Miss Braxton: Home and Away Fanfic

Chapter 16

"RISE AND SHINE, SURFING CHAMPION!"

I jumped awake, my pale turquoise eyes shooting open to find Heath looming over me with a massive grin on his face. His chocolaty eyes were gleaming with excitement in the dimness of my room. Behind him, through the curtains, I saw swathes of grey sky, sheets of cloud and drizzling rain. Water droplets pitter-pattered on the other side of the window pane.

Out of routine, I glanced over at the clock on my bedside table and saw that I'd been woken up at stupid o'clock in the morning. It was so early. No wonder my eyelids were feeling so heavy. Then my attention was drawn to the date at the bottom of the alarm clock and I groaned, covered my face with my blanket and rolled back over in bed, like a hedgehog curling up in a ball, or a bear preparing for hibernation.

"Hey, don't be lazy, Lex." Heath taunted, as he shook me roughly by the shoulder. "It's your big day. You should be excited, you numbskull."

"Can't you just wake me up tomorrow, when it's over?" I begged.

Heath tutted. "There is no way I'm letting that happen. We've put way too much training into this. You're going to win the surfing carnival. End of. "

"Or else what?"

"Or else I'll smash you." My brother said simply, before grabbing the duvet and pulling it and me with it, off the bed. I sprawled onto the floor. "Now, hurry up and get ready fast. Brax has made you a winner's breakfast through in the kitchen."

I perked up. "Bacon?"

"Is that the breakfast of athletes? No." Heath said, then frowned. "It's some kind of oaty, wheaty gruel. It's good for you." He clapped his hands together and stepped over me as I lay on the floor like a starfish. "Up and at 'em, Sis!"

From an upside down kind of angle, I watched as my brother walked out of my bedroom door and I was left to wonder why I had ever agreed to doing this in the first place.

*

The beach was heaving by the time I arrived with my family. There was a mix of spectators from every area that was competing, and the crowds were rather large. Everyone was dressed up or were waving flags or signs in their team's chosen colours. There were four entries in total; Summer Bay, Mangrove River, Chatworth and a place nearby called Newsborough Grove. Each place had offered up as many teens as interested to fill up the spots in the competition. It would be males against males and females against females. Summer Bay were orange and blue, Mangrove River were purple and green, Chatworth were red and black and Newsborough Grove had yellow and white.

Each competitor was easy to pick out of the gathering: they all wore their team's swimwear, which usually always looked revolting. That's why I was surprised when I noticed Brody stood with his mates and saw that he looked as annoyingly attractive as ever in his violet and emerald surf shorts that represented Mangrove River. Unlike him, I wore Blue and Orange. I was going to be winning for Summer Bay, since it was the place I'd come to call home (and Brax would have been really suss if I'd demanded to be on the Mangrove River team.) With me, the only people I really knew were VJ, Jett and Hunter for the boys and for the girls, a blonde in my school I'd had one conversation with once, called Aurora. The rest of them playing for Summer Bay, I didn't know. Luckily, I'd managed to somehow rope Olivia into signing up. She's been worse than reluctant to compete, but my constant pestering had finally worn her down and she'd begrudgingly agreed.

"I promise you, I'll do terribly." She vowed, looking uncomfortable in her swimsuit and pulling at it as if it was hurting her. The two of us were walking down the beach together, joining up with the rest of the competitors as they stretched and readied themselves for the challenges ahead.