The Duck
Farm
Chapter 2: Chasing Butterflies
(Un) Important babbling-notes from Cimmy: I’m not used to writing from Nish’s point of view, so I hope I won’t mess him up too much...
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Notes: From Nish’s point of view.
Nish opened the door to the little cabin. Travis had told him to be the one to go and ask if they could park the bus down behind the dining room. Coach Bombay had asked for any volunteers, and Travis obviously considered Nish as one. Cecilia had tagged along too. It had taken them twenty minutes to walk down from that mountain. Okay, it hadn’t been an actual mountain, but it had been a bitch to get down from it anyway.
“Where’s that ranger-dude?” Cecilia asked. She sneaked up behind him and tiptoed over to the counter. Nish wasn’t sure what she was doing, but why ask? He didn’t have time to listen to any of her stupid explanations.
Nish ringed the bell by the door. He hoped that the ranger would offer to drive them back up to the campsite. Even if Cecilia had been a great company, jumping around chasing butterflies, it was still too hard to walk all the way back.
Cecilia jumped up on the counter and leaned past him to steal a candy from the bowl. Nish waved her away. “Could you behave, please?”
Cecilia snorted. “Man, when did you become the responsible of the two of us?”
Nish shrugged. Maybe he could be a little scourge sometimes, but now when the others weren’t around, he had no problem with calming down a bit. It was hard to be a plague twenty four-seven.
“Don’t break anything,” he told her. “I don’t think Bombay will be so happy paying any bills right now.”
Cecilia smiled at him. “I won’t break anything. Look, there’s a phone, maybe we could call that ranger and ask where he is.” Cecilia leaned over the counter and reached for the phone down on the desk. “Whoa!”
Nish tried to grab her arm, but missed. She fell backwards down behind the counter with a crash. “Oh my God, are you okay?” he asked. He was about to climb over the counter to help her up, when the ranger decided to show up.
“What’s going on here?” he asked. Nish turned to face him, while Cecilia crawled up from the floor.
“Our coach sent us, he wanted to know where he could park the bus,” Nish explained. “And my friend Cecilia decided to practice on her diving. Right, Cee?”
Cecilia growled and climbed onto the counter again. “Well, I’m fine, if you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t,” Nish said harshly. “Get down from there, before you kill yourself.”
He put his arm around her waist and lifted her down. Cecilia objected. “I can get down on my own.”
“Yes, I saw that.”
The ranger went over to them and gave them an annoyed gaze. Great, they had been able to piss an enforcer of the forest-law off.
“Tell your coach to park over at the parking-lot just at the gates, okay? Try to get your tents up before it gets dark.”
So, a ride back was out of the question. Damn Cecilia and her stupid ideas. Damn them.
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Well, they were back at the campsite. It had taken them twice as long to get back, since it was uphill all the way. Cecilia had tried to convince him to carry her. Yeah, right.
Between some moaning and bitching, they had tried to locate which way Canada was. Nish was sure that they were walking to the north, but Cecilia had been saying that they were walking to the west. Then she had lost her concentration and started to chase butterflies again.
Nish had been highly entertained by her. She was very fun to be around when she was hyper. Well, up until it got annoying, that was. He had more patience with her then most of the others, for some reason. For example wouldn’t Charlie have been as patient with her bouncing around.
“Well, isn’t the happy couple back from their wilderness experience? How was it out there?”
“Foresty,” Nish answered, dragging Cecilia by the arm. If he hadn’t brought her back, she would’ve been lost out in the forest with all the bears and butterflies. She was like a puppy. She chased everything that got her attention.
“So, what took you so long then?” Russ continued.
“Miss Skippy here decided to take the opportunity to scare the hell out of some innocent butterflies.”
“Well, they bug me,” Cecilia explained. “I hate them, they are too cheerfully, too colored, too annoying and too fluttery. I wish I could catch one and tell him to cut it out. But they are just too fast far me. That’s another annoying thing about them.”
“You practically just described yourself,” Russ replied, laughing.
Cecilia made a face and took a step towards him, but Nish decided to drag her away from there. Coach Bombay was probably wondering where they were.
“Don’t you think butterflies are annoying?”
“No, I think you are.”
“I wonder why they’re called butterflies. Do you think it’s because they eat butter, or because they have butter on their wings? I have to check that the next time I catch on of them.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that you haven’t actually caught a single one of those poor creatures.”
“Well, I was very close today. Just wait, my life isn’t over yet.”
Cecilia tried to get free from his grip. “Can you let me go, or what?” Nish shook his head.
“Nope. If I do, you’ll never be found again. I promised Travis to bring you back in one whole piece, not several small ones.”
Cecilia shrugged and let herself be dragged over to the rest of their teammates. Coach Bombay gave them an impatient stare. “Where have you been? I sent you away an hour ago!”
“Well, you could’ve given us a ride instead. That would only have taken five minutes,” Nish replied. Cecilia didn’t say anything, but she usually didn’t when she had to face the whole team.
“I asked you to go down and ask a question, not to crawl down. You look like you just got out of a mud-bath.”
Well, that was actually kind of true. They had been exploring one of the hills, so they had climbed onto it to get a better look. They were now covered in dirt. And Cecilia had managed to lose her balance plenty of times, so she looked even worse then he did.
“Well, at least we’re back, right?” he said. He let go of Cecilia’s arm, and she tumbled off in the opposite direction. She went over to Fred and Charlie who were loading off the packing from the bus.
Nish told Bombay where to park the bus, and then he joined Travis and Adam over by the dining room. “So, you’re back again?” Travis smiled.
“Yeah, have you missed me?”
“I don’t know, leave again, and I’ll figure it out.”
Nish sat down next to them on the grass. He was exhausted, spending the last hour with an energetic Cecilia. This must be how Travis and Sarah had felt when they spent time with him back in elementary school. Travis gave him an annoyed gaze.
“Are you gonna help us, or what?” he asked impatiently. “You can’t be lazy now, we have to put the tent up.”
“Ah, man, can’t I do that later?” Nish yawned. “I’m busy chilling out.” He lay down on the grass and closed his eyes. He opened one eye when he felt Travis’s shadow on his face. “What?”
“Get up. Now,” Travis said firmly and kicked him on the leg. It didn’t hurt a bit, but Nish winced anyway.
“Can’t Adam help you? He doesn’t look like he’s too busy with anything.” Nish received an icy stare from Adam.
Just when he had decided to obey Travis’s wish, Cecilia came running towards them. She jumped over one of the bags and landed next to Nish on the lawn. “Hi, watcha doin’?”
“I’m looking for butterflies,” Nish responded. It seemed to have the wanted effect he’d been expecting. Cecilia gave him a dazzling smile and sat down next to him.
“Really? Any luck?” she squeaked. “Wait, isn’t that one?”
She pointed at something over by Adam’s shoe. Travis turned to see what she was referring to. “That’s a shoe-lace,” he sighed.
Nish smiled. Travis knew that his battle was lost. Getting both Cecilia and Nish to do something when they were occupied with more ‘important’ things was almost impossible. Adam gave Travis a look, saying that he shouldn’t mind them.
Nish was very content. Well, this was great. Cecilia was annoying, but when it came to helping him out of trouble and work, she was the best. They continued with their butterfly lookout, until Travis lost his patient. That almost never happened, so when it did, it was best to behave.
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Notes: From Travis’s point of view.
Finally. It was easier to order the whole team around, than it was to get the First Line to behave. Luckily Charlie had told Cecilia to stop keeping Nish busy, so she had actually helped them with the tents after a while.
They had been divided into small groups. Coach Bombay had separated the First Line, so there wouldn’t be so much arguing. Of course that only brought even more objections.
There were several other teams up by the campsite. Travis was wondering if there were any teams from Canada, since they knew a couple of them from their time as the Owls. He was going to get Nish or Cecilia to tag along later so they could find out. Even if Cecilia could be a little hyper sometimes, she was great to bring along when you needed company.
“Well, I haven’t been to so many camps, but I already hate it,” Cecilia exclaimed. “The food sucks, I hate the fresh air and sleeping on the ground is really uncomfortable.”
“Little Miss Pessimist, I hear,” Fred told her. “Could you whine more?”
“Yes, but you won’t like it, an then you’ll yell at me. Seriously, girls like me belong in the city, not out in the middle of nowhere, hunting butterflies and drinking water.”
“Well, good for you that you haven’t been to any camps before, then. You wouldn’t have made it through one day,” Charlie replied.
“I was at camp once. It was fun. But there was too much demands, so I never went again,” Cecilia told them.
Guy looked amazed at the fact that she’d been outside the city at some point. “What kind of demands?” he asked.
“Some crap about not beating up the girls and stop fighting with my brothers. And also to help with the food and dishes. For God sake, what kind of slave-program did they send me too, anyway?”
“Well, at least you’re not a spoiled brat,” Adam laughed. “I can’t really say that I love camps either.”
“I bet the only camps you went to was really classy ones, with preppy children and a big pool,” Connie guessed. “I can’t really say that it was those kind of camps we went to. They were more of the kind that only cockroaches found interesting to live at.”
Guy shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. My parents always sent me away to camps when I was little. But I liked it.”
Charlie snorted. “You always went with us. And Connie, of course. You’d follow her to a desert camp if you’d have to.”
“Hey, don’t pick on him for that!” Connie shouted. “I think it’s cute of him to follow me around like a puppy.”
“Well, I’m not anymore,” Guy said. “That was back in elementary school. When we were District 5. That was several years ago now.”
“I think it’s adorable,” Adam teased. “Not like I knew you guys back when you were District 5, but it’s still entertaining to hear about it.”
“You should talk, you keep following Cecilia around like a puppy yourself,” Guy shot back. Travis closed his eyes. This was going straight to hell.
Instead both Adam and Cecilia began to laugh. “Yeah, like I don’t have anything better to do then to follow that looney around.” Cecilia shoved him off the bench.
“Hey, I’m not a ‘looney’, I am just as sane as anyone.” Cecilia threw one of the pebbles at him, and Adam ducked off.
“Well, sane people don’t throw rocks at other people,” Adam replied. He grabbed Cecilia’s arm and dragged her down on the ground. Cecilia gave up a squeaking sound.
“I rather let your boyfriend follow you around,” Adam smiled. “You make some strange dissipations sometimes. At least he knows how to deal with you.” Cecilia wrestled him down on the ground.
Nish smiled. “I didn’t know that you were that strong, Cee. Maybe you should be part of the Bashers instead of the First Line.”
Cecilia sat up. “Are you just saying that because you don’t want me to be a part of the First Line anymore?” she asked, sounding insulted.
“Yep.”
Cecilia got up and was about to walk over to Nish, when Adam dragged her down again. “Whoa!”
Travis gave Nish a meaning look. “Please, don’t get into a fight the first day here, okay?” Nish nodded.
Travis was sure that Nish would break that promise.
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