Summer Camp

Day 2

The next day Matt and Chris were asked what jobs they were most interested in doing and both of them at the same time were almost shouting « kitchen staff! »
The camp leader looked through some papers and checked through the availability.
« It looks like we only have one position left for the kitchen»
The boys looked at each other and immediately played a quick game of Rock Paper Scissors.
Matt lost. « Two out of three? » he begged.
« Yea right, buddy » Chris replied.
« So I'll put Chris for kitchen, and Matt, you can do cleanup crew. We are in need of help in that area. Chris, you can go into the kitchen through that door and ask for Charlotte. She's the girl with long wavy hair and a name tag that says Charlotte. Can't miss her. »
Chris looked at Matt with a grin and Matt just glared at him, not able to hide his jealousy.
"As for you Matt," The camp leader said, bringing back Matt's attention to him, "If you follow me, I'll show your work station."

While the camp leader showed Matt how to do his job of putting away all of the equipment for the camp activities into the shed, Chris was being shown around the kitchen by Charlotte. She wasn't the head chef, but she trained newcomers since the head chef was so busy. Charlotte was her name, the girl the boys were referring to. He was happy he won in Rock Paper Scissors but it wasn't as fun hanging around in this boring kitchen without Matt there to goof around with. As cute as Charlotte was, Chris looked through the window and what Matt was doing looked way more fun.
"You keep looking out the window," Charlotte said to Chris. "Is there a deer or something?"
"Oh, haha. No , it's just that when I thought of working in a summer camp, I thought I would be doing something a little more ...Naturey. Not that it's not fun working here, I just mean... I don't know what I mean actually. Nevermind."
"No, I understand what you mean. Tomorrow you should just go ask the camp leader for a different task. I'll let him know that we have enough staff over here."
" You would do that? Thanks!"
"Of course. Don't mention it. I don't want to see you couped up in this boring kitchen all summer"

After they cleaned up the kitchen for the night, Chris went straight to the dorm to tell Matt about the job switch. But Matt wasn't back yet. 'He should be back by now, it's starting to get dark out. Maybe he's on his way back' Chris thought. Chris decided to wait for a bit before looking for him. Maybe Matt was talking with a girl or something.

Meanwhile, Matt was indeed talking to a girl.
"Hey, what are you doing over here?" Charlotte asked Matt.
"Oh, I'm just trying to figure out how to fit this dumb canoe in this shed. I pulled it in through the door and now it won't come out. So now I'm stuck in here because I'm not small enough to fit in between the doorway and the canoe. I've been stuck here for about 20 minutes now." He laughed embarrassed at himself.
"Oh my gosh, we'll let me help you. I will pull and you push."
They continued to try this method, but the canoe simply wouldn't budge.
"I would call for help but my phone just died, I can't leave you here alone though. Let me sneak in through the opening in the doorway and we can both push. We might have better luck that way." Charlotte was just small enough to fit into the doorway.
"Thanks for helping me"
"It looks like I keep having to save you today. You owe me." she giggled.
Matt looked at her with a bit of confusion, but shrugged it off. They both pushed the canoe with all of their might and the canoe started to finally budge, but then the tail of the canoe got lodged in the door frame, leaving not even a hole for either of them to crawl through.
"Oh great, it's even worse than before. How did I even manage to fit this stupid thing in the doorway in the first place?" Matt kicked the canoe in frustration.
"Chill, Chris, we will figure this out. There's gotta be another way out of the shed."
"Wait, did you call me Chris? Now I understand. Actually, I'm not Chris, my name is Matt."
"Very funny Chris, but now is not really the time for dumb jokes" Charlotte replied as she rummaged around the dimly lit shed trying to find another exit.
"I'm not joking. You must have met my brother. We are twins. Well triplets. Me, Chris and Nick."
"Oh you're not joking. I suppose that makes sense though, I did think it was pretty strange that you had changed outfits. Well nice to meet you, Matt, i'm sorry we had to meet like this"
"Yea the sun is almost down and there's no electricity in here, and my phone is on 1% battery. Welp, make that 0%" Matt gave an annoyed sigh.
"Well, since we're going to die here, I guess you should know my name is Charlotte."
"Hi Charlotte. We're not going to die, we just need to work together. Maybe if we destroy this canoe, we could break our way out. Do you think the camp leader would be furious at us or be understanding given the circumstances?"
"Probably furious, this canoe is a relic. Older than both of our ages combined probably"
"How old are you?"
"20. You?"
"19."
"Yep, definitely older than us combined. Besides, we don't even have any tools strong enough to destroy a canoe."
"Okay, well what do you suppose we should do?"
Charlotte sat on the floor and thought for a while. "Scream? I know we're pretty far away from the dorms but someone might be taking a walk?"
"I guess we don't really have any other options"
They both began yelling and making some downright Goblin sounds deep in the woods, hitting camping equipment and drumming loudly on the canoe while they howled.
"We've been at this for 10 minutes and i think i'm going to lose my voice at this rate" Charlotte stopped and plopped on the floor, defeated. "It's cold and dark, I'm hungry and I feel like spiders are probably crawling all over me. I'm starting to lose the will to fight."
"Hey don't say that.There has to be another way. We just have to think harder."
"I can't , I'm too cold and tired to think straight." Charlotte sounded like she was about to cry until she felt Matt put his arm around her suddenly.
"It's okay, I will think of something. Just rest your head on my shoulder and I'll keep you warm. We can be like penguins in the arctic, they can stay warm as long they huddle together."
Charlotte was completely still and silent. 'Well it's better than her crying', Matt thought to himself. 'Maybe I can use telekinesis to send Chris to go look for me. I mean he's probably wondering where I am, it's worth a shot.' Matt sent mind signals with all of his might to Chris. 'S.O.S. HELP ME CHRIS!'
Meanwhile, Chris was starting to become concerned. Matt hasn't returned and his calls were going straight to voicemail. That's strange, Matt's phone was rarely off. He figured he would go on a night walk to see the stars, maybe he would find his brother out there sitting with a girl cuddling in a hammock or something. That would be the only logical explanation. What else could he possibly be doing?
Well Chris was right about the cuddling. Matt was starting to lose his faith in his mind signals idea. If he doesn't want to sleep in this uncomfortable, spider infested shed tonight, he is going to have to think of a solution quickly. That's when the idea hit him.
« Charlotte, I have an idea. Do you have a lighter?"
"Why? Are you a smoker?"
"No, no. I remember seeing fireworks in the back of the shed earlier. If we could set one off, people would probably hear it and would most likely come outside to see them. Especially Chris. All we need to do is find a way to light them."
"Wow, that's actually a really good idea, but I don't have a lighter."
They both sat in silence, thinking.
"Maybe we can start a caveman fire?"
"You mean like rubbing two sticks together?" Charlotte asked.
"Yea, it can't hurt to try it." Matt shrugged.
"I don't see any sticks in here though. I mean, this is a campground supply closet, there has to be a fire starting kit in here somewhere. Actually" she stood up and walked to the back of the shed "I think I know where they are." Charlotte dug around in the pitch black, basically feeling around from memory at that point. "Ah hah! I found it. The first week of training, they told us that survival supplies are in a backpack in the back of the shed. I didn't remember until now because kitchen staff never really need to worry about stuff like that."
"Yes, this is perfect! Great job, Char!"
Charlotte started to blush "Did you just call me Char?" She asked shyly.
"Yea, I guess I did" Matt laughed a bit embarrassed about it, "Sorry, if that's weird, it just came out."
"No it's okay" she assured him, "I just haven't been called that nickname since I was a kid. It's nice."
"Oh, okay. Well that's good then."
They both sat there awkwardly smiling in silence.
"I guess we should start this fire then." Matt suggested. Then together they worked on lighting the fireworks in the small opening in the doorway and being careful to position them away from the shed. The plan seemed to work, the fireworks were extremely bright and loud, now they just needed to wait for people to find them.
After roughly 10 minutes they heard someone calling for Matt. Matt realized it was probably Chris, so they both started yelling for him. When Chris finally arrived they were so happy that they started hugging each other and jumping for joy. Chris tried to help them push the canoe but it was so impossibly stuck that it seemed like a 10 man job, so they sent Chris to go find the camp leader.