About 1,200 words

THE JUNIOR COMMANDOS

“Hey Raool, check out this article in the island’s paper!” I saunter over to where Falcon is sprawled on a lounge chair on the patio of this beach-house. He hands me the front section, with color pictures of damage done to the Pavilion, by this character who calls himself The Midnight Cowboy. The man does his stuff always around midnight in this tropical paradise. The beach is great here! The sun is shining, and there’s not a cloud in sight. And that’s almost every day, too.

The ocean breeze feels good on my skin that is covered with No-Ad sunscreen. Hey, here in Southwest Florida, you can be two things at the beach: smart or fried. So, I choose to be smart.

About me: I’m Raool, sixteen, and on vacation at my friend Joe’s beach house. I’m out here on the upstairs porch, where Scotty just came out with my skim-board.

“Raool,” he says, “Let’s go catch a few rides on this thing. The weather’s perfect.”

“Okay, Scotty,” I say. “Let’s get the other guys to go with us. It’ll be fun.”

Speaking of fun, we are going to catch The Midnight Cowboy too, you just wait and see. By we, I mean Scotty, Falcon, Warren, Joe and me. That will be fun too, because we like to live dangerously.

For the month, this house is our place. It’s a two story structure on Anna-Maria Island, and we’ve got the top floor. Joe’s mom has the ground floor and we rarely see her. If I didn’t know better, I’d say we were living in Joe’s beach-house unsupervised and uncivilized. Well, barely civilized, I should say. We do take showers every day.

This guy who calls himself The Midnight Cowboy goes around the island at night destroying a little section of the beach, or the fixtures every so often. They haven’t been able to catch him yet, and said he’s probably loony.

I have a feeling he’ll be around tonight, because he hasn’t been heard from in a while, and tomorrow is the big Fourth of July bash. Everyone will be there, so if he messes things up–he’ll be the talk of the town.

But The Midnight Cowboy has never met up with me and my friends. He doesn’t know what’s in store for him. So, trust me, we’ll get him.