Camping With Dummies

Chapter Five - Camping With Dummies

Chapter Five

Zeke didn't push me in, thank goodness for that. It wouldn't have been a pleasant feeling to be walking back to our tent while drenched in cold water. Instead of causing a ruckus, Zeke lead the three of us back to the tent

Our evening passed the way a typical I-got-lost-in-the-forest-and-have-no-idea-what-i'm-doing night would go. Four delinquents sitting by a fire... Scratch that, I'm no delinquent. I'm anything but that, I'm fabulous. And trash. I'm both, at the same time. That makes me, like, trash from Louis Vuitton. I'm quality trash. Wow, I just wasted 10 seconds of my life thinking about that.

Nevaeh was still trapped in her phone. Sometimes she would stare at her screen so attentively I worried for her. Whatever she was doing, it had her insanely intrigued.

The sun had set already, leaving us in the dark. The only light came from our small fire, which illuminated our small space that we called our camp. We had eaten our dinner, or what we considered to be our 'dinner', which consisted of snacking on beef jerky and trail mix. I mean, the trail mix was good because I added some M&Ms to it, which added a sweet kick.

I would have liked to inform everyone of the time, but unfortunately I had not brought a watch, and neither had the two other boys around me. We had tried asking Nevaeh for the time, but usually she would ignore us unless we said something she thought was worth her time. So, as a guess, and having not seen a clock for over 24 hours, I would say it would be around 9pm at night.

We all sort of just sat there, staring at the fire. Except for Nevaeh, but that was predictable. So we all spent our time looking at the fire, watching the burning logs turn to hot coals. It's cool at first, but I mean, we've been doing this for what felt like a week. (its been a day I know I'm a drama queen get over it.)

Watching a chemical change occur before your eyes seems cool until that's all you're doing. Sitting on a stool that's too small for your even smaller butt, and watching a tree throw weird orange waves in your direction. I kind of wondered, I was sitting there pretending to be insanely interested in the flames, when in reality I couldn't care less. Do you ever do that? Not know what to do so you just do what everyone around you is doing even if it's incredibly boring? Were the other boys getting bored too, or was that just me? Because I was getting pretty bored, man.

I sneaked a glance at Lucas, but he wasn't looking at the fire. Instead, he had his eyes trained on the air above us, just staring at nothing.

"Lucas, what are you looking at?" I asked him.

His eyes shifted from the air to me. "I'm, uh, I'm trying to see the stars."

"But, they're blocked by the trees."

"I know," He deadpanned. "Th-that's why I said I was trying."

I bickered under my breath, muttering something about him being sassy. I followed his gaze upwards, trying to figure out why it interested him so much.

"Um, did you know," Lucas spoke, gathering mine and Zeke's attention. "That the R-Romans, ancient Egyptians, Aboriginal people, etcetera, used the, ah, stars for navigation? They would follow the const-constellations."

I held back my scoff. Uh, didn't everyone know that? This was simple grade 9 astronomy people-

"Really?" Zeke's brows pressed together as he stared at Lucas in astonishment. "That's really cool, dude!" His face lit up, like he had an idea. "Could you maybe try that? Help us get back?"

Lucas frowned. "Well, I-I would like to but, I, uh, sadly I can't see the stars." He gestured to the sky, which was not visible due to the trees.

Zeke's face dropped. "Oh, that's unfortunate."