Once I had regained my senses, you informed me of your plan to negotiate with the older children so that they would return the stolen sack. I rolled my eyes upon hearing that you were thinking of convincing them that it was the right, morally correct thing to do, as if telling a group of teenagers that stealing was bad would do anything.
"We should take it, or at least just pay them off," I scoffed as you concluded your explanation. "They've likely never seen even a modest sum of money in their short lives."
"That wouldn't be fair, though," you whined, pouting. "If we were going to involve money in this, we could've just gone to a souvenir shop and gotten the shells in the first place."
"And why didn't we?" I raised an eyebrow."Because that wouldn't be fair," you exclaimed, and, unable to understand what you possibly could've meant by that, I followed along until we got to the other side of the beach, where you stopped a little ways away from a few sketchy looking individuals.
"The kid with the purple hat, you see him? That's the bully that stole the collection," you whispered.
"Well, I'm not going to do the talking," I replied.
"I wouldn't let you. You'd mess it up," you said. "Just stand next to me and look scary or something. Like what you usually do."
Begrudgingly, I accompanied you as you walked up to the teenager with the purple hat, who immediately seemed to be on guard as you waved and smiled at him.
"What do you want?" he asked, narrowing his eyes."Hi! We couldn't help but notice that bag of yours over there. I think it belongs to some of my friends. It isn't very nice to steal things from little kids. May I have it back?" you said in the approximation of a sweet tone.
"No way!"
"Please?"
"Nah."
"Pretty please?"
"Look, lady, we got this bag fair and square. Those brats should know better than to mess with us," the teenager said, crossing his arms. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes."
As you continued to argue with the delinquent, my eyes wandered over to the blanket they had set up on the beach, where some other teenagers were lounging. Beside them was a crate. On top of that crate was a couple bottles of iced water, all of which were placed dangerously close to the edge.
An idea formed in my head. Looking away from the bottles, I discreetly sent out a weak blast of kheji in the direction of the crate. Just as I planned, the bottles were knocked over, landing in the sand with a muffled sound as their contents spilled out.
"Dude, watch your feet," one of the teenagers on the blanket snapped, flicking the forehead of another who had been laying on his stomach close to the crate.
"What? They weren't even close to anything," the other one snapped back.They began to bicker, and soon enough, the teenager with the purple hat turned around and silenced them.
Thankfully, you were not so dense as to not notice this prime opportunity I had created for you.
"How about this? We can get you some new drinks if you let us have the bag. Would that be enough?"
The teenager with the purple hat sighed and rubbed his chin in contemplation. "I dunno..."
"Pretty pretty please?" you asked, batting your eyelashes a bit.
"Ugh, fine. But you gotta get us something other than water. Something sweet," the teenager huffed. "And you'd better do it fast."
"Four cups of lemonade, got it," you smiled, and triumphant, you motioned for me to follow you back in the direction of the marketplace. "Come on, let's go!"
"If we were going to buy them drinks, why couldn't we have just paid them in the first place?" I asked you as soon as we were out of earshot.
"It wouldn't be fair that way," you said for the third time, laughing. It didn't seem as if I was going to get a sensible answer from you at this point.
Soon enough, we returned to the teenagers with four cups of iced lemonade, trading the drinks with the bag you coveted so much. And after that was out of the way, we made our way back to where the group of children waited, where we were welcomed with high pitched cheering and shouting.
"You did it!" The child I had threatened pumped his fist into the air.
I watched the children scramble over to the bag like savage animals, digging their hands into its contents and pulling out a wide variety of junk, from coloured glass to drying seaweed. Once they were done, they handed the bag, of which only the shells remained, to me. I accepted it, picking it up with the tips of my fingers as to avoid touching as much of it as possible, and handed it to you.
"You kids play nice now!" you said, waving as we made our way to the meeting place we had designated earlier.The sun was now drifting near the horizon, setting slowly but surely.