"You can't see if you're standing way over there!" Theo shouted, standing by the edge of the river and waving his arm madly. "You need to come CLOSER!"
Alright Theo, keep your hair on! I thought, before reluctantly edging over closer to the water. "Happy now?" I asked.
He looked pleased. "What do you think?"
Think of what? I stared at him incredulously. Was he having a laugh or had he gone completely bonkers? There was nothing there! But he didn't look like he was joking, either he was deadly serious or he deserved an Oscar for Best Performance. I leaned in for a closer inspection and that was when I felt pressure on my back.
The next thing I know, I had lost my footing and fell straight into the river head first.
"Ahhhhh!" I screamed, the water was as cold as ice and I felt it dashing into my ears, nose and throat, choking me. I desperately tried to grab a hold of something, anything, but there was nothing. Just water everywhere.
I flapped my arms up and down like the paddles of a boat in an attempt to keep my body afloat, and that was when I felt my foot touching the river bed. It wasn't that deep, I quickly realised. I made sure my feet got a good grip and with a big push, I propped myself up, emerging out of the water looking like a drowned rat.
"You!" I continued to cough and splutter as I wiped the water from my face, before turning to Theo, ready to kill him!
Theo was stood on the exact same spot whilst holding my zipped up hoodie in one hand. A look of shock of bewilderment on his face. He realised what he had just done and he shook his head. "It's not what it looks like!"
"What does this look like?! You pushed me into the water!" I stood in the river with my hands on my hips and started shouting. I must've been blind if I thought a leopard could ever change its spots. Theo McAllister was a bully through and through.
"I can explain." He panicked. Reaching out his hand to help when he saw me moving towards him with difficulty, trying to climbing back up to shore.
I slapped his hand away in annoyance. Wanting nothing to do with him.
"Aria, I'm sorry, I did push you but I also pulled you back. See?" Theo lifted my hoodie. "If only you had been wearing your jacket properly then you wouldn't have fallen into the water."
"So this was all my fault then?" I stopped midway and asked. Shooting daggers out of myself as if daring for him to agree.
Theo was either too slow to pick up on the warning signals or he was just blatantly ignoring the signs because he smiled and nodded in agreement.
My eyes narrowed in danger. I held out my hand and said, "help me up."
He eagerly reached out whilst smiling. I grabbed his hand with both of mine and leveraged my entire body weight in the opposite direction pulling him in. I must've caught him off guard because his eyes widened and then he started trying to push me away but it was too little too late, he fell into the river like a tall tree being felled down.
It was some mighty splash he'd made, sending water splattering everywhere, soaking me once again. What was it they called it? The higher you are the harder you fall? I couldn't help but feel incredibly smug.
When Theo eventually stood up, all he could see was me standing there pointing and laughing at him like a madwoman. The sun bounced off the surface of the water and turned everything golden. His anger melted in an instant and he joined in on the laughter too.
It was quite a sight, the two of us stood in the river soaking wet, giggling like idiots whilst the dragonflies buzzed around us like miniature aeroplanes. He was the first to climb onto shore and he reached his hand to give me a helping hand.
I glanced at it with a smirk and without taking his hand I managed to haul myself out of the water. I knew I must've looked about as grateful as a walrus trying to get up as I rolled around in my wet clothes, it must've added at least 20lbs onto my body weight, no joke. But I didn't want Theo to think I needed his help.
"Was that Golden Fish just something you made up to get me in the water?" I wrung out my hair and clothes. The water was dribbling down as if it had just come out of the washing machine.
"Of course not!" he said indignantly. He was doing the same thing to his clothes in an attempt to get them a bit drier. "Didn't your mother ever read it to you as a bedtime story?"
My hands momentarily froze, "my mother passed away."
Theo looked at me awkwardly, "I'm sorry."
"It's fine." I shook my head. It was fine. I was fine.
"It's not even that interesting," he said, "it's just a fish that grants wishes."
"Like Aladdin's Genie?" I asked.
"Exactly, but you can have as many wishes as you want, not just three."
Huh, interesting. I thought to myself. "And it lives in that river?"
"Not quite, it lives in the sea." He said, looking slightly embarrassed.
I frowned, "Then why did you tell me to come closer to the water then?!"
He laughed, "it was a metaphor."
A metaphor for what? I glared at him and he laughed. Then he looked into my eyes and asked, "what would you have wished for?"
"I don't know." I shrugged. Maybe a hot shower? And a change of clothes? I had no idea.
As we made our way back to the dormitories, people were given us strange looks. I didn't know whether it was because our clothes and hair were wet or maybe it was because we were walking together.