Guardian: Protectors of Light by Melanie Houtman Page A

wooden
building.
    “ Why don’t we
roast them on sticks over the fireplace, like marshmallows?” Bella
suggested. She was sitting at the wooden table, cleaning her
knives, which seemed to be a rather unnecessary task, as the blades
were spotlessly clean. “The boys are still asleep,” she said. “We
can wake them up after we’ve finished those fish.” A teasing grin
appeared on her face; Samira and James knew she was just
kidding.
    “ We can wake
them up when we’ve got the meal prepared,” Samira said. “Does
either of you know how to skin fish? Since I don’t.”
    Bella smirked. “My Dad’s a chef, remember? He’s taught me
pretty much everything he knows, which includes filleting a fish.” She made use of the moment to correct Samira’s
mistake.
    “ If you say
so,” Samira said. She didn’t sound too confident in her best
friend’s cooking skills. “I’ll go out to the river and fill the
water sacs Gabriel gave us with water. James?”
    “ I’ll go get
sticks and firewood,” James said, taking his sword out of his
scabbard before allowing it to slide back in.
    “ All right
then, that means each of us has something useful to do,” Samira
said. She handed Bella the fish, and left the cabin again together
with James. While she filled the five water sacs with fresh river
water, James started to chop off tree branches until he had enough
to make a fire. When each their jobs had been finished, they
returned to the cabin, where Bella was still busy trying to fillet
the fish.
    “ Not doing so
great now, huh? Samira joked as she saw Bella struggling with the
fish grates.
    “ All right,
I’ll admit it,” Bella sighed. “Dad might’ve taught me everything he
knows, but I’m just... not a good cook.”
    James and Samira laughed.
“Don’t worry,” James said. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. We’ll
just tell the boys to chew carefully.”
    Now Bella couldn’t help
but chuckle. “Yeah, good luck with that,” she said. “Just go get
dressed already!”
    James looked down at his
clothes; his trousers were hanging out of his pants. Although it
took him a little longer, he eventually found out his shirt was on
backwards. “Oh. Right.”
    Just as he was about to
walk into the bedroom, two figures came walking out, looking almost
just as bad as James.
    Thomas was wearing
nothing but the brown sweater that was supposed to go underneath
his chest plate and his grey trousers that were actually too big
for him, and his short hair seemed twice as long. Antonio however
was already fully dressed, but looked more like a dog that had run
through a clothesline and was dragging along underwear and shirts
that were hanging over his back. He’d probably got in trouble while
trying to put on his vest while he still was
half-asleep.
    James, Bella and Samira
couldn’t help but chuckle when they saw the two “manly messes”
standing in front of them.
    “ Good morning
boys,” James said, while walking past the duo with a broad grin on
his face. Thomas followed James’s movement with his head and
watched as the teenager walked into the other room to get dressed,
staring absently.
    “ ...Mind to
share where we are?” he mumbled.
    “ What, you’ve
forgot already?” Bella said, moving her hands to her hips. “Did
that head wound give you amnesia after all?”
    “ I don’t
know...” Thomas groaned, carefully touching his bandaged forehead.
“I was kind of hoping that everything had just been a bizarre
dream.”
    “ ...And so it
turns out to be reality,” Antonio said, sounding moderately
disappointed. “I should probably apologize to you guys for being
such a jerk last night; I don’t know what came over me. I guess it
was just all the stress and everything building up...” He scratched
his neck in anticipation of an answer; his friends nodded at
him.
    “ But really,
you shouldn’t apologize to us,” Samira said, crossing her arms.
“James spent the entire night outside because you were being