The Cave

Day Two: Elle

Instead of the rain Jared had predicted, the second day of our camping trip turned out to be a sunny one. I woke up to bright light streaming through the tent walls and when I stepped outside, I was surprised by the heat.

“And you said it was going to rain!” I said smugly to Jared, who was sitting outside his tent with Tyler.

“I said it might rain,” he countered.

“Whatever, let’s get going.”

Jared raised an eyebrow. “Elle, it’s half nine and we’re not even dressed yet. Are the others even awake?”

I looked back to the tent. When I’d gotten up, Beth had been stirring, but Amber and Annaliese were fast asleep. I sighed irritably.

“Alright, fine,” I said. “Let’s go by eleven, I want to be there all day.”

I went back into the tent. I knew the girls would be annoyed if I woke them, but I wanted them to get up, so I made a bit of a fuss getting some clean clothes out of my bag. Within a few minutes, they were all awake.

“Why’s it so bright?” Amber moaned, shielding her eyes with her hand. I hadn’t zipped the tent flap shut completely, a tiny slice of light was shining through.

“Because it’s morning,” I said. “Time to get up!” I leaned down and ruffled Amber’s auburn hair lightly.

“Get off,” she said, but she sat up anyway.

“I’m going to the showers,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

The idea of using communal showers with complete strangers thoroughly repulsed me, but I had to wash. I’d spotted three shower blocks since we’d been here. Luckily the campsite wasn’t too full because it was still term time for school children and coming back from the chip shop last night, I’d noted that one block was in an almost deserted section of the field. That was great; the less people I had to share with, the better.

It seemed like most people were still asleep- how lazy were they?- but on my way I passed two girls who were probably a few years older than me, who smiled at me politely, and a family of five struggling to keep their black Labrador under control. 

The showers were totally empty when I arrived. I washed quickly and walked back to the tents, passing Annaliese and Amber on their way to the shower.

“Aren’t you lot going to wash?” I asked Tyler, Jared and Beth, who were already fully clothed.

“Yeah, in the evening,” said Beth, but the boys just shrugged. Ugh.

I was only hungry for ice-cream, and nobody else mentioned food, so as soon as the others were back, we walked down to the beach. There were a few people there but it was comfortably empty, and we chose a fairly secluded spot.

“Ah,” I sighed happily, spreading my blue and green towel on the sand and lying down. “This is just what I need.”

Apparently, the others weren’t so in need of a relaxing sunbath. After lounging around for about twenty minutes, Jared announced that he was bored.

“Anyone wanna play a game or something?” he suggested.

“What have you got?” asked Annaliese.

“This?” I raised my head slightly to see him holding the football he’d brought with him.

“Cool,” said Annaliese, “Let’s play.”

“Great,” I muttered under my breath. They’d be kicking sand everywhere, and no doubt the ball would hit me at some point.

“Hey.” I turned to see Beth sitting next to me.