s e a r c h i n g

“maybe we should’ve performed the ritual” holly joked, placing her hands on her hips on a very superman position with the wind playing with her hair and the sun hitting just the perfect spot, the only feature ruining the picture was her now growing smile. “drawn a circle in chalk, chanted a bit while dancing and knocking on wood as the sun rose–” she laughed then, fully ruining the superhero picture. 

“definitely too early for that though, I’m not even sure if I’m ready to be hated by the little creatures after we ruin their fun with a lecture.” 

the children’s laughter was heard after holly’s sentence. like sweet music in a candy shop. full of joy and sunshine. she loved children, she couldn’t lie and if she was honest with herself had she not been hired as lifeguard she’d probably be running around the place alongside them. with a childish smile she watched for a second before sighing at the sound of duty calling. 

she took her black whistle and made it ring. “kids!” she finally yelled, “no running around the pool, you’ll get yourselves hurt!”

“ Oh,” Eleanor matched Holly’s joking tone, meeting it with  o v e r a c t e d  eagerness played perfectly. “ Oh, golly, how could we have forgotten the ritual? Now everything is totally doomed. No cute passengers are going to flirt with us, so many old men are going to call us pet-names and stand too close; and every single child on this ship is going to force us to lecture them on running around the pool.”

Laughter erupted from Eleanor then, as well. The first day was a big deal in that it was the last calm day, probably, and Eleanor would bet they were both drawing out doing their actual job and avoiding yelling at kids just to keep up the illusion the  c a l m  brought. 

After all, it was nice for them to get some fun in too. Even if they had to find it in the form of making fun of themselves in whatever roundabout way the talk of rituals and curses was. 

When Holly bit the bullet and blew her whistle, Eleanor bounced up and down on the balls of her feet and did a short little round of applause -- not mocking, just poking fun at this whole job. ( How absurd was it that she was even here? ) But Eleanor  s h o v e d  that thought out of her head. “ First admonishment of the trip. I’d like to say we can only go up from here ... but, probably not.” 

“i know that, silly goose.” holly replied as she entered the scene with a drag to her movement. it was oh so relaxing to find herself in such a place were her favorite element was everywhere to find and the work was so little she could actually let herself sit back and relax. of course that wouldn’t be the case for the whole trip as she was sure much more hectic days were to come– and soon.

she placed her towel on her seat, kicked off her flip-flops underneath it and came to join eleanor by the pool, only to catch a glimpse of what the lifeguard meant as she’d put her sunglasses on.

“oh, then this is how it starts.” she said looking at the couple of kids chasing each other around through the empty chairs. “you know i though we were going to get a least a couple more hours of peace.”

“ Hmm, ” Eleanor’s words halted in her throat in exchange for a pained sort of hum. Holly had the right idea,  s o r t   o f . If there were ever going to be a time when the two of them were on the clock and could still spare a little while to lounge around and enjoy the environment, it was now -- and even then there were still unattended children causing a ruckus. 

“Honestly,” she said. “I’d crossed my fingers, knocked on wood ... hell, I was about to light a candle and everything.” Instead of crossing her fingers, Eleanor now crossed her arms over her chest, posture slouching ever so slightly. 

She spared a wistful glance towards the chair where Holly’s towel and flip flops were. She’d stowed her own underneath the tiny lifeguard’s tower on this side of he pool, more because she knew if she put them anywhere else they’d taunt her the whole afternoon. With one more sound that was equal parts yearning and frustrated, Eleanor let her head loll a bit to the side to glance up at Holly. “Okay, so I vote we yell at them to stop running  o n e  m o r e  t i m e  before we feel super obligated to walk over there and give them the water safety monologue. It’s too early in the cruise for The Monologue.” 

isaiah was relieved that the brunette wasn’t angry with him, but he still felt really awful about it. “well, that’s a relief. i’m not even technically on duty right now, but i guess the job never stops,” he said with a small laugh. he propped the kid up on his hip and looked at him, smiling a bit. “i dunno, i think he was trying to hide from me.” 

“I feel you,“Eleanor said. “I mean, I am on the job right now, even though there’s barely a need for it.“ She rocked back on the bare heels of her feet, let her arms spread ever so slightly -- like she was playing make-believe at flying away -- gesturing at the nearly  e m p t y  pool behind her. “No real need for the job right now, and here I am anyway. Oh well,” Eleanor rolled her eyes. “We knew what we signed up for. He certainly didn’t, if he’s trying that hard to run away.” 

he’d been watching this kid for a total of five minutes while his mother ran up to their room to get something she had lost, and already he had lost control of the kid. the little boy had run around to the other side of the pool so that isaiah couldn’t catch up to him, so he had to quickly follow after to make sure he didn’t drown. once he picked the kid up, he turned toward eleanor and gave her a sheepish smile. “sorry, i didn’t want him to fall in.”  

“ Oh! No, that’s alright,” Eleanor said to Isaiah. “ You were just doing your job, then. I just saw  r u n n i n g  out of the corner of my eye, and I can’t allow that. Though I promise you, had he actually fallen in I would have gotten him out again, no problem.” She tilted her head down, then, cocked a slightly disapproving look at the kid -- with just enough lift to her eyebrows, she hoped, to keep him from feeling like she was ganging up on him.  “ I'd like to know just what this guy was doing that ended with running around my pool,”

In short, just what she needed to dip her toes into the job. 

Out of the corner of her eyes, Eleanor thought she spotted the  b l u r  of someone running, and she let out an internal sigh -- this time one of frustration, because of course, she’d jinxed it. “ Excuse me, ” she called out. “ No running around the pools. “