The picture of the side is of Troy Flarehill.
Chapter 2
All three of them jumped down the other side and ran for the bus. The crowds were enormous but they weren’t as bad as the crowds inside Towerhall Academy were. Troy managed to wade towards the door of the bus. Dahlia and Helen followed him and they slammed the bus door.
Olive saw them coming and threw open the bus door. Troy dropped Helen’s suitcase in the compartment beneath the bus. Dahlia and Helen stumbled onto the bus. Troy joined them and they collapsed in the back seat of the vehicle. The bus pulled out of the lot.
“Phew!” Dahlia gasped. “That was tough!”
Helen bent over to relieve herself of her stitch. They were all sweating from their crazy jumps and climbing of the wall. Troy leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He wiped his forehead with his hand and then rubbed the sweat on his blue jeans.
Dahlia pulled her pink iPod out of her pocket and plugged in her earplugs. Olive took his laptop out of his backpack and booted it up. Dahlia put in her earplugs and scrolled down her list of songs. She enjoyed many artists but her favourite was Taylor Swift.
As she settled on one of her favourite songs, Troy leaned over and pinched one of her earplugs. He put the earplug in his ear and grinned cheekily at Dahlia. She scowled fiercely in return. Knowing full well that it would be useless to protest, Dahlia leaned back against the seat and fell asleep in a second.
Three hours late, Dahlia awoke with someone shaking her arm. She opened her eyes. Troy was shaking her while Olive was putting away his laptop and Helen, her book.
“We’re here,” he said. “Come on.”
Shaking off her daze, Dahlia sat up properly. She realised that she had been leaning on Troy and felt a crimson flush spread over her cheeks, painting them a bright red. Neither Helen nor Olive knew that she liked Troy, certainly Troy himself did not know.
She stuffed her iPod and earplugs back into the pocket of her jeans. Grabbing her backpack, she swung it over her shoulders and pulled out her blonde ponytail from under it. She let it curl around one shoulder.
The bus jerked to a stop in the grounds of Camp Forrest. It lurched a little and several students fell forward. Dahlia grabbed the seat beneath her to keep from being catapulted into the aisle.
Troy seized his bag and Helen’s before tossing his sister’s bag to her. She shrugged it on and Dahlia, Troy, Helen and Olive joined the crowd flocking out of the bus into the grounds of Camp Forrest.
The four of them jumped out of the bus. Everywhere, people were grabbing their bags and tramping across the grounds to the cabins.
The camp was an extremely large one with about fifty cabins arranged in two large horseshoes, one outside the other. The cabins were identical with wooden doors and small glass windows with flowers on the outside. Inside, there were ten bunks lining the walls and a large wardrobe at the back of the room for all the occupants of the cabin to use.
Besides the cabins, there was a basketball court and a football pitch on the right of the cabins. Several older girls and boys were playing already. They were all dressed in their usual camp T-shirts which were green and displayed the words ‘Camp Forrest’ in big, bold, black letters.
On the left side of the cabins were the riding stables. Most of the campers could ride horses and the camp had about twenty horses free for the campers to ride. The stables were a new addition to the camp and they hadn’t been there the last time.
In front of the cabins for the campers were the mess hall and also the rangers’ cabin where the rangers of the camp slept. The campers all ate in the mess hall and sat at about a hundred tables. The rangers’ cabin was also where the campers went when they had free time and when they didn’t have activities arranged by the camp rangers.
Behind the campers’ cabins was the campfire. All the campers and the rangers had a campfire every night. They also sang songs and some of the campers played the guitar. Every night the campers roasted s’mores and marshmallows.
All around Camp Forrest was a huge wood with not many paths. It was very easy to get lost in the large woods around the camp. The bus driver was specially hired because he knew the woods very well. He always drove all the campers to and fro from schools.
Dahlia fished her tote bag out from amongst the enormous mass of bags. All the bags were dumped in a pile just outside the bus. Troy heaved his duffel bag and Helen’s suitcase out of the pile before any more bags were lumped down on top of the rest of the bags. Olive also grabbed his bag.
Once they had retrieved their bags, they headed over to the cabins. There were a lot of cabins for hundreds of campers went there to enjoy the camp. All of them were separated for their age groups were different.
Dahlia lugged her tote bag and backpack into her cabin. Several other girls were unpacking their clothes and belongings while they chattered. All of them looked up when she entered and they stopped talking immediately.
Dahlia felt a little embarrassed with them all staring at her. She gave the three girls an awkward, well-meaning smile.
“Um … hi,” she said.
One of the girls gave her a huge grin. She looked about Dahlia’s age with short brown hair tied back with a bright red bandanna. She wore a striped T-shirt over a pair of ratty blue jeans.
“Hi!” she said brightly. “I’m Sam and these two over here are Jess and Paige.”
Jess had dancing black curls that just reached her shoulders. She also wore blue jeans and a loose T-shirt. Paige, on the other hand, had long brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail and was dressed simply in a pair of shaggy pink shorts and a tank top. Both girls smiled rather shyly at Dahlia.
The cabin was medium-sized with five sets of bunk beds arranged next to the walls. On the back wall was a large wardrobe where all the girls kept their clothes and belongings. Most of the bags were arranged in one of the corners.
Sam grinned again. “Have you been to this camp before?” she asked. “I have. It’s super! The new riding stables are really cool. And the sports and activities here are really sweet.”
Dahlia smiled. “Yeah, I have. I came here last year. It was cool. Have you two come before?”
Jess shook her head. “No, Paige and I only joined the camp this year. Do you know that we have a treasure hunt tonight? The teams have already been announced. I’m in a team with Paige and two other guys from my school. Sam is on a team with three others from her school. Who are you with?”
Dahlia shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Don’t only the leaders of each team know?”
“Yeah,” Jess agreed. “I thought you might be one of the leaders. Sorry.”
Dahlia immediately felt relieved that Sam and Jess were friendly. Paige seemed so much shyer than either of the other two girls. They were nice, good-natured girls and easy to talk to.
There was a knock at the door and all the girls looked up. They all exchanged glances. None of them had expected a visitor unless it was another girl was sharing their cabin.
“Come in,” said Sam, a curious note in her voice.
The door was pushed open and Troy poked his head around the door. “Um … hi. Dahlia, we’ve got an activity starting in about five minutes. Are you coming?”
“We’re in the same team?” Dahlia asked, pleasantly surprised.
Troy nodded, smiling at her pleased expression. “Yes, along with Helen and Olive. Are you coming?”
“Give me a minute,” Dahlia said.
Troy nodded again and said, “I’ll meet you outside. I’m glad I met you three girls.”
He ducked outside and closed the door behind him. Sam and Jess burst out laughing. They grinned wickedly at Dahlia.
“Is he your boyfriend?” Sam asked with a wicked glint in her green eyes.
Dahlia pulled a face. She pulled her blonde curls back in a high ponytail and grabbed her cell phone. Then she hurried across to the door and pushed it open. She and Troy jogged across the lawn with the friendly laughter of Sam and Jess ringing in her ears.
“What was that about?” Troy asked.
Dahlia pulled another face. “They were teasing like Helen and Olive sometimes did. Forget it; it was just another joke.”
The rangers were standing in a circle near the edge of woods. Helen and Olive were already there with about fifty other campers, some from Towerhall Academy and some from other schools. They were clustered around the rangers. The rangers were giving instructions to the group. When Dahlia and Troy joined them, they heard the rangers speaking.
“…on your treasure hunt list. You might get cold so dress warmly. The woods of Camp Forrest can be dangerous at times. Good luck, everyone.”
The group broke up and began to disperse.
“What was that about?” Dahlia asked Olive and Helen when they joined her and Troy.
“The activity is a treasure hunt,” Olive replied. “We have to look for stuff on the list which they gave us. Then we tick the stuff off. The first people to win get points for the team cup at the end of the week. Each school has many teams sent in and the team that wins gets a trophy to take home at the end of the week.”
“And we have to dress warmly because the woods are cold at night,” Helen interjected.
Dahlia went back to her cabin after they agreed to meet back at the same place. The cabin was empty for Sam, Jess and Paige had obviously left already. They were probably on their way to the woods with their other team members.
She changed into a fresh T-shirt, a denim jacket and clean jeans. She covered her hair with a wide bandanna. She looped her backpack over her shoulder, laden down with blankets (she had no idea why she had packed those), two extra T-shirts in case it got really cold, a baseball cap, a coil of rope and a flashlight.
Then she left the cabin. When she looked back, she felt an odd chill running down her spine. She shivered. She had a horrible instinctive feeling that something bad was about to happen. Dahlia ran across the green to meet her friends.
The others were waiting for her. Troy had packed a backpack too with a flashlight and a spare jacket. Helen had brought nothing and Olive had prepared a first aid kit and held a club in one hand.
They trooped off into the winds. Troy led the way, checking the list to make sure they could find the stuff needed. Surprisingly, not one animal made a noise in the woods. It was almost as if the entire world was holding its breath.
All of a sudden, clouds covered the sun. An icy cold wind hit them full on. Dahlia shivered again and fumbled in her backpack for her flashlight. She needed it to see.
The beam of light cut a small circle in the darkness. The silence was eerie and all four of them trembled.
Helen shivered. “What was that about?” she asked, her voice quivering slightly.
A low growl sounded through the woods.
“Did you hear that?” she asked with a definite tremble in her voice.
“N…no,” Dahlia stammered. “It’s the cold,” she added, not wanting to sound particularly frightened.
And out of the shadows, dressed in a black lab coat instead of his usual white one, Dr. Fang emerged.