Daria was woken up by the exclamation from her bunkmate/barnacle, Amelia. "Wow what?" she grumbled. She examined the face of her light-up watch. "It's 2:30 in the morning, Amelia, go to sleep," she grumbled.
"Daria, you have to see this!" Amelia whispered excitedly. "It's, like, the coolest lightning storm ever!"
"Damnit, Amelia, I..." She trailed off as the thunder from the alleged lightning reached the cabin, causing the windows to rattle in their frames and even shaking Daria up a little. "That was some lightning," she admitted, just a little awed.
"I know, right?" The two girls stayed up a while longer, but observed no more lightning.
"I guess the show's over tonight," Daria muttered. Amelia's response was a gentle snore. Daria rolled her eyes and joined her in slumber.
XXXX
Daria winced at the sound of the morning bugle. It was her dearest hope that one day Skip would choke on it. She checked her watch, scowling when she saw it was a full hour before they were supposed to get up. She waited in bed a few moments more, hoping the whole situation was a nightmare and that she would wake up for real at her home in Highland soon. No such luck: Chip appeared at the entrance to the cabin and began speaking.
"Rise and shine, campers!" he commanded. "Mr. Potts has scheduled an emergency hike!"
"What's an emergency hike?" one of the other campers asked, still rubbing sleep out of her eye.
"Well, it's...uh..." Chip hesitated, not knowing what it exactly was himself.
"It's not an emergency hike, children, it's just a drill." Mr. Potts, the head counselor, had appeared behind Chip to reassure his charges. "We like to, ah, keep you on your toes here at Camp Grizzly, heh heh."
Daria eyed Mr. Potts closely. He didn't sound as cheery as he was trying, and his eyes showed fear, instead of the easy-goingness of his smile. Even his chuckle sounded more nervous than mirthful.
"Something's wrong," she muttered to herself.
"What's wrong, Daria?"
Daria inwardly groaned as Amelia made her presence known.
"Nothing," Daria claimed, not in the mood to discuss anything with Amelia (ever).
"Hey Daria, wasn't that lightning show last night awesome?"
Daria shrugged. Something about the whole situation seemed...off to her. "How far away was the lightning?" she finally asked.
"Uh...I don't know," Amelia admitted, after scrunching her face up in thought. "How can you tell?"
"All you have to do is count the number of seconds between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder, divide by five, and that's how many miles away it is," Daria explained.
"Really? That's so cool, Daria! You're the coolest friend!" Daria sighed at Amelia's enthusiasm.
Grudgingly, Daria got up, dressed, and went with her fellow campers to assemble in front of the flag pole at the center of camp. Once all the campers had assembled, Mr. Potts began to speak. "Boys and girls, I know you're all a little cranky at today's unexpected change in schedule, but I promise you all that today will be fun! First, we're going to take our hiking kits into the mess hall, and load up on all the canned food we can carry. Next, we'll hike up the mountain trail. Won't that be exciting? Once we're at the top of the mountain, we'll head into Grizzly Cave! ...Heh heh, don't let the name fool you, kids. A bear hasn't lived there for decades."
As Daria was handed an extra-large backpack and ushered into the mess hall with the others, she kept pondering what had spurred Mr. Potts to wake them all up at sunrise and put them on what she was sure to be an eight-mile hike uphill with enough food to last them a few weeks. Her stomach began churning at the prospects.
XXXX
Daria held a death-grip on her book as the campers all hiked up the mountain path. She had grabbed it just before departing on the hike from under her mattress on a whim; Skip had tried to take it from her, but baring her teeth was enough to ward him off. (He knew full well she was prepared to bite from past experience). She shrugged under the heavy weight of the backpack and wished not for the first time that she could swing it at Chip's stupid head and knock him out. Judging by how her feet felt, though, she could probably just take off one shoe and wave it in his face to do that.
Amelia marched next to her, rambling on about something or other in between panting. A lot of the other campers (and, though she was loath to admit it, even herself) were panting. They had been marching uphill for the past hour nonstop, and they were exhausted.
Finally, one of the boys with two backpacks (Quinn and her posse having naturally persuaded some boys to bear their burden) collapsed, and Mr. Potts reluctantly allowed a ten minute break. With relief, Daria let the backpack fall from her shoulders and sat, using it to lean against (not minding that the cans inside made it somewhat lumpy).
Amelia sat next to her, backpack between her legs, searching through it until she pulled out a can of fruit and a can opener. She opened the can and handed it to Daria. Daria eyed the gift warily, but hunger won out in the end. She took the can and sipped the juice out first before grabbing out chunks of the fruit with her hand. Amelia fished another can out of her backpack for herself and cracked it open. They sat together in silence for a few minutes, eating the fruit out of the cans. Daria was actually enjoying the moment...until Amelia started talking again.
"Look, Daria, some smoke!" she said, finger aimed at the horizon. Daria squinted.
"I don't see any smoke," she complained.
"It's waaaaay far away," Amelia explained. "I guess my eyes are better than yours."
Daria scowled, then squinted as much as she could without actually closing her eyes. She even rose one hand up to block the sun's glare. "I...think I see it," she finally said, unsure.
One of the counselors (not Chip, thankfully) was sitting nearby. Amelia stood and walked over to her. "Mrs. Green, can you see smoke over there?" she asked, gesturing where she had shown Daria.
Mrs. Green narrowed her eyes as she looked to where Amelia had gestured. "No, I don't see any smoke," she said, suddenly sounding scared. "Let's get moving, now," she added, ushering Amelia and Daria up.
Later, back on the trail, Amelia asked Daria "What's going on?"
Daria thought for a moment. "I don't know, Amelia. Why is Mr. Potts so intent on getting us up this mountain and into Grizzly Cave? Did you see how he hesitated when he called for a break? And just ten minutes? I think he's scared to death of something."
"Scared of what, though, Daria?"
Daria looked again towards the horizon, where the smoke Amelia said she had seen was still out of Daria's perception. "I don't know," she said.
XXXXXXXXXX
I've finally decided to revisit an older fic of mine, Camp Pu, starting off with rewriting the material I currently have for it. Since I only ever made two chapters, this will be a short process. Afterwards (barring my losing interest in the project for years at a time again), I'll start in with new stuff. Enjoy!