Family + Camp (working title)

Chapter 6: The Dining Hall

Much like their old place, this one had three bedrooms and two bathrooms—one of those bathrooms being in her parents' bedroom. Unlike the old place, this one had a second story. This is where her parents' would sleep, and there was also a "bonus room," as Fred put it, up there, which the last director had used as a home office. Nell saw her parents exchange a look, a silent communication, but she had no idea what it was about.

The two bedroom on the main level were unequal in size, so Nell chose the larger one, of course. It also had a cool little walk-in closet with a small window high up, so that no one could really climb in or out unless they were a child using a ladder. The windows looked out on the fence, which apparently surrounded the entire house as well as its front, back, and side yards. She could see redwood trees on the other side, rising up like neighbors. Would they block out the sun? Would they make her room dark all the time? Nell was used to living in the trees, but this was a new forest with new rules, and she did not yet know them.

The house also had a proper living room, dining room, and kitchen, as well as a porch with three steps up to the front door.

"I feel like I'm in Portland," Nell said.

"I know," her mom agreed. The walls inside were white. The outside was shingled, and the front door was brown. The window trims were yellow.

"Most of our staff housing looks like this," Fred said. "'Course, yours is the nicest."

"Pretty good for a guy who got canned," Nell muttered.

Her mom gave her the Mom look. Nell knew she was pushing it, but there was a witness. They couldn't outright yell at her or murder her or anything. Still, Nell knew her mom would have words with her about respect and all that crap later.

Fred didn't seem to notice, or if he did, he was cool as a cucumber.

"Wanna settle in or take a walk around first?" Fred asked.

"Let's walk," Nell's mom said. "We've been all cooped up driving for too long."

Fred led them back out to the main parking lot. They went down the way he'd approached them, which, as Nell had guessed, was the main path leading to the heart of the campgrounds—the dining hall.

It was always the dining hall.

The dining hall was where things happened. Meals of course. Registration of campers. Announcement, announcements, ah-now-ounce-ments! This dining hall was different than the one at Camp Fields. Newer. Not a rectangle, but some sort of polygon—maybe a hexagon or an octagon. She wasn't sure and didn't feel like counting the walls to figure it out. Banners hung from the high ceilings, four in all, in bright colors--red, aquamarine, golden yellow, and orange. Nell wasn't sure what the designs were supposed to be on them. Their group moved through the whole building it seemed—the kitchen, a staff lounge, the bathrooms, the loading dock.

They went out the back way, a door off the dock, and Fred led them through the different villages, chatting all the while, a real tour guide style with a mellow bent. There were four villages, just as there had been at Fields, which were named for their attributes such as Creekside, River Bend, Piney, and Granite. Here, the villages were named for Native American tribes: Miwok, Costanoan, Chumash, and Yurok. Nell knew nothing about them, and was embarrassed by her ignorance. As a matter of fact, she didn't know much about Oregonian tribes either. Just the names, not their histories. She vowed to do better this time.

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Hi Wattpad readers! I hope you're enjoying the tour of Nell's new camp home. I'm also kind of figuring out the landscape of it all as a I write. If you ever went to summer camp, tell me about it? I'm curious to know: what was the dining hall like? Were there mottos?