During the adventure of writing this book, we had many ups and downs. There were points where we felt we couldn’t go any further…but thanks to all the people who were there to help us, we were able to pull through, complete the book, and best of all, create a family within our class.
The Rising Authors Class wants to give a big thank you to all the people who helped. We want to start with Mrs. Caviness, who taught us how to make videos and understand difficult things. She started our collaboration effort with Haltom High School and formatted our text into an eBook. Her husband, David Caviness, donated his reward for being named a winner of National Novel Writing Month. He received a coupon for five free copies of a professionally published, original novel through Amazon's CreateSpace and chose to donate his prize to the Rising Authors because he strongly believes in the power that comes from developing young authors. We can’t thank Mr. and Mrs. Caviness enough.
Next, we want thank to Mrs. Hadley, our computer wizard and academic specialist who helped us along with Mrs. Caviness with our computer problems and taught our group some helpful tips that helped us throughout the year.
We also want to thank the following senior English teachers at Haltom High School: Lesli Bradley, Allison Conaway, and Ann Hale. They, along with their students, did a great job editing our book. They were able to see things we missed and gave us hours of suggestions to make our book better.
We would also like to thank Emily Arnold and her photojournalism students for professionally designing our book cover. We love what you did with the sign Brett’s dad made and all our pictures!
…And the most important person that made this book possible was Mrs. Hedgecock, our teacher. She has had incredible strength and faith in every one of us. She would come to class each day with tired, weary eyes from the long night of working on our book, but she was still ready to get started. She kept our outgoing class on track and never let us forget the real reason we started writing this book. Again to all the people who supported us…Thank you!
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Chapter 1
The Mayhem Arrival
Originally, Camp Clearwater was an elite full-service camp catering to the wealthy. The camp’s brochure promised a summer of fun with activities such as hiking, white water rafting, bike riding, fishing, horseback riding, and rock climbing. However, when the economy dropped, in order to make ends meet, the owner, Katherine Starkey, had to turn to other options to stay open. For the first time, court-ordered troubled teens were sent there to commune with nature and go through a wilderness boot camp program. Unfortunately, there were some campers and their families who still thought it was a prestigious getaway while other camps confused it for some other type of camp entirely, and this is where the problems began.
None of the counselors knew what to expect, but each one had been briefed on the group of kids they would supervise. Cindi Coleman, one of the counselors at Camp Clearwater, felt ready for the challenge. During the school year, she worked with troubled kids, so this wasn’t going to be a new experience for her. The pay wasn’t that great, but she really liked the camp. It held many happy memories for her. She breathed in the mountain air before she left to meet her reportedly “challenging” group of campers. Maybe this summer will be the one I have been waiting for, she thought as she fixated on the secret she had held inside for twelve years.
This was her eighth year as a counselor at the camp. She loved the place and had spent five years there as a camper before returning as a counselor, but her undisclosed wish was the real reason she came back every summer.
Hope and anticipation flurried inside her like butterflies dancing in the wind, as she put her things in the bunk house and grabbed her roster. Inside, she was certain that something big was going to happen. It was like a premonition that kept her awake at nights and made her smile for apparently no reason. She broke out into an unexpected grin as she headed down the winding dirt road to where the bus would drop off the campers. Surefooted as a mountain goat, she scurried down the rocky path.
Dressed in a cowboy hat and jeans, Cindi braided her blonde shoulder-length hair quickly, and checked on the horses. Forcing herself to inhale deeply, she tried to focus on making sure everything was ready before she heard kids screaming. A rush of nerves surged through her as she saw the bus approaching and waited for the door to open.
Smiling confidently, she said, “All right campers, my name is Cindi Coleman. Welcome to Camp Clearwater. Come on down and….” she paused and pointed to a large rock, “wait there until everyone is off and we’ll walk together to our bunkhouse.”