Soaking up the sun

by Beth

The sun beat down on the town fair, seagulls swooped and wheeled, screeching and small children squawked in response, dogs panted in shady spots and ice cream melted into sticky drips that ran down licked fingers. Flowers swooned and wilted in their beds and the heat shimmered up from the tarmac between the legs of ladies pushing prams. Laura passed the crowds, flip flops smacking the soles of her feet as she headed up to the museum steps. Gold gleamed blindingly off the trumpets and trombones of the military band as they marched by. Pop-corn popping filled the air with a buttery sweetness and long hair and laughter jolted by her on jerking rides. She could hear the skateboards scraping across the ground before she saw them. Tom was there shirtless and burnt brown by the sun. He skated by in a wide arc and changed course slightly when he saw Laura. He crossed her path and swiped to grab her as he passed. He narrowly avoided colliding with Billy and they both cackled like a pair of hyenas. Tom glided back over, his hair was ruffled and damp with sweat and she could feel the heat coming off him as he leaned in to give her a salty kiss. Laura smiled, he wasn’t beautiful, but he was so effortlessly cool. The others jeered and she rolled her eyes and went and sat by the pile of rucksacks on the steps. As she passed they all said hi or waved. Tom began a series of skateboard tricks and intermittently exchanged insults with his friends. ‘nice one’ Mark shouted sarcastically, laughing as Tom attempted a complicated flip and rolled down 2 steps. Tom bounced back up, ‘let’s see you try that schnitzel dick’, Mark and Billy laughed, ‘oh ya you love the schnitzel’, Mark called back in a bad German accent whilst grabbing his crotch. Billy laughed harder. ‘what are you laughing at Cho Chang?’ joked Tom as he did an overly dramatic whirl about on Billy and with his hands on his hips. Mark and Tom looked at each other and launched into a vaguely Chinese sounding tune they’d made up to take the piss out of Billy, who was about a quarter Japanese. They all fell about laughing again. Laura smiled, she hated the song, but she she’d seen Mark and Tom chase another guy for half an hour, for making a vaguely derogatory comment about Billy’s mum. Laura leaned back and lounged on the steps. She imagined she was a happy lizard, content in doing nothing but enjoying her surroundings, safe from the seagulls above and the panting dogs, undisturbed by the squawking children and booming brass band, in her own little haven and most importantly, soaking up the sun.

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