Gary then put an arm around both of us and led us from the beach. As we were walking together, I looked back and saw, walking north, away from ‘The Shack’ were Grandfather and Mom and Meek’s parents. Mom was walking arm in arm with Grandfather, leaning on him the way only a daughter could. I exhaled a breath of relief as I mimicked my mother by resting my head against Gary’s forearm.

We continued walking up the boardwalk to where Gary had parked. He had four surfboards strapped into the back of a brand new white Jeep Wrangler and one in the passenger seat.

Noticing the two of us admiring the new Jeep Gary stated, “Got a heavy lump of cash when I sold the business!”

“Wow!” I was all I could say to that.

Gary eyed Meek up and down then stated as if thinking aloud, “Long legs and a short torso. Below average upper body strength,” and then asked in a thought filled way, “You’re probably a long board man. Am I right?”

“Yeah, he’d do great with that one.” I pointed to the red and blue board.

Meek didn’t have a clue what Gary was talking about. I could tell by the blank look on his face.

“And where the hell is the board I made you?” Gary asked me.

“Hey!” I said with indignation, “We started out on a dirt bike; couldn’t very well strap that on now could we? We would have taken flight.”

“What do you mean you started out on a dirt bike?” Gary asked as he was stretching a rubber bungee cord over a lime green and white striped board.

“The bike was stolen along with almost everything we had. We rode a train a good ways and then got a ride from . . . someone.” I hesitated a moment there and felt a twinge in my heart as I wished Destiny could have stayed and watched us compete.

Gary shook his head.

“You are either the dumbest or luckiest little shit I’ve ever known.” He said while taking down one of the other boards and handing it to me.

I smiled gleefully at the feel of another of Gary’s creations in my grasp. My skin tingled with excitement.

“Now you boys make yourselves invisible. If you want to get some practice in, head up to the point beyond the Naval port. It shouldn’t be too crowded and I was serious about what I said before.” He grabbed hold of the left side of my blond locks, “Keep your trap closed, or someone is going to recognize your voice just as I did.”

“Gotcha!” I said and then used an imaginary key to lock my lips shut.

We thanked Gary and then began walking the long way to the Point where Meek and I spent the rest of the day getting used to the boards.

“Man you weren’t kidding.” Meek said with excitement.

“About what?” I asked.

“Surfing in the real ocean is so much different than at the water park.”

“Yeah.” I chuckled.

We had been at it a good while and were back out a good ways waiting on another wave when I spotted something off in the distance.

“Meek, do like I do.” I said and pulled myself up on my board so that I was sitting on it with my feet and arms out of the water.

“Why are we doing this?” Meek asked after taking the same action I had.

“Look over there?” I pointed north-west of our position.

“Oh crud! Is that what I think that is?” Meek asked.

“That is why you hardly ever see anyone surfing the point.” I told him.

Off in the distance I had spotted not one or two or even three but at least five Lemon shark fins cutting the water. They were still a good ways from us, but the chances were good that there were many more we couldn’t see at that moment.

“What do we do?” Meek asked.

“Just chill out,” I said, “don’t make any splashing noises. When a wave comes, catch it and ride the sucker all the way in.”

“This one?” Meek asked when a wave was coming toward us.

“It will do. Keep your feet out of the water. Just jump up and ride it.” I said, “And whatever you do, don’t fall off your board!”

We both caught the wave. It wasn’t a very big one, but it did the job of getting us back to shallower waters where we didn’t have to worry as much.

“Alright, I think my heart is going to explode.” Meek gasped and the two of us continued to paddle toward shore.

“That’s nothing. Did you know sharks have taste buds on their skin? I’ve had them brush up against me just to see if I was tasty. Now that is scary.” I said.

Meek was green in the face as he said, “I think I’m done for the day.”

“Ah man, don’t let a couple lemons scare you off.” I said.

“Lemons?” He asked.

“Yeah, those looked like the fins of Lemon sharks.” I said.

I smiled at Meek who was looking very sheepish.

“What?” I asked.

“I-I messed my suit man.” He said with tears in his eyes.

I wanted to laugh, I really did, but I didn’t. Instead, I told him to just slip into the water, pull off his trunks, clean them out in the water, rinse them and himself good, and pull them back on.

“I’ve done that before too.” I said, “I remember once when I was out with John. The waves were huge and I got into one that pulled me under. I got so scared I ended up drunk on Neptune’s Cocktail and crapped myself when I couldn’t figure out which way was up.”

“Neptune’s Cocktail?” Meek asked.

“That means I swallowed a bellyful of seawater.”

“Make sure you get the poop off your backside too or it will start to itch something fierce.” I told him.

“Did you get sick?” Meek asked.

“I was selling Buicks for a day and a night.” I said with a grounding chuckle.

“Selling Buicks?” Meek asked in this funny high-pitched voice. Actually, I think he was trying to imitate the way I talk. If he was, he did a lousy job of it.

“Puking.” I explained.

“We’re going to have to hold class when we get back so you can learn more of the surfing language.” I said half joking.

“Yeah it is getting harder and harder to understand you.” Meek commented.

“I think it’s being back here. It’s all coming back to me kind of like moon to coral.”

“Moon to… oh never mind! You’re hopeless!” he started to say but gave up on the whole language lesson.

“So you going to get in the water or you hanging on to that load?” I teased.

“Think the Lemons are gone?” he asked with a rattle in his voice.

I had a sudden idea.

“Hang on! I’ll be right back!” I said and slipped off my board and into the water.

I dove all the way down, felt around for a couple fist sized stones and then headed back up.

When I broke the surface Meek was looking worried, “Did you see any?”

“Can’t see more than a couple feet down there but that’s not why I went down.” I said and I hefted the two big rocks onto my board.

“What are those for?” he asked.

“Scare away the sharks and anything else that might be within a miles or two.” I said with a evil snear.

Meek scrunched his nose in confusion.

I climbed up on my board, being careful not to let the rocks roll off. I then laid face down, taking a rock in each hand and dropping my fists into the water.

I began to clap the rocks together but we being above the water could hear nothing.

“Okay, you can go in and I’ll keep ’em away.”

“What are you doing?” He asked again.

“Just put your head under the water and you will hear. But I should warn you, it will be loud and will hurt your ears a bit.”

He reluctantly dropped into the water by simply sliding off the tail of his board which was stupid of him.

“Not like that!” I shouted but I was too late.

The nose of the board rose up and back, whacking him in the head. It sounded exactly like one of those plastic bats kids play with striking a tree.

I laughed, “You alright?”

“Didn’t hurt!” he lied and commenced to clean put his head under the water.

He came right back up and exclaimed, “WOW THAT IS LOUD!”

I chuckled, “Told you so! Sharks hate that sound!”

Feeling safe that my rock clicking was keeping the sharks away, Meek commenced to cleaning himself.

After getting back on his board he said, “I think I’m done for today man.”

But then he saw the grin I was trying to hide as I dropped the two rocks and sat up on my board.

“What?” he asked.

Unable to hide my grin anymore I let it spread across my face as I asked, “What about what?”

“ALVIN!” he said in a threatening sort of way.

I began to laugh, “Okay! Okay! I can’t stand it! That rock thing does nothing to keep the sharks away. Actually, if anything it will bring them in to see what all the noise is about.”

“ALVIN!” Meek whined.

It was all I could do to stay seated on my board because I was laughing so hard.

“Come on! I want out of this water like NOW!” Meek ordered.

“Yeah, alright. We can come back out tomorrow.” I said, still laughing.

However, as we were paddling in we were close enough to notice that there were people on the beach but only so much as to see that whoever it was they weren’t in typical beach clothes. That meant one of two things, cops or our folks. We were still too far out to be sure, but to me it looked like the beach patrol.

“Crud!” I said with a punch to the water.

“What?” Meek asked and by the sound of him, I think he thought the sharks were back.

“We’d better head back out for a while.” I told him, “If that is who I think it is, we don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

“Ah man, are you serious?” Meek asked as he looked back and scanned the surface for any sign of the sharks.

“I’m serious. Come on.” I ordered and did a kick out to turn the nose of my board away from shore.

We paddled out until we couldn’t see the coastline anymore. The waves were getting bigger as the day wore on and we had to duck dive to keep from getting in Neptune’s spin cycle.

“Why are the waves so big here?” Meek asked.

“See that soup out there?” I pointed to an area where the water seemed to churn for no reason.

“That’s the reef opening. Don’t get pulled into that or you’ll head out to sea and never been seen again.”

“Now what?” Meek asked sounding tired and desperate.

“We paddle parallel to the shore line.” I pointed north, “That way.”

“I can’t see the shore.” Meek complained with a bit of panic in his voice.

Trying to calm him, I spoke in a composed voice, “Relax. I promise we are fine.”

It didn’t work. Surrounded by nothing but blue has this effect on people sometimes. Their minds just cannot handle how vastly huge the ocean really is and how equally small we are. When you add that we’d just had a run in with a school of Lemons and had to make a run from the law, Meek was on emotional overload and his brain was crashing.

“No man, really I can’t see it.” He whimpered.

Still trying to sound calm and in control I said, “That’s a good thing. If we can’t see it, then anyone on shore can’t see us.”

I dunked my fingers into the ocean then flicked the water into his face as I told him to, “Just start paddling north. We’re going to be fine.”

The splash of water to his face only distracted him for a millisecond before he again tried to focus his eyes toward where he thought the land should be.

He croaked out, “Alvin I don’t know about this.”

“HEY!” I shouted loudly to get his attention, “Chill out dude! You have to stay inside your head out here. We are not going to die out here. I promise.”

Meek nodded and the two of us stretched out on our boards and began to paddle north.

“There see.” I said pointing ahead of us, “The tide is taking us in. There’s the shore.”

“That doesn’t look like where we came in.” Meek complained.

“It’s not, but that is cool because I actually know this part. We’ll probably start seeing more swimmers soon.”

“Why here?” Meek asked.

“This is a popular swimming area. Plus when we go in we can probably catch a ride back.” I said hopefully.

“Catch a ride?” He asked, “You think that is wise?”

His skittishness was starting to grate on my nerves but I forced myself to continue to talk calmly to him.

“Positive. I used to do it all the time. You have to remember, up until a year ago, I used to surf all up and down the southern coast of California. I’ve gotten tons of rides from people I’d never seen before and never once did anything bad happen.”