“I’m not peeing on your leg Shawn! That’s disgusting!” Gus shrieked.

Shawn hissed as nasty, red welts started to appear on his leg. “Guuuuus, I’ve been stung by a jellyfish! You have to! This is a matter of life and death.”

“Technically the Portuguese Man o’ War is a siphonophore, not a jellyfish. They’re also not deadly to humans, just painful.” Gus looked at his friend with sympathy. 

“I’ve heard it both wayssss.” Shawn hissed again. “Plus, it can’t hurt to try!”

“Actually, it can. The whole ‘peeing on a jellyfish sting’ is a myth anyways! It can actually make it worse, you know.”

Shawn glared at his friend through pained eyes. “Why do you know so much about jellyfish?”

“We live on the coast, I want to be prepared. Plus it was covered in our scouts first aid book. Didn’t you read it?” Gus raised his eyebrow.

“Gus, I think you are the only one in our entire troop that read that.” Shawn yelped as the sting started to pulse painfully. “What do we do then?”

“First thing is to remove any tentacles.” Gus carefully examined Shawn’s leg. “I see a couple of pieces left, but I don’t have any tweezers.”

Shawn swept his eyes around the beach then nodded his head to the right. “There’s some sticks over there that should work.”

Gus grabbed the sticks and brought them back to his friend. “I don’t want to get stung too.”

“Just give them to me, I want to get these off!” Shawn’s hand shot out with a gimme gesture.

Gus handed over a couple sticks that Shawn then held like chopsticks and grabbed at the first tentacle. He grimaced and stared in horror as his friend pulled the offending blue string off his leg while banging his other fist into the stand as the action irritated the sting. A few seconds later, all pieces had been removed and Shawn was panting in agony. 

“What’s next?” Shawn asked.

“Uh, we’re supposed to rinse it in the salt water.” Gus glanced at the ocean.

“I have to go BACK IN THERE?” Shawn whined.

“It’s the only thing we can do until we get you some proper medicine.” 

Shawn sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Okay, fine. But I’m only going deep enough to get my leg underwater.”

Gus held out his hand and helped Shawn up out of the sand where he had collapsed a few minutes prior. Together they wobbled back over to the waves and examined the water for any other evil creature before Shawn plopped in.

Silently, they both scooped up handfuls of water and ran it over the rapidly worsening state of Shawn’s leg.

“Anything else we can do?” Shawn asked while crossing his fingers..

“Not out here. We need to head back to the cabin and look for a first aid kit until your dad gets back from his fishing trip.”

“I was afraid you would say something like that.” Shawn sighed, tiredly. “I guess it’s a good thing we hadn’t gone too far yet.”

Gus nodded and held his hand out again to help Shawn up. “Let’s get back, buddy.”

“Worst. Vacation. Ever.” he gritted out between his teeth as the movement caused further burning and stinging.

Gus couldn’t help but agree.