The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4), Gregg Dunnett [books to improve english .txt] 📗

can buy in Walmart, and their kitchen area is completely stocked with alcohol. And again, for a while, all of us stand together in the kitchen, and I get the sense that everyone else there is doing the same thing. Then Jimbo finds someone from the hockey club, and he goes over to their group, and we all watch a bit enviously, except Guy, who keeps pretending that we’re having an amazing time. But then things get a bit better when a girl called Kate (I think she lives there) announces we all have to ‘fire-extinguisher’ cans of beer. I don’t know what she means, so she explains we have to punch a hole in the bottom of a full beer can, and then shake it really hard and put it to your lips. Then, when you open the tab, all the beer gets fired straight down your throat, like it’s being shot out by a fire extinguisher. I don’t want to do one, but Kate forces me to, and I have to say it does make it easy to drink a beer very quickly. I guess things loosen up a bit soon after that, and my new housemates disappear. I bump into lots of people and I make sure to ask them all questions, like what they’re studying and why, but then I kind of run out of conversation, and they usually wander off. Maybe I look a bit disappointed when they don’t turn out to be studying Marine Biology with me. I guess it does disappoint me a bit.

A bit later on and the little living area is now a kind of dance floor, although there’s a big difference between how the girls are dancing (quite well), and the boys (more like they’re wrestling or playing football.) It reminds me of the seal colony I was studying back in Australia, and I look around for someone to tell this to, but there’s only Kate, and she doesn’t listen, instead she takes my arm, and drags me out of the room and into her bedroom. For a moment I get the wrong idea, but there’s about twenty people in there, listening to more relaxed music and smoking pot. She pats the floor next to her, and I sit on the carpet, but just to be polite really, and to make an effort, like Dad said. But there’s only so long you can sit in a room full of people smoking pot, and not actually smoke any pot, before you begin to question whether this is actually a worthwhile use of your time. So eventually I tap Kate on the shoulder and tell her I’m going back to the lounge. She gives me a funny look, then shrugs. From the delay in the two actions, I can tell Kate’s pretty wasted.

In the lounge the dance/fight thing is still going on, although the boys have moved on to ripping down the decorations. I can’t find anyone from my house now. So after waiting what seems a polite amount of time, I leave and walk home.

So that’s my first experience of a college party.

I’m not the first up the next morning, Sarah is already in the kitchen making toast. She asks me if I enjoyed the party, and I tell her it was OK, and she gives me a funny look. Then I think I should tell her how it reminded me about the seal colony, with her studying psychology and everything. But I don’t get the chance because she goes out. So I start to clean up instead. The room is a horrible mess. There’s take-out food just abandoned where people left it, and someone has arranged all the empty beer cans into a pyramid shape in the window. I pick it all up and dump it in the trash can, which is already looking dangerously full. Then I open the refrigerator to get my sandwiches from yesterday, but they’re not there.

“Oh man, last night I was so freaking wasted.”

I look up, to see Guy walking in wearing a dressing gown, but open to show his underpants. I didn’t have him down as a dressing gown type.

“Have you seen my sandwiches?”

“No mannnn. Hey, you sneaked off early didn’t you?” He sits down and hold his head for a moment. Then looks up. “So did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you do the business?”

“What?”

“With that Kate? She was all over you, man. Did you slip her one?”

I look at Guy, not quite believing I’m going to have to spend an entire year of my life with someone who keeps talking like this.

“No.”

“Oh.” He looks disappointed, but then a bit hopeful. “Anyone else?”

“No.”

“Mmmmm.” He pulls his dressing gown closed and ties it up. Thankfully. “Me neither. But plenty of time hey Billy?” He looks around the room, and I think he notices the lack of beer-can-pyramid, but he doesn’t say anything, because at that moment Laura pokes her head in. She looks very bleary eyed, and just has a towel wrapped around her, from the tops of her thighs to just above her boobs. She says good morning, and then turns around and goes into the one bathroom we have to share.

Guy nudges me.

“Oh my lord. Tell me you saw that? Tell me you saw those tits?”

I leave Guy to it, and go back to my room and check my emails. There’s one from Steve Rose, from Shark Bites, the TV show, well formerly of Shark Bites. I worked with him in Australia, monitoring shark populations, and then he helped me when I had to stop a drugs gang from murdering Amber’s sister. He’s gone back to live in Australia now, but he’s emailed to wish me luck, which is really nice of him. I start to reply, then get distracted as a new email comes in from the university. I open that, and discover I’ve been assigned my tutor from the Marine Biology department. It’s someone called Lawrence Hall. I don’t actually