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CHAPTER ONE - Summer Plans

THE CAPESIDE CONNECTION SCENE 14

SCENE 14. EXTERIOR. THE CREEK. DAY.

The frightened GIRL runs towards the dock. The KILLER follows her. He is wearing a long black coat and a wide hat. The hat covers the top part of his face.

The GIRL has to escape, but she is trapped on the wooden dock now. And the KILLER is getting closer.

The pretty teenager is the only person who knows everything about the gang of criminals - the Capeside Connection. If they kill her now, nobody will ever know the truth. She has to escape! But how?

The GIRL looks around her. She sees the row - boat which is tied to the end of the dock. This is the only boat that she can see. If she can get away in it, the KILLER won’t be able to follow her. But she needs a pair of oars to row the boat. She sees a pair of oars lying on the dock. She grabs them and she runs. She jumps into the little boat and she unties the rope that holds it to the dock. She puts the oars onto the sides of the boat and the ends of the oars into the creek and rows away from the dock. She pulls hard on the handles of the oars.

The KILLER lifts his gun and shoots at her. The bullets strike the water around the boat, but they don’t hit the GIRL.

As she gets further from the shore, the GIRL shouts to the KILLER.

GIRL (shouting):

“Why does your boss hire killers who can’t shoot straight?”

“That’s great!” Dawson Leery called out. “OK, we can stop now!”

Dawson was holding his video camera up to his face. He was still looking through the viewfinder of the camera as he shouted. He was still looking at his friend Joey Potter as she rowed the boat out into the creek. Then he pushed a button on the camera, and the scene in the viewfinder faded to darkness.

“That was great,” he said. “Let’s -“ but he didn’t finish the sentence. He took a step backwards and fell off the side of the dock, into the creek!

When the young man’s head came up out of the water a few seconds later, he heard laughter around him. He pushed his wet blond hair away from his eyes. Joey was laughing. And Pacey Witter was laughing too. Pacey, “The Killer,” was standing at the end of the dock. As he laughed, he was throwing the toy gun into the air and catching it.

“That was excellent, Dawson! How did you do that?” Pacey called to his friend. “You should be in the movies!”

Another of Pacey’s jokes! Pacey always made jokes. Movies were Dawson’s biggest interest in life. His mother worked at the local TV station - she was a news presenter there. And his father was an architect - he designed hotels and stores. But Dawson had always wanted to be a movie director. His favorite director was Steven Spielberg. Dawson took film classes at school. During vacations and on weekends, he worked at a video rental store in Capeside. He worked there because the owner let him take movies home every night. And this year, he had started making his own movies.

Pacey worked at the store too, but he didn’t let movies fill his whole life. Only Dawson did that!

Dawson swam to the side of the dock and he passed the video camera up to Pacey. By now, Joey had rowed the boat back to the dock. Suddenly she stopped laughing.

“Do we have to act that scene again?” she asked.

“No, it’s OK,” Dawson replied. “This camera is waterproof. The film won’t be damaged. And that was the last scene in the movie, my friends. The Capeside Connection is finished!”

“Great!” shouted Pacey. “Now we can start our summer vacation!” And he jumped into the creek next to Dawson.

“Don’t sit there in that boat, Joey,” Dawson said to the girl with the lovely long, thick brown hair. “You’re too dry. It’s time to get wet now!”

“I’m OK here. I like being dry,” Joey answered.

Dawson looked at Pacey. The two boys smiled. They were good friends. They’d been good friends for a long time. Now they understood each other without speaking. Suddenly they both grabbed one end of the little rowboat and lifted it. Joey held the sides of the boat. “No! No!” she screamed. A moment later, she was in the water beside them.

“This is a war!” she shouted. “You two behave like little kids. When are you going to grow up?”

But they were all fifteen years old. There was plenty of time for them to grow up. And it was summertime in the beautiful little town of Capeside. A moment later, the three of them were splashing each other with water and pushing each other’s heads under the surface.

“Aren’t you making your movie today?” asked a voice. “Nobody told me about swimming in the creek.”

The voice came from the end of the dock. The three friends looked up. Jen Lindley was standing there, smiling at them.

“Oh, why did she come?” Joey asked quietly.

“Don’t say that,” Dawson said to her. He spoke quietly too. “Please be nice to Jen.”

Joey always tried to be nice to Jen, but it wasn’t easy for her. Jen was fifteen too, but she was a girl who had lived in New York City nearly all her life. She seemed much older than the three friends who had always lived in Capeside. That made Joey feel bad.

Earlier in the year, Jen had arrived in the little town by the sea. She had made some bad friends in New York and had gotten into trouble. So she had come to stay in Capeside with her grandparents. And when Dawson had first seen the beautiful blond girl from the city, he had fallen in love with her. That was finished now, Joey knew that. But she couldn’t really like Jen.

Joey had always loved Dawson. They were best friends. When they were young, she had loved him like a brother. But now she was fifteen, and she had started to love him in a different way. Her love had changed. It was stronger. She no longer loved Dawson like a brother. And earlier this year she had finally understood something about him. Dawson still loved Joey as a friend. She was like a sister to him. He didn’t love her in the same way that she loved him.

The three teenagers in the creek had stopped splashing water on each other. They had stopped laughing. Dawson looked at Jen and he looked at Joey. Life was so difficult sometimes!

For a while, Dawson and Jen had been really close. He had loved her. She was the first girl that he had fallen in love with. But now Jen was just his friend. And Joey had always been Dawson’s friend. She had spent a lot of time in his house, from the time when they were young children. She had often stayed in his room at night when they were younger. They had slept in the same bed - just as friends. But now Joey wanted something else. She wanted Dawson to love her as a woman, not as a sister. Joey wanted him to love her like he had loved Jen. And he remembered an evening, a few weeks before, when he had kissed Joey. For a moment, everything had changed. What did he really want?

Pacey looked at the other three. He wanted to end the silence. “Take off all your clothes, Jen,” he said. “Jump in here with us.”

Pacey always said crazy things at the wrong times.

“Thank you, Pacey, but I’ll keep my clothes on,” Jen said. She laughed.

“That’s a new idea for her,” said Joey quietly. As soon as she had said it, she was sorry.

Dawson put his hand on Joey’s head and pushed her under the water.

A moment later, her head came up again. She spat water from her mouth.

“What’s your problem, Dawson?” she asked angrily.

Dawson Leery didn’t answer. He didn’t know what his problem was.

Later that afternoon, the four young friends were on the wooden dock by the creek.

They had been there for several hours, enjoying the hot sun. Joey looked at her watch. It was nearly four o’clock. She was surprised. The afternoon had passed quickly.

“I have to go to work,” she said, standing up. “You lazy people can stay here all day, but I can’t.”

Joey worked at The Ice House, a cafe in the town. The Potter family owned the cafe. Joey’s sister, Bessie, and her sister’s boyfriend, Bodie, worked there too. The three of them took care of the cafe. It was hard work and Joey had to be there soon. But first, she had to go home. She had to change her clothes before she went to work.

“Hey, we aren’t lazy,” Dawson said. “This summer, Pacey and I will have to work very hard at Screenplay Video.”

“You will have to work hard at Screenplay Video, Dawson,” Pacey said. “I don’t work at the store any more.”

Dawson looked up at his friend. “Why not?” he asked him.

“I have better things to do,” Pacey replied.

“What things?”

“Well - looking at beautiful women in swimsuits. Saving lovely girls from death. That kind of thing,” Pacey said lazily. “I’m going to learn to be a lifeguard.”

Jen started laughing.

“Why is that funny?” Pacey asked.

“Well - that’s what I’m going to do this summer too,” Jen replied. “Are you joining the lifeguarding course at the town pool tomorrow morning? The class starts at seven thirty in the morning. You knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I know that,” Pacey replied. “Er, seven thirty at the pool? Does the class start as early as that? Er - OK. I’ll see you there, Jen.”

Dawson looked up at Joey.

“And I’ll see you on Friday, Joey,” he told her. “We’ll spend the day together at the beach.”

“OK. That will be fun,” she replied.

Joey jumped down into her rowboat. She lived on the other side of the creek. Rowing across the creek was her quickest way to get home. As she rowed, she was thinking.

“Jen is going to be busy with the lifeguarding course this vacation,” she said to herself. “That’s good! It’s going to be a long hot summer. If Jen isn’t with Dawson every day, maybe he’ll spend some more time with me. Maybe he’ll be my best friend again.”