Everything happens for a reason

Everything happens for a reason 1

Earlier this year on Carrie's birthday we wouldn't let her near anything, she had to sit down and not touch anything.

We even gave her a little kid's Sippy cup to drink from so she wouldn't accidently nock it flying while she was busy explaining something.

It was quite funny, she didn't think so though. When look back on it she may glare at us for bringing it up, but I see her smiling sometimes when she thinks no one is looking.

I walked up the stairs to find Carrie and Rhys. I heard muffled voices coming from the bathroom; I walked along the hallway and looked in.

Carrie was debating whether to take her second toothbrush incase she dropped or lost the first one, it looked like this hadn't been a recent discussion because Rhys wasn't paying any attention, just mumbling a yeah, here and there when she paused for too long.

I laughed and walked in, Rhys looked relieved, he was a great guy but Carrie was known to go on for hours if she wasn't interrupted.

I told them I was about to go make some lunch and was wondering where Nate and Shani were.

Rhys said he hadn't seen them since last nights little sleepover.

Carrie said she talked to Nate today, he had said they would be back around one sometime and not to worry about saving them any lunch.

I left after telling them to be in the kitchen in twenty minutes. Walking around the corner heading towards the front door I ran into Josh and fell on my butt.

He laughed and apologized for knocking me down. I laughed. He looked so worried.

"Don't worry, it's just a little bump, nothing to get upset about." I said grinning.

He relaxed a bit, holding out his hand for me to take. I gladly took it and he helped me up.

"Hey you know where Kay, Rose, Ty and Bret are?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah, I was just talking to them, apparently Carrie needs to hurry up and finish putting all her stuff in her bag so we can lock the car." He rolled his eyes.

"Haha, yeah, I was just talking to her, she was deciding whether to take two toothbrushes or one." I said while pointing up the stairs.

"I assume you convinced her to finish up." He looked in the direction I was pointing.

"Yep, you assume right, she's decided to take both, you know, just incase she looses or drops the other one" He grinned at this, we knew Carrie all too well, she couldn't stand it if something like her toothbrush got a little dirt on it, as soon as that happened she would have to throw it out and get a new one.

She was always telling us it wasn't, sanitary to just wash it off and use it again. But no one ever listened to her; we'd just nod our heads and forgot about it. Our groups a bit like that, we have all these little things that annoy the rest of us, but we get over them, usually just smiling, nodding our heads or getting someone to interrupt the hour long speaker. We had so much fun with all our little annoyances and besides, without them it would be too boring.

I asked Josh to tell the others that lunch would be read y in fifteen minutes. After he ran off I walked to the kitchen making sure to not run into anyone, my bum was still a little sore from falling over. I washed my hands and made up two big plates of sandwiches placing them on the table in the dining room along with eight plates.

I seemed to have timed it perfectly, because just as I laid the last plate down the boys came bursting through the archway everyone pulling up chairs at digging in. I was elected the cook of our little group for this trip; apparently I was the only one that wouldn't kill them with food poisoning, or burn or undercook the food. I had laughed when Josh read out the question because everyone had turned around to look at me; we all knew who would be cooking.

Loose conversation flowed around the table, everyone contributed, we were getting louder and louder until eventually we had to yell to be heard, but by that time we were all finished and I stood up collecting everyone's plates. They all ran off to waste time before we had to go.

I washed up the plates and Josh helped me put them away. We went to the movie room and joined Kay, Bret, Ty and Rose who were busy watching Inkheart. We had got it yesterday in our last minute shop for food and essentials.

Halfway through, Nate and Shani walked in and joined the rest of us; spread out on the couches and over the floor.

When we finished it was time to get going. We packed everyone into the car and headed off for the Mountains. After three hours of noisy chattering and eye spy we arrived at the start point.

Taking all our stuff to a fairly flat looking clearing we set up for the night, each of us walking off to set up our tents; we were sharing either two or three in each tent. It was going to be great. I found the matches in the bottom of the cutlery kit and went off to collect some wood to start a fire.

After a while of getting poked and scratched by too low branches and prickly bushes I had enough wood to last the night. Walking back I saw Josh clearing a hole to put the fire. I set up the sticks and a bit of newspaper so it would light first try.

"Ah, its Ell's trusty Teepee, never failed us once." Yelled out Bret as he came closer. He was carrying the meat for tonight's meal.

I stabbed the meat with sticks and held it over our makeshift grill, once the meat looked deliciously brown and cooked we all gathered round and dug in.

The light banter of conversation flowing around the clearing was comforting accompanied with the light flicker of the fire and it crackled and spat sparks of glowing flame. Bret handed out sticks and marshmallows, with chocolate chip cookies. We cooked the marshmallows until they were squishy and melting then sandwiched them between the cookies, it tasted like heaven.

We finished up the packet of cookies long before we ran out of marshmallows so we shoved multiple marshmallows on our sticks, cooked them and ate them straight off the stick. I finished mine up and went to my tent; I was sharing with Carrie so my stuff was all piled up under hers.

I grabbed a hold of my bag strap and pulled, it wouldn't budge. I pulled again, this time it moved the tiniest bit, but still I was unable to get it out.

Nate was walking past and heard me cursing at the bags; he pulled back the tent door and asked if I needed help. I said yeah and stepped aside to let him pass. He grabbed hold of the bag strap and pulled, it wouldn't budge, so he gave and extra big heave and it came free, the pile toppling down around us.

The torch fell out and landed on my foot, great, now it's going to bug me for the rest of the trip.

After everyone had set up our beds we all said goodnight and crawled away to our tents. I lay there whispering quietly to Carrie for a few minutes before drifting off into a light sleep, only to be woken again a few minutes later by Carrie leaving the tent.

I knew she wouldn't stay the whole night, if Rhys were anywhere near she always ended up with him.

After listening in closely I heard the zipper of the tent next to us slowly unzip. Mumbling noises could be heard as she tried to convince Josh to leave the tent. The zipper sounded again and then crunching footsteps coming closer to my tent, Josh's head appeared through he gap Carrie had left through.

"Hey." He said.

"Hey, so what was her excuse this time?" I asked curious; her excuses were always funny.

"Huh? Oh, right, her excuse. Um, well, nothing." He muttered, his cheeks taking on a light red tinge.

"Are you ok?" I asked worried.

"Hmm, Me? Oh yeah, I'm fine." He said a bit to quickly.

"Oh, ok." I was sure that he was lying, but if he didn't want to tell me then I would let it go.

"So, I'm guessing I've got Carrie's sleeping bag, eh?" He joked.

"Haha, She set up yours in here and hers in your tent, so it's actually yours." I laughed.

"Really." He questioned. "Well she's a sneaky one."

"Haha, yeah, she is." I replied.

"Well, night." He yawned.

"Mmm, yeah, night." I mumbled, falling into the confines of sleep.

"Sweet dreams." It was the last thing I heard before sleep took me.