May 18
I woke up in the morning to the chapel bells ringing out a tune. I think I was awake before the first bell had even finished.
I'd never heard them ringing on any day except Sunday and Tuesdays when they practiced, and certainly not this early in the morning, and the first thought that came to mind was Poe's iron bells, so I had my muzzle to the window right away to see what was going on.
My first thought was fire. I didn't smell it, but I could have been upwind of it. My first duty whenever a fire was spotted was to tell everypony about it, but I didn't have to do that because the bells were already ringing, so my next duty was to get clouds to help put it out. I glanced up at the sky and from what little I could see through the window, there weren't any, which was bad.
All the commotion woke up Peggy, but she didn't seem too panicked by the bells and that calmed me down a bit—she'd know what to do.
I asked her why they were ringing and what I needed to do, and she told me they were ringing because today was the Day of Gracious Living, which meant that all classes were canceled. She sat up in bed and explained how the tradition had begun in 1974, and it had continued since then. She said that nobody knew what day it was going to be, except that it was always in May.
I told her that it would be a good day to catch up on reading the Bible and getting started on my essay for Anthropology, but she said that I wasn't allowed to do that. The rule was that on the Day of Gracious Living, it was mandatory to abstain from schoolwork.
Then she told me that a lot of people went to the beach at South Haven, and that was what we were going to do today. She said we'd eat breakfast, and then we'd put Sean and Joe and Christine in the car, and we'd go and sit on the beach and that was that.
I probably could have argued with her, but my heart wasn't in it. I wouldn't mind a day at the beach with friends.
Peggy took a quick shower and I didn't bother, since I hadn't done any exercise at all. Then we ate breakfast together and Peggy told everyone else at the table that we were going to the beach and there were no excuses. She said that they had twenty minutes after breakfast to get ready and then she was going to drag them out of their rooms, and I think she would have.
It was kind of funny that the dining hall was more crowded today than it normally was, and everyone was in a cheerful mood. I could see some people had come to breakfast without getting dressed; there were a few people in sleeping clothes and one girl that was even wearing fuzzy teddy-bear slippers.
Peggy made good on her promise, packing up a small bag which she called a day bag. The only thing I really needed to take was a towel, and I didn't need a bag for that; I could just drape it over my back.
We were in Cobalt in eighteen minutes, and she got Sean and Joe first, then picked up Christine. I had to sit in the back, because the car wasn't really designed to have three adults in the back seat but I could fit in ways that humans didn't. Joe sat in the front, and I sat in the middle of the back. I thought Christine and Sean would want to sit next to each other, but they both said it was okay.
We made it to the beach by ten, and the parking lot was already half full. It was a nice, calm day and totally cloudless.
Peggy picked out a spot and we set up our towels. The girls got undressed—they were both wearing swimsuits under their clothes, then Peggy got out a bottle of suntan lotion and she and Christine put it on each other.
I asked if it was okay if I flew out over the water for a bit and they said that was fine. So I trotted down the beach and then when I hit the firmer, wet sand at the shore, I took flight, flying straight out until I reached the end of the jetty. There were a lot of people on it, and a bunch of them pointed to me and waved. One man who was fishing beckoned me over and asked me if I could see where the fish were, and I said I could. So I picked up a little bit more height so I could see through the water better, and I found a school of them, and I pointed down, and he picked up his gear and moved to a new place on the jetty.
There was also a seagull that didn't like me very much. I guess I got too close to what he thought was his, and he came after me, squawking his displeasure, so I spun around and flew at him until he backed off. But I knew that wasn't the end of it; he'd probably try and come at me again if I got too close.
I went around to the other side of the harbor entrance, past the red lighthouse, and there was another beach there but it wasn't as popular. Still, I saw Leon and Cedric and Trevor there (Cedric was really hard to miss). I landed to say 'hi,' and Leon made me swear to tell no one I'd seen them because hood rats didn't go to the beach, and so I asked why they were there, then, and he said he needed to work on his tan.
So I promised I wouldn't tell anyone that they were there, and told them if they changed their minds about not being there, we were over on the other beach.
When I landed, Christine was lying on her stomach with the back of her swimming bra untied, and Peggy was right next to her but on her back. Sean was reading something on his pocket telephone, and Joe was sketching the lighthouse in his notebook.
They'd left my towel between them, so I landed right on it and stretched out and dozed in the sun for a bit.
I woke up when I felt Peggy moving around next to me, and when I stuck my head up she was re-tying Christine's swimming bra. I asked her why it had been untied, and Christine said it was to avoid tan lines.
Then I said that she was still going to have them on her breasts and she told me that couldn't be helped unless she took it off, so I asked her why she didn't.
She told me it was illegal for her to do that, and I said it didn't seem fair that the boys could not wear tops but that she had to.
Sean said that I probably knew how sharks were drawn to blood in the water, and I said that I did. He said that when women go topless, it's the same effect on men, that they cease to be rational.
Christine told him that he'd ceased to be rational as soon as he'd opened his mouth, and he responded by grabbing at her breast. She swatted his hand away, and Peggy rolled her eyes. Joe pretended to ignore us.
In the afternoon, some students set up a volleyball net and people took turns playing games. Peggy and I played a couple of times. She was pretty good at it, and I wasn't at all. I had better control if I hit the ball with my head, but after a while that started to hurt. But it was still lots of fun.
After we were done playing I went down to the waterfront and started to dig at the wet sand, and Peggy asked me what I was doing, and I said that there were sand crabs that liked to hide in sand and they were a good snack, but I wasn't finding any of them, and she told me that she didn't think that there were any of those in Michigan.
I dug at the sand a little bit more, but I think she was right. I hadn't found any at all, and usually they were so plentiful that it didn't take more than one or two hoof-scuffs before you had one.
When we were walking back to our blankets, she said it was always a little bit weird to see me eating meat, and even weirder to think of me trying to catch it.
We hung out for a little while longer, then everyone got back in Cobalt and we went looking for a place to have dinner. We finally settled on the Big Boy, since it was a decent restaurant, and not too far out of the way. There were a lot more choices in Kalamazoo, but nobody wanted to wait that long for food.
Sean was complaining about how his back and shoulders had gotten sunburned. Christine reminded him that was because he had been too stubborn to put on any suntan lotion. Peggy had some bright red marks on her arms, too, but that was from playing volleyball, not from a sunburn.
They had a pretty good salad bar, which all of us girls got, while the boys wanted to get hamburgers. Then for dessert I ordered a vanilla milkshake and shared it with Peggy.
I hadn’t noticed on the way to South Haven, but there was a big orange car parked along the side of the road on top of a hill, and there was a sign next to it that said Gene the Pumpkin Man. Peggy promised that we would go out there next fall.
She dropped everyone off at their dorms, and then we went back to ours. Peggy put on her lounging clothes and I went outside to brush the rest of the sand out of my coat, then decided that I would go to Aric’s a little bit early.
I flew over to Aric’s house and he was in the driveway with his feet sticking out from underneath the not-Winston truck. I stuck my head underneath and he didn’t notice me right away; he was holding a light in his mouth and had both hands up on top of something and a pile of tools on top of his chest.
He reached down and dropped the tool he was holding on his chest and felt around until he felt a different one and it disappeared up where his hands were. And then he happened to look and notice me.
He was putting in a starter--it was one of the things that the not-Winston truck needed--and said that he was almost done; once he got the two big bolts in he could leave it like that and finish up in the morning.
I told him that I didn’t mind how long it took him, but I guess he didn’t want to make me wait, because before too long he started pushing tools out from under the truck and then he came out, too. I leaned down and kissed him before he could stand up.
He had to take a shower and get all the grease off his hands before we could do anything else, so he went off and did that while I sat in the backyard watching the birds. One of them landed on my back while he was waiting his turn.
Aric opened his bedroom window when he was done in the shower, and the squeak of wood on wood scared the birds away and got my attention. When he’d turned away (and since the birds were gone for now) I shook some more sunflower seeds out of the birdfeeder then flew into his bedroom and took his towel off.