Hide & Seek - Alyssa Brugman [14]
Chad didn't answer. He headed inside to collect the chips. Shelby bought a bottle of soft drink for each of them and they wandered back across the road to sit on a bench in the park.
'I haven't seen you out on the trails lately,' he com-mented, unravelling the white paper packet. The delicious smell of the chips wafted up between them.
Shelby blew on a chip before putting it in her mouth. 'I've got a job at the stables, and I've been getting riding lessons, so I haven't been in the Gully much – only up near the stables.'
Chad dropped a chip. A lone seagull alighted in front of them and gobbled it up. Then three or four who had been stalking a family nearby scurried over on their red legs.
'You probably haven't seen the circus then.'
Shelby shook her head. 'Circus?'
'You know up on the other side of the Gully there's a water tower?' Chad drew a map in the air with his index finger. 'Well, in front of that there was a paddock with some cows in it.'
Shelby nodded. 'There's an old lounge on the bend.' She pointed to the place on his imaginary map where the lounge suite would be.
'That's the one.' He smiled. 'Well, the cows are gone and now there's a circus. They've just put up a new fence.'
'What do you mean a circus?'
Chad flicked a chip with a burnt spot to the birds and they squabbled over it, screeching in their bird voices. Others, attracted by the calls, alighted on the fringes, and soon they had a whole flock staring at them expectantly.
'Circuses aren't on the road all the time, you know. They have to have a base, don't they? Sometimes they have a rest and come up with a new routine.'
'No way! Are there elephants?'
Chad frowned, thinking. 'I haven't seen any elephants. Just horses.'
Shelby took a swig of her drink. 'I saw a heap of trucks on the road on the way here. It had Equus Caballus written on the side. It looked like a horse circus.'
'Yeah, I think that's what it's called.'
'How many horse circuses can there be?' she asked. 'Cool! I'll have to go and have a look.'
'We could go together,' Chad suggested. 'Then I might be brave enough to ask if I can watch them practice instead of hiding in the scrub.'
'Were you on your trail bike when you did this hiding?'
'Yep.'
'And you reckon they didn't know you were there?' Shelby grinned. 'If you're going to make a habit of lurking in the bushes you'll need a quieter form of transport!' She put her index finger on her chin in an exaggerated gesture, as though she was thinking. 'Hmm. Let me see, what's fast and quiet?'
He shook his head and scrunched up the empty paper. 'I've already told you I think you're crazy getting on those things. Bikes don't have their own idea about where they want to go, and they don't get lost all the time!'
Shelby took one last mouthful of her drink and then handed him the empty bottle to put in the bin.
'Good chips, eh?'
'Yeah. Thanks for inviting me.' Shelby stood up.
'Are you going?' he asked. 'We could walk along the beach. There's a rock platform on the headland. We could look for anemones and starfish. I saw an octopus there once. Ever wrestled with an octopus? They're really strong – like one big muscle. Or we could walk out along the jetty. One of my cousins is out there fishing.'
'I can't. We're going to see . . .' Shelby paused, embarrassed. He might think it was babyish to see an animated movie. 'I have a family thing.'
'What about tomorrow?' he asked.
'I'd love to but we're going home tomorrow,' Shelby told him. She looked him in the eye and realised she really would like to explore the rock platform with Chad. It had been hard to think of things to say at first, but now they were talking as though they'd known each other for years. He wasn't at all like the boys at school. They all seemed to be from another species. Chad seemed to be a friend already.
'Well, we should arrange a day to look at the circus. What about next week sometime?'