Hobo You Don't...

Someone was waving at him. He squinted across the clearing.
Jaxx and... someone else.

He headed towards them, sticking close to the trees.

As he drew near, Jaxx's mysterious new companion tilted her head.
“Hello, you must be The Hobo Dude.”
He eyed her, suspiciously. “Who are you?”
“Evelina.”
“Yeah, dude, she came here through the atmosphere like a shooting star. It was most righteous.”
“Right.” Unsure what was going on, but not wanting to be impolite he added. “Nice to meet you.”
He turned to the man-shark. “Jaxx, where the hell are th-” he frowned. “Wait, what? 'Hobo dude'?”
Evelina nodded. “Yes, Jaxx, here said you were 'The Hobo Dude'.”
He treated the other man to a glower. “Did he now?”
“Chill, bro, it was the beard and...” he gestured at Alex 's general person, giving a little cough. “... stuff.”
Alex jutted his newly-shaven chin and gave it a meaningful rub.
“How flattering.”

Evelina's brows knotted at the odd exchange.
Alex shook his head. They could talk nonsense later.
“Look, where are the others?”
Jaxx shrugged. “We don't know.”
Evelina was fiddling with an overhead leaf. “We were going to ask you what to do...”

With a tired sigh, recent glow extinguished, Alex acknowledged the muggy ache threatening to creep from his skull into his shoulders.
“Have either of you got a drink?”
Jaxx hiked his head towards the lakeward path. “Plenty of water down there, Alice... Alex.”
“No, I mean a drink, drink.”
Evelina was confused. “How will that help us?”
“It won't, but it'll help me.”

Jaxx mouthed silently but not-so-subtly to Evelina “See? Hobo”.

Alex ignored this and peered into the nearby trees.
"I've been out of the area, where have you been? Didn't you see anything that could help us find them?"

He didn't share the shameful fact that, before Jaxx had spotted him, he'd been considering leaving his fellow Dwarfers to it, and heading off to start a new life with the dinosaurs.

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