Wednesday Night - 9/4/2006 in 2005 - 2007: High School

To get back into my cabin, I had to push aside several of the senior guys, who were standing in front of the door chanting "Heil Bonnie!" over and over. Bonnie was sitting on her bed in the corner looking like she always does - reserved and expressionless. I grinned at her. "Dude - land. slide. It was a landslide."

She smiled very slightly. "I was really nervous up there."

"But you did fine. And you won." At this point, I noticed that Nick was in the cabin again. "Hey Nick," I said.

"Hey Aidan." (Nick was actually in our cabin almost all the time at camp - he is best friends with Laura Euphonium, and also openly gay. We changed in front of him and everything.)

I ended up outside singing bad a cappella with Molly, Dave, Eric, and Matt. We sang the last three shows and tried to harmonize with each other. Mostly we just got the rhythym right. Matt beat his stomach. We also tried to sing chords. It was unreasonably fun. We complained about how we didn't want to go to bed, and how lights out was being enforced more strictly than it usually was.

Molly and I went back to our cabin after Mr. Thomas yelled at us. About half an hour later, one off us said, "I'm not tired. I want to stay up" and the other one said, "Me too. Let's go over to the guys' cabin and hang out with them."

"I'll go too," said Nick. The three of us put shoes and sweatshirts on, and started to leave.

"Wait for me."

It was Bonnie. We waited for her. The four of us walked as quietly as we could to the cabin where Eric, Dave, Schultz, Weird Clarinetist and Brian were.

(Brian is an ex-drama kid who is loosely connected to my group of friends. He was a senior rookie this year - tuba. There is a part of Beowulf where a character dies, and it is a big deal, but that was the first time that the character had been introduced, so instead of being upset, you're just kind of like, "What? Who's Hrothwuld?" I understand that this is going to be a little bit like that, and I'm sorry.)

We knocked softly on the far wall of the cabin because we figured the door was too close to Mr. Thomas. Schultz opened the door and let us in.

"Hi," I said.

"Ooh, we have ladies," said someone in the dark.

"And... Nick," said someone else. Everyone laughed.

"Hey guys," said Nick.

"So we might not want to stay here, since Mr. Thomas is in the next room and will probably pick up on the fact that you guys are here."

"We could go to our cabin."

"No, Sarah's trying to sleep. And she sleeps in the middle of the floor."

"What about the barn?"

"Yeah, alright. Does someone have a flashlight?"

Someone turned on a flashlight.

"How's this going to work?"

"We'll leave a few at a time, quietly, meet up by the bathrooms and go the rest of the way from there." We murmured agreement, and most of us went out. Brian and Weird Clarinetist were the last two people to come. We watched them approach. Halfway there, though, Brian mouthed "wait," and turned back around.

"Where's he going?" whispered Schultz.

"Is he going to get his stash?" whispered Eric.

"I think so," whispered Dave. They exchanged looks.

It is really not a surprise that Brian brought pot to band camp. He is, in fact, one of the people who was with Tom when he got arrested.

"If he takes it out, you guys will say no, right?" I whispered as intensely as I could.

"Don't worry," said Dave.

"Yeah, we'll tell him to put it away," said Eric. "I mean, if we get kicked out, there's no band. We can't go doing stuff like that."

Brian came back, grinning, and all of us started through the woods to the barn. My heart was beating wildly, and it felt amazing. I felt alive. We came to the top of the hill together and saw the barn. The lights were on. We froze.

"Is there anyone in there?"

"I don't know. Someone go check." Nick slowly crept up to the open door and looked inside from a distance. He signaled for us to keep coming, and we did.

"That's weird. Why are the lights on?"

"I dunno, but we made it." There was a general air of jubilation once we got inside of the barn. We sat in a circle in one corner and had a long, suggestive, gossipy conversation during which we laughed a lot. Then Brian got up and said, "If you kids will excuse me, I have an appointment."

"With who?"

"A few other kids. Drummers."

There was a slightly awkward pause. "Don't do anything stupid and get caught," said Molly.

"Well, we expect you to do something stupid," Schultz corrected. "Just don't get caught, okay?"

"Don't worry," said Brian, and left.

When Molly and I went to use the bathroom in the dining hall later, we heard something move in the dishroom. We froze. We heard it again. Distinctly. Louder than before. We ran back.

"There's someone in the dishroom you guys."

We saw light on the trees outside. A flashlight coming from the cabins.

"Shit."

"We should get out of here." We left and started moving back. Several times, we froze in silence, waiting, because it seemed that someone was very close behind us, following us. There seemed to be flashlights and voices everywhere, and it was impossible to tell where they were coming from. I couldn't see any of the other kids in the dark, but I could feel their presence around me. We stuck together. We made it to the top of the hill leading back down to the cabins before we heard what was clearly Mr. Thomas' voice in the distance. We all froze again.

"I know you're there. Come out where I can see you."

We exchanged looks, stopped sneaking, and started walking. Then we realized that Mr. Thomas wasn't shining his flashlight at us. He was shining it in the opposite direction. We started sneaking again. We split up. Out of instinct, I ran the rest of the way to our cabin as fast as I could. Molly and I sat on our beds, out of breath.

"What happened to Bonnie?" I said. She wasn't with us.

"I don't know. Maybe she stayed behind."

"She'll be okay. She'll make it back."

Pause.

"The boys probably got caught."

"Yeah. It'll be okay though. All we were doing was sitting around having a conversation. They can't be in too much trouble."

"Let's just hope Brian didn't get caught."

"Yeah." I fell asleep not too long after that.