blinks. “Right.”

I nod. “You haven’t, er, read them have you?”

She shakes her head. “No. Of course not.”

I look around the room. She has the bed and I have my hammock. The room is huge. I can see the hotel across the road. You can see the stairs through panels of glass to the flights of stairs that lead you up to each floor.

I look at Caitlyn. She’s tucking my suitcase into a corner of the room, like nothing extraordinary had just happened there. Like we didn’t just have a rather awkward moment.

I know she’s read the letters. She is, after all, my sister. And we’ve never had awkward moments.

 

It’s night time. I’m staring up at the ceiling. Caitlyn isn’t asleep either. She’s sighing and tossing and turning in her bed. Then she finally says, “Jordan?”

I don’t say anything. Let her think I’m asleep.

She sighs again. “Jordan, I know you’re awake.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“You never sleep,” she says. “You’re awake all night, all last week.”

I stay silent, letting it settle upon us as a thick blanket. Then I say, “Why aren’t you asleep?” I don’t ask her how she knew I was up all night, last week.

“Can’t,” she says. Then she asks, “So you and Stephanie...”

“NO!” I say. “No, nothing’s going on between me and Stephanie.”

She chuckles. “Chill, dude. Just saying. I know you don’t like her.”

I frown, even though she can’t see my face – only my profile, maybe. “How do you know?” I ask again.

I hear her bed squeak as she moved. “She’s not your...type.”

This time I push myself up onto my side so I’m facing my little sister. “How do you know what my type is?”

I watch her shift uncomfortably in her bed. She kicks the covers off to reveal teddy bear pyjamas. Then she realises she’s a little cold and pulls the covers back over her. She rolls onto her front so her face is in the pillow and then back on her back again. She pulls her pillow onto her stomach and hugs it, while staring straight at the ceiling. She finally sighs and says with a little stammer, “I-I’m an observer.”

“An observer, huh?” She nods. “So that’s how you know I can’t sleep at night – you observe.”

“Well, no. That’s just logic, or something you grow up in the Harvey house knowing. Jordan Harvey does not sleep at night,” she says with a shrug. She’s still looking up at the ceiling.

“You know me so well,” I laugh.

“Just sleep,” she says, but she’s laughing too.

Caitlyn isn’t so bad. Maybe just a little creepy. Observers creep me out, especially when they know so much just by watching. I wonder...would I have known more about that mysterious Island girl if I allowed myself to watch her from my window?

Hmm.

“I know what you’re thinking!” Caitlyn says from her bed. I take my pillow and threw it at her back. “Ow!”

“Didn’t see that coming, did you now?”

 

Another day at the boring home in Hong Kong. I actually thought we’d have fun here. Another four weeks here – I’m going to die.

Mum and Dad had suggested some landmark visiting, but Caitlyn and Zoe protested immediately. Never have they been so united. Stephanie is talking to them now, telling them her adventures in Hong Kong. So I’m just sitting here by the window, staring up at the hotel across the busy road. The hotel is transparent. Well, the side facing us is anyway. It shows us their lovely set of staircases. Amazing. Not. Occasionally, I see people jogging up the stairs, round and round. Up you go now, tourists staying in a hotel.

I think I’m going crazy.

“I think we should check out the gym. What do you say?” Caitlyn whispers into my ear.

“Gym?” I ask, surprised. “What gym?”

“The gym I found on the map of this place. Geez, Jordan, you’re going to be going to the place every morning. It’s down the street,” she says.

“Right,” I say. “Or, we could go and run up those stairs.”

Caitlyn looks. “Wow,” she says, like she’s just seen them for the very first time. “Stairs...” Now she’s mocking me, with her eyes wide and her mouth open. Her hands are clasped together in mocking awe. How I love my little sister sometimes. She’s a brat.

I roll my eyes.

She laughs. “Come on, dickhead, the gym sounds more fun than stairs. We got stairs here if you want. Seriously, do you want to stay here with Stephanie and Zoe? I mean, queen bitches in the same house – I think a nuclear bomb is going to explode!”

I chuckle. I push myself off the sofa. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

“Oh, oh, oh! Taxi!”

We head for the door. Mum notices. “Hey, you two. Where do you think you’re going?”

Stephanie stands up. “Yeah, Jordan. You’re not going to wait for me?”

“Ah, no. Sorry, Steph. Me and Cait’s got some place to go,” I say. “We’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“But this was supposed to be a family holiday!” Mum says.

Caitlyn folds her arms across her chest. She looks pointedly at Stephanie. “So why is she here?”

Zoe laughs, while Mum and Stephanie look shocked. Dad gives me the don’t-get-involved-with-the-girls look. Or I think it was the bitch-fight look. I can never tell.

“Don’t be so rude, Caitlyn!” Mum says.

“Me? Rude? Pah!” Caitlyn takes my arm. “Let’s go, Jordan! Taxi time!”