The Summer at Camazotz

Twenty

At exactly seven o'clock in the morning, a loud noise pulls me from my sleep. I jolt upright, eyes wide and breathing heavily. I still and listen to the noise, realizing it's a reveille. I groan at the thought of Frank or Joan or anyone else standing outside the cabins, trumpet in hand.

I throw back the covers and get out of bed. Opening the door to my room, I wince at the sounds of my campers complaining rather loudly about the noise outside, telling me to make it stop.

"Didn't realize we were in the army," I mumble to myself as I pull open the door and step outside.

Astrid and Tammy are already outside on their cabin porches, still dressed in their pyjamas. I rub my tired eyes and yawn, very unprepared to deal with this. Jordan is the last one to step outside, his hair mussed up from what looks like was a good sleep until we were rudely awoken.

Standing proudly in the centre of it all is Frank. He has a mischievous smile on his face and a trumpet at his side. He looks at each of us in all our morning glory, taking in our reactions and revelling in it.

"Why, good morning counsellors!" he booms.

"For you maybe," Tammy grumbles. "You probably woke up to birds chirping, not a trumpet."

"I can't believe I forgot about this," Astrid quips, running her hands up and down her face. "It's just as annoying as last year."

"You mean we could've been prepared for this?" Tammy balks. "I am so destroying you this week."

"That's the spirit! See you kids at breakfastㅡand don't be late." Frank waves and heads down the path to the mess hall, leaving us in a surprised silence staring after him.

Sluggishly, we drag ourselves back into our respective cabins.

There are only ten campers inside, but the volume they're speaking at makes me think otherwise. A few come up to me, tugging at the hem of my shirt, eyes bulging out of their heads, voices way too high for a Monday morning.

I walk past each of them to my room, snatch the whistle off the dresser, and return to the main room. Lifting the whistle to my mouth, I close my eyes and blow.

Instinctively, each boy covers their ears and shoots me a look of annoyance. I take a look at each of them, making sure that I have their full attention before continuing.

"Thank you." I take a deep breath, trying to gather up as much enthusiasm as I can muster. "Today is the first day of Cabin Face-Off and I want you all to have fun. Work together and try your best. But it also wouldn't hurt to win."

"If we lose, we're losers," Oscar, one of the older boys, says. "So we need to defeat everyone."

I raise a brow at that and chuckle. "Oscar, that's not the point. It's just friendly competition." Lies. "We're gonna play with everyone else and we're going to have fun doing it, got it?"

Oscar rolls his eyes, but keeps his mouth shut.

I put the whistle around my neck and smile. "Good. Now get dressed, we have a breakfast to get to. Last one there's a rotten egg."

At the mention of being a rotten egg, the boys hurry to their suitcases, scrambling to pick out clothes for the day's adventures.

Sighing, I head to my room to get ready. Between Frank's trumpet and my campers' yelling, I'm much more awake than I was just ten minutes ago.

As I go through my morning routine, I think about the whole Cabin Face-Off ordeal. TodayㅡMondayㅡis the first day. The competition will last six days, the last day being Saturday. Points will be tallied and Sunday will be a day of celebrating the winning cabin and the others' hard efforts.