AVALON

Chapter 45 - just playing

A/N - hey guys, here's the next bit. Thank you to all those of you who vote and comment, I love them. There will be one more chapter on camp before Av gets home and discovers... her surprise :)

Avalon POV

 "Av," D breathes my name as she gazes at the tattoo on my toe.

 "What do you think it means? The bad one or the good one?" Stretching my toe out of the water to admire, I think on how beautiful it is. Delicate, unlike me. It's more like it's creator in that respect, not that he's delicate in the physical sense.

 D laughs as I roll on my stomach in the cool water. The other girls are swimming deeper in the water, splashing and laughing while D and I talk in the shallows. Once we had walked the forty five minutes in the heat to this little oasis there was no cajoling to strip off and plunge into the cool water.

 After we got back from the tasks we had a dismal lunch of two minute noodles and were given free time until four thirty. I'm glad we won the extra plate of chicken and potatoes, Seth and Sam's tummies were rumbling like volcanoes about to explode.

 Amanda was almost unrecognizable she had been so angry, so angry that it is a certainty that she is going to try something. We won the second task easy; they had set up a test with a few items (two ropes, two planks of wood, a tarp, a bucket etc) for each team to cross another creek bed without getting wet. The edges were about two meters up from the low lying water. As I can lasso pretty good and tie knots of all kinds it was kind of an easy task.

 Amanda and her team tried to copy the lassoing technique; it was really amusing to see their faces puckered in concentration. Amanda even had a hissy fit when hers hit her in the back of the head. I had to give it to her, she tried again and this time had this if you can do it I can do face on and slipped down the edge of the bank adding more mud and dirt to her attire. She was probably extra pissed due to the fact Dave couldn't see her butt cheeks anymore.

 The third task was a ... bit different... I think I scared Dave to Timbuktu with my answer. We were walking along this trail to go to the last task when he cried out in pain. We all dashed back to find him writhing in pain on the side of the trail looking frantically around grasping on to his leg like it had been bitten.

 "Snake," he hissed. "Snake bit me."

 I leant forward and on his long pants were two dots of blood, fairly well spaced. The snake must have been bloody huge. Like over fifteen feet.

 "What type was it?" I crouched down looking around for the culprit.

"I don't know," he gasped clutching his leg. "Didn't see it."

A snake with fang spread that big would have given him at least a glimpse. Amanda pushed past me then and threw herself on him, rubbing her hot pink taloned hand over his, brown bits of dried out dirt flicked off on to his pants. Her brown eyes had looked out from their mud encrusted home to glare at me like this was all my fault.

"Bandage me someone quick," he threw his backpack in front of us. "There's first aid stuff in there."

"We have to find out what snake it was," I stood and brushed off the dirt from my hands, my eyes scanned the areas for the tell tale signs of the snake's trail. Even though it quite leafy I didn't see any.

"Why? Don't we just bandage him like they taught us?" Seth asked, leaning close to me again so that our arms were pressed together. His skin had felt smooth and cool in the heat.

"Yeah but what if it's a Taipan or a brown? We have to send someone running now and you guys will have to carry him. If it's a black we can just carry him, if it's a python we can tell him to man up and walk. Bandage him but try and mark the bite sites and don't touch the area around the bite in case I can't find the snake," Dave paled. I smiled suddenly thinking that this might be another 'simulated' first aid experience.