A moment in the sunshine

Kip referred to his map again. He held up his bike as he stood on the side of the dusty dirt trail that used to be a cement road when he started out on it. There were definitely a lot less houses out here now. This was an empty field. Yep, this is not where he was supposed to be, he was lost. Aghast he stared at his map--- what he THOUGHT was a small neighborhood on the map, was really an ink splotch from a pen that bled. Well, THAT'S JUST GREAT.

Shielding his eyes from the sun with his cruddy map, he slowly started forward, wheeling his orange bike next to him as he walked. He grumbled and looked around him some more. How could he have messed up so badly? He only wanted to deliver these stupid leaflets!

Crunching along, Kip felt his hair tousle as a breeze blew through. Though the breeze kicked up into straight up wind, and caught in the pages of his map, snatching it out of his hand. Hastily Kip flailed his hands to grab it back, but the piece of paper did some acrobatics in the air and dodged his wily fingers-

He chased it into the meadow-- and as it sailed forward, he noticed there was 1 person with their art easel in the middle of the field, and the map was headed straight for them.

Kip stopped in his tracks and felt his breathing stop as the map flew at the girl, loop-de-looped around her, and went SPLAT right on her painting.

Kip immediately hid.

Ugh!! Why had he hid?! His flight-instincts had taken over, and now this was all the more unnecessarily embarrassing than it had to be!

Under cover of the long meadow grass, he hesitated. He kept hesitating. The ideal scenario would be if the girl simply set down the map so he could nab it without being seen. He needs it to get home, after all.

He stayed put. Kip grabbed a small rock, and aimed it at the leg of the easel, and threw it.

The rock hit the easel much harder than he anticipated, collapsed and took down the girl with it! Kip flinched-- he intended the rock to be a diversion, NOT ASSAULT! Would he go to jail? Was this it for Kip Rucker?

Still hunkered in the grass, Kip hesitated even more. He could run for it! Save himself from total humiliation!

Kip carefully started back to his bike, trying the best he could to stay crouched low as he moved. Screw the map, he'd rather get lost and die out here than to owe up to his misdoing.

He had only gone about three steps when he saw a long, red, snake curling through the grass toward him.

Kip shot straight up and exclaimed, "HOOO--EEEE--AHHH UHHHH GUH--- NO-- UH NOO NOT GOOD--" quickly he changed course and bounded away from the snake, back to the girl and the easel.

Trying to play it off cool, he approached her nonchalantly, "H-hey I saw you fall from the road are you ok" hastily he lifted the easel off of her and set back the ruined painting. Kip looked at the painting for a second like, is this supposed to be abstract?

He was kind of confused. So his ploy... had worked? Well. Great. He didn't expect to get away with that!

"Oh! Yeah it was no trouble," Kip responded easily. He folded his arms, "I was just, ya kno, on a bike ride. I'm... Kip. Nice to meet you." The slight hesitation towards the end of his comment was due to the twinge of uncertainty that suddenly settled in his mind. Was this really the circumstance to make introductions? What's happening right now. He gave a small nervous laugh.

Kip jumped when she grabbed his wrist and immediately exclaimed, "Hey what are you doing that for!!" He tried to pull out of her grip, but his weakling attempts were futile!

At her accusations, his face started turning red. "Ok yeah, that's my map! Not like I did anything on purpose! This doesn't warrant you to ASSAULT me like this," he huffed in response. He saw her expression and snapped, "Geez, are you going to cry about this? It's just a painting."