We decide to walk down the beach, because what else can we really do? It's hard, with us pulling our things along, and Nicole suddenly starts leaning closer to the ground with every step.

"Okay, I gotta rest," she moans, and drops her things before following them onto the sand.

"Me too," Dustin says.

I take the chance to join them, gently placing down my board and bag, before less gracefully throwing myself against a mound of warm sand. Zoey admits defeat, and addresses us all, "okay, let's sit down for a sec."

"How long have we been walking?" Quinn asks, when we're all settled.

Logan checks his watch, "over an hour."

Zoey reaches into her bag, "cell phone check."

We all see if we have any signal, and I don't. In fact, my phone is slowly dying and I watch the screen fail once, then twice, before it fully shuts off. I show this to Logan, who shows me his own low battery.

"No bars."

"None."

"Not a bar," Chase concludes, and we all sigh, resigned to dying on this beach.

"So, what do we do now?" Zoey asks.

Michael shrugs, "keep walking?"

"Why?" Nicole objects, and I don't blame her. "We don't even know if we're heading in the right direction!"

"We should just stay put, and wait for someone to come along and find us," Quinn says.

"Yeah," I say, "And I can go swimming."

"Okay, but I'm gonna go look around a little bit," Zoey says, standing up from her spot and turning to face the rest of the unexplored beach.

"Look for what?" Logan asks.

"I don't know. A payphone, a person. Maybe a coconut to hit you with for getting us into this."

"Hey, if it wasn't for me,we'd all still be stuck back at school," Logan defends.

"You mean where there's buildings and air conditioning and cell phone reception?" Nicole asks, angrily, and I frown.

"Hey, Logan tried to get us to the beach, it's not his fault that Quinn made us all unconscious!" Logan points at me wildly, and smirks at them.

"Okay, okay, let's not argue," Chase says, and we all look at him. "Let's just look around and see what we can find."

We search the beach for anything and everything, and I manage to find some pieces of driftwood that would be good for a bonfire. Michael comes over as I'm dropping the wood, with his own findings, "I found an inner tube!"

"I found some old rope," Dana says, tossing it into our pile.

"I found some broken old fishing pole," Zoey says.

Chase and Logan appear. "I found sand," Chase says, throwing a handful of sand down.

"Okay, this is officially horrible," Nicole says. "After a whole week of exams, this is our day of fun?"

"I know! And, like, somewhere two hours away from here, every student at PCA is whooping it up, and we're not." Chase's deflated mood is unusual, and I gather my thoughts quickly.

"Come on, guys!" I look at them all, "we still have all of our beach things, why not enjoy it?" I turn to Michael, and ask, "why don't you go boogie boarding, like you wanted?"

"There's no boogie here," he says, looking at the ocean, and I hate to admit that he's right. I couldn't surf here.

"You're lucky, I'm the one who was dragged here unconscious," Dustin says.

Quinn goes up to the younger boy, "you weren't unconscious! You were sleeping involuntarily."

"He was unconscious, Quinn," I say, still annoyed that Logan is the only one being blamed for this.

"This is such a suckish way to end the semester," Nicole says, crossing her arms over her chest. We all agree with her, with me already feeling gloomy again.

"Come on, guys! We worked our butts off on those exams," Zoey says. We all murmur our agreements, solemnly. "And we came here to party on the beach, right?" We cheer, pretending to be all cheerful and in a party mood. "Okay then, Michael, you've got your MP3 player right?"

"Yep," he says.

"And, Dana, you got batteries in that boom box?"

"Uhuh."

"Alright then, let's crank up some music, and quit being a bunch of lame losers!"

We all cheer, with Michael being the most changed by the speech, "let's shake up this beach and get this party started!"

We turn the music on, provided by both Michael and Dana, and begin playing games on the sand. We play football with a little ball we have, limbo with the old fishing rod, and build sandcastles. When we start to get a bit warm, we jump into the sea and use the old rope we found to play tug of war, which ends with us all playing in the water. Logan and I get into a splash fight which he wins, so I swim down under the water, and tickle his ankles so that he jumps around in surprise, thinking there's a fish.

We get tired, and a little hungry, and go back to the beach. "That was so much fun," Nicole says, as we all place ourselves back on the sand.

Logan hands me his towel, and I grin, shaking my soaking wet hair in his direction.

"You know, guys, I hate to be a downer, but we are still stuck out here," Chase says, and I frown, pulling the towel tighter around me to calm me down a little.

"I wish our stupid cell phones would work," Zoey says.

"Hey!" We all look at Michael, "you know, I totally forgot, I have my laptop in my book bag!"

"Oh, you serious, dude? Go get it," Chase tells him, and Michael runs off to fetch his laptop.

"Wait, why do we need his computer?" Dana asks.

"For the same reason we need our phones," I say, doubting that his plan will work, already.

Chase explains further, "if we can pick up a network, we can instant message someone to come find us and get us out of here."

"Dude, if our cell phones don't get reception, what makes you think we'll be able to IM?" Logan asks, and Chase deflates.

"You got a better idea?"

Zoey runs off a little to shout out to Dustin, who's still in the water, "hey, Dustin, come out of the water! You're gonna shrivel up like a prune!"

"No, I'm not coming out," he responds, from the waves, and I laugh a little at his defiance.

"Why not?" She asks, as Michael runs back, laptop in hand. I go over to look at the screen as he sits down.

"A big wave knocked off my bathing suit!" We all share amused grins, while Zoey keeps talking to her younger brother from the shore.

"Well, where is it?"

He sassily asks, "if I knew, would I be naked from the waist down?"

"Look, you're gonna have to come out eventually!"

"I'll come out when you find me some pants!"

She comes back over to us, as Nicole asks, "you getting a signal?"

I shake my head, and go back over to my original seat, while Michael says, "no, just sand up my butt. But, I just figured something out. If you turn it like-"

A scream from Quinn cuts Michael off, as he's midway through turning his laptop. "What?" Zoey asks, while we all look at the brunette in confusion and worry, while Chase falls back in shock at the loudness of the scream from right by his ear.

"I have an idea," Quinn says.

"Is it about how to restart my heart?" Chase asks, dramatically.

"Is it gonna knock us all unconscious?" I ask, concerned that it won't go well.

"No," she says, to us both, "but if you let me use your laptop, and one of you guys lets me use your cell phone, I can combine the circuits and boost the RF output with the computer's battery!"

Logan pulls down his sunglasses, "and that means?"

"I can probably triple the cell phone's range so we can make a phone call!"

"Awesome," Nicole cheers.

Michael groans, "but I don't want you tearing apart my laptop."

"This cell phone is like my child," Chase adds.

"Would you prefer to starve to death on a random beach?" I ask, and the both frown at me.

"Or freeze to death?" Zoey asks. Chase reluctantly hands over his phone, after kissing it, while Michael closes his laptop and passes it to the scientist.

"This shouldn't take long."

"You know, even if Quinn can make that work, it's still gonna be a long time before someone comes and gets us," Chase points out.

"That's true," I sigh, "and I'm getting really hungry."

"Yeah, and I'm starving," Logan says.

"Yeah, me too," Nicole adds.

Zoey hops up, "come on, Logan, Chase, let's go catch some fish!"

"And what are we supposed to use for bait?" Logan asks.

Nicole turns to him, "you're a boy, go dig up some worms!"

"Gross!" He shouts, getting up.

"And don't touch me, after," I say, grimacing.

"Come on, I'll protect you from the worms," Zoey mocks, the old fishing pole in her hands.

"Wait," Michael calls to the small group as they leave us, "what are we supposed to do?"

"Build a fire," the blonde says, as if it's obvious.

"How?" Nicole asks.

Zoey shrugs, "figure it out." She walks away, and I furrow my brow.

"Right, then," I say, looking at the rest of the fire building team.

"You guys build that fire, I'm gonna be working on my tan," Michael says, lounging back against the sand.

Dana and Nicole each grab one of his arms and begin pulling him up, while I start sorting out the driftwood I'd found earlier.

"We're gonna need more wood, and stuff to get it started," I say, and we head off down the beach to find the right materials, dragging Michael as we go.

We work together to like the stack of wood high, and I put some fluffy stuff in it to set alight. But we don't have anything to do that with.

"Pretty good, huh?" Nicole asks, as we stare at it. The sun is staring to set and it's already a little darker, and I think we're all worried about getting it going.

"Really good," Dana agrees.

"Impressive," I add.

"Yeah! So how do we light it?" Michael asks.

"Who's to say," I shrug.

"I don't know," Dana says.

"No idea."

"All right, let's think," Michael says, and we all look at him, expecting a plan. "We're in the middle of nowhere, no matches, no lighter. How do we start a fire?"

I have an idea, "we could use a magnifying glass!" They all look at me, "like with the sun?"

"But we don't have one of those," Nicole says, and my proud smile falls.

"Right."

We go back to thinking and then all have the same idea, "Quinn!"

We gesture the girl over, and she leaves her spot with the laptop and phone to come sit by our fire. "Yeah?"

"How do you start a fire?" Michael asks.

She looks over towards the sun and then back to our pile of wood, "anybody got a mirror?"

"Logan will have one," I say, immediately, checking his backpack for one. There's one in there, which I pull out, quickly, "don't tell him we used this."

"Leave it to Logan to bring a mirror to the beach," Dana says, while I pass the mirror to Quinn.

She takes her glasses off and angles the mirror so the light from the sun bounces into her lenses.

"Nothing's happening," Nicole says.

"Wait for it," Quinn says simply, and then a fire begins, growing huge, "there you go!"

"Thanks!" I say, and put the mirror back, after wiping it carefully so it isn't smudged.

Quinn runs back to her science task and Michael lets out a little laugh, "she may be weird, but she comes in handy."

We all begin to warm ourselves, while we wait for Quinn and the others to finish their tasks. When they return with a huge fish, we all celebrate and begin cooking chunks of it on sticks, and eat it like knights on a quest. It's delicious, and the atmosphere is far from the panicked and angry one we had at the start of the afternoon.

"I usually don't like fish, but this fish rocks!" Nicole says. "Doesn't this fish rock?"

"This fish rocks," Zoey agrees, jokingly, and then laughs.

"Hey," I hear Dustin shout, still in the sea, "can I have some fish?"

"Sure," Nicole says, and tosses some in for him, which he actually manages to catch and eat.

"Thank you!" He shouts back, and I can't help but wish my own brother was so polite.

"You know, this day started out pretty suckish," Nicole says, "but I really had fun."

"So you girls aren't bummed that you missed the big PCA Mystic Beach after-exam party tradition?" Chase asks. I think about it, and can't say that I'm that upset about it.

"I think it's been nice to hang out with you guys like this, like adventurers."

"Yeah, we started our own tradition," Zoey says, and we all smile.

"Yeah, I say we do this every semester after exams," Michael says.

"Maybe next time with a way home and some food packed," I laugh.

Zoey holds up her fish, "a toast, to our new after-exam tradition!"

"Cheers," we all say, and then Quinn runs over to us.

"I got it! I think I've increased the cell phone's range by over 400%!"

"My laptop," Michael cries.

"Aw, my cell phone," Chase says.

"Aw, we're saved!" I say.

"Oh quit whining," Quinn tells them, "now who should I call?"

"Call a bathing suit store!" Dustin shouts at her.

We all laugh at him, and then Logan says, "just call someone, because it's gonna be dark soon."

"Hey, I know who we should call," Chase says.

"Mr Bender?" Zoey asks.

"Yep."

"He's a teacher," Logan protests.

"He's a cool teacher," Chase argues, and I sigh.

I rest my arm on Logan's shoulder, starting to get tired, "you're both looking at it wrong, if he has a car then we're calling Mr B."

"His number's programmed into my cell," Chase says, "call him!"

We spend the remaining time eating our fish and just talking, and when Mr Bender arrives, we're all exhausted, but happy. We cheer as his truck pulls up to the beach.

"Alright, let's see, did someone need a lift?" Mr Bender asks, and we cheer again.

"Thank you so much for coming to get us," Zoey says.

"Sure," he says. "I brought those pants you asked for. Where's your little brother?"

"He's still naked in the ocean," Zoey tells him.

We laugh and Mr Bender nods, "interesting."

"Yeah, Michael's watching him, so here, just give them here and I'll de-nudify him," Chase says, and takes the pants to Dustin.

"Hurry, it's getting cold!" Zoey tells him.

"Alright, adolescents, come on! Climb in. We have a long ride back to PCA."

We all jump into the back, and arrange ourselves and our things. Zoey turns to face the person who caused all of this, "Quinn, I gotta say thanks."

"Yeah, if it wasn't for you, we never would have had this experience," Nicole says.

"Yeah, thanks, Quinn," Dana says.

"Thanks," I chime. "And you too," I whisper to Logan, who had also contributed in us being here.

"Oh, don't thank me," Quinn says, "you can thank my new synthetic coconut-smelling goo!"

"Yeah, put that away," Zoey says, while I stay weary of the small tube.

"Right."

The boys still on the beach start running to us, shouting for us to wait, and I smile at them as they join us in the back of the truck. The truck starts up as we all settle down for the journey.

"Dustin, your toes look like raisins," Zoey says, and I can't help but look to find that they do.

"You try being in the ocean for six hours," he says, defensively.

Logan takes his mirror out of his bag, "hey, who got fingerprints on my mirror?" His anger is funny, considering the context, but I still feel bad.

"I did," I say, and he frowns.

"Oh, well, don't do it again."

"I won't," I say.

As the journey gets longer, and the sky gets darker, I find myself leaning into him as my eyes start to drift shut. With his arm around my shoulders I let myself fall asleep, and end the year on a high note.