Another long one at 25,000 words. Not split into chapters, just one long story. If that's going to annoy you, leave now.
I hope you enjoy...
To the ends of the Earth.
I could hear them coming up the front path, giggling and squealing. I called them the tornadoes, my younger sister and her best friend. They burst into the house, coats and boots discarded as they escaped the winter cold outside.
Cait, my sister, spotted me and gave me a hug, pressing her small body tight to mine. "Missed you, Ned," she said.
She'd no sooner released me than the ginger-haired firebrand that was her BFF, Maya, took her place. "How was Scotland?" she asked. "Did you bring me a haggis?"
"Come and sit," Cait said. "Tell us all about it."
I made them coffee, then sat at the kitchen table and recounted my week-long snowboarding trip to the Highlands.
"I wish I could have gone with you," Cait said. "It sounds like a real adventure."
Maya put an arm around her friend and kissed her cheek. "But we're going to have our own adventure this summer, right?"
"Oh," I said, "What's that, then?"
"We're going to the ends of the Earth!" Maya said. "The adventure of a lifetime. Just the two of us."
"We haven't said you can go, yet, Caitlyn," said my mother, walking into the kitchen. "Your dad and I will talk about it tonight when he comes in from work."
Cait's face fell. "We planned out the route last night, Mum. It's all through perfectly respectable European countries."
Mum poured herself a cup of coffee and smiled. "We'll see, Cait."
"It's not as though we can't take care of ourselves, Mum," Cait said.
"I know," Mum said, heading back to her home office.
I took in the two young women before me and smiled.
I had been born in the January of our birth year, Cait in the November. Irish twins, they call it. I just think our dad couldn't keep his hands off mum. Actually, he still can't!
Cait and I grew up close, but there was always a friendly rivalry between us. I'd got my first skateboard at the age of seven. Cait got hers on her birthday, ten and a half months later.
She was determined that she could do anything that I could. She was that little girl you see at the skatepark in knee pads and a helmet, hurling herself off a sheer drop with a grin on her face.
Each new trick I learned was copied and, in the end, we began to learn together. I'd broken fingers and a leg over the years, Cait had fractured both arms at different times.
Despite our closeness, we looked nothing alike. I took after our mum, Joanne, tall and slim with straight blonde hair and blue eyes. Cait took after our dad, John, stocky and tough with black curls and liquid brown eyes.
Just after her fifteenth birthday, Cait, along with Maya, discovered Crossfit, an extreme form of gym exercise and training. She soon became hooked, and the rivalry reversed for the first time. I found myself at the same gym (they call it a box) a month later.
Over the years the skateboarding morphed into snowboarding in winter, but most of our adventures were taken together.
Cait had turned eighteen a month ago, and desperately wanted her level one Crossfit trainer's qualification. The chance had come up to do it, but it clashed with out annual snowboard trip, hence my solo expedition.
I stared at Cait over the kitchen table. Her tight tee-shirt barely disguised her muscled arms and broad chest. I blushed and looked away as I realised that I'd been focussing on her stiff nipples through the thin fabric for far too long. Like many athletes, her breasts were modest, but her nipples seemed to have a life of their own and she seemed to delight in showing them off, seldom wearing a bra. Her waist was tight and she had the beginnings of a six-pack. Her butt was all muscle to match her strong legs and calves.
Cait looked up to find me staring. "What?"
"Just thinking that you're right," I said. "You probably can take care of yourself."
She grinned her dimpled smile and flexed a bicep. "You'd better believe it," she said.
* * *
I was sitting in my room, studying work for my apprenticeship in plumbing. I'd thought about university, but I'm a practical guy, and there seemed to be a lot of friends that had college degrees and huge debts, but still no job. I'd talked it over with my mum and dad, and they'd fully supported my choices.
I guess it made it easier a year later, when Cait also opted out of a degree course and started a course in sports massage and therapy.
I could hear raised voices from downstairs, a rare occurrence in our house, so I went to investigate.
"She's only eighteen," said my mum.
Dad paused. In any discussion, he always paused before he spoke. "She's not going alone, and she is one of the most capable girls I've ever met, Joanne. As long as we see a full itinerary of her trip with Maya, I see no reason not to let her go."
"But she's still a girl," mum said.
I opened the lounge door and stepped in. "Is this a private argument, or can anyone join in?" I said, grinning at dad.
Mum turned to me. "You can see how dangerous this trip of Cait's would be, can't you, Ned?"
I ran my finger across my lips, thinking. "Cait is eighteen, mum. She can clean and jerk 60 Kilograms. She can do forty pull-ups in one go. I wouldn't want to tackle her."
"But she's still female."
Dad and I both sucked in a breath.
"Don't you dare say that in front of her, Jo," dad said.
"She's matched me in almost everything I've done since I was five years old, Mum," I said. "Being a girl is no disadvantage to her at all."
Mum sighed. "I don't mean to put her down," she said. "You hear of such awful things happening to young women, though."
"Do you remember when my mate, Colin, dislocated his shoulder at the pool two summers ago?" I asked.
Mum nodded. "He slipped on the tiles and fell, didn't he?"
"That's what he told everyone."
"What do you mean?" Dad asked.
"He pinched Cait's bum," I said. "Cait threw him. I was watching, and I hardly even saw her move, then he was on the floor with his arm at a weird angle."
"Why did he not tell us? We'd have grounded her, or something, for that," mum said.
"Because he didn't want anyone to know that a sixteen-year-old girl put him down," I said. "He's been ever so polite to her since."
Dad's chuckle became a full-blown laugh. "That's my girl," he said.
"All right, all right, I'm outnumbered," mum said, "and I know Maya's parents have already agreed that she can go. I want to know every stop they make on the way, and I expect a phone call every day."
"It'll be a real character building trip for her, Jo," dad said. He turned to me. "You'd better text her, she's at Maya's."
I took out my phone and tapped a short message. The phone rang immediately.
"Hi Sis."
"Really? They said yes? I was sure mum was going to veto the whole thing."
"Dad and I persuaded her. I had to tell her about Colin, though."
"Shit!"
"Language!" shouted mum. "I can hear you, young lady, and you and I are going to have a talk about assaulting your brother's friends."
"Putting you on speaker, sis," I said.
"Maybe you and Colin should have a chat about sexual assault, first," she said.
