Camp Crush |✔️|

The Piggyback Ride

The campers were two thirds of the way into their summer when Lucy got hurt.

It was out on the hiking trail that it happened. It was a particularly hot and muggy afternoon, the air thick with humidity, and Lucy had broken into a sweat leading her campers onto a hiking trail. She was tugging at her shirt, desperate for that faint breeze to cool her body and taking a swig from her bottle of water when she and the kids reached Grell Rock, a shallow waterfall which coursed over a smooth terrain of rocks, leading to the riverbed below. Someone ages ago had tied a rope to a branch for campers to swing from, but it had frayed and rotted until it became too dangerous to use, and when the rope had been banned, the camp had gone ahead and banned the practice of sliding down the rocks to the water below.

Not that that made it any less tempting to throw the rules by the wayside and take a dip, especially on a day as miserably hot as this one.

Then again, Lucy thought, looking at the slippery rocks as they carefully crossed the river, and down into the coursing waters at the bottom, maybe it was easy to resist temptation. After all, there was a reason for the rules....

And then disaster struck. Kyle and Matt, two of her campers with a bad tendency for rough-housing, were horsing around when Kyle lost his balance and tripped off the log-bridge, tumbling down the rocks and into the river, yelling in surprise as he went.

Without hesitating, Lucy skidded down the rocks, frantically diving in after Kyle, slipping painfully on one of the rocks as she went. Kicking through the pain, she spotted Kyle bobbing, too panicked, apparently, to remember that he knew how to swim. Grunting as her ankle screamed in protest, she managed to swim up behind Kyle and grab him around his chest, telling him to calm down and help her, their combined efforts bringing them to shore, where the rest of the group was gathering, some already lost in panic, others anxious to help.

A few hands grabbed at Kyle, dragging them further through the mud onto the river bank, and Lucy was relieved to see the water spill out of Kyle's mouth as he rolled over onto the grass, coughing and sputtering and gasping for air.

"Kyle," she panted from all fours, her hand clapping Kyle on the back, "are you okay? Can you breathe?"

"Y–yeah," Kyle croaked, vomiting a little water onto the hot dirt before wiping his chin. "I'm okay, I'm s–sorry." He was shaking, clearly having had a good fright.

"I'm so sorry, Kyle! I didn't mean to!" Matt was babbling, face pale with distress.

"Are you hurt?" Lucy asked, trying to stay focused in spite of all the nervous chatter.

"No. I'm really sorry, Lucy." He genuinely looked it, too, part of him obviously wondering whether he were in trouble.

"It's okay," Lucy exhaled in relief, dropping her head and backing off. "Crud," she wheezed, the pain sinking in as her concern ebbed. She rolled over onto her back and clutched her leg to her chest. "Aurgh," she groaned through gritted teeth.

"Lucy, are you okay?" another camper, Tiffany, asked in an anxious voice while Kyle's friends helped him sit up.

Lucy was very decidedly not okay. She'd hurt her ankle badly sliding down the rocks after Kyle, and it had hurt like h*ll swimming after him.

"I'm fine," she lied through her teeth, voice tight. "I just...I twisted my ankle. I'm not gonna be able to get back to camp like this. Tiffany...Matt..." she picked the most responsible child and the one most eager to be useful, "I want you to go back to camp and get help. Can you make it back okay just the two of you?"

"We're on it!" Tiffany said immediately, rising and brushing away the dirt on her knees while Matt bounced up readily.

"Be careful, and stay together."