Part 19 (2/2)

Sarah stopped in the middle of the path she was following. ”Seriously, Candi, what am I supposed to do with a friggin' period in the middle of the jungle?” Sarah swept her arms around her, gesturing to the trees that rose up high above their heads, some of them leaning together so close they blocked out the sun. The sounds of birds calling out to one another filled the air around them.

Candi looked at the surrounding wildness and threw up her hands too. ”I don't know, but we'll come up with something. Look, I have all the incentive in the world to help you. My period is coming any day. Come on, don't look so sad, we'll work it out. We'll tear up the sheet or something and stuff our underwear like they did in the olden days.”

All of a sudden, Sarah started crying. She stood there looking so pitiful with her awful hair and destroyed makeup, ruined leopard print dress still clinging sadly to her dirty, sandy, and sunburned body, wearing flip-flops that didn't fit.

Candi couldn't help herself. She reached out and hugged Sarah.

Sarah grabbed onto her and started crying even harder. ”I'm sorry I called you tweedle-dumb. I'm just so p.i.s.sed right now, I can't see straight.”

Candi chuckled into her shoulder. ”I thought I was tweedle-dee.”

Sarah laughed and quickly pulled away, embarra.s.sed by her weakness, swiping at her eyes. ”Whatever. I didn't mean to say it. I'm not mad at you or Jonathan, even though sometimes he can be a total pain in the a.s.s. No offense.” She hesitated and wiped at her eyes again before saying, ”If it hadn't been for you two, I don't even want to think about what might have happened to Kevin and me. We would probably be in a shark's stomach right now or something.” She looked up above them and then gestured all around her with her arms open wide and a tremulous smile on her lips. ”Instead, we have all this!”

Candi and Sarah smiled at each other and then laughed. A little at first, and then more, until they were both hysterical.

”Oh my G.o.d, stop, stop I'm gonna pee on myself,” gasped Candi.

”Go ahead, you couldn't possibly look or smell worse than you do right now!” laugh-screamed Sarah.

”Oh, y-y-yes I could ... I could b-b-be on my p-p-period!!”

They both fell to the ground, laughing like hyenas. All of their problems were temporarily forgotten as they held their sides, laughing like they'd never laughed before.

After a couple of minutes, their merriment petered out and they were able to get their breath back. They were both exhausted, but enjoying the endorphins that their laughter had released into their bloodstreams.

”Man, I needed that,” said Sarah.

”I guess I did, too.” Candi looked around them. ”Where in the heck are we, anyway?”

Sarah looked up into the trees. ”I have no idea.” She looked down at the ground. ”But this seems to be some sort of trail we're on.”

”Trail? Well, that's weird, should we follow it?”

”Yeah, maybe there's a Wal-Mart at the end of it, and I can buy some tampons.”

”Did you bring any money?” asked Candi, a sparkle of remaining laughter in her eyes.

”Honey, when you look like I do, you don't need to bring money,” said Sarah, saucily, flinging her knotted hair over her shoulder and walking down the path like she was on a Paris fas.h.i.+on runway, except her flip-flops kind of ruined the effect with their sound and the sand they were spraying up behind her.

”That's the spirit!” said Candi happily. Now they just had to find something that could be like a period pad and everyone would be permitted to live through the night unscathed by her majesty, the queen of menstruation.

The girls made it back to the campfire just in time to see Kevin stumble off into the bushes to vomit.

”Ew.”

”Sarah, that's not very nice,” scolded Candi, walking over to where Kevin was leaning his hand on a tree.

”Are you okay, Kevin?” she asked tentatively.

”No, I feel like s.h.i.+t. My stomach is in knots.”

Candi looked back Jonathan who had a contemplative look on his face.

”Kevin, if you did get food poisoning from those oysters, I expect you're gonna feel sick for a couple of days. You're probably going to get diarrhea too.”

”Dude, if you say that word again, I'm gonna come over there and bust you up.”

”What word? Oysters?”

”That's it!”

Kevin turned around as if he was going to head towards Jonathan, but his legs had other ideas. He fell to the ground on his knees, moaning as he went down onto his side in the sand, landing at Candi's feet. He looked up at her and said, ”Hey, sand fairy, can you get me some water?”

Candi moved quickly to get him some water from their precious stores.

”We need more water,” said Jonathan, worriedly. ”I'm going to go do some exploring, see what I can find.”

”I'm going to stay here with Kevin. Maybe I'll be able to get him to eat something,” said Candi as she lifted his head to help him drink.

Kevin stopped midway and fixed his gaze on her eyes. ”If you say a food word, I'm gonna have to bust you up, too.”

”Yes, well, I'm very worried about that, for sure.” Candi looked over at Sarah and Jonathan and rolled her eyes. ”Sarah, why don't you go with Jonathan and help him look. I'll stay here and look after the tough guy. See if you can find any more b-a-n-a-n-a-s for d-i-n-n-e-r later.”

Sarah shrugged her shoulders and started walking into the trees. ”Come on, Jonathan, I don't have all day to wait on you.”

Jonathan shot his sister a weary look before he got up to follow her into the jungle.

The last thing Candi heard was Sarah singing, ”'This s.h.i.+t is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S! I said this s.h.i.+t is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!'”

Candi couldn't help but laugh. They were a million miles away from Gwen Stefani on the radio and everything else they used to think was normal.

She looked down at Kevin who seemed to be asleep again, his head resting directly on the sand. She looked around and decided to spend some time trying to create a more comfortable place to put him. She started by grabbing a nearby fallen palm frond, stripping it of its leaves, trying to figure out how to weave them into some sort of mat he could sleep on.

”I said this s.h.i.+t is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S! The B is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!”

”What in the heck are you saying, Sarah? Is that some kind of cheer or something? What do bananas have to do with football?”

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