Chapter 6: Friday Change of Pace

When I had looked at some of the pamphlet’s the Hotel’s concierge had, I had seen an activity I was interest in trying.

It took a while to persuade Mom to have a go, but she finally relented. I even managed to get them to call the orphanage group and allow Alex to join us for the day, since it was something he would enjoy, but the younger kids couldn’t do.

So the four of us turned up in the car the hotel had provided, at the paintball venue the next morning.

Dad paid for all of the rental equipment needed, guns, gloves, helmet and overalls were passed across. The four of us were all to be on the white team, with white paintballs and armbands, the other team would be red. There were over thirty others there ready to join in, so it was to be seventeen on each team.

The first game was assault the castle. There was a wooden setup for the castle, and the white team had to defend first, taking positions either around or in the castle, while the red team attacked us. The guns we were using were alright, but nothing special, they fired the paint pellets alright, but if you hit what you were aiming at it was a surprise rather than a certainty.

As a team we managed to hold off the red team long enough, that we were called the winners of the first game. Mom was surprised how much fun it was, even though she got hit and had to leave the game before the end.

Dad and Alex and I managed to survive the first whole game without being hit. Working together we managed to pick off quite a few of the assaulting red team. But it took a lot of shots to achieve a hit. Dad had paid for us all to have three tubes of paintballs, thinking that would be enough to last the games we would play. After the first game I had already used up a full tube already, I don’t think Dad or Alex were far behind.

When it came to our turn to attack, we tried to be more tactical than the red team had been, sending some to the left, our four went right, and the remainder would hit straight on. We had much better success than the red team did, while the head on team got spotted and hit hard, the two flanking teams were able to move in much closer before they were seen.

The left hand team tried a full on sprint for the castle, they didn’t get that close since the defenders had better barriers to hide behind and were higher.

But that allowed us four to get in even closer while they were being eliminated. Alex and I even managed to get to the base of the castle before we were seen, with Mom and Dad shooting over us to keep the defenders occupied, we got into the castle, covering each other as we went from room to room.

We didn’t win, we ran out of time before we could grab the flag that signified a win, but the white team were awarded the win overall as we had done better than the red team.

I felt like we might have been able to actually take the castle if we had guns with better accuracy, we had also gone through another tube of balls each, we were only two games in from the eight we had paid for, we would definitely need to buy more.

Once the game was over and we were back in the safe area, I went to the shop where you could purchase more balls.

“Excuse me, is it possible to buy a better gun than we rented.” I asked.

“Sure son, but they are not cheap, and you better get your parents to agree to pay for them first.” he replied.

“What have you got that are better than these?” I asked.

He sighed in reluctance, but did get a box off the shelf, the paintball gun inside looked more like an actual combat gun than what we were using, I was definitely interested. “How much are they?”

“These are $265, there is the newer improved version as well, but they are $495” he explained.

“Alright, I will take four of the improved version guns and four thousand paintballs as well.” I requested as I smiled.

“Yeah right kid, go back to your parents and tell them you want to spend $2400 on guns and balls, then come back when you have the money.” He stated patronizingly.

I pulled out the money that Jason had given me yesterday, less the amount I had already spent. I counted out 22 – 100 dollar bills and slapped them on the counter. “The four guns I asked for please.”

The man just stood there staring at the money, before finally taking four big boxes, and four smaller ones off the wall behind him. “There you go son.”

I went and got Alex and Dad, we picked up the new gear and got it prepared to use. “Jack, this must have cost a fortune, why did you buy them?”

“Because they will make the day so much better, plus we can take them home with us. If there isn’t already somewhere we can do this again, it will be a brilliant business to start up for the area.”

“Always thinking of business opportunities, that is what makes you such a good businessman Jack.” Dad complimented me.

Alex was looking between us in confusion, “Jack how much did you pay for the guns, I thought you had to rent them.”

“They are $495 each Alex. Don’t worry about that though, I made that much money in a bonus on Thursday morning, so just enjoy the better guns alright.”

Alex looked at me aghast, but I just shoved a gun into his hands, which he looked at in amazement. Then a grin spread across his face, “with these we are going to win all the games so easily.” he commented.

He was right, the next couple of games with the new gun advantage we overwhelmed the red team. Mom wasn’t very good, but she was enjoying the games. That was all that mattered to me, I had been afraid she would try the first game then sit out the rest, but she hung in there for every game.

Alex, Dad and I were a lot more competitive, with the better guns we were the foundation for our team, using our firepower to keep the red team pinned down while the rest moved in to achieve the game objective.

It might have been unfair, but both teams were having a bundle of fun firing off loads of paintballs.

The game I enjoyed most was called bounce ball, it was similar to the other games. But instead of using trees or wooden constructions, the barriers were made up of huge air filled plastic balls. You could run into them hard and it wouldn’t hurt, you just had to be careful you didn’t bounce back off them and back into the open. You could even dive on top of some of the smaller balls, then you had to be careful that you didn’t bounce right back off onto your head on the other side.

But it made for a really fun game, and I think everyone was more interested in bouncing on the balls than firing at the opposition. I even saw Mom running at and bouncing on the balls, it was surprising that no one got hurt, even if it was only a twisted ankle or something minor.

The white team actually won that game, I think it was because the four of us with the better guns didn’t have the same impact while we were so busy playing on the balls.

The second to last game was in a small wooded area, it was another defend the flag scenario. But this time both teams had a flag to defend, so part of our team needed to defend our flag area, while another squad moved forward to try and capture the red team flags.