In the Buff by Vicki Grant

Author:Vicki Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459818842
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2018-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

My phone must have fallen out of my pocket while we were scrambling through the woods looking for Wayne. Gump and I search for it for ages, but it’s no use. There are leaves and branches everywhere, and we’re not even sure which way we came from. Plus, to make matters worse, the sun’s going down.

Mom’s going to kill me. It was a brand-new phone.

“No use looking for it in the dark,” Gump says. “I suggest we bunk down for the night.”

“What? Here?” I look around. There’s nowhere to sleep here.

“Got any other suggestions?”

I don’t.

I sigh and lie down on the flattest piece of earth I can find. It’s hard, and there’s a pointy rock sticking out that gets me right in the spine. I move, but there’s another one that gets me in the hip. I sit up and pat the ground. There’s a root or a rock or something wet and squishy wherever I put my hand. I decide to stick with the first place. I lie back down and close my eyes. I try not to think about the panther.

“What in tarnation are you doing?” Gump is standing right over me, glaring down. Once again I thank my lucky stars for that apron. “You’re not just going to lie on the ground, are you?”

I sit up. “You’re the one who said this is where we’re sleeping.”

“You never slept in the woods before, Buster?”

“No. What do you think I am? A raccoon or something? Why would I sleep in the woods when I’ve got a bed?”

He gives one of those “kids today” eye rolls. “Who says you can’t have both? Get up and I’ll show you.”

He shakes his head and walks away. His bum is so white it almost glows in the dark. No wonder they call it a full moon.

He bends over and starts filling his apron with leaves. Then he stomps around on the ground like he’s trying to find a place strong enough to hold all 103 pounds of him. When he finds a spot he likes, he dumps the leaves there.

“C’mon,” he says. “You want a comfortable place to sleep? Well, better get to work then.”

I gather up an armful of leaves. Most of them end up falling back on the ground before I have a chance to dump them on the pile. After a couple of armloads, I get a brilliant idea. I take off my hoodie and tie it backward around my waist. Now I’ve got an apron too. I might look like Little Bo Peep, but it works. I fill it up and unload it onto my so-called bed. Easy peasy.

Gump doesn’t stop except to give Wayne a pat or to complain about my choice of leaves. “You want to sleep on wet leaves? Fine by me. That’s your side of the bed then.”

“Maybe if you had some clothes on, the wetness wouldn’t bother you so much.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if you’d looked after Wayne like you were supposed to, we wouldn’t be here in the first place.

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