I looked back at my own. They were even whiter than the rest of me, speckled with small ginger moles that didn’t match my hair, and I had knobbly knees that never seemed to lie completely flat. Devon’s knees went flat. So did Danielle’s. Dani’s legs were always waxed to perfection, and I envied her complexion – literally peachy, kind of yellow and pink at the same time, with not a mole to be seen. Rachel was fair, I guessed, but her skin was clear, radiant with health. Her calves had an obvious firmness to them from all the sports she played. It was no good.
“The same people who noticed when Charlie got waxed for charity?” I supposed out loud. By that I meant Jordy.
“Suit yourself,” she sighed, digging in further and passing me a pair of jeans. “You’ll totally fry.” Devon whipped her skirt back out of her pants, flouncy as ever, and with that, she was gone; a waft of loose lilac flowing in the breeze. Dani followed.
I dragged my pyjamas off, and Rachel removed her cupped hand from over her mouth.
I blinked at her. Had she really been unable to refrain from bitching without squeezing her lips together?
“That’s my suncream,” she mouthed.
“Eh?” I replied from somewhere lost inside a T-shirt. I wasn’t holding any suncream.
“What Devon was using. Do you get me? She’s a literal pykie!”
I yanked my head back out of the armhole and found my destination. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah! It’s expensive, you know.”
“Maybe you just have the same suncream.”
“Trust me, we don’t.”
I shrugged. “Don’t say anything though. See if she does it again first. It’s an easy mistake.”
As I lay down to button my jeans, I caught her looking daggers at me. Because it was totally my fault that Devon might have borrowed her suncream! Mum had always made a point of buying me some, but it was off-brand Factor 200 and sat on my face like a slick of mayonnaise so that I preferred to burn and exacerbate the freckle situation. The way Rachel was carrying on, I had a good mind to nip back later and have a dab myself.
When I finally got to breakfast, the bacon and sausages were cold. Like I cared anyway – I can never eat meat at seven in the morning. I grabbed and buttered some toast, and poured myself an orange juice.
Devon leaned in to confide in me. Great – more bellyaching? “Charlie had a nightmare last night.”
“I don’t care,” I told her. “He has his teddy anyway.”
“It was about abseiling,” she continued, ignoring my disinterest.
“He knows it’s not compulsory,” I replied, standing and grabbing my stool between my knees to shuffle off somewhere else with my breakfast.
Ballsy cleared his throat. “Today’s activities include orienteering, finding the Olympic Rings, and my personal favourite – abseiling!”
“What the heck are the Olympic Rings?” about fifteen people said at once.
“It’s my keyring. I’ve hidden it about this campsite, and every morning you’ll have to find them before breakfast. Today you can go now – there’s a prize!”
About fifteen chairs scraped silently back on the grass.
“Oh, I think I saw those already!” said Rachel, jumping up from her chair and racing into the distance, back towards our tent.
Devon leapt up too, sending Charlie flying. “I saw them first!”
He glanced at Andy, and muttered, “What’s up with girls?”
“Not me!” I corrected, helping him up. “You don’t see me speeding down the field to search for some stupid rings, do you?”
“No, but Jordy is though.”
“Is he?” I gasped, about to race off. I stopped. “Ah, you think I’m going to fly after him with my tongue lolling out, don’t you?”
They looked at each other. “Yeah.”
“Gottem!” Rachel shouted, right at me.
“I got them first!” said Devon. “But I only went and dropped them, and guess whose level is actually the floor, so she was there anyway!”
“And the winner today is Rachel!” announced, Ballsy, way too enthusiastically.
“Yes, they were on that sapling beside our tent,” she boasted.
Ballsy looked genuinely chuffed at her eagerness. “Your prize is five points for your tent. Did I tell you we’re using a points system?”
Rachel groaned.
I sighed. “If we have to earn points by working together, then couldn’t you two maybe just take it easy and try a spot of teamwork?”
“‘A spot of teamwork’?” laughed Rachel. “No.”
“Suit yourselves. I’m going to brush my teeth.”
* * *
“SLIGHT CHANGE OF PLAN!!” announced Mr Ball, banging a wooden spoon on a saucepan unnecessarily. “Abseiling now, before lunch, and orienteering later!”
Devon and Rachel looked at each other and smiled to themselves.
Charlie grabbed Dev’s arm. “Don’t do it! I can’t let you die!”
Rachel spread her grin to the total limit. “If you bottle out, I win!”
“I’m not bottling out of anything!” Devon smirked, still. “And I’ve walked tightropes, so I’d like to see an Adventure Holiday Waterbed beat that!”
“Ex-cuse me?! Did you just call me an adventure holiday waterbed?!” Rachel huffed.
“It’s hardly ‘gyppo’, but it’ll do.” Devon evileyed her, and headed off.
“That girl!” Rachel was scowling to me, rather than at me, but it wasn’t that much better of a feeling.
“Well you did call her a racist word,” I pointed out, keenly aware of Rachel’s rudeness and Devon’s annoyingness in the cold light of morning. It never ceased to amaze me how little Rachel, Chantalle and even Keisha seemed to think that meant to other people.
At the abseil tower, Mr Ball started getting hats and harnesses out. It really did seem a very long drop. People started to make frightened remarks:
“I’m not climbing down that!”
“Me, in a builder’s hat? I don’t think so! I’ll get hat hair!”
“You totally have hat hair anyway, Asta!”
“Well I don’t have nowhere to plug in my straighteners!”
“At least your foundation didn’t melt on the coach!”
“You, minus foundation, equals fully wrong, Courtney!”
“You, minus straighteners, equals way more fully wrong, Asta!”
Mr Wordsworth poked his nose in, then. “You two, minus all that mindless blather, equals everyone-gets-finished-early-and-we-can-all-go-to-lunch!”
“WHO’S FIRST?!” bellowed Ballbag, excitedly.
No hands except for Devon and Rach.
“Put your hand up if you don’t want to be first!”
What, exactly, would that achieve?
All hands raised rapidly, except Devon, Rachel and …Charlie.
Oh, a catch-out?
“Now this is surprising. I take it you don’t mind being first, Chazeer?”
“No. Mr Wordsworth said I don’t have to do it at all.”
Ballsy turned to Mr W. “William, I thought we went over this – it’s compulsory! Define that, Mr English!”
Mr English…?
“Yes, Sir,” Mr Wordsworth replied, smartly. “Compulsory means that it’s not optional. But this entire trip is optional.”
“You what?!”
“He shouldn’t have to do it, Marcus.”
Marcus…
“Where on his permission letter does it say he’s not to do it, William?”
“It shouldn’t have to, Marc. He’s a human being with rights. They all are.”
“TAKE HIS TURN FOR HIM THEN!!” Marcus exploded. He was red in the face and everything, and he stood imbalanced like an angry pigeon with his muscles flexed.
“Yes, Sir,” said Mr Wordsworth.
“You can put your own harness on; I’m not slaving over you!” Ballsy ordered, lobbing the equipment his way.
“Yes, Sir,” repeated Will, cheekily. He qui
ckly but carefully set the rig up and scaled the plastic footholds in no time. “What now, Sir?” he asked facetiously, no sooner had he hauled himself onto the platform.
Everybody snickered.
“You know what, boy.”
Boy…
“Sir, yes, Sir!”
Mr Wordsworth turned around and leaned back over the edge.
We watched in awe as he effortlessly descended the tower, and unclipped himself. He’d obviously been an adventure holiday lad himself, and I felt kind of sad that nobody in our group measured up to what an awesome teenager he must’ve been.
Ballsy looked super-angry that Young William had proven himself. He really thought he’d caught him out, and in his anger, he had no mercy. “Hartley, boy!”
Charlie quivered. “You can’t make me. If you lay a finger on my any part, I’ll have you done as a paedo-whatsit!”
“You can’t actually do that, boy!”
“Oh. Can’t I?”
He wasn’t being sarcastic – Charlie sounded genuinely unsure if he could or not. I was going to tell him that yes, he could indeed, and that Mr Ball was trying to trick him into thinking he couldn’t, when Asta suddenly asked, “Are you saying we all have to do this?”
Ah, she’d finally cottoned on…
Mr Ball thought for a moment. “I am saying that if Charlie does this, then you’ll all be spared. Unless you do it on your own steam. Badges and points for everyone who does!”
Everyone was silent, horrified that such a thing could really by said by one of our three guardians a couple of counties from home. I was starting to wonder if I was the one having a nightmare about abseiling. Had he taken us all out here to kill us? Were William and Windy complicit? Or was he just a prize twit, porking and squeaking all over the countryside because no one took him seriously?
Charlie gulped. “Well, sorry to disappoint you guys, but-”
And then, by some crazy miracle, it started raining…
* * *
We all had lunch in the storage hut. The smoke had cleared inside my head, and I’d gone back to just feeling slightly miffed about the state of our holiday. Most people were giving Charlie boggy looks, as if they actually believed that such a pathetic threat from such an authority could be anything other than a misguided joke. As though, to them, it seemed perfectly OK to expect others to do things they hadn’t the guts for. The kind of people who sent their own children to war and felt smug that they’d been the wrong age to get involved.
Charlie concentrated on Devon.
Devon was concentrating on plaiting red and gold string into her hair, and also ignoring Rachel.
Rachel was concentrating on filing her nails, and boring me with stories from the last time she went abseiling, and how it was about four times higher than this puny tower, and how Mr Wordsworth hadn’t got back yet, and maybe he’d got lost, and would that be a bad thing or not, and he was lucky his earring didn’t get caught on anything because “you know, health and safety”, and maybe he’d got so sick of Mr Ball that he’d gone and strangled himself with a bungee cord – ever so slightly humorous, the first time…
I was concentrating on a) ignoring Rachel, b) observing what everyone else was doing instead, c) munching my badly-made jam sandwich, courtesy of whoever had been on kitchen duty, d) noting this in my uninspiringly-named inspiration jotter, and e) wishing I wasn’t there. Not because of everyone else’s trivial reasons like lack of sunshine and electrical sockets, but because there’s no fun doing team activities in a team of four where two of the four are feuding for reasons of hormones and jealousy and refusing to participate in anything that requires them to work together.
I flipped the page of my uninspiring inspiration jotter, and started on a letter home:
Dear Mum, Harry, Aimee, Zak-I-hope, Kitty, Lemmy, etc. (Etc = the assorted doglets, moglets and other furry bundles.)
I am having a dreadful time, and I hate it here. As in, it is raining (no, pouring – wait, here’s an update, BUCKETING!!!) and Rachel and Devon are having some sort of feud, excluding me, but I hasten to add that I’d rather not participate anyway.
You most likely won’t get this until I’m home again, so I doubt I’ll bother to send it seeing as I have no stamps and will most likely be stuck in the hut until Friday at this rate. Charlie, for the record, is also having a ghastly time.
Miss you megaloads, espesh as I’m away from home for the longest spell ever since Year 6, which was a long time ago and our family’s got drastically bigger since then, so I guess there’s more to miss.
Love from Harley :) x x x x x x
There was a blast of rain down the back of my neck and I was rudely squashed into the corner when the hut door opened. My notepad got saturated too, and fittingly a few of the words I could still make out read “I”, “hate”, “Rachel”, “Devon”, “and”, “Charlie” – or maybe that was just my angry squint making me see things.
It was Mr Wordsworth. Rain from his hair was still running down his face and dripping off his nose and earlobes. His earring was missing. His eyes were steely.
“Good af-ter-noon, Mis-ter Words-worth!” said Devon, in her best primary school voice.
“H-hey…” he shivered.
“What on earth happened to you, Sir?” asked Rachel.
“Don’t ask… You didn’t, by any chance, save any sandwiches for me, did you?”
“Of course not, Sir,” said Andy. “We took you for dead, Sir.”
“Well cheers,” said Will, in what was almost a bitchy tone, and he disappeared back out of the door dejectedly.
“What did you have to go and say that for?” asked Devon. “He really looked miserable.”
I have to say, I did feel a tidge sorry for him myself, having the whole class giggle at him at once. We bad-luck bears need to stick together…
#5 Diss-Orienteering
Somehow, in the newly marshy woods we did find ourselves that afternoon.
It was the bit over the river, which had turned out to have a bridge. While Mr Wordsworth snuggled up in the male staff hut with many, many biscuits and everybody’s hot water bottles (lucky Dev once she got that back), Ballsy and Winterbum enthusiastically handed out maps and compasses. I gathered that we were supposed to find our way to a point with a big red circle around it.
“Cool,” I said, sardonically. “Who wants to do the directions?”
“Me!” said Devon and Rachel both at once.
“The one who doesn’t do it doesn’t have to do anything…” tempted Dani, who obviously didn’t want to do it any more than I did. I supposed them fighting over it was better than either of us getting lumbered.
“I still want to do it,” said Rachel.
“Me too,” said Dev.
“Well, Rach, you can do the map – and you, Dev, could do the compass?” I tried.
“Whatever…” Devon sighed.
“Whatever yourself!” Rachel threw back at her.
“Whatever yourself back down to your own level!”
“You’re the underdog.”
“You’re the under-bitch!”
“You’re the over-bitch!”
“You’re so over!”
“This is over!” I seethed. “Right now! We’re doing some disorienteering, and you’re not going to argue. And when we get back, can you both just shut up?!”
“You’re not my mum,” said Devon.
“You have no mum,” said Rachel.
“Why don’t you shut up now?” huffed Dani. “And grow up, too!”
Well, well, well. The girl who giggled at everything had a mature streak after all, and I really appreciated it.
“Yeah, yeah,” Devon yawned, seizing control of the map and compass. “We need to go this way.”
“Whatever, Devon,” muttered Rachel. “Let’s try something. If we get lost, it’s your fault. If we don’t get the tent points, it’s your fault. If-”
Devon was already away.
* * *
Forty minutes of trudging later, we’d realised that one of Devon’s magnetic bracelets had been misleading the compass. Rachel and Devon still hadn’t stopped bickering, but at least it was competitive bickering – that much I could live with. Dani and I got caught short and ended up in a bushy clearing, and just then, Andy, Charlie and Jordy came stampeding through.
“Omigod. You’ll never guess!” giggled Dani, in surprisingly high spirits given that she’d slipped over in horror and got nettle stings on her bum.
“No time! They’ve found the exit!” shouted Rachel. “It’s just over the little brook!”
It took me a moment to process, and that was a moment too long. Rachel had charged at high speed out of the woodland after the boys, and ended up knee deep in the river when she couldn’t stop in time. The boys, who were stood on the bank in a confused huddle, started laughing, but it wasn’t at Rachel. Asta and Courtney’s group had taken a leisurely walk along the riverside instead of entering the woods, and had arrived at the same place.
“We meet again,” Andy snickered.
“We would be about a metre from the bridge when you two give up and pee in a bush!” giggled Devon, realising the hilarity of the situation.
“You what?” snarked Asta.
“Well, I noticed that you weren’t exactly tying your shoelaces either,” said Andy.
“You’re lying! I don’t even have laces. Wait, what?”
“No one will ever know if I am or not…” he mused, mysteriously.
“Hel-lo?!” squealed Rachel from the “brook”.
She was still there. Stuck.
“Oh! I’m sorry. Are you stuck?” teased Devon.
Rachel scowled.
“Are you perhaps ready to apologise for what you said to me?”
“Yeah whatever, sorry I called you a gypsy, now get me out of here! It sa-mells!”
“Not at all like a gyps-” said Jordy, immediately. He stopped abruptly, blushing, as he noticed the look on Devon’s face. “Wrong girl. Sorry. Sorry!”
“Why, I should box your ears!” she exclaimed, in the cutest voice she could manage in her anger.
Andy and I exchanged looks. I mean, we actually exchanged looks. Meanwhile, Dani and Charlie were nowhere to be seen.
#6 Roasted Starburst
It turned out, when an enraged Windy and Balls came clawing through the undergrowth, that the missing pair had gone for help while we were all stood about sniping. It also turned out that Rachel’s ankle was sprained – she had actually slid down the bank and into the water. It also-also turned out that Matt and Matt’s group had been the only one to find the special spot, and by that point the teachers had already taken off so there was no one around to prove it. They were missing when we did the register and appeared five minutes later with a lot of questions.