Marigold

Chapter 8: Emma

Ok getting back to the camp, we met Mrs Tola waiting for us who congratulated Jake for a job well done,
"You did a prize-winning job today Jake," she said without smiling
"Thanks mam, so can I get a raise?" He asked sluggishly probably hoping she would say yes but she just walked away
"Alright campers..." he groaned "...the rest are, somewhere around, go find them and do what they're doing" he continued and walked away leaving us in the clearing alone
"Hold up, you're just gonna leave us out here?" Asked Ariana but he just raised his arm in the air and dropped them down. We stared at him till he left the girls camp into the darkness leaving us with nothing to do.
Going back to our cabin wasn't even an option because we could get caught by a scarry parading lady, so the only option I thought would work was splitting up but Emma changed my plans by telling me that one of the girls that were with us for the cleaning up thing knew where the rest of the campers.
"They're all at the events hall," she said.
Now we knew what to do and made our way to the area in the boys camp, fortunately for us, the path wasn't dark at all because they were blinding lights everywhere.

"Hello!" Emma startled me from behind but it was normal at this point
"We're all heading to the cabin".
Mrs Tola was gone by then so I understood the suggestion,
"What about the rest of the campers?" I asked
"They're probably watching a movie, what we're going to do is way fun" she answered.
I hoped for it not to be truth or dare, that was the last thing I wanted to do with those people, especially in a closed space.
Fortunately for Emma, I wasn't good at standing up for my decisions which could be a case of one-sided fun for both of us and sure enough, she told me all the things we were going to do and the crummy decision-based game was among the list.
We got to the cabin a while later and the first thing she suggested was to spin a bottle. Whoever the cap touched had to tell an embarrassing back story which isn't that bad in context.
I sat in front of my bunk completing the circle of friends at the centre of our cabin, the sight made me wonder if I was the same girl who spent all summer break in an enclosed space at my dad's office reading a book on fictional stories about life,
The same girl who got a kindergarten school closed because she did a chemical reaction for homework where everyone else was colouring a book,
The one that somehow made her dad lose the job he's been working on his whole life and made him one with the couch at home instead,
Yes,
I'm not exactly the one you'll call stable,
Crap, all this 'go-to summer camp' thing could be a huge disaster for all I know,
The unforeseen hell of a monsoon just hasn't happened yet,
It could be around my corner of the ocean
Or
It has already happened, I just haven't felt its impact yet,
Whatever it is, I can feel its presence, it's like living under dark clouds knowing it's about to rain an entire zoo,
And it's not like one finds joy in being the centre of catastrophe every free moment and it's not like I'm always just sitting there waiting for it to rain animals on my head, most of these things are inevitable, I can't just single-handedly build a bamboo roof over my head, I'm better off using my palms for shelter.
All I can do now is anticipate this one and try outrunning the storm just to see if I can because I haven't escaped catastrophe in the past, there's no way in fleeing from it in the nearby future while being trapped in Marygold.

"...Lola?"
I jumped when Emma pulled me by the hair into reality,
I had been gone longer than usual to them.
"Where did you go this time? Paris?"
Emma teased
"Is she always like that?" Ariana asked
"It's her sick method of running away from us" Nicole answered.
I looked at the floor and saw the bottle cap looking at my toes, I knew it was my turn to tell an embarrassing story and from how everyone else was paying less attention to me, I probably took the whole season.
"Oh fine, it all happened when I was in boarding school" I started with the story of how I somehow hawked food in school by accident.
"Hah, we aren't doing that game again, now we're just playing truth or dare," said Emma giving some sort of wicked smirk at me,
"So who's asking me? " I asked trying to play dumb
"It's me silly" Emma snickered not to my surprise though.
I looked around and noticed one of us wasn't in the room, it was Maddie.
I asked where she was and was told she went to the bathroom a while ago and hasn't been back since then causing me to suggest we go look for her. First I checked the bathroom but it was as empty as it was dark, after yelling her name a few times and checking all the stalls, I started panicking.
"What do you mean she's not there? That's where she went, she should where she went to right?" Emma was starting to lose it,
"Emma, let's just calm down, she could have gone to the hall for that movie they're watching" suggested Ariana and she had a good point too.
Nicole looked cool about it as if she knew everything was okay.
I on the other hand was making a well-laid plan on what to do,
There's no way she could be missing, she's not the smartest among us so maybe she'll be among some of her random friends, not that she has much of them anyway so that option was a bust. Then again, she's not exactly the lone explorer either, so there was another chance she was just lost and sitting somewhere waiting for help, the problem with that is that she could be waiting for us anywhere in the area and wherever she is, finding her would be like the needle in a haystack kind of situation.
The fact was that I was freaking out on the inside but hid it perfectly so no one else will.
Then I had an idea
"Hey, let's go tell our counsellor, maybe she can help" I suggested
"Lola, no one has seen that lady for years, you think she'll just show up now because we need her? Plus there's a good chance she'll just tell Tola about it and no one wants that to happen" Emma noted
"Actually, we could just go look for her" Nicole announced
"I agree" Ariana continued "The forest isn't that big if we work together"
"We don't know that she's even in the forest!" Emma screeched
"We haven't tried have we?" Nicole said calming Emma down a little,
After she agreed, we all got our flashlight and headed into the woods behind our cabin, the bathroom was near that area so we had every reason to believe Maddie would be around that area. Emma wasn't the happiest of all four of us, she wasn't the type that would randomly cry in situations like these, instead, she just complained about EVERYTHING.
Ariana couldn't continue and decided to head back to camp to cover for us if possible and Emma just went on about her, yelling that she's being very suspicious and asking her why she would just decide to head back all of a sudden, so I had to explain to her that if no one covers for us, we could be in big trouble and it calmed her down.
Soon after, Nicole's torch fell and refused to turn on, Emma proceeded to complain that Nicole dropped it on purpose, I told her it doesn't matter and as long we both still have our torches, we still have a chance and that calmed her down.

Not too long after, her torch turned off and refused to turn on,
"Great, now one of you is trying to sabotage everything" she snapped
"Maybe you just forgot to charge it, you were doing all that work today," I said to reassure her,
"You know what, I've got every reason to be cautious of you Lola" she snapped facing me "you've been trying to calm me down from the start"
"That's because you keep throwing tantrums every minute"
"So you do know where Madison is!" She assumed
"I didn't say that..."
"Hey, maybe you told your buddies to kidnap her huh?" She said coming closer
"You aren't making any sense, I..." I defended
"Just say it! You know where she is but you don't want to say it..."
I couldn't say anything anymore,
Emma then finishes her ranting with
"That's what I thought".
Before she could pounce on me and possibly rip the throat off a speechless me, Nicole dragged her short cut hair leaving her with just her fingers in the air and her mouth open in pain and repeating the words
"Ow, ow, ow",
"That's enough drama queen" Nicole muttered while still pulling her hair then sitting her down on a nearby log.
"What gives?" Emma asked her
"What do you mean? Are you planning on taking out this dork or finding the missing one?" Nicole answered her with a frown Emma just looked at the ground in thought, she must have felt really out of character,
"Hey you, you're meant to calm her not stand there and spit dumb words"
Nicole said looking at from the corner of her eye. I still couldn't say anything, Emma was right, the same group that attacked Ariana could have Maddie, what if that were true?
We could be dealing with a huge problem here, one we might not be able to solve.
After Nicole calmed Emma and made her apologize to me, she told me that  Emma and Maddie are best friends, they grew up in the same house and it's normal for one of them to freak out when the other disappears all of a sudden.

I then made a promise to Emma to help find Maddie and bring her safely but only if Emma would not be a worry bag about it and she agreed.