The Clearing

Chapter 7

I remember waking up with a giant smile on my face and rush about to get dressed quickly. I remember skipping into the dining room to find my mom grumbling over her bowl of oatmeal about being left out in the wild for a whole week without any technology at all.

It was always the same the initial grumbling about going out to the wild then the constant complaining of why we never did it more often, followed by the litany of the benefits for the complexion of going out into nature once in a while. Looking back it was all rather amusing.

I asked where my dad was and she told me that he was out getting all of the last minute things in the car and that he had already had breakfast so that I had better hurry up and finish my breakfast so that I could go help him. I took a giant spoonful of the warm oatmeal and said finished but my mom just got up sat me down in the chair and told me that I wasn’t getting up until I had finished the entire bowl. I hurriedly finished off the bowl grabbed a few strips of bacon and ran out the door before my mom could stop me and make me eat the bacon at the dining room table.

“Does any of this have a point to the story or are you just blabbing now?” Chole interrupted.

“Well do you want to hear the story or not? One more interruption and I’m going to finish off the bottle of vodka alone in my tent.” I replied

“Ughh, fine go on. “

“Thank you.”

The drive to the camp grounds was passed by singing random songs and a parody of 100 bottles of beer on the wall which for me was changed to 100 ponies in a corral. Honestly I was a weird child. I had so much fun in the car that I hadn’t even noticed that we had arrived at the camp grounds.

I jump out as soon as the car stops and open the trunk. My dad comes around to the back and tells me to settle down or I’ll end up pulling something. I agree and he hands me the sleeping bags so that I can carry them to the site.  My mom gets out of the car and tells my dad how strange it is to see so many nice cars there because she didn’t think so many people went to camp anymore especially with really nice cars.

At first I hadn’t noticed because I was so excited to get to our usual camping spot but now that my mom had mentioned it I took a look around and noticed that there were indeed a large number of elegant and expensive cars in a corner of the parking lot.

“So, you’re telling me that there was a lot of really nice cars in the parking lot like there was today?” Chole asks

“Yeah yeah now let me finish the story.” I reply

As soon as I noticed it I disregard it because I thought that it didn’t affect our camping so I’m still super excited so I just tell my dad to hurry up or we wont be settled by dark and off we go. After we made it to ‘our’campsite my dad had me to stay put while he and mom went back to the car to finish retrieving all of our stuff.

Then  I was left to wander around the clearing. I picked up a few wildflowers that were growing and began to make a wildflower necklace for my mom when she came with my dad with the rest of our things.

Once the tent was set up my dad told me to follow him into the woods so we could collect the fire wood I followed jumping up and down in my excitement. For the next few minutes my father taught me which wood would be good for a fire and which ones wouldn’t help to make a fire but would just create lots of smoke. We were on our way back to the camp arms laden with wood for burning when my father heard a scream. I got scared and asked my dad what it was. Instead of answering he dropped his firewood and began to run to the camp. I was scared and didn’t want to be left alone in the woods.  So I tried to follow him but I got lost.

I told myself not to cry because he would notice I’m not with him and look for me I remember how in school they had shown us how to remain in a single place to make the search easier because I wouldn’t go wandering around in a place where they would have already looked for me. So I go about looking for a more comfortable place to wait and I come across the most beautiful thing my little seven year old self has ever seen a little clearing with flowers and a bent tree that could be the perfect place to sit or lay down on without fear of falling off because it was so wide. I loved so I decided I would wait there for my father.

In all my initial confusion and the following excitement of discovering my little clearing I didn’t notice that there were two other people there.

“Ooooo were they boys?” asked Chole.

“Ugh what did I say about interrupting me. You know what I’m off to bed I’ll see you tomorrow.” I told Chole.

“Awww come on just when it was getting interesting.”

“Go screw yourself Chole”

“You know what maybe I should screw you looks like you need it.”

“Fuck off.” I say then go into my tent.

 

Hugs & luv -Lucy