Careless Magic book 1

Chapter 14

The day ended and slowly the sky turned to dusk. Mr. Lawly had been to every tent, making sure all of our fires were strong and we would be able to make them last through the night. Lilly and I sat around ours on a couple of rocks. Most of the other students were doing the same.

There were thirty students on the camping trip and all of them were assigned to groups of four, except Lilly and me. Thankfully we were the only two to get a tent to ourselves, well besides Mr. Lawly, but his little one-man lean-to hardly counted.

All of the tents formed a circle around a large campfire set up in the middle of the clearing, but occasionally Mr. Lawly set up smaller fires closer to the tents. This seemed like a forest fire waiting to happen; but Mr. Lawly was confident he had things under control.

Some people actually caught fish after we returned from our hike and that was what we were nibbling on now. Our lesson was how to gut and cook a fish over an open flame; I had never done anything more disgusting. I am not exactly sure how this trip was teaching us to survive in the real world.

I couldn't think of one situation where I might be stranded in the wilderness and have to depend on fresh fish and berries to survive. Except maybe if I was some type of fugitive on the run or something; I guessed with my track record that didn't seem so impossible after all. I took a big bite out of my smoked catfish and tried to enjoy the taste of my future.

Mr. Lawly passed out cans of baked beans and ingredients for s'mores all to be cooked over the fire. I knew that this was the ideal camping cliché but I wasn't buying it. I was filthy dirty, my long hair was in endless tangles and I was tired of being picked on. I wished I could say I was the outdoorsy type, but I would have done almost anything for a shower right then.

Lilly and I sat silently, consumed with our own thoughts. I pushed the food around on my tarnished tin camping plate and wondered what Seraphina had planned next for me. I looked over at Lilly and saw a small smile on her face, clearly her thoughts were elsewhere and infinitely more enjoyable.

I wanted so badly to ask her if anything was going on between her and Talbott, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. She had been so great about giving me my privacy that I just couldn't invade hers. If she wanted to talk about it with me, she would.

I looked over at Talbott; he was sitting in the middle of all of the "cool kids," right where he belonged. His olive skin was darker from the sun today and his black curly hair was pushed out of his eyes. His posture was perfect and his white teeth glimmered in the coming darkness. All around him sat equally as beautiful girls staring at him, but he happened to be staring at Lilly. I didn't understand why he was so tied to that group of followers, clearly he liked Lilly. Was he that much of a robot?

I glanced over at Kiran sitting next to him. He too was staring in our direction and so I quickly looked back at the ground. I didn't get him, plain and simple. He was apparently dating Seraphina, yet barely had anything to do with her. She was gorgeous and popular; the very girl high school social standards required him to date.

But me, the social outcast and resident freak, Kiran wouldn't leave the hell alone! Either this was just some really messed up game he was playing, or he wasn't as attached to Seraphina as she was to him. It didn't really matter which one it was, I was getting sick of being in the middle. And I was definitely tired of providing tonight's entertainment.

I pulled my knees closer to my chest and laid my head between them. My dark hair spilled over and made a pool on the ground. Normally I would have worried about dragging it through the dirt, but since it was probably dirtier than the ground, I decided not to get upset about it.