STUFFED

Capture the Flag

Courtney's legs are burning and it's the first time in a long time that she actually likes it.

It's round three of capture the flag and everyone is into it now. It's the tie breaker game. Blue team won the first round and Yellow team won the second.

Courtney is surprised how quickly her competitive nature has come out.

There are two bean bags left on team Yellow's side. Her team is so close to winning.

Everyone is stalking around trying to find an opening to run. One of the smaller more agile girls on team Blue makes a run for it and while everyone is distracted, Courtney runs up the other side of the field.

She manages to make it there and back unscathed.

As she's catching her breath she looks over to the Yellow side and notices the ring is empty. The other girl who ran first is in jail but a guy with a blue bandana grips the last yellow bean bag in his hand. He's running towards the line but there are two other people chasing after him.

The chase seems to go in slow motion; not because of the heightened adrenaline but because everyone is struggling to breathe and move their bodies fast enough.

He finally makes it across to the other side and her whole team erupts in excitement.

The camp leader blows his whistle to signal the end of the game and everyone runs towards the guys who made the last play.

There's screaming and cheering. Everyone is wrapping their arms around each other, basically jumping up and down.

This feeling makes her nostalgic for her old cheer team. Winning together was always the best feeling.

Eventually the adrenaline wears off and with it, the high. They make plans to celebrate their win down at the beach and the group slowly disperses. Some people head into the dining hall to get water and other people go straight to their cabins to get changed.

The sun is setting by the time they all meet down by the water.

The sunset is beautiful and the colors are reflected in the water.

"It's far enough away from the staff cabin, if we're quiet I don't think anyone will hear us."

Courtney looks over her left shoulder to see a group of guys sitting in a semi circle talking quietly. One of them spots her eavesdropping and shushes the rest of the group nodding over in her direction. They all turn to look at her. She immediately feels intimidated and looks away.

"What's her name?" Someone whispers.

"Courtney? I think."

"Courtney!"

She turns back to look at the group. One of the guys is waving her over.

Her curiosity trumps her anxious disposition so she decides to go over to see what they want. As she gets up, she realizes how sorry her body truly is. She hasn't done that much physical activity for a really long time. She should've stretched afterwards, she thinks to herself, as the lactic acid builds up in her legs.

Courtney hobbles over to where they're sitting and quickly sits down.

"What are you delinquents up to?"

She's surprised that those words left her mouth. She's not usually that bold. She's probably just over compensating for how nervous she is.

They exchange confused looks between each other and then the head guy speaks.

"We're planning to raid the staff fridge tonight."

Ah yes, classic fat kid behaviour. Honestly, Courtney was wondering how long it would be before something like this happened.

Her focus changes; what does this have to do with her? She looks around at the group and there isn't a single girl sitting there.

He reads the confusion on her face and continues speaking.

"I'm Carson by the way." She offers him a weak smile, "We think you could be an asset."

So they're recruiting her for a heist...

"Why?" Is her next reaction. It looks like they've already assembled a pretty decent squad. Why would they need her.

"You just seem like the athletic type. We could use that."

So capture the flag turned out to be try outs. She almost laughs at the whole situation but for fear of offending them, she controls herself.

"I don't want to get in trouble..."

"We don't get in trouble if we don't get caught." Carson responds with a clever smirk.

If she's being honest, it's not the getting caught part that's turning her off of engaging in summer camp criminal activity it's the fact that she's not going to be able to move in a couple hours here. Her body is tensing up and she's going to need to take a bath or something.

They temporarily ignore her and continue their discussion. As they're talking, she picks out multiple mistakes in their plan that will definitely get them caught. She listens for a couple more minutes before interrupting.

"The big glass sliding door has a squeaky wheel that's not loud enough to hear when we're all together in the day time but at night it's going to be loud as hell, the front entrance has motion sensor lights that will shine directly into the staff cabin, and the fridge has a digital lock on it..."

They're all silently staring at her.

"Okay, all in favour of making Courtney the brains of this operation raise your hand."

All seven hands shoot up.

She hesitates for a moment but after thinking about it, she accepts. It could be fun. Plus if they get caught, she won't get in trouble.

"Fine." She agrees, "I need a can of oil, black-out curtains, and powder. Like any kind of powder. Baking powder, makeup powder, baby powder. Bring it all to my cabin at 11:30pm tonight. I'll brief everyone on the plan then."