Paintballing and Social-Falling

Chapter 1

I raised the gun slightly, keeping low, and using the dark green foliage as a mask.

Denny would never see it coming.

My finger trembled on the trigger, so ready to shoot, but I had to be patient...

His feet scuffed the leaf trodden undergrowth, making ravens near of clack away with their filthy black wings.

Denny isn’t smart like me.

I make no noise.

He is still looking, down around the bushes below, with  black boots crushing noisily.

“ I know you’re here somewhere...”

That was is. I jumped down from the high tree, rolling over and onto my knees. Denny might have been stupid, but he was fast; my element of surprise would only last a few seconds...

I pressed down on the black trigger, letting the barrel rip as Denny shrunk down from the pain, little red splotches appearing all over his military outfit, the thick liquid oozing down the material. Lastly, hearing the dull thud against the barrel that signalled I was all almost out of bullets, I raising the head of the gun, shooting my brother between the eyes of his mask, and winning the game.

The ranger blew his whistle, waving a white flag above his neatly shaven head, and slowly the other members came out of their hidey holes, pulling off their splattered black visors, overalls covered in multicoloured splotches, bandanas in shades of green and orange around their paint splattered necks.  

“Low blow, you,” Denny said between his lips, mask in hand as he wiped a line of perspiration from the roots of his corn coloured head.

I laughed, putting my paint ball gun on safety, before high fiving my team mates with gloved hands. My mask fell to the floor as Big Tom, even more simple than Denny himself, gave me a sweaty bear hug, ruffling my blond hair, that hung down my back. 

Hold up! If you were wondering, I’m a girl. A tom boy, yes, but a girl in my anatomy and state of mind. And yes, play paint ball in a tank top and khaki cargo pants, with leather boots and Tippmann Gryphon gun (for you who don’t know, just think of it as a super, automatic, scream-if-you-get-shot paintball gun)

And yes, I win.

“Well done, again,” the ranger nodded at us, “orange team; looks like you have to step up a bit, eh?”

Denny glared at me; with the same blue eyed glare I had patented and put a label on: the Maxie Look.

When you’re a girl, and live in a military camp with thirty two adolescent boys, you need to know how to dish out glares, as well as a few amazing below the belt knockouts that will ensure the hands-off sign will be forever up. 

“Right, showers, dinner, oranges, you’re on clean up, greens, you doing guns,” Ltn. Keeler barked, coming from behind the safety nets. “Miss Lancewood; The Captain wants to see you after dinner, in his office.  Eat and shower first, and be there as promptly as you can.” I nodded stiffly, before he marched off in his military style, legs barely bending as he murdered the ground beneath his feet.

Okay, hold up.

You’re probably thinking what the hell’s this chick doing at a military school with a bunch of boys? Well, for one, my uncle, as my guardian, is one of the leaders here, so after my parents died, I was forced to become the only girl at what felt like a military school.  I mean, half the instructors and teachers names started with Captain or Lutteint for heaves sakes!