Truth or Dare

Opening Ceremonies

                                                                                                                 Lydia

"Why do we have to close the tent flaps?" Janie asked. "It's going to get all hot and stuffy now."

"Trust me, later tonight you'll be calling me a genius," I promised. The tent flaps now had to be closed because we had to be more careful now. Because now Dani knew that we liked to sneak out, which meant Natalie knew we liked to sneak out. We never took Dani to the heads place, but Natalie had been there. Together, the two could find a JAV or Senior in another section that was rejected as a head or is just an overall butt face who would send us up to the big house for sneaking out, lead them to where go and get us all a one way ticket to the Big House.

I'd worked pretty hard to get in good with the director, we had weekly lunches, and I still had immunity thanks to the deal I made with Molly. But going up there was a hassle and timewaster, we had more important things to do then wait for the director to take one look at us and tell us to go back to bed.

"Are we going now?" Casey whispered from her bed.

"I said the fun begins at midnight at dinner, and that's what I meant." I whispered back. "There is a tradition to these things that must be upheld."

"Lyds, it's five to midnight. Let's start to get moving," Hayley whispered from her bunk. Flashlight turned on and we did our best to silently move around in case anyone in the section had decided to stay up to try and catch us breaking rules. Although, technically we weren’t breaking any rules by being awake. Even if we stepped outside the tent, there was no rule breaking going on until we stepped a foot out of section.

Hayley and I taught Casey and Janie how to properly stuff a bed and made sure they grabbed sweatshirts, "Don't be fooled by the inside of the tent, it's cold during the night. No sun to heat us." Hayley whispered. Finally, everything was good to go and we were off for the heads ceremony.

"What about look out?" Annie asked quietly as we stumbled through the darkness towards the heads place. We couldn’t turn our flashlights on until we were there and out of sight from all the sections.

"Molly's on look out. She'll radio in on the walkie if we need to make a break for it." I assured her. "We're good for now. No one in charge wants to see one of the oldest camp traditions die out."

We didn’t talk the rest of the walk, which in retrospect was only a minute so there wasn’t much room for talking. When we arrived, all six of our flashlights switched on and scanned the surrounding area. The heads place was off the path between Backwood and Knights Burrow. It was a small clearing between a cluster of trees with a hollowed out log we used for storage laying near the far edge. In the center was a fire pit we normal only used on the closing night. The heads place was the only part of camp we saw as "sacred" and wouldn’t attack each other on. We used it as a place to meet, negotiate and to do the opening and closing ceremonies. that's why Wes had stopped the night we first met and I threw a water balloon at him, he knew he had to at least listen to me here.

The boys had yet to arrive, which meant it was time to set up. "Annie, explain how the opening ceremonies work while we set up," I said as Hayley fished out the candles and roster from the old log.

"Okay, so tonight is the opening ceremonies. The team that gets here first is the one that sets up. Basically we light a bunch of candles and Lydia and Wes do this whole speech about the sacredness of what we do here and how we're not suppose to tell what happens between the heads because that would be admitting to everything."

"That's why there's only rumors about what you guys do," Casey added.

"Exactly." Annie confirmed. "Then, we go over the Rules of Wars, sign our names, each take a candle and blow it out together."