New Horizons

Chapter 3

I couldn't help it, I slept until lunch. Maybe it was all the fresh air, but it was probably all the energy it took to keep myself from saying something nasty or laughing in someone's face, that wore me out.

They served sandwiches for lunch and then we were sent off for cabin activities. My cabin, I learned right away, was going on a nature scavenger hunt. Amber gave us a list of different things we should see as we followed a trail into the forest.

"Look, mushrooms!" Danie found them right away. "They're so cute."

"Don't touch them," Ashleigh stopped her from reaching out. "You don't want to get high."

"You can't get high off those," I rolled my eyes.

"How would you know?" Ashleigh demanded. All the girls looked at me.

"They're not the right kind," I shrugged. At least I didn't think so, they didn't look anything like the ones I'd seen before. "I'm not like an expert or anything."

"You sound like you know a lot about drugs," Ashleigh said.

"No, just more than you," I smiled.

"Okay, let's get back to our scavenger hunt!" Amber jumped in before Ashleigh could say anything else. It didn't end the dirty look but it helped a little.

"Amber, when are we doing something fun?" Ashleigh asked, her glare fading.

"What do you want to do?" Amber asked.

I stopped listening to them and just followed along. It was a pretty day, just like I'd thought. Under all the trees it was almost chilly. There didn't seem to be any bugs out - unless Ashleigh counted.

The trail was basically flat but it was long. I kept reaching for my phone to see how long we'd been walking and every time I remembered its watery death. Mom would buy me a new one, especially if I told her I wanted it to keep in touch with my new friends from camp. I snorted. There was no way I was making any friends here.

Our walk felt endless. I kept looking for the sun to see if I could figure out what time it was but it didn't actually tell me anything. Just that the sun was still up. And we were still walking.

"Aw no," Amber said suddenly. She stopped walking. "We forgot to find all our stuff."

"Wait, that was serious?" I asked.

"Yeah, I guess we had too much fun talking," Amber laughed. "Okay, um, we passed these big things so we're not going back but," she started checking things off the list. "There's still time to find the rest. Split up and check them off so we can go back."

"Why don't we just give them to nature girl here?" Ashleigh looked at me.

"This is a team project," Amber said. "Take a buddy, it will go fast, okay?"

I knew better than to look at the other girls. This was a matter of waiting to see who got stuck with me, not hoping someone actually wanted to be my buddy. Danie was the unlucky one.

"Okay, we have to find a frog and some moss," Danie said when she came over after getting our assignment off the list. "So maybe we should go to the water."

"Alright," I said. Danie started walking so I followed, figuring she'd been to camp before so she had to know where she was going.

"So what do you think of camp so far?" Danie asked. She looked so excited, like she was waiting for me to tell her it was my favorite thing in the world or something.

"It's um, not like anything I've ever done before," I said.

"Yeah, that's true," Danie said. "It's really special, you know?"