The Camp

STAGE ONE: Chapter Four

In the end, we settled on different things. I chose a dance class to see if I still liked it alright, Maisie went to check out something called ‘Yoga’ that she remembered from a trip to City when she was younger. Jeremiah and Luke went to the sports room to play each other, and Dana ended up trailing after me once she deemed the gym “too boring.” I couldn’t blame her, the music and dancing was a fun way to make sure you stayed fit, but weights and running in place hardly seemed entertaining.

It was nearly 12:15 by the time we were all congregated back in the entrance. Dana and I were coated in a layer of sweat from dancing, though the teacher had supplied us with comfortable, light, black pants to work in rather than our heavy jeans. Jeremiah and Luke appeared similarly ruffled, but Maisie looked relaxed, if not only a tad tired.

“I’m starved; it’s about time for lunch, right?” Jeremiah asked, holding a hand delicately to his stomach, as if the organ might explode without careful tending.

“Yeah, let’s go.” And we went. The food was much better than I was expecting. Oddly enough, I could say with honesty that it was a bit better than my mother’s food. This was something I’d never experienced before, not that I’d had the chance to eat much other than meals at home. The menu read: ‘SPAGHETTI W/ MEAT SAUCE; (1) GARLIC BREAD; SIDE – SALAD.’ From the mild looks on the faces of the older kids, I could tell that this wasn’t such an uncommon occurrence, but I’d never eaten the stuff before.

After lunch went much the same as before lunch. We explored the Stage One camp to get accustomed to our surroundings before we headed back to our rooms. As we’d been told, there were brown envelopes neatly placed on our beds, a white piece of cloth folded neatly beside it. Hurrying to my envelope, I carefully pulled open the tab and slid the contents out. Inside were three pieces of paper. The first was a list of classes, the second a list of activities, and the third a smaller, thicker piece of paper with curling, golden letters on it: Dress your best tonight.

I was a tad confused about that one – didn’t I always dress my best? At home, my mother and father had never told me to dress any differently than I normally did. Maybe Camp had different expectations? Shrugging, I sat that slip on my bed before looking over my list of classes. They read:

Alaina Eudora Russo   Age 15   McCarthy Sector

1 – Life Science

2 – Geometry

3 – English Composition

Lunch

4 – History of the World

5 – Music Theory

It wasn’t as bad as I had initially been expecting from Camp, but it was definitely going to be a mighty change from my schooling back home. Nibbling on my bottom lip, I took out the activity list from behind the class list. They were: 

Alaina Eudora Russo   Age 15   McCarthy Sector

Music Composition & Performance

Dance Performance

Theatre

Literary Composition

Art Composition

            “Hey, those aren’t bad. You’re a liberal arts person, then?” Maisie asked in my ear, peering over my shoulder. I jumped out of my skin and nearly punched her, she frightened me so much.

“Yeah, I guess I am. What about you?” I questioned in return and her response was to shove her list in my hands. I scanned over them and frowned. Only one class together. I switch with Dana and was similarly disappointed. We all had completely different schedules, except for one class – History of the World. Maybe it was one all of the new Stage Ones had to take?

“So, we’ll see each other at lunch and after, that’s not so bad. It could be worse, right?”

“Always the optimist, Dana,” Maisie commented with a laugh. Stepping away from one another, we looked at the clock and let loose a breath of confusion when we saw that it was already 4:45. Hurrying over to the closet, we threw open the doors and smiled at the sight of the rows of familiar clothes, lined on three separate beams. They organization was quite similar as it was at home, but I noticed a couple items I’d never seen before. One, a green dress that looked like a wrap made of fine, shimmery material to the waist, and then flared out to what I guessed would be just above my knees when worn. Another, a longer, red dress that was fitted to the hips, then flowed to the ground. I couldn’t help but wonder what in the world they’d put them in there for, but Maisie and Dana both had their own versions of the two pieces.

“Well, they did say dress your best tonight. Maybe that’s why they put these in here…” Maisie pondered and we all shrugged, taking them out of the closet and laying them on our beds. I’d never worn a dress before, but I’d seen Mother in them countless times and it didn’t take much thinking to figure out how to get it on. It fit like a glove, and I was astounded with the accuracy of whoever gave it to me. Rather than try to fuss with my thick curls, I braided them back and let it fall behind me, nearly reaching just past my waist. Mother tried to cut it multiple times throughout the years, but I was too attached to it.

“We’d better get going – I have a feeling we’re going to be late.” Dana was right; the time was inching closer to 5:30, so I tied a black ribbon around the end of my braid, slipped on my old pair of black boots, and tied the white cloth around my wrist before darting out of the room behind Dana and Maisie. We ran through the wooden paths in the woods and almost passed out when we finally reached the Amphitheatre. My braid was now loose and messy, strands curling in front of my face. I made irritated puffs, trying to push it out of the way, but eventually just gave up as we took our seats. On the stage, five large rows of kids just older than us, dressed in blue, were standing quietly, with amused smiles on their faces.

“What do you think they’re doing up there?” I jumped a foot off of my seat at the low voice next to my ear. I spent quickly around to face the person behind the voice when I suddenly came nose-to-nose with Luke. He wore a pair of black pants and a type of shirt I’d never seen before – a light blue thing that buttoned up all the way to a collar that bent over onto itself and long sleeves.

“Oh. Hey, Luke.” He looked completely indifferent to the proximity and I was beginning to think that the City was a lot different than Towns than it seemed to be. My suspicions were very much confirmed when another girl peeped over his arm from the other side and smiled at her. After that, she was only able to mutter out a noncommittal: “I’m not sure what they’re for…”

“Hey. Oh, Ali, this is Jennifer, she’s a friend from back home, in the City. We knew each other as tykes,” Luke responded with a similar smile. There was just one thing…

“Tykes…?”

“Oh! I forgot some things are different in the Towns. Tykes mean young children. We knew each other when we were really young,” he explained and she just nodded. “She doesn’t talk too much; she was in an accident as a kid.”

“That’s terrible! I could never imagine…”

“It’s fine. Just some stupid rioters in the City who didn’t care about the consequences of their actions.” I was startled to hear this. Rioters? The Towns had yet to hear anything about that, but from what Luke was saying, they’d been around for a while. Why had I never been told about them if they were so bad as to cause accidents?

“These rioters…why are the Leaders not doing anything about them?” I asked. It had been drilled into by head ever since I could understand words that the government was there to protect us.

“The Leaders are trying to, but the rioters just keep slipping through the cracks.”

“What cracks? What do you mean?”

“I’m not really sure…I heard my father talking about it with one of his friends one time. His friend just said something about someone being dangerous, though. I’m assuming he meant the rioters.” Made sense. I opened my mouth to ask him more about the rioters, but just then the twinkling lights dangling throughout the Amphitheatre dimmed and a brighter light illuminated the Second Stagers standing on the platform. They all took a simultaneous breath and began to sing in harmony.