The Summer Reunion (unedited version)

7| Grimy Little Goblins

Something I figured out when I walked into the craft center: I am not a kid's person.

One would think, 'maybe someone who doesn't like kids shouldn't be a camp counsellor'. Well, they would be right.

Grayson and I were in charge of the thirteen-year-olds. Honestly I feel like it could be worse, we could be stuck with younger kids. Or as I like to call them, grimy little goblins.

We were in a large cabin with an A slanted roof. Light poured through the windows casting a warm glow on the five tables that were set up across the room, all of them containing different craft stations. I'll admit crafts at a summer camp can be a little boring, but all the groups are supposed to cycle through different activities throughout the next couple weeks. Activities like these are fillers for the more exciting stuff like high ropes and tubing. Besides we weren't doing this for the whole day, just until lunch. After this we're switching to radio broadcasting, where the kids get to go in a booth and try recording podcasts and pretend to be on the radio. It's actually really cool, I've never seen anything like it. The recording even plays on the speakers outside the booth so people can listen to your show when walking by.

Our group consisted of about 16 kids, more girls than boys thankfully. There was this one boy who kept leaving his station to mess up the other girls' crafts at the table beside me. I kept nudging Grayson who was closest to him to tell the kid to stop, but he just shrugged me off and went back to painting his birdhouse.

Ugh, I hate that he's so good at painting. Right now he was adding little details on as finishing touches, he was putting little shingles on the roof and making shutters on the windows. I just painted mine camouflage so no predators will target my tiny bird family. In my biology class last semester the teacher talked about how things that blended into their surroundings had a better chance of survival. I figured since my birds can't blend in, their house can. I'm doing my best.

I peered over Grayson to see the boy back at the girls table again, pouring glitter all over their crafts.

"That guy's a dick." I mumbled to Grayson.

He chuckled a little and dropped his gaze down to mine, "You mean the little boy?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes. The little boy is a dick." I raised my hand to stop him before he could reprimand me, "It's not being mean if it's true. Look what he's doing." I said, gesturing to him ruining their crafts.

"We should probably stop him. It's our job... right?" he asked me like I would know.

"I... think so?" I guessed. I leaned over the table closer to Grayson, "Boy!" I whisper shouted.

"Oh god." Grayson said beside me, dropping his head into his hands.

"Boy!" I called after him again.

"Don't just shout 'boy', how's he going to know it's him?"

Hmm. That's a very good question. 

"We didn't ask any of them for their names...Should we have done that?" I asked him, "I hate ice breakers, they're so awkward."

"Yeah we both learned that lesson yesterday. Find another way to get his attention." He advised me.

I turned to face him, still resting my arms on the table to get closer to 'the boy' (which is now his official name).

I was closer to Grayson's face than I realized. I turned my head slightly towards his and when I looked over at him, I noticed his eyes were lower on my face.