I already didn’t want to go to summer camp. Not that I had much of a choice as my dad had said, “It’s either that or spend your summer changing your sister’s poopy diapers.” When I found out that all the boys would be going on a camping trip, I wasn’t upset because I knew it would be an escape from Landon Fletcher, my tormenter of three years. It was horrible enough that we were neighbors, got placed in the same classroom every year and that our moms were “BFFs” (whatever that means). When I found out that his mom signed him up for summer camp too AND that he was going on the camping trip, I realized changing poopy diapers and cleaning baby throw up wouldn’t have been so bad. After all what in the world could be worse than a camping trip with Landon Fletcher?"What in the world is worse than a camping trip with Landon Fletcher?" -Hayden
As soon as my dad dropped me off at the campsite located at, Where am I? land, I got an answer to my question. What could be worse than a camping trip with Landon Fletcher? I’ll tell you, having a creepy camp counselor, who looked like a mix of Yoda and Medusa, tell you that Landon Fletcher is your bunk mate…well…that’s just plain evil. I must have made somebody mad in a past life or something.
“Well scouts, I want you all to introduce yourselves to your bunkmate,” Mr. Yodusa said (not his real name…don’t remember it…don’t really care). All the guys cleared out as they went to their bunker buddy. When the area was clear, there stood Landon Fletcher looking at me as I was looking at him. Landon was shorter than most of the eight year olds in our class. I think he has a problem with it but if my head was only a few inches off the ground, I would be mad at the world too!
“What’s up Hayden,” came a voice. I snapped out of Lala land and noticed Landon standing directly in front of me with his evil, "It’s just you and me" smirk. There is nothing more terrifying than a smirking Landon.
“Now that everyone is acquainted,” Mr. Yodusa said, “I want to explain something to you. The point of camp is to do summer homework, clean the forest to perfection and scrub the crust off my feet when I tell you to.” Everyone in the camp got really silent. It was as if he told us that Disney decided to stop making movies. “I’m just joking kids,” he said, “Actually the point of camp is to make friends, memories and…” Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah. Am I the only one falling asleep here? “…and to find a rainbow leaf,” he said.
He smiled at the look of confusion on our faces. He knew he had our full attention. “The rainbow leaf is just some random, fake leaf that I bought at a store and painted,” Yodusa announced. ”The objective is that with your bunkmate, you have to find the leaf hidden somewhere in the campsite before the week is over.” He continued, “Whoever finds the leaf first will win two Ipods.”
An Ipod huh? Too bad I already had one of those so I wasn’t really interested. When I looked at all the other guys, I knew that they were. Then a thought hit me. I looked over at Landon. Low and behold, he looked interested too and then looked at me and smiled.
“Forget waiting until tomorrow, Hayden, you and me are going to find that leaf tonight!” He said. What’s worse than being bunk buddies with Landen Fletcher? Sneaking off with him in the middle of the night to find a fake rainbow painted leaf. In a past life, I must have made someone SERIOUSLY angry.
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“I can’t take it anymore, let’s head back…” I said after an eternity had passed us by in the dark forest.
“Quit whining like a baby, Hayden! ,” Landon exclaimed. “That leaf can’t be too far. Does that old guy look like he can take more than hundred steps from his tent before passing out?” I looked behind us into the dark. Either Yodusa took a million and five steps from the campsite to hide the leaf or we’ve gotten ourselves lost.
“I think we’re lost,” I said at last.
“We’re not lost; you’re just scared of the dark. Aren’t you a little too old for that?”
“I’m not scared of the dark but I do think it’s crazy to try to find one leaf among MANY leaves in the dark. That’s why everyone was supposed to do it during the day. How stupid are you?!” With my last words, he pushed me, I pushed back and we started wrestling all the way down a hill (I had no idea there was a hill around us…another reason why it was stupid to search in the dark!) When we gained half of our sanity back, we both looked around us.
“Umm…where are we?” Landon asked while looking around.
“I don’t know, it’s too dark maybe if it was daytime we would know…HINT, HINT” I replied. We took out our flashlights and shone it where we had tumbled down. It was painfully obvious and I’m talking basketball thrown at your face painful, that there was no way we were climbing back up on our own.
“Guess we have no choice but to stay here for the rest of the night,” Landon announced. I looked at him in horror. What’s worse than sneaking off with Landon Fletcher in the middle of the night? Being stuck all night with him in a cold, dark forest.
“HELP ME!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“Be quiet, no one can hear us!” Landon exclaimed. “Someone has to hear us! Someone has to save us! I can’t be stuck with YOU. Not YOU. Anybody in the world but YOU.”
Landon looked at me. “What’s your problem with me anyway? I should be the one who has a problem with you!
“A problem with me?!” I shouted. I’m not the one who turned the entire class on you for the last three years and destroyed every friendship or life you had!”
“Yeah I did that but it’s only because since the day you met me, you were really mean!”
What in the world is he talking about? Suddenly it all came back to me in an instant. The first time meeting him when he moved next door his super cool pool, huge bike and 1001 hot wheel cars…I hated him instantly. I guess I was jealous of him. I guess…maybe I was kind of harsh.
“Look,” I said finally after thinking for a while, “We’re going to be stuck here together until someone finds us so we might as well make best of it.”
“Yeah, sure and maybe we can talk about just how mean you really were,” he said with a hint of laugh.
“You mean when we were like FIVE?! Dude, get over it! Trust me… you have gotten your revenge and more!”
He started laughing and for some really strange reason, I did too. If you ask me, I think the forest had made us crazy because for the first time, I was actually getting along with Landon Fletcher.
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We were stuck all the way until morning when Mr. Yodusa found us, gave us a three-hundred-minute lecture and made us clean his feet (I’m not even making this up, he really did). You know what though, even after doing the most gross chore I’ve EVER had to do (I’d change my sister’s poopy diapers any day then clean crusty feet) , I don’t regret getting lost in the forest with Landen. Being trapped together in pit of nothingness made us realize we actually had a lot in common.
Two weeks had passed and summer camp was finally over. “Are you ready to go?” My dad asked after he arrived to pick me up. I turned and looked at Landen who was behind me waiting for his parents to come. He gave me a thumbs up and I gave one back.
“We’re going to have an awesome year in the 3rd grade,” he said.
“Yeah we’re in the same class too,” I replied. “We’re ALWAYS in the same class.”
“Yeah too bad it took us three years to finally get along.” Landon replied.
“It doesn’t matter, we’ll probably be stuck together another three years plus!”
We both laughed. We never found that leaf but the whole purpose wasn’t to find it anyway. But being stuck with Landon Fletcher at summer camp…maybe…just maybe…that was the purpose of it all.
THE END
-- 28 Apr 2017, 11:09 --
There's probably quite a few grammatical errors. This is just a rough draft of a story I wrote recently. I would love any feedback that anyone has!
