The Idiot next Door...

Competitive Camping

I shivered at the thought.

"No, I'll be fine ... Just give me a moment ..." my breath was about to go back to normal and I leaned against a tree to rest my legs.

"Both of our parents are probably far ahead of us. You want to win, don't you?" Luke asked, leaning down and positioning his back for me.

Well, he does have a point. If I really want to beat my parents, I'll need to work together with Luke.

I tentatively climbed over him, linking my arms around his neck as he secured my legs. "Comfortable?" he asked, turning his head to face me. Comfortable? How on earth could I ever be comfortable when I'm riding on the back of my worst enemy?

"Yeah," I swallowed. He went back to looking straight ahead and started walking in a quicker pace. Neither of us said a word for the longest time and were both choking in the awkwardness. The hill was getting steeper and I started feeling bad for Luke. It must be really hard to face elevation with another weight over your shoulders. "Hey are you okay? I can walk now," I told him.

"No it's fine," Luke replied.

"But I can walk now! I'm not even that tired anymore," I insisted.

"I told you it's fine!" Luke shouted. I was starting to get frustrated.

"LET ME DOWN!" I yelled while lightly punching his shoulder with one fist.

"Hey! Watch it!" Luke growled. He stepped backwards and let go of one of my legs to hold back my wrist. We were struggling against each other and I started pulling on his hair. "Cut it out!" Luke yelled, "At this point we'll -"

"AAHHH! BUG!" I screamed, letting go to point at the giant praying mantis in front of Luke's feet.

"WHERE?!" Luke shrieked, stamping his feet rapidly.

"STOP STOP STOP YOU'RE GONNA STEP ON IT!" I screamed in horror, wrapping my arms tightly around Luke's head. He misplaced his feet a step back too much and tripped, causing us to fall. We screamed as we tumbled down the slope that we spent so long climbing up until we came to a painful stop at the bottom of the hill. "Well there goes my chance of winning ..." I croaked, miserably.

"I am so mad at you right now," Luke muttered.

"Oh look who decided to show up!" joked Mr Hemmings after we finally arrived at our campsite. He was with the rest of the adults hanging around the lake.

"When did you get here?" Luke asked, just as shocked as I was that they were already having fun without us.

"The Wrights came around 45 minutes ago and I believe your mother and I came in first about an hour ago," Mr Hemmings prompted, proudly.

"We are failures at its worst," I mourned, sadly, while leaning my head on a tree.

"This was all your fault!" Luke barked at me.

"Hey, kids! No time to waste when you have three tents to set up!" my dad said, who was cruising around on his inflatable doughnut.

"But I'm exhausted," I whined, staring at the lovely bark features on this trunk.

"Come on, we have work to do," Luke grumbled, pulling the back of my shirt and dragging me away.

"Okay ... Finished!" Luke and I took a step back to examine our last tent.

"We're pretty good at this," Luke said.

"Yes we are, teammate," I smiled, "High five,"

I held out my palm and Luke lightly slapped it with a grin.