Fluke

2: Strangers Like Me

"It's not the most glamorous place in the world, but I don't really know what else you could have expected, since we're in the middle of the ocean," Darrell said.

"You've been here before?" Brett asked.

I looked at his arms, but I couldn't tell what the tattoos were supposed to be. Maybe they were just decoration.

"Last year, I spent all summer working on my failure of a project out here, so this is a bit of a revenge trip for me." Darrell shook his head. "Just a word of advice: keep all of your stuff together, and don't let anyone else even breathe in its general direction."

"What was your project?" Puke Boy asked.

"I tried to learn how to speak gull in a sense, which sounds a little ridiculous, but I swear it makes sense, and all of my recordings of the noises they make got wiped out in an unfortunate incident involving rain and computers," Darrel said.

Brett laughed. "Who the hell let you be a sciencer?"

Darrell crossed his arms. "Who let you be one?"

"Nah, I'm not a smart person like the rest of you. I'm just here to make food for you guys so you don't starve to death. You're welcome," Brett said with a smile.

With the brilliance of the word sciencer, I couldn't believe that he wasn't actually one himself.

Darrell took a deep breath, then turned back to the entirety of the group. "Right in here is the kitchen, where Smarty Pants over here will be spending every second of every day, apparently. And if you keep walking, there is the dining room, and through the arch is the living room."

Smarty Pants smiled again.

A large dining table took up nearly all the space in the dining room, and just beyond that over a countertop was the living room, complete with a couch, two chairs, a coffee table with books and magazines stacked in the corner, and a television.

Darrell wasn't lying when he said it wasn't much, but as long as I had enough of an internet connection for my whale catalog, I didn't really need anything else.

"The bathroom situation is a bit, um, different than what you're accustomed to, but you'll get used to it in time, so don't worry about it. We have four bathrooms, all on this floor, two with compost toilets for number two, and two toilets that you can pump for all your peeing needs," Darrell continued as he opened a door. "Don't shy away from using as much Febreeze to cover up the awful smells, because it'll get really bad later."

Poor Puke Boy and his delicate stomach.

"In terms of hygiene, Toby keeps everything really well-stocked, so you don't have to worry about anything like that. Everything you could ever need is right on this shelf," Darrell continued.

"Tampons," the only other girl on the island said. "Are there tampons? Believe it or not, that's a hygiene necessity for some of us here."

"Well, you can discuss that with Toby, since it's not my problem," Darrell said, then pointed down a hallway. "Down the hall is a staircase, and up those stairs are the four bedrooms that we can split up."

"Whichever one is the biggest is mine. I don't care, it's mine," the girl said, then she looked at me. "It's ours."

"They're all about the same size, so there's really no difference between all of them," Darrell said.

"Then I want the one that's farthest away from that goddamn foghorn. I'm a light sleeper," she continued.

Darrell sighed. "It's all yours, princess."