Camp Crestfalls

Chapter 5

Our first dinner in the mess hall was barbequed hamburgers and hot dogs with all fixings I could dream of wanting. Iridian didn't join in on our conversation about tomorrow's activities. Every time I looked at her she just seemed to stare at the partially eaten hamburger in her hands as though she had never seen one before and would slowly take bites to savour it. I quietly pointed this out to Samantha.

"It is possible that her family won't let her have fun food like hamburgers and hot dogs. It isn't very healthy, you know," Sam replied in a low voice.

"I noticed Bonnie inhaled the burger, hot dog and fries she grabbed," said Tiffany not even choosing to be quiet. Bonnie gave a defensive look and stated pointing a finger at us,

"Hey, I don't waste food! Look at me, I need to eat I am practically a twig! If this one doesn't hurry up," Bonnie continued with a thumb jab towards Iridian, "I am going to steal that burger from her hands and finish it myself. When you have two older brothers who eat you out of house and home, you gotta to be fast." Iridian heard her name and took the hint to eat a little faster, but still refused to talk to us, which had Tiffany smirking.

After dinner we moved the tables against the wall and put all the benches in a circle. We could sit where ever we wanted in the circle, so I chose to sit by Samantha to my left; Tiffany sat between her and Bonnie. On my right, a boy from another table sat down. He was tall and lanky with ginger hair and freckles.

"Hi my name is Katie," I stuck out my hand for him to shake and he actually took it.

"Hi Katie, the name is James I am from table ten." I smiled back at him,

"I'm from table three." He nodded and turned to face the kid on his other side, which turned out to be a stouter, pale boy with black hair and huge, black framed glasses. I started looking for where Scott Stevens had decided to sit and finally spotted him. There were girls on either side of him, which I could tell kind of annoyed him because he was trying to hold a conversation with one of his friends and had to lean forward to pass one of them. Beside the guy he was talking to was Iridian and I could tell she was listening to the conversation. Maybe she was trying to get to Scott as well. Everyone was seated and the councillors were ready to begin.

"We are going to play an ice breaker game, so we can get to know each other and learn names. Then we will sing a couple of camp songs and head off to bed," said Chief Councillor Stewarts followed by some muttering and groans from other campers.

"Hey now, it won't be that bad guys! So how this works is we will go around the circle, say our name and one thing we feel we are good at. I'll start: My name is Chief Councillor Stewarts and I am good at playing the guitar," she motioned to Chief Councillor Stevens who was seated beside her on the right to continue. With a smile, Chief Councillor Stevens replied,

"I'm Chief Councillor Stevens and I am good at swimming." It was pretty cool hearing about all the different talents people had. There were many singers, musicians and athletes. I found out Tiffany was good at juggling, Sam was good at math, and Bonnie was great at basketball, go figure. We got to me, and I straightened a bit in my seat before saying,

"My name is Katie and I am great at building and flying kites." That turned a few heads and gained me some bizarre and intrigued looks.

"Where did you learn to do that?" asked a boy we hadn't yet come to you in the circle.

"Kites? Why kites?" asked a girl named Heather who was a little a year younger than me at table five.

"Do you get much wind where you are from? It's Belle Meade, right?" asked Councillor Carlton, the other female councillor with dark skin and straight black hair. I knew my contribution was going to be odd to others, but I wasn't expecting people to be so interested.