The Friendship Bracelet

Hike

                                        

                                                                       

I slept through dinner. In fact, by the time I woke up, it was 3am. I had to be at school by 7am, as we had to distribute food for the trip and make sure everyone had everything that they would need. Only two hours until I've got to get up anyway, I thought. So I sat in bed reading, until 5 o'clock in the morning. When my mum came in to wake me up, I threw my book across the room and pretended to be asleep. "You forgot your lamp, silly." She caught me.

I pulled myself out of bed and wandered into the kitchen. I made myself a small bowl of cereal and ate it in misery and fear of what would probably happen over the next two days. Whilst I was eating it, I could hear my phone ringing in my room, and it was the ringtone I had assigned to Bonnie.

I forced myself to stand up from my chair and go to answer the phone. When I did, she started asking the same question over and over. "How was your date yesterday?"

"Bonnie, really? You couldn't wait until we got to school?"

"This is me. Obviously not."
                                                                
"Good point."

"So?"

"It went... fine, I guess. He was so sweet to me."

"Oh, no. Not a delay. Nothing good comes when there's a delay in the middle of a sentence."

"We had an unfortunate run-in with a certain group of people."

"Oh, really?"

"Yup. I just want a day without them being there to ruin it." It was at this point that I realised I was welling up with tears as I spoke. "Look, I think we both need to get ready. See you there?"

"See you." I could almost sense her smiling with sympathy through the phone. She hung up and I went back to the kitchen to finish my cereal.

When I was done, I had a quick cold shower (and spent almost the entire time crying), then I threw on the most comfortable yet 'practical-for-hiking' outfit that I could find. The outfit was a pair of brown hiking trousers and a Caulfield green short sleeve shirt.

I was scared out of my mind of the trip. There was the very real possibility that I was going to die. I mean, you'd probably be scared too. I was considering not going, but Mum wouldn't let me. I should've told her about the whole death thing, but I wasn't thinking about telling her at the time.

                       

~

                 
By the time I had gotten ready and calmed myself down a little (my backpack was already at school), it was 6:30. I took a few more deep breaths and went to leave the house. With one last goodbye from Mum and my brother; I started the walk to school, thinking about the fact that they had no idea I was probably never going to see them again. That very thought brought a tear to my eye.

At school, Bonnie was waiting for me, and it was obvious she had been crying, but Lara was nowhere to be seen. That was until she crept up behind me and scared the daylights out of both Bonnie and I. We chose not to say anything other than a simple 'hello' and instead went to fetch our bags. I picked up the one with my name on the tag and swung it over my shoulder. Bonnie and Lara did the same.

Our teacher called out, "Okay, students! I have a couple of things I'd like to say before we go over the plan again and head off." I sighed in annoyance. Announcements were the last thing I needed.

"First of all, I'd like to thank Cody for making and packing the food for us all. Secondly, he has requested that I inform you of something. There is a muesli bar in the food pack that we are all to eat before we sleep tonight. That means ALL of us. Even the teachers." Cody?! Helping?! What?! I gasped in sheer disbelief. Unfortunately, the teacher didn't notice my sudden state of panic and continued to talk. "Ok, the plan. We'll take a bus to the bottom of the hills, and hike our way to the campsite. We will have dinner by the campfire and go to bed. You already know your tent groups, and in the morning we'll go to the waterfall. After lunch we will hike back down the hills and bus back here, then bada bing bada boom, we're done!" She smiled cheerfully and we started to load onto the bus. I, of course, sat with Bonnie, and Lara sat on the other side of the aisle.

The bus trip was boring and no one really talked much. But even then, I could feel glares and snickers coming from Willow, Cody and Madelyn's direction. It made me shudder. But then I heard Brad and his friends occasionally tell them to stop, and I found that so sweet.

                       

~

                
Hiking to the campsite was hard because of the weight that was on our backs. I think it felt a lot farther than it was, not just for me, but all of us. Probably because it was a pretty much constant uphill climb, but there's no real way to be sure.

When we got there, the first thing we did was pitch the tents. I was in one with Bonnie and Lara, so they helped out. Though none of us really had half a clue what we were doing, so you can imagine how that went.

Somehow we managed to get the tent up and it looked like the picture, so we were pretty proud of ourselves. Although, it was already dinner time when we were finished. That was okay, though, because everyone else was in basically the same boat as us.

Dinner by the campfire was quiet. Seriously, barely anyone spoke. We just sat and ate our fresh damper in silence. That dinner was the most uncomfortable I think I'd ever felt. The whole time, Madelyn, Willow and Cody were whispering to each other and glancing at me from time to time. My stomach churned, and I didn't end up being able to eat my whole dinner.

After eating the muesli bar which I really didn't want to eat be- cause I don't trust Cody whatsoever, I mysteriously started to feel more awake. I didn't think it possible. Was Cody trying to get me not to sleep? It wasn't only me, however, as Bonnie, Lara and Brad also said they were feeling oddly awake. What was even more strange was that everyone else felt incredibly sleepy after eating it and went straight off to bed. The four of us who knew we wouldn't be able to sleep anyway because of events foretold just decided to pretend to sleep and hoped for the best.

It had gotten to 1:34am and we still weren't able to sleep. Bonnie and I were whispering to each other and texting Brad.

"Not even a little tired yet, how about you?" He wrote.

"Not at all. What on earth was in those muesli bars?" I answered back.

Bonnie rolled over and tapped me frantically on the shoulder. "Bonnie, what's wrong?" I asked.

"Lara's gone."

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A/N: The reason this is so late (They all probably sound like excuses by now) is because I updated my computer and the Europe thing and then getting back to school; basically, stuff happened. I only just found the book file in the multitude of SD cards that I own, so that's the main reason. If you've been sticking with me, thank you so much. The next chapter is the last one and I'll probably be posting it tomorrow or later today. Bye for now :)