Swell by Davies Lauren

Author:Davies, Lauren [Davies, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CB Creative Books
Published: 2014-10-13T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The well-built boy with waves of blond hair down to his bony shoulders had been accidentally shot in the eye by an air rifle fired by his best friend when they were both seven years old. The same age as Zac. He, Ben, was now thirteen and almost completely blind.

‘I see clouds, Ma’am,’ Ben said with a faint smile on his disconcertingly serene face, ‘that’s all I see.’

Ben’s friend, also thirteen, was a Mexican girl called Izel who had lost both parents and both legs below the knee in a devastating car accident. She sat on the sand with one hand firmly clasped around Ben’s and looked up at me with a smile as bright as the sun’s rays on an exquisite summer’s morning.

‘I’m his eyes and he’s my legs,’ Izel said matter-of-factly, the words tripping off her tongue with a singsong Central American accent. ‘I like your sandals Ma’am.’

They were pretty sandals. White leather dotted with tiny blue crystals; this season’s must have at Poseidon. Sandals that this little girl had no use for. I swallowed the lump in my throat.

Jason was engrossed in a conversation with a young man in his twenties who was paralysed from the chest down and was in a wheelchair specially adapted for the sand. He had a face and body like a youthful Steve McQueen and he was dressed in a clean white vest and red board shorts. He looked every part the surfer other than the fact his arms and legs refused to move.

‘Hey, B, stoked you agreed to come surfing, dude.’

Chuck bounded across the sand towards me, waving his long arms like an enthusiastic octopus. In contrast to his usual eclectic mix of fashions, Chuck was dressed only in a pair of black and white board shorts with a tessellated diamond design. The shorts were pulled in tight at the waist but were having trouble staying up on a body the shape of a pencil. His vibrant hair was covered with a big brimmed trucker cap emblazoned with the words Live To Surf, Surf To Live. Seeing Chuck somehow always made me smile, even today.

‘I did not exactly agree but I’m here at least,’ I said with a grimace.

‘Cool. Come meet Wyatt, he’s a blast.’

Wyatt was the handsome young man in the wheelchair. He had been one of the west coast’s most promising young surfers and had just signed a lucrative contract with Poseidon when he fell victim to a freak accident. While free surfing a hollow shore break wave with his girlfriend who was also a sponsored surfer, Wyatt crashed headlong into his fate.

‘It was a small day but the wave was smashing down onto the sand,’ he told me, recounting the story I was sure he had told many times, perhaps wishing he could rewrite the ending. ‘I pulled into this tube that was super fast and I remember seeing daylight. I thought I could make it out but the barrel shut down, flipped me over and smashed my head into the sand.

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