Shock

-14-

Grrrhhhhawrrrrr
To be fair, I hadn't eaten in over fourteen hours.
Still, I felt mortified as the dying-whale-like sound escaped my body.
I glanced to my left, hoping Nathan hadn't heard it. At first sight, it appeared he hadn't. He was looking at a fallen stop sign and scraping some dirt of his sneaker, but a chuckle gave him away. 
I clamped my hands over my stomach, begging it to stop, but the orchestra continued.
Gruhwarruhhh
The chuckle became more prominent.
"You okay there?"
"I... Yes. I'll just..." I unzipped my pack a started frantically digging around in it. Eventually, I found the packet of biscuits I'd stashed in it just a couple of hours earlier. The plastic, however, turned out harder to break than expected. I remembered Nathan had Layla's purse and asked him to hand me the knife.
"What kn-" he interrupted himself and pulled out Layla's steak knife.
"Woah, that one."
He handed it to me and I inserted the point under the tab. Turning it upwards, I pushed through the plastic. But my hands were sweaty and slipped, causing my palm to be sliced by the blade.
"Dammit."
I quickly put the knife away, grateful Peter wasn't still sleeping on my shoulder.
Both kids had woken up for a short period about half an hour earlier and Nathan and I had taken the opportunity to stretch our sore muscles while they repositioned themselves.

"You're hurt." Nathan quickly scooted over to me. I instinctively hid my hand behind the box of biscuits. Too late.
"Here, let me see," he said, pushing the box out of the way.
"Really, it's nothing. Just a paper cut."
"Don't want to know what you do with paper."
A smile tingled at my lips, but it immediately disappeared when Nathan pressed on the wound.
"Ouch!"
"See? Not a paper cut. Have you got the first aid kit?"
I shook my head. "I left it with Layla in case Grace needed it."
He pressed his lips together and started searching through the purse again. A minute or so later, he fished out a pack of tissues and some duct tape. He took out several tissues and put them on my palm. Then he wrapped the duct tape around it a couple of times and separated the piece with his teeth, pressing the access back onto my hand.
"Best I could do."
"Thanks. It looks..." The tissues were crumpled and dirty and the bright orange tape was haphazardly criss crossed.
"...decent."
Grrrhhhhawrrrrr
For the third time in the last ten minutes, my stomach released a excruciatiating sound.
"Okay," Nathan grabbed the knife and biscuits.
"Careful." I warned. "We don't have that many tissues."
He slowly turned the knife, poking through the plastic. Finally, the wrapping gave way and revealed the food underneath.
"Here you go." He handed me the packet back. I tried taking out a biscuit, but my bandaged hand couldn't reach inside the box.
"Oh," Nathan said, taking it back and retrieving a single cookie for me.
"Thank you." I started munching on the biscuit and stared at the street in front of me. Something moved behind a garbage bin. Stuffing the rest of the cookie in my mouth, I rose and inched towards it.
"What are you doing?"
"Shh!"
At first, I'd thought it was the wind that caused the movement, but as the bin moved again, I decided it had to be an animal of some sort. A dog, maybe?
I walked closer, careful not to make any sound. Nearing the bin, I glanced around it.
One more step...
The metal lid dropped to the ground and I jumped back.
"Frizz!"
Something sprinted past my legs, down the street. Definitely not a dog.
I returned to the other side of the street and sat down.
"Why did you do that?"
"I thought it was a dog."
"I'm pretty sure that was a rat."
I squinted, turning my head in the direction the creature had run.
"Really?"
"Yup."
"Oh."
Then, I remembered something.
"Hey, what did you call me just then?"
"Huh?"
"When the lid dropped. You yelled something."
"Oh, that! I said... Frizz."
"Frizz?"
"You know, because of your hair?"
I instinctively put my hand on my head. My ponytail felt like cotton candy, it always did. And I knew my face would be framed by flyaways making up some kind of weird halo.
Me and my curls had a love-hate relationship.
Still, I was the only one allowed to offend them.
"It's not that frizzy."
"I didn't mean it in a bad way!" He scrambled. "I actually think it's kind of... Cute."
I frowned. Cute?
"Never mind. Why didn't you say my real name anyway?"
"I don't know it." He answered simply.
"You don't know my name?"
"How would I? We never formally introduced ourselves, and that was the first thing I noticed about you, so in my head, you're Frizz."
I understood. Before I'd learned Nathan's name, I'd thought of him as DS. I told him this.
"DS? As in Nintendo DS?"
I nodded.
"Well, then technically you should call me DSi."
I chuckled. Of course.
"Well, I'm Charlie. But you're welcome to call me Frizz if you like."
I'd never really had a nickname. Not a cute one anyway. I kind of liked it.
"Nathan," Nathan said, "But you can call me DS, even if it's technically incorrect."
We shook hands, and behind us, something moved.
It were Peter and Haley. They'd woken up. I heard a familiar dying-whale-sound. Peter looked at me and blinked a few times.
"I'm hungry."
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