Fluke

20: Duck, Duck, Whale

Inside, the group all sat at the dining room table, and Toby had a stack of boxes and envelopes resting on his chair. I took my seat next to Logan.

"Sorry," I said. "We accidentally started the seal watch a little later than usual."

"That's introducing so much bias into your experiment, Logan, that I don't even know where to begin. Would you take your project seriously for once in your life?" Darrell said.

"It's Rea's fault. She slipped and fell on the rocks even though I specifically told her not to," Logan said, and although it was a lie, it could have easily been true.

"And you were just going to let Logan take all the blame? That's shameful, Reagan, and you should be ashamed of yourself," Darrell said.

"I'll try to do better next time," I mumbled.

Everyone seemed satisfied with that explanation of the delay, so I didn't bother to say anything else that could ruin it.

Toby cleared his throat. "So, throughout these first few weeks on the rock, many friends and family of yours have been sending things to the college for us to bring to you. And in some cases, you ordered things from Amazon. I'm not naming names, but how did you think FedEx would deliver out here, Brett?"

"I have Amazon Prime, so I figured they'd make it happen," Brett said.

"You are a worthless human being," Darrell said, but Brett smiled at him anyway.

At least Brett made us all of our meals and kept the positivity flowing through the air. He seemed a lot less worthless than Darrell.

Toby cleared his throat to rein in our attention once again, but it sounded more like a hack. "Don't even start, Mr. Barrett, or Santa's not going to give you your presents."

"Did people actually send me things, or are you just trying to make me feel bad? That won't work, because I don't care about anyone or their opinions," Darrell said.

"Shut up, liar," Jia said.

"I'm not a liar, so maybe you should just learn to keep your mouth shut for once," Darrell replied.

Jia shook her head and smiled at the king of running his mouth.

"I swear, if you all keep this up, nobody's going to get anything," Toby said, and Jia and Brett stopped smiling.

I wasn't sure what Brett had ordered online, but it must have been really important to him if he was willing to calm down for a moment.

"Thank you. Now just grab the shit with your name on it, then get back to whatever you all were doing. Darrell's giving me a migraine," Toby said.

I let out a soft laugh. Darrell gave us all migraines on more than one occasion, but poor Toby had to put up with his tattling and constant complaining more than everyone else.

Darrell glared at me. "I'm not in the mood for this right now, Reagan, so I would suggest that you just don't say anything."

Before I even had the chance to reply (I had no intention of doing so, anyway) Brett immediately stood up and picked the largest box from the collection.

He tore it open, then looked inside. "Holy fuck, they're even better than I dreamed they'd be," he mumbled to himself.

"I'm going to have to write you up for that profanity," Darrell said, but Brett ignored him and pulled something yellow out of the box.

"Oh my god. Oh my—" He looked up at the rest of us. "They're super soft. Feel." He picked whatever it was up and brushed the unidentified yellow object against my nose, and it tickled my skin.