‘Ellie, do you have any more vegetables? This one has cleaned us out,’ Savannah said cheerfully as she waded over, her narrow hips swinging below her washboard stomach.
Ellie rummaged around in her bag and handed her two lettuces and a carrot. Savannah shared them around to the rest of the group. ‘Thanks, you’re an angel.’
She didn’t feel like an angel. She felt as if she were an alien on a planet populated by only supermodels. They were gorgeous people who jumped in oceans and knew that someone else would always be lugging a bag of vegetables behind them.
Holly’s voice interrupted her thoughts and she turned to face her. ‘Someone take a photo of me with my little buddy!’ The baby pig did not look amused with his newfriend.
‘You’re not meant to pick them up,’ Alex said sternly.
But Holly ignored him. ‘Keira! Take a picture! Isn’t he adorable?’
‘Put itdown,’ Savannah shouted, looking uncharacteristically annoyed at her sister’s antics as she stood obliviously holdingup a small pink pig, its trotters kicking the air furiously as it squealed and jerked with distress.
Alex started to wade towards her.
‘Oh my God, chill, Savannah. You’re notMom.’ Holly pouted indignantly at her sister, completely unaware of a much larger pig swimming up behind her. At a guess this larger pink pig was in fact Mummy Pig, and Mummy Pig was not happy about seeing her wee little piggy being manhandled.
So much so, in fact…
‘OWWWW!’ screeched Holly, and Alex swooped in to catch the falling piglet and then smoothly released it back into the water. It swam merrily to its defensive mother. Holly was now hiding behind Alex’s broad shoulders clutching her bum. ‘It bit me!’
Ellie decided to quickly feed Mummy Pig a very large apple before she turned on her as well. In a sea of skinny women, she was beginning to feel a little nervous. She must look a lot like a prime rib-eye right now, and didn’t pigs eat everything? She began to feed them more liberally, occasionally scratching one behind the ear in an attempt to befriend them.
Savannah sloshed over to her sister, inspected her rump and declared, ‘You’refine.’
‘Everything okay?’ asked Jessica, looking freaking hot in her white bikini and wide-brimmed hat, with an equally dashing Robert beside her.
Ellie vowed to always wear sunscreen and give Pilates another go.
Who was she kidding? ShehatedPilates.
After another quick rummage in her bag, she admitted defeat. ‘I’m all out.’
Holly eyed Mummy Pig while rubbing her own bottom. ‘I want to go back to the boat.’
Savannah glared at her sister, but nodded in agreement. Turning back to them with an apologetic look, she said, ‘We’ll head back and prepare brunch.’
There was a bit of chatting amongst the group until it was decided that Savannah, Liam, Tony and Holly would go back to the boat while the rest of them would head to the beach for a while, until the tourist boats began to arrive. When that happened, they all agreed, they would go back too, to avoid becoming the tourist attraction themselves.
Ellie and Alex headed to a shady area on the beach and settled down to watch the pigs. Now that their food was gone, most of the animals had lost interest in them, although some continued to play in the surf, while others also sought out the shady areas of the beach to sleep away the morning until their next meal.
Keira and Caitlyn splashed in the shallows like they were on a fashion shoot, and Ellie strategically placed her bag across her thighs, feeling more than a little self-conscious.
‘Everything okay?’ asked Alex. He was leaning against a gnarled old tree trunk, drawing shapes in the sand with a stick.
‘Yeah, of course,’ she yelped, embarrassed that he’d noticed her dip in mood. She reminded herself that she was in one of the most beautiful places on the planet, experiencing stuff that many people couldn’t even dare to imagine.
‘Is it the pigs? Honestly, they’re fine as long as you don’t maul them like Holly did.’
She chuckled at the absurdity of it all. ‘I love the pigs. I probably have more in common with them than anyone else here.’
Alex frowned out at the sea. She had the uneasy feeling she’d insulted him in some way, which was ridiculous.
‘I mean, I’m not one of you beautiful Hollywood people, am I?’ The fake laugh stuck in her throat, and came out as an awkward cough.
‘What do you see when you look at them?’ He pointed his ridiculously chiselled chin over at Caitlyn and Keira.
‘Supermodels,’ she replied, without missing a beat.
