"What weird kind of voice is that supposed to be?" I ask Ethan with an astonished laugh, grabbing a cushion from the couch behind us to hit him in the face with it... gently... mostly...

"Yeah!" Delia confirms my assessment. "Miss Risk Analyst is kinda sexy, and you're making her sound like old Missus Winkler shrieking at the kids using their skateboards on her driveway!" 

Mrs Winkler lives three houses down from us and has the most awesome, wide driveway, perfect for skateboarding. It is cruel and unusual punishment to flaunt that driveway in front of skaters and expect them to stay off of it when there is no wall or gate or anything standing between them and a smooth ride. 

Mrs Winkler spends most of her time in her living room drinking tea, eating cake, and watching soaps, but on the odd occasion when she wanders to the front of her house and glances through a window to find kids skating in her driveway, she uses exactly that voice Ethan just used to get rid of them. Fortunately, she seldom leaves her comfortable recliner, and nobody is completely convinced that she really cares about skaters using her driveway; she just needs to remind them from time to time that it still belongs to her.

"Yes," I agree with Dell's highly accurate description of the high-pitched whiny voice Ethan just used to read the girl part in the manga we're reading for his book report. Ethan cannot sit still long enough to read books; he'd rather have someone read them to him because then he doesn't have to sit still; he can play with the animals, stand on his head or toss a ball at a wall while he listens.

He insisted that I do Akira, the lead male character's voice, and Dell does the voice of his best friend, Kencho, while he'll be the voice of Shizuka, the only main female character so far. For the rest of the voices, we all just take turns. "Mrs Winkler is about 120 years old; she doesn't look like this girl," I remind him.

Ethan rolls his eyes and sighs, taking the cushion from my hand to whack me on the head with it. "She's only 72." I'm pretty sure he doesn't know the woman's real age, but his guess is probably closer than mine.

We're lounging on a large bed made up of a bunch of thick rubber camping mats in the Fletchers' living room, surrounded by duvets, pillows, snacks and the books Ethan and I took from the library on Monday.

Not long after eating our ice cream at the festival, Ethan announced that he was tired and wanted to go home with his parents rather than accept his dad's offer of keeping one car and coming home later. Aunt Gemma, Dell and I came with Aunt Gemma's car long after Ethan and his father were already at the festival, erecting the bleachers.

I cannot help but wonder if he didn't decline for my sake; he didn't look tired at all. Delia also professed her soul-devouring exhaustion, and I know she was faking it. I, on the other hand, really wanted to come home but would've died rather than tell them because I didn't want them to leave the festival for my sake. I'd started to develop a slight headache again and wanted to get out of the noise and bustle to stop it from building.

Here we are now, with our backs propped up by pillows and the bottom of the couch, chilling on the floor, reading manga and making stupid jokes. Ethan is sitting between Dell and me, and we each have a head on his shoulder to be able to see the pages.

Pulling away to push my hair out of my face and glare at Ethan, I find myself giggling instead, taking in the sight. The poor guy is almost buried under bodies, books and bowls of snacks. Delia and I have really been using him as a handy table, and Lazy-Bones, his fat ten-year-old Basset Hound, is lying on Ethan's lower belly, looking at me now with huge, droopy eyes. The dog has a way of always looking sorry for himself, even when his belly is full, and he's having his ears scratched.

That is not all!

I follow the tip of a grey, cream and black tail dangling over Ethan's forehead all the way to a kitten purring on his head, massaging his scalp with its nails. Scamp is a stray cat Ethan found stuck up a tree during a storm. The poor thing lost his mother and was a really sad sight at first, frightened and malnourished, but under our love and care, he has grown quite a bit and is now just the right size to get himself into all kinds of trouble and be unable to get out of it again. I often find him on my windowsill, meowing in a panic because he doesn't know how to get down again. He is pretty good at climbing up things, but his dismount still needs a lot of work.

"Sorry," Ethan says, letting go of the cushion to stroke a hand over my head. "I forgot you already hit your head today. Did I hurt you just now?"

"No, Doctor Do-Little," I grin, touched by his concern even when he didn't hit me hard at all. "I'm fine. Now, change that voice!" I warn, and smirking, he re-reads the part he'd offended us with, and this time he has the creaking gate, raspy sound of Marge Simpson, so Delia grabs the cushion he'd dropped and hits him against the side of his head.

I watch with a giggle as Scamp, having his royal throne assaulted by the offensive pillow, digs his nails into it and when Dell draws her hand back, getting ready to hit her brother again, she drags the cat off his head and onto Ethan's face.

"Come on!" he growls, transferring the kitten to his hand, puffing air from his lips to get rid of cat hair. "Where's Sy? I need backup! I'm being abused."

I'm not sure if he's referring to Delia and me or the cat chomping on his hand, but I gently extract the kitten's claws from his flesh and put the animal on my stomach, where it happily starts a wrestling match with its tail.

"Make a nice voice, and you'll be safe," I assure Ethan, snuggling up to him again.

"Sy's welcoming his grandma and helping her settle in at their place. He hasn't seen her in ages." This is not the grandmother they visited on Saturday after the rugby match. "She's going to visit them for a few weeks, so he'll be joining us again tomorrow morning."

"Awesome," Ethan really sounds happy to hear that, and I don't think it's just because they'll be short a crew member if Simon is late for the race.

"Ethe, please look after him during the race tomorrow," Delia suddenly turns serious, pulling away so that she can see her brother's face more clearly. "He's not used to boats and... well... you guys can be a bit..." she trails off with a grimace, and Ethan bats his eyes at her as if he has no idea what she could possibly mean.

"Yeah, sure," he finally relents when she narrows her eyes at him and grabs her hand, preventing the finger-flick to his forehead he knew was coming. "But you seriously underestimate that guy's capacity for chaos. He copes with us better than Burlap does."

"I'm so proud of him," Delia laughs, settling into Ethan's shoulder again.

Around the middle of the fourth volume of the Bucket List of the Dead series we'd brought home with us from the library, Ethan starts to get restless, a sure sign that he is sleepy and when his restlessness starts to give way to him falling asleep for a few seconds at a time, Delia and I close the books and set them aside. We chat for a few minutes, using Ethan as our pillow, but it's not long before Delia falls asleep too. 

I am wide awake. The medicine has run its course, the threatening headache has disappeared, and I've spent a huge part of the morning sleeping at the hospital. I am not sleepy at all right now. Besides, whenever I share a sleeping area with the twins, I end up battered.

I try to watch a movie on the big TV at the foot end of our bed, but keeping the sound down and reading the subtitles is not as satisfying as usual, especially since the movie I picked is an action-adventure, with loads happening without dialogue and it wasn't meant to be a silent film. Eventually, I give up and try to break our rule of reading the manga without each other, but that only makes me feel guilty, so I stop that too. 

Uncle Ian and Aunt Gemma went to bed ages ago. I think they are finally convinced that I am fine. Daddy too. I called him earlier and assured him again that I am mostly pain-free and had a great time at the festival.

Sitting up, I look at my sleeping friends, an affectionate smile spreading on my face at the sight. Dell has rolled away from Ethan and somehow managed to wind herself around Lazy-Bones. The dog is happily snoring in her embrace. I have seen this phenomenon a few times before. When she holds onto something, Delia sleeps mostly quietly in one place rather than travelling around or stretching out all over the place. Still, I prefer not to be cuddled by her.

I think the same can be said of Ethan, but I don't have as much information to go on and cannot absolutely confirm that.

He fusses in his sleep, and I hastily unload the two snack bowls from his lap and set them on the displaced coffee table. There are still plenty of wrapped chocolates in one bowl, but the other one only has a few un-popped popcorn kernels and some salt still left in it. Putting the bowls and scattered books on the coffee table, I'm amused to discover Scamp curled in an extremely uncomfortable-looking position, half on his side and half on his back, inside a brown, gold and blue pottery bowl Dell made years ago.

Giving up on the idea of being awake when everyone and everything else in this house is sleeping, I return to my place next to Ethan, gasping in surprise when he turns over and wraps his arms and legs around me the moment I stretch out, making myself comfortable.

Help!  I'm trapped! I'm Ethan Fletcher's cuddle toy!

Unable to free myself from his grasp and unwilling to pinch him or wake him up, I settle into his arms and lie still, listening to the steady beat of his heart and the peaceful sound of his breathing, and after a while, my eyes finally grow heavy.

My last conscious thought before I fall asleep is that I really don't hate being Ethan's teddy bear.

♀

It's another sunny day in the overheated bay of Egret's Rest, and the air is buzzing with the sound of voices and insects trying to co-exist on the beach and bleachers facing the sea. The azure water is alive with the colourful sails and flags of the boats weaving within the safe areas in the bay, mapped with buoys.

Every terrace and balcony in the bay area is filled with spectators, and the stall owners set up in the main street have paused their duties to enjoy the event. Days like today are perfect for sailing. The breeze is just strong enough, the light just bright enough, and the sailors on their boats just crazy enough to make it fun. It is the perfect conditions for the yearly race to be the first ship to "discover" the cove hidden within the larger bay. The first boat to enter through the opening in the rocky embrace of its border is the winner.

The original founders of the town were washed ashore along with pieces of their ship, but the buoys marking the zigzagging route within the bay to the channel leading to the cove and the rescue boats hanging around on high alert are all working together to make sure that the sailors taking part in the regatta do not do the discovery part too authentically, despite the pirates' best efforts to undermine them.

Yup, there are two pirate ships out there for exactly that purpose, and I helped to decorate them. What fun would a boat race be without ships filled with crazy bastards trying to board you, get you to flee in the other direction, or just generally be a nuisance?

One of these pirate ships is captained by Barn with James and Lurch as his faithful crew, and the other has Jet as its captain with Ethan and, this year, making his debut, Simon Stirling. Sometimes, Uncle Ian and Daddy also join the pirate ships, but this year, Daddy wasn't sure that he'd be able to make it, and Uncle Ian said he's getting too old to keep up with the chaos his son and his friends have such a magnificent talent for.

Ethan, his closest friends and whoever else they can talk into it, do a stellar job of the tricky task every year. Most people do question the sanity of allowing these specific boys to be pirates, but Jet and Barn have been sailing since they were children and Jet's grandfather trained them. Through the years, they have honed the skill of being annoying sailors to an art form.

Being a pirate in the event is not an easy job and could be dangerous if done by less skilled sailors. They have to know how far to push and when to pull back and know the waters of the bay extremely well. Barn and Jet practice for today's event nearly every day of the year, sometimes with a crew and sometimes without. Jet owns his own boat, and Barn uses one belonging to the yachting club, where he has a part-time job.

Watching them manoeuvre their boats is a thing of beauty. They know what they're doing, but it still gets on my nerves, especially when their crew members end up in the water every now and then. Aunt Gemma does not enjoy the race at all, she's always telling the boys to just take part in it like all the others and not play dangerous games, but that is a battle she will never win.

Besides, it all looks and sounds a lot worse than it really is. Despite their reputation, these boys are careful when other people are in the mix. They usually only try to wipe out themselves and each other... which is the reason behind their parents' concern.

I was extremely stiff this morning when I woke up, but between Dell, Ethan and the heat rub they generously applied to my back, legs and arms (a little over-zealously, I might add), I feel a lot more lubricated and limber. I smell like a pharmacy, and sitting here on the bleachers, I've received quite a few strange looks from people catching a whiff of me. The hot sun is making me even more pungent than I have to be.

The bleachers are vibrating with excitement, every spectator's eyes glued to the scene in the water below, and I can feel my heart galloping almost anxiously as I follow the course of Ethan's ship out in the waters of the blue bay. 

We are sitting at the top of the bleachers!

Yes, Delia and I held hands and encouraged each other to climb up here to have the best view. Neither of us wanted yesterday's accident to linger in our minds or ruin the fun of watching the colourful regatta. Daddy's project wrapped up successfully somewhere in the early hours of the morning; he didn't have much sleep but didn't want to miss the race.

He arrived when the chaotic ship decorating was completed, and we settled down to watch the race together. The boys look extremely cute in the pirate get-ups Delia made for them. She said they always call themselves pirates but generally just look like hippies and space cadets, so this year, she stepped in and secretly made them some proper costumes. She's pretty good at estimating sizes, and the boys often leave pieces of clothing behind after sleepovers, so making their costumes fit more or less well wasn't hard to do.

I was, of course, chastised for calling them cute. They are, according to themselves, fierce, manly, brave and terrifying. The only thing terrifying about them is that they believe all of that. They honestly look really, really cute... and kind of sexy too... but I won't tell them that part.

They're wearing thin white shirts with loosely puffed sleeves and lace-up necklines and knee-length frayed black jeans. Barn's crew have dark green cumber bands tied around their hips, green bands with long ends around their heads and long green and white striped socks, while Jet's crew has the same in wine red. These are the two captains' favourite colours.  

Ethan is wearing my necklace, of course, and his beaded bracelet, but Delia, Tonia and I decorated the other boys with long beaded necklaces, and Simon has a see-through eye patch, so he doesn't miss his step and fall overboard. To set them apart, Jet and Barn each wear the pirate captain hats they always wear.

The race started a while ago after a much shorter boring speech session than the one there would've been yesterday. Just listening to the mayor of Summerfields drone on and on about the achievements of various municipal services, I was grateful that I missed yesterday's session. When he got ready to board Jet's ship, I pulled Ethan into a hug and, standing on my tippy toes, I took his arm to drag him down to my level and gave him a quick, gentle kiss on the lips. 

I was horrified when I realised that our parents saw what I did. All three of them pretended to look elsewhere, but I didn't miss the amused smiles and the looks they were giving each other. I was mortified and wanted to bury myself in the sand, but Ethan, the louse, and his evil sister were clearly enjoying how flustered and embarrassed I was feeling.

Down in the bay, the boats are starting to get to the point where they'll be entering the section leading to the cove. The route was designed in three sections with figures eight and complicated circles that have to be navigated a set number of times before the boats can move on to the next section.

The pirates are out-doing themselves today, spectacularly interfering in the sailors' progress without causing any real distress. It is quite entertaining, though a bit stressful, to watch, but something odd is starting to happen out there. At first, it is very subtle due to the general chaos, but as the gap between the leading boats and the others begins to grow, the change becomes crystal clear. 

The pirates usually concentrate most of their efforts on the leaders; it, therefore, takes a while to realise that somewhere in the last twenty minutes or so, they are no longer the antagonists but have become ones being sabotaged by the "colonists".

"I'm not sure, but it looks like Jet is deserting his job and is aiming for the cove... is something wrong?" Daddy points it out first, but using binoculars to get a closer look at his ship, it is clear that they are not in trouble, in fact...

"Jet and Barn are racing each other!" Uncle Ian chuckles, passing his binoculars to Delia, and I take Daddy's. 

Yup, the pirate crews are all laughing and grinning, dodging each other and the colonists trying to prevent them from passing. It is very likely that if they'd taken part in the race to win it from the start, they would've probably been done already; being pirates going back and forth caused them to lose a lot of the advantage their skills would otherwise have given them over most of the other sailors.

They are clearly done messing with the colonists and are now focusing their efforts on avoiding the feeble attempts of the non-pirates at changing the roles and outwitting each other and are steadily outstripping the rest, heading for the opening to the cove.

"Well," Aunt Gemma laughs, "Mr Pravin's latest version of the founding story did have the pirates discovering our cove, so they're actually just keeping it authentic."

Many of the people in our vicinity are laughing at her words, getting to their feet and cheering for the pirate ship of their choice. There are Jet and Barn supporters everywhere, and many are rather torn in their loyalty to both the captains and their crews and are cheering for all of them.

At first, the bleachers fell into a confused hush when the fact that the pirates are taking part in the race became obvious as they started to break away from the other participants, and out-stripping them, headed for the entrance to the cove, but then the excitement of watching two skilled sailors handling their boats took over, and chaos erupted.

"My poor Simon!" Delia laments, lowering the binoculars since it is hard to keep track of the action with the instrument, and she's struggling to see whether her boyfriend is freaking out.

"Look again, Deli," Uncle Ian chuckles. "Your poor Simon is having the time of his life."

It's true; even without using the binoculars, I can clearly see that he is enjoying himself, egging Jet on and making threatening gestures at Barn and his crew. I watch in awe as the gap between the two pirate ships and those chasing them lengthens, and holding my breath, I see them skillfully manoeuvre the narrow opening between the rocks leading into the cove.

The race is extremely tight, but Jet does have a little bit more experience than Barn, and his ship is probably a little bit lighter too because Barn earned his name due to his impressive physique. They enter the cove virtually together to loud cheers, their bows proudly cutting through the foaming water, sending spray into the wind.

I watch Ethan help Simon handle the sail, both leaning with their backs against the side of the boat to help it make a sharp turn. The wind is playing in his hair, running the ends of his headband like streamers in the air; his creamy pirate shirt is whipping wetly around his chest, and when he moves, his hands and feet find their places effortlessly. He really is one awesome-looking pirate!

Once they've slowed their boats and done a victory round in the cove, Barn and Jet moor their vessels to two of the many temporary mooring buoys set up in the cove, out of the way of the other ships trickling in. The pirates leap from their boats to swim and then wade to the beach, bowing in acknowledgement of the praise and applause generously piled on them.

Delia and I jump to our feet and run down the bleachers to meet them, neither of us sparing any thought for falling, as we make our way through the crowds to join our pirates on the beach. When he sees me, Ethan rushes over and grabs me off my feet to catch me in a wet embrace and laughing, I wrap my arms tightly around his neck.

I shriek, giddy with excitement when he twirls around once, and then he loosens his hold on me to look into my eyes, and suddenly, my ship is caught in a dangerous race of its own as I'm drowning in the blue depths of his brilliant irises. When he bends his head to rub the tip of his nose against mine, I breach the narrow gap between our faces to touch my lips to his.

When he increases the pressure, parting his lips to receive mine, I respond in kind, not sparing a thought for things like the three-second rule. Yes, I am kissing Ethan Fletcher with all my heart, and I don't care who is watching!

♂♀