Camp Chenoa

Chapter Eight

I quickly text my dad and Ethan that I made it here safely. I put my phone in my hoodie pocket before following the group of people outside of the airport. There's a bus already waiting for us. We all climb on. I sit next to Clem and Ms Reece and Ms Flatly sit next to each other right behind us.

Camp Chenoa is out in the country side next to a few small towns and since we flew into LAX, the drive to the camp is going to take like two hours. I lean over to Clem. "Just two more hours, and we'll finally be there! I'm actually really excited now." I say. I've never really looked forward to anything like this before. I could get used to it. I hear Clem chuckle. 

"Yeah, as soon as I heard about my school being apart of this trip, I immediately knew that I had to win." She says, while grinning. 

"So what are you expecting out of this trip?" I ask. "Like, why did you really want to come?" She shrugs.

"Well, I thought that maybe if I came here, it would help me. Like build my confidence, and so far, it's kind of helped. Just by winning helped me so much." She turns her head and smiles at me. I smile back. We both put in our head phones. 

The rest of the bus ride was pretty quick. There were a couple of small conversations between Clem and I about food and the music we like. 

I look around at all the kids on the bus. I hope I get to become friends with more of them. I've never really thought that before, but I feel myself changing already.

A couple more minutes pass by before I hear Ms Reece lean forward to say: "We'll be there in like two minutes." I grin widely after hearing this.

Those two minutes pass and the bus turns into a camp which, at the front where we pulled into, says 'CAMP CHENOA'. The bus finally parks and I feel the engine turn off. There's a small silence before people stand up and start talking. Clem and I stand up, grabbing our backpacks that we had with us on the airplane. We then get off the bus to grab our suitcases out of the those weird holders at the side of the bus. I grab my grey suitcase and walk a few feet away from the bus so that other people can get their luggage. 

I take a deep breath in, closing my eyes. The air was so fresh out here. I listen to the trees blowing around me, and I feel the sun beating down on me. I grin before following people walk towards a big house that had a sign on it that said: 'reception'. 

The lady who is leading all the schools open the door and everyone walks in. A really tall guy with like, the perfect tan and really nice brown curly hair, walks out of a door that's behind a desk. He smiles. "Hello!" He says. "You must all be the contest winners! I'm Mr Kent. You will all be working here for three weeks, but of course there will be a couple of days where you guys can relax and take in the beautiful area. Are there any questions about anything?" Mr Kent asks, lacing his fingers together and leaning forward a bit.

A kid in the back raises his hand. "Yeah, what exactly will we be doing?" We all nod in agreement. We haven't really been told much about what we'll be doing for the camp. 

"Oh," Mr Kent starts. "well there are activities all over the camp, and so you guys will be working at the different stations that provide the activities. Basically, like handing out equipment to people. And if you're not doing that, you're either going to be working in the mess hall or at the camp fire at night, helping families get the fire started and stuff like that." He says, leaning forward again, waiting for another hand to go up. But no one had another question. "Perfect! Follow me!" He says, walking back out of 'reception'. We all follow.

He leads us to a little hut. We all walk into the hut and there's a ton of lockers lined up next to each other and a stack of papers on a bench next to some of the lockers. Mr Kent picks up the stack and begins to speak again. "These are your schedules. They tell you where you'll be working over the next few weeks and when you should be there and everything like that." 

He starts calling out name and a person walks up to him, taking a sheet of his hand. 

He calls my name, and I go collect it. We smile at each other and I walk back to me place next to Clem. Mr Kent claps his hands together. "Okay, I'll lead you guys to the cabins you'll be staying in." 

We all walk together to a bigger cabin, which I'm guessing has quite a few of rooms in it. We're told by the lady who is leading the big group of students, that we'll be sharing a room with our partners. I'm pretty excited about this, because I honestly think that Clem and I could become really good friends. 

We all get assigned a room number. Mine being #6. Clem and I walk to out room, and I open the door. "Dibs on that bed!" I yell pointing the the one furthest from the door in the upper left left corner of the room. Clem laughs. 

"That's fine, I wanted this one anyone." She plops her bag on the bed in upper right corner of the room, across from the rooms door. I copy her and put my bag on my bed. 

Ms Flatly plops her head in out room. 

"Hey girls, if you look at your schedule, you'll see that you have your first shift at 3." She looks at the clock that's hanging above the window which is in the middle of our beds. "Which is in 15 minutes, so hurry up and change into something more comfortable if you want, and remember sunscreen!" She leaves, closing the door. I look at Clem, she shrugs.

I open my suit case and grab out a pair of jean shorts that's a light shade of blue and a flowy top that's nice warm shade of yellow (like it's nice to look at, and I wont look like a minion). I look over at clem. "You're cool with getting changed in front of each other because we're going to be living with each other for the next three weeks." She lightly laughs.

"Yeah, I have no problem with it." She says, and I start getting dressed.

-

We all go to the areas that we'll be working for the next hour. I say goodbye to Clem as she walks the opposite direction of me. I look down at my sheet and see that I'm working at low ropes and I'll be handing out equipment to people.

I follow signs along the sides of the path to where I'm meant to go. I get to the low ropes gear set up area. It's basically a little hut, like a roof, and four small walls going up like four feet with all the gear on it. One wall has a small desk up against it and a door next to it. I hope I'm not working by myself, cause I have no idea what I'm doing. 

"Hello?" I call out. A few seconds later a guy comes, almost falling through the door. He's carrying, what I'm guess is, more gear. I look around and see some empty slots around the walls, so he must've just been a group so did the low ropes. I cant see what he looks like because it's a big pile, covering his face. 

"Hello!" He says walking past me a few steps, and drops the gear in the corner, and shaking off his hands. "Sorry I came in like that," He says before turning to face me. "But, I need to get here quickly to meet you...-" His words trail off when he looks at me. 

I look him in the eyes and I'm a little bit taken back. This guy is beautiful. I take a good look at him. He's really tall. Like maybe a foot taller than me (I don't know why, but I find height attractive). His hair is such a pretty shade of brown and it like, stands up by itself. His eyes are the cutest shade of dark brown, his nose is straight and his lips are pretty plump and a nice shade of red. Let me just put it this way: Think of the most beautiful love song you, that's what his face looks like. He's wearing a dark red long sleeved shirt, but it's rolled up (showing off the slight muscle he has) and he's wearing some tan shorts and normal black converses. His skin tan, but a little tanner than what the sun can do. Making me assume he's not white. And he definitely looks like he's not old. He looks like he may be a year or two older than me.

I feel weird looking at him like this, but goddamn this man is absolutely beautiful. I look back up at his face and he's pretty much looking at me the same way I'm looking at him. I clear my throat and hold my hand out. "Hi, I'm Lily." He scratches the back of his next before shaking my hand. I try hard not to scream and freak out from his touch. His hands are weirdly soft, considering that he works at a camp.

"I'm Adrian." He says. I think I'm swooning. There's an awkward silence, with us just looking at us. I clear my throat trying to break the silence. I look around at all the gear hanging on the walls. I smile at him.

"So," I start. "Low ropes?" I start laughing lightly, and he joins in.