Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

--Langston Hughes

Did you ever lie out on a beach when there is no-one else around and look at the clouds? If you look for long enough at them, they start to come alive. You can see patterns and shapes, animals for instance; dogs, cats, even birds.

And if you keep looking you might even see Greek and Roman god with long flowing robes, drinking from great wine goblets, or great minotaur and unicorns rising up high on their hind legs before disappearing into a haze as the cloud passes over your head.

Its five thirty in the morning. The sun is just starting to come out of hiding and stripes of purple and red rush across an otherwise grey-blue morning sky. The colors spread like splashes of paint that have been applied too thickly and have slowly spread down along the page.

Beside the sea there is a cool morning breeze that takes the rippling waves and sends them scurrying back and forth so that a white froth appears all along the sea front.

The air is thick with moisture, moisture from the sea and from the clouds which are rolling across the sky.

If you look closely you can see two people lying on an otherwise deserted beach. It’s too early even for the joggers. It seems like the whole world is still asleep, waiting for the sun to makes its way all the way up over the horizon, waiting for the day to begin.

This morning the clouds are thicker than normal, and instead of rolling across the sky they merely amble slowly; lazy and heavy with unshed rain.

The two figures are lying side by side, so close that their shoulders are almost touching.

They are wide awake, not talking, just looking at the sky.

Looking; and waiting for the sunrise. Waiting for the rain.

If you look closely you can see that one of them is tall and broad, strong with dark hair and a lean, athletic build. His face looks tired, tired from too much worry and not enough sleep.

Every so often though, he will turn and look at the figure beside him, and smile, smile with happiness, smile with relief.

The other figure is tall too, but thin, thin and tired looking. The cheekbones are pinched; the clothes hang too loosely on tired limbs but the expression on his face is one of contentment.

As they lie there edge of the waves move slowly up the beach and lap around their bare feet, white water curling up between their toes.

Still they do not move, and they do not speak. It’s as if they don’t need to, they can sense that there will be plenty of time for talking and plenty to understand and share, but not now, not at that precise moment.

If you look now you will see two girls are walking slowly down the beach towards them, one going each side of the still figures, heads lying on chests, hands intertwined.

And then it started, the rain, rain poured down from the sky in huge drops, each drop sending sand shooting upwards as it hit beach. Rain sending little rivers of mud trickling down the beach, mixing sand with hair, with clothes.

They lay there side by side in the sand, letting the rain pour onto their faces, into their clothes and their hair, and they opened their mouths and let the sweet rain water trickle down. Rain brings life, rain makes things grow, rain heals.

There are no words needed, this is not the time for stories.

Later he would ask how they had found him, and he would be told the whole story. He would hear of the anguish, of the waiting, of the long sleepless nights, of the growing panic as the hours slipped by.

But for now they will lie there in the rain, silent and happy and alive.

There you have it folks! If you want to find out how Joe was found watch this space for "Fighting the Darkness" the companion story to this one…..