Chapter 19
"Lincoln, do you want my eggs?" Kerri groggily said, still half-asleep.
"Lincoln who?" Kerri nodded her head in my direction before drifting into sleep.
"Here you go, Lincoln," Joel said, pushing Kerri's plate of eggs to me.
"I don't want them. Do you want them Ashyr?"
I turned around and saw Ashyr casually sleeping with his head resting on the table and his hoodie covering his head. Joel gave him a hard slap on the back.
"What the--?!"
"Lincoln wants to know if you want her eggs," Joel said, stuffing his mouth with eggs.
"Yes Taylor, I want your legs," he said, "But not now..." he then fell back asleep on the table. I sighed and took Kerri's plate of eggs.
All of our cabin members finally dragged themselves to the grounds just as the Counselors where about to speak. Ty cleared his throat as if he was going to talk. All the campers gradually quieted down. But as usual, it was Winnie who spoke up.
“Welcome campers. Now the activities you've done so far have been with only your own cabin-mates. Now we thought that a bit of relaxing time fishing with different cabin members would be a good bonding activity that would introduce you to different people. You will find your fishing supplies already in your boats when you get there. If you need help baiting, fishing, or anything you're stuck in, ask me or Ty. Now here are the following fishing groups..."
She went on listing name after name, grouping people by the fours. She ran through the list at an incredible speed, almost incomprehensibly. When she finally got to my name, I couldn't even make out who was in my group until Cassie attacked me from behind, squealing with happiness on being on the same fishing team.
I followed Cassie, pretending to know who the other members of our group were. It was a twenty minute hike to Darango Lake, one that was even more excruciating under the heat. Once we finally arrived at the Lake's dock, I plopped myself into a boat. Cassie perkily sat herself next to me, chattering away at the latest piece of news she'd heard.
Soon our other group members arrived too. I knew neither of them. One of them was an exotic Hawaiian-looking guy with slightly tanned skin and long wavy hair. The other person... to be quite honest, I couldn't make out the gender of. And I was quite positive that Cassie was thinking along the same lines.
"Hi, I'm Jason," the Hawaiian-looking guy introduced.
"Alex," the other 'person' casually said, with a small nod. Cassie introduced herself and me to Jason and Alex. I smiled with acknowledgment.
While we introduced each other, Ty unclipped our boat from the dock and gave it a small push. Jason grabbed one oar and Cassie grabbed the other. They rowed out until they reached mid-lake and pulled the oars back into the boat. The striking golden sun above the lake and in between the pines would have been scenic... if it weren't for the blistering heat. I was never very good at fishing, so I followed what Jason did, attempting to not accidentally somehow kill myself with a fishing rod. I baited the rod after carefully observing Jason, and then let it go. Alex set his or her rod down on the floor and sat cross-armed and stern.
"Aren't you going to fish?"
"No thanks, I'd rather not involve myself in murdering fish," he or she sternly said. "If you were a fish, would you liked to be stabbed through the face with a hook and then violently pulled out of the water, only to be shish-kebob or fried for some lame cook-out?"
"Um... I guess not."
"I rest my case."
"That's... nice," I turned away, giving Cassie a 'We're stuck in the same boat as a maniac' look.
Yet merely five minutes later, Cassie started shrieking that she'd caught her first one. She reeled it in and a small silvery fish burst out of the surface, flopping wildly on the rod. Cassie shrieked again, just looking at the suffocating fish. She violently swished the rod until the fish was flung back into the lake and happily swam to the depths.
"Cassie! What'd you do that for?!"
"I didn't want to kill Timmy!"
"...Timmy?" Jason asked, his face showing a puzzled expression.
"Don't ask," I said, closing my eyes and shaking my head.
“Be free Timmy! Be free!" she shouted, although the little fish was probably long gone. Ashyr's boat passed by as he rowed mad fast, much to the discontent of his angry co-fishers. They all looked super pissed as he started rowing the boat around and around for no exact reason.
Ten more minutes later, Cassie let out another shriek of joy as she reeled in a much larger fish that was visibly bleeding in the lip where the hook had gone through.
"Oh no! Jeremy's bleeding!" she wailed, as the fish flopped onto the boat's floor. She grabbed the fish and chucked it back into the water like it was a baseball. "I'm through with this fishing shit!"
Jason laughed. "Is she always like this?"
"Pretty much."
"At least she cares about the fishes, unlike some people," Alex added, complimenting Cassie in some twisted way.
"Dude, fish are fish. Chill out," Jason said, his eyebrow raising at Alex's comment.
"And humans are humans. So why don't I carve out your legs and use them for dinner?" Alex's eye twitched.
I was about to yell, "I knew it! It’s a maniac!!" Yet somehow, I suppressed the need.
"Okay then buddy..." Jason said, his face showing his clear incredulity. "Smoke another one and you can join my grandpa in the crackpot-house," he muttered. I gave a small laugh.
After ten minutes of simply glaring, Cassie had decided to reattempt fishing and successfully caught four more fish within a brief forty-five minute period. Carefully naming each of the fishes Lyon, Michie, Christopher, and Kyle. And only two of which she threw back into the water, screaming like a banshee.
I on the other hand, had caught absolutely none. I sighed directly at my limp rod. Nothing was biting. Jason had caught six fish. Alex of course, had caught none and instead chose to glare at me and Cassie for half-an-hour. Our scoreboard had been clear for almost an hour now.
I gave another dissappointed sigh.
"Don't worry Tay, you'll catch one... eventually," Cassie added, positively.
I strayed away from my thoughts and saw with much happiness that the scorching sun was disappearing behind a tuft of clouds. Just as I was about to turn around and answer Cassie, I gave a small double take at what I saw occurring in the boat ahead of us. It was Joel, and he was....
