The six of us piled all of our belongings onto Toby's small boat for him to take to Paradise City along with a few brave souls. Toby brought the boat back, and I climbed on board along with a few strangers, including Puke Boy, who still looked awfully green.
The ocean sprayed my face, and even though salt wasn't a usual part of a skin care routine, I savored the way it cooled my skin. I could already feel how red my face was, and even though I used SPF 50 sunscreen, there wasn't much I could do to keep my skin from burning.
A loud foghorn greeted us, and as we landed on the rocky shore of Paradise City, one of the brave souls from the first venture held out his hand to help me out.
My eyes followed his tattooed arm up to his face as I took his hand, and he wore a small smile.
"Thank you," I said with a small nod of the head.
"No problem. What's your name?" he asked.
"Reagan. Yours?"
"Brett. You don't talk a lot, do you?"
I shook my head. "Not yet, at least."
"Good, because the other chick won't shut up."
I scooped up my luggage into my arms, and although it had gotten a little wet from the trip, it wasn't enough to soak through the suitcase. I looked over to Puke Boy, who carried his stuff in a plastic garbage bag.
The foghorn blared again, and I looked back to my belongings and sighed.
I was no stranger to athletic activity, but the thought of carrying my stuff up the rock-strewn terrain didn't sound the slightest bit enjoyable. But there were some times that I just had to get back on the horse of life.
Yeehaw.
We began our trek to the house, which wouldn't have been far if it weren't for the unevenness of the land. Some rock formations towered higher than I could climb, so the only option was to go around.
I wasn't even short, so what kind of bullshit was that?
The foghorn went off again, and the gulls of the island squawked as we passed by.
"We're not going to hurt your babies. Stop yelling at us," an unnamed student said. He walked beside Toby, and as a gull flew overhead, it dropped some poop on him.
I laughed.
He let out an annoyed sigh, then turned to me. "Yeah, it's hilarious."
I stopped laughing.
"Darrell, you really should be used to that by now," Toby said, laughing just as I did.
This Darrell person wiped his hand through his hair, which was tightly coiled to the top of his head, then flicked it to get the bird poop off. "That doesn't make it a pleasant experience."
We stopped in front of the house, and I set my bag down and stretched out my arms.
Toby looked over the group, then said, "Alright, everyone. As most of you know, my name is Toby, and I act as the manager here at Paradise City. However, most of the time, I try to stay out of your hair. Darrell, if you'd like to take them on a tour of the house, that'd be great."
"Consider it done." Darrell clapped his hands together. "Okay, rookies, pay attention and try to keep up, because this is going to be the most efficient tour you've ever been on."
He opened the door to the house, and we headed inside. A Home Sweet Home mat adorned the floor, fresh and clean for the new year of projects.
"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."
I followed the other girl up the stairs, and she selected the room closest to the stairs.
"Is this one okay with you?" she asked.
I nodded.
"Anyway, sorry that was your first impression of me. I promise I'm a little nicer to people who don't have a stick up their ass. I'm Jia."
I smiled. "I'm Reagan. And I don't think I have a stick up my ass, so I think we'll get along."
Jia laughed. "Good. You and I have got to stick together. It's going to be interesting, having to live with disgusting men for four months."
I was used to it, but I smiled anyway. "I'm sure they won't be that bad."
That wasn't completely true, since Puke Boy had already managed to gross me out. I needed to learn his name, just so he wouldn't have to live with the association of vomit forever. I didn't want that image or smell in my mind anymore.
"Four months with no running water. It's going to be absolutely repulsive. But," she set her bag down on the bottom bunk of the bed that we were to share, "being with you won't be so bad."
"Thanks for the faith, but whales aren't the most glamorous animals out there. I still love them, though."
"Can't be any worse than getting shit on by gulls." Jia laughed. "Just promise me that we'll be the two least disgusting people in this house."
I nodded. "That's a promise."
"We probably should head downstairs again so Darrell doesn't yell at us. He already has it out for me, and I don't want to make it any worse."
"At least you didn't laugh when he got shit on," I said, chuckling again at the thought of it as we headed back downstairs.
Everyone else was already in the living room, and I mentally went through the list of people I had to live with.
Jia was my automatic ally as the only other girl on the island, Brett was the cook and quite the smartass, Darrell had no sense of humor and liked birds, Carter seemed to keep to himself, and Puke Boy was Puke Boy.
I would probably forget it all within an hour.
The foghorn sounded again, and Puke Boy let out a groan.
"I swear, if that thing goes off one more time, I'm going to shoot myself," he said.
"With what?" Jia asked.
Puke Boy thought for a moment. "Stay tuned for the answer to that question."
"How often does the foghorn sound anyway?" Brett asked.
Darrell frowned. "I timed it last year, and it goes off every twenty-three seconds. Eventually, you'll get used to it, but in the meantime, it's going to be obnoxious."
Jia rolled her eyes. "Just lovely."
My attention wandered to the rest of the house, and connected to the living room was a room that had yet to be identified.
"Hey, what's in there?" I asked and pointed over to it.
"Oh, there are some cards, board games, a sword, and a ping pong table," Darrell replied.
"So a game room?" I asked.
Darrell nodded. "More or less, excluding the sword, of course."
"Are you joking? That sounds like the best kind of game," Brett said with a laugh.
Darrell looked Brett directly in the eyes. "Do not touch the sword, unless you want to ruin your life on this island."
Brett's only response was to laugh, which seemed like the incorrect choice to me.
"I'm going to pretend that you agreed to that, and now that we all know Rule Number One of Paradise City, why don't we discuss the other rules over a game of cards?" Darrell suggested.
"Rules and cards are boring. I'm playing ping pong," Brett said.
"Yeah, me too." Jia followed Brett into the game room, and the two of them started up a game before anyone, namely Darrell, could stop them.
As much as psychology and biology went hand-in-hand, I wasn't exactly interested in being involved in the test subject department of science. Seven different personalities stuck together on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic seemed like a psychological experiment waiting to happen.
"Do you guys know how to play euchre?" Puke Boy asked, then when his eyes fell on me, he hesitated. "Wait, I know you, but I don't know your name. I'm Logan."
"I'm Reagan. It's nice to formally meet you," I replied.
It was much nicer to know his real name than to meet him formally, but I was raised to be polite.
I wasn't quite sure what my expectation was on how he would respond to me after our minor tiff on the boat, but whatever it was, he did something completely different. He nodded and said, "Absolutely. Would you like to be on my team for our game?"
I nodded. "Sure, as long as Carter and Darrell are okay with being on a team."
"He's the only one who hasn't irritated me yet, so yeah, I'll take Carter," Darrell said.
I looked over to the tall, quiet one. "Is that okay with you?"
Carter's eyes widened, then he nodded slowly. "Uh, yeah. That's great."
I smiled. "Great. Then let's play."
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Hey there! Thank you for reading, you lovely human!
Now Reagan is acquainted with everyone in Paradise City, so what are your initial opinions on them?