I've been Slimed

It's our second day and Teddy is doubling with me in the yellow kayak.

*gasp*!

I hear a sharply indrawn breath from Teddy.

"What's wrong!" I call out.

"Nothing" she says in a little voice, but I know she's lying. More indrawn breaths come from behind me.

"What!" I call again, feeling slightly alarmed. I feel the kayak shift, and she's doing something funny with her paddle. Like not stroking in the water but waving it in the air and banging it on the kayak. "Eeeuw!"

"Come on, what is it?"

"There's a slug on your vest! It's crawling up your back!!"

Now she has my attention.

"Cal", she calls out, "can you come over here? Hurry!"

I am so afraid to move. I sit rigidly and suppress the rising bile.

Cal is there in an instant and Teddy waves her paddle at the slug. She had been trying to reach my back to poke it off but couldn't manage it. Deftly, he swings his kayak over and plucks the offending slug off my back and flings it into the ocean. The cunningly hidden slug has apparently tucked itself into the crevice between the cockpit and the spray skirt.

I shudder in relief that it had crawled up and not into the cockpit.

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