THIRD PERSON POV
"episode twelve - a day at the beach"
THERE WERE MANY THINGS THAT MAEVE LIKED. But she would willingly let you know that sitting on a long bus journey, with the group she calls a family, is not making that list.
The weather was warming up however. This did please the girl, she was always more of a summer person. She thought she looked better with a tan.
A double seat with her older friend Sapphire did seem to make the journey ahead seem a tad more appealing, but the boy who lingered behind her soured her mood.
Maeve felt something slightly wet land on her shoulder and she immediately hit it off, "What was that!" She exclaimed as she turned at looked at the boy behind her.
He gave a subtle smirk at her reaction, one that he had just captured on the video camera in his hand. "Just a cloth." He simply said, "The one Tracy has been using to clean Tee's sick."
Maeve face dropped even further, if possible. "I am going to drown you at the sea, Donovan." She stated.
Liam gulped, just a little. It wasn't a threat, it was a promise and he knew it.
As much as Maeve liked Tee, being sick on the bus literally less than two minutes into the journey did take her down the rankings on Maeve's favourites list.
As a way to pass the time, Sapphire had brought along some makeup to put on her younger companion. She gently bought the mascara want to Maeve eyelashes and began applying; she was extra careful due to the bus movements.
The older girl sits back a little to admire her work before being jolted forward and wiping the mascara wand on Maeve cheek.
"Looking good, East!" Liam laughs, knowing full well he kicked Sapphire's seat and made her jolt. "Who's it for? Mr Crabs?" He continues being a pest.
Maeve tilts her head, "Might see someone cute at the beach, Donovan. Got to be prepared."
This little comment makes the mischievous boy close his mouth, having no come back to what the girl just said. It was weird, he could normally think of a comeback.
Gus begins listing off all the items he will be needing in the day as Maeve is having her cheek scrubbed by a makeup wipe. "Who's next?" Gus asks.
"Me!" Liam sits up straight, "Head," He points to his head, "Check."
"Brain,-" Maeve turns to him, "I think you let that back at home."
"At least I had one in the first place."
"Liam-" Gus begins before Maeve can reply, "Towel?"
"Check, stripy towel."
"Trunks?"
"Oh, uh."
"Mike!" Gus shouts, "Liams forgotten his trunks."
Mike looks in the rear-view mirror of the minibus. "Well we can't tune back now. You can always go in your underpants."
The thought of that made Maeve practically as sick at Tee was. "Er, I don't think so!" Liam exclaims.
"Trust me, no one wants that Mike." Maeve shouts up to the front, trying to hold back her gags.
Sapphire and Maeve begin to share Sapphire's headphones as a way to pass the time. However, this brief moment of bliss was short lived as Tracy came up with a game to involve everyone.
The game was that we had to create our own story by everyone taking it in turns saying a sentence. If all the sentences carried on from what was previously said, then hopefully it should create a story.
"Right, It's call a day at the beach." Tracy begins. Maeve almost gave her an applause for the creative title. "It's about a bunch of kids who have just set off to go to the beach on a minibus."
"There was a girl on it." Lily starts to add, "and she wanted to go on the beach and make sandcastles covered in shells."
"There's a massive game of football going on near the sea." Liam jumps in, "A lad runs out straight into the waves, gets a one off header and everybody goes mental."
"Suddenly the boy looks down and realises he's got no trunks on as he forgot them at home." Maeve looks back at the boy with fake sympathy as she receives a fake smile back.
Sapphire laughs before adding on, "And a crab comes along looking for winkles. Nip, nip, nip."
Liam gives a fake laugh before kicking the back of the girls chair again. "Shut up."
The minibus pulls up at a service station as the whole group unpacks themselves out and begins racing inside.
Sapphire and Maeve race towards the photobooth. They thought it would be a quick way to pass the time as the two girls weren't really interested in anything else.
Just as they got ready and in position, the curtain opened revealing Liam and Frank, "Budge up, girls." He laughs before squeezing in.
Maeve wished she could go back in time. If possible, she would have not been the one sat closest to the door.
Time travel isn't possible, so she is. This means Liam is squished up next to her, shoulders overlapping and heads almost touching.
She turns to look at him, and he looks back. She's never been this close to his face before. "Wow." She simply says.
"What?" He replies.
"You're even uglier up close."
"Always a charmer, East."
The flash goes off and the pair both turn to the screen. Maeve curses her friend for not telling her the countdown had started. She immediately groaned at the fact she's now got a picture where she's all up close to Liams face. It's a moment she wants to forget, not get captured on camera.
Sapphire elbows Liam and shoves him and Frank out the photobooth. "Just wait your turn next time!" She shouts, finally being able to relax after being squished against Maeve and the wall.
The two friends take their final three pictures before putting some coins in and printing the rest out. Two girls, three copies.
Liam took the extra one out of Maeves hand. "I'll be taking that!"
"Why would you want pictures of me and Sapph, weirdo." Maeve rolls her eyes.
"Don't falter yourself." He smirks again, "I'm gonna cut it down so it's just me and Frank, duh."
He boys begin to go in the photo booth for their own photos. "And you said I was the one who left my brain at home." He adds before dramatically closing the curtain.
Sapphire grabs her friend by the shoulder, preventing her from punching the boy through the curtain. "Come on, let's go find Harry."
The two girls joined up with the younger boy before making their way back to the minibus ready to continue to the beach.
Maeve thinks Liam and Frank need to be kept on a lead. Her and Sapphire left the boys for ten minutes and they managed to assault a person with some dirty water. This was found out after the manager of the service station gave Mike a fair warning about his "hooligan" kids.
Maeve lent her head against the window and closed her eyes. She believed the quicker she fell asleep, the quicker she'd arrive at the beach.
She was almost right.
The energised girl woke up as she felt the minibus stop. Her head rising up from the comfy, stripy towel she was leant on. Maeve failed to notice she didn't fall asleep on a towel in the first place.
The bus was back at the house.
Mikes so-called trusty navigation system had failed him and had ended up taking the whole bus back home.
"Someone has sabotaged the satnav." Mike fumes as everyone is gathered in the lobby of their home. "It's been reprogrammed to return here, presumably when we were at the service station. Id like whoever is responsible to own up, now!"
As much as Maeve would like to point the finger and it's say it was Liam, she knew it wouldn't work. There is no way Liam would rather be at home than the beach and she knew it.
"Mike, have you ever thought it could be broken?" Gina suggests, "I mean, it has that stupid voice stuck on it that you cant seem to change."
"Well, it's always been super replicable." He drawls off.
"Mike."
Mike signs before going to get his sunglasses. The whole gang would be retuning to the minibus and starting their journey all over again. Liam had made sure to pick up his trunks before setting off again.
Maeve feels something hit the top of her head. "Donovan, I swear to God." She say as she looks between the gap in the chair.
"I'm gonna bury you with this." Liam states as he holds up his yellow spade.
Maeve doesn't believe she's ever given more of an unimpressed look. "Oh yeah? Why's that?"
The boy shrugs his shoulders, "Funny, innit." He smirks. "You'll be left there as the tide comes in."
Maeve looks back a little further and begins to smile. She sees Johnny begin to tip his apple juice down the back of Liam shirt.
As the cold liquid reaches the back of the boy, he jolts forward. Personally, Maeve doesn't have an idea as to why Johnny did that, but she found it funny so she didn't really care.
"You did that on purpose!" Liam exclaims as he turns to Johnny."
Maeve hits Liams arm, making a quick note to wash her hand later. "No he didn't," She defends Johnny. "I saw, it was an accident."
Maeve isn't the biggest fan on Johnny but if she had to pick a side, it's the anything-but-liam side that she will pick.
Maeve tucks into her crisps. It's the last bit of food she has but she was starving. The girl felt that if she left it any longer, her stomach would actually begin to eat her other organs. That wouldn't be good.
"Gina." Frank begins, "We're starving."
"Well maybe you shouldn't have had your lunch for breakfast then." The older woman replies, raising her eyebrows in a told-you way.
Maeve picks up one of her lightly salted crisps before bringing it to her mouth. Except, it never made the journey.
Liam had leant over the girls chair, grabbing the crisp directly in her hand and shoving it in his own mouth.
"Hey!" She shouts, standing and leaning over the back of her own chair. The crisp was more important than the seatbelt digging in her sides. "I swear i'll reach in your mouth and grab it back, Donovan."
"Go on then." The boy replied opening his crisp-full mouth and looking at the girl in front of him.
Yeah, she definitely changed her mind.
"You're disgusting."
"Maeve, sit down properly." Mike sternly told her as she returned to her seat with an eye roll. "Attitude." Mike added on the end after clearly seeing the girls eye roll.
The same service station Maeve found herself at two hours ago. She was back again.
Much to the owners dismay, the gang of kids made their way back inside and into the cafe section of the service station.
"I've lost Mr Hamster." Toby states in a panic.
If you had told Maeve that Toby would bring his hamster on the beach trip, she would actually believe you. Clearly within good reason. As much as she wished Toby was just trying to make a joke, she knew he had definitely stuffed Mr Hamster in his pocket, or something similar, for the journey.
"I brought him in for a snack!"
Liam stand up to Mike. "We need to find Mr Hamster. No one gets left behind."
"I wish a certain someone would." Maeve says, her voice slightly mumbled by the table she was leaning head-first on.
Liam gets on a chair and begins whistling loud. "Win a free SatNav, whoever finds the hamster!" He bellows and immediately people begin to freak.
It was surprising how many people seemed to be scared of hamsters. Well, but one. This large scary man found Mr Hamster running along the floor and handed him safely back to Toby.
Mike was reluctant to give up his SatNav, but after one look at the winner, he seemed to give it up quite easily.
After Liam causing a huge scene in the cafe, it was clear to everyone that this group of children were most likely banned from ever returning as they left the building.
One quick stop to fill up with petrol, and it's a smooth sailing journey from there.
You would hope.
Maeve caught herself outside the bus, yet again, as Mike had filled the car up with diesel, not petrol.
As much as Maeve would have like to go to the beach, she had spent too much time around everyone and honestly wouldn't mind if they all went home again.
Her prayers were answered as Mike finally gave up with the trip and began to call the tow truck.
As the group waited for the tow truck to turn up, they all gathered around Tracy to watch all the footage recorded on the camcorder.
Various clips throughout the day played, including the one of Maeve threatening to drown Liam. Her personally favourite memory of the day.
However, one clip stood out. A clip of Johnny pressing his fingers all over the SatNav, setting it to take everyone home.
Everyone turned to the boy. "Johnny, did you give me that diesel pump on purpose?" Mike asks.
The boy only looks at the group before making a runner.
That's when Maeve discovered maybe Liam isn't all that useless, he's a quick runner.
Johnny was dragged back to the minibus and had his cut clean from where Liam practically tackled the younger boy.
"You have to tell us why you did it all, Johnny." Sapphire demands, her arm rested on her shorter friend.
"No, he doesn't." Tee says. "I had forgotten what had happened because I was only little, but i remember now. And if Johnny doesn't want to say why he doesn't like the sea and the sand, then he doesn't have to."
"It's about what I did to someone else," Johnny mumbles, "I buried Tee in the sand for fun, but the tide started coming in really fast and I couldn't get her out. You thought it was all a big game." He looks down at his younger sister, "But, mum had gone off with her stupid boyfriend and there was no one to help us. I thought you were going to drown."
Mike runs the boys shoulder in a calming way, "You haven't been back to the sea since, have you?"
"No way. I'm sorry." Johnny sniffs, "We would have been fine because we're in safe hands. I've taken everyone's best day away from them."
After the heart-to-heart, the tow truck arrived. Mike had a new mindset and instead of taking the group home, the tow truck took everyone to the beach from Mikes orders.
After a long, long journey, Maeve was finally grateful to have made it to the beach.
It wasn't long for all the children to change into their swimming stuff, keen to get in the water before it got too cold.
A smile rose on Maeve face as she snuck up behind Liam. Her arms reached forward before snatching sunglasses off the boys head.
Maeve ran, sunglasses now adorning her eyes. She had never felt quicker; almost under the impression that she should start signing up for marathons.
She forgot one thing she learnt today. Liam was quicker. The young girl hadn't made it can in the water before feeling hands on her waist and a body falling with hers into the water.
"Donovan!" She yelled before standing back up, water up to her low ribs.
Liam only stood in front of her laughing, "You took my sunglasses, what did you expect?"
She feels a laugh escape her lips before taking the wet sunglasses from her eyes. "Fine! Take them back."
Liams arm twitched, almost raising slightly to reach them.
Maeve furrowed her eyebrows, waving the sunglasses in his face. Was he having a stroke? Why was he just looking and not taking?
"I don't want them anymore." Liam simply says.
"What?" Her eyebrows furrow further.
He looks to the sand before looking back, "Yeah, well, they probably have your germs on them now. I don't want to be catching anything from you."
Maeve rolls her eyes; that's why he didn't want to take them. "I suppose you better not then, my germs my actually turn you into a better person."
"Doubt it."
Maeve scrunched her mouth in a smile before splashing the boy with water and running back to shore.
It wasn't long before Mike had got everyone fish and chips and the gang spread across the wall whilst eating.
Maeve lifted her new sunglasses up, glancing at everyone along the wall. It was nice to see everyone happy, even the ones she doesn't really like.
Liam was sat next to Frank, eating his chips. His striped towel wrapped around his body.
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