MATT
All of our eyes were drawn to the two laying on top of each other in the dirt. Even Johnny, Ethan, and Kyle found it entertaining. Julia turned to me, rolling her eyes, before looking back at Amy sprawled across Andrew. She watched intently, as if it was a movie.
“You gonna get up any time soon?” Julia drawled, awaiting their next move. I smiled knowingly.
“Oh, shut up,” Amy grumbled. “We wouldn’t even be in this position if Andrew over here hadn’t grabbed my arm.”
“Hey!” Andrew exclaimed, trying to justify himself. “I was helping you. You were about to fall, so I tried to stop that from happening.”
Amy looked down awkwardly, as if only just realizing that he was still gripping her arm tightly. I chuckled along with the others. If they were going to fight like this the whole trip over stupid things, that would be some quality entertainment.
“You can let go of my arm,” Amy mumbled. Her cheeks had a slight flush to them, as if the position she was in just hit her.
“Right.” Andrew carefully unattached himself, looking a little angry. “And you don’t even care.”
“And the plot thickens,” Julia whispered into my ear. “Next time, you’re in charge of popcorn. These two can get rather interesting.”
“If only they could see themselves…” I smirked, imagining Amy’s reaction if she could see what happened between her and Andrew half the time.
“Care about what? That you made me fall? Oh, sorry, maybe I’ll thank you for that next time.” Amy said sarcastically. She swallowed, her eyes shifting away from Andrew’s face that was mere inches from her own.
“Umm..maybe about that fact that I caught you so you didn’t hit the ground? Maybe that.” Andrew’s face suddenly changed to a blank expression. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Andrew started getting up, but stopped almost immediately. “You want to get off of me?”
Amy coughed. “Right. Uh…right.” Julia lent a hand for her to grasp onto, pulling her up off of Andrew.
“You forgot the kiss!” My eyes widened as I turned to face a laughing Johnny. “That’s what is supposed to happen when you fall on top of each other, don’t you know?” I realized he was teasing, but Amy still had a light pink splashed across her cheeks. Andrew was glaring at a leaf on the ground as he dusted off his pants. He flicked a leaf out of his hair, and it fluttered in the air before landing lightly on the ground.
“Let’s go,” Kyle said, moving on ahead of us with the map.
“Good.” Amy muttered, brushing a wisp of hair out of her face. She focused her attention partially on the ground this time as she moved, as if careful not to trip over anything else that could land her in an awkward position.
***
“Are you sure we’re heading the right way?”
“Well we can’t possibly be heading the wrong way.” Kyle reasoned. “I’m navigating.”
“Then why haven’t we found what we have to look for?”
“Because we are looking for a tree.” Kyle stated.
“Excuse me?!” Amy and Julia both exclaimed at the same time. I raised an eyebrow, confused by what Kyle said. A tree? We were in the woods, how could we be looking for a tree? That would take forever.
“You have got to be kidding me.” Johnny groaned. “Kyle, maybe you shouldn’t be reading the map.” He reached over, as if to take it from Kyle’s hands. Kyle backed away though, glaring at Johhny.
“Trust me. I can read a map.” He shook the map out for emphasis. “Remember when you all tried to read a map? I think it’s best that I deal with this.”
“Yeah, but you’re trying to lead us to a tree…” Johnny tried to reason.
“Guys.” I stepped in between them, shutting them both up. “Kyle, what exactly is it telling us to do?”
Kyle moved the map so it was in my view, pointing out the instructions that told us what to do next. Sure enough, they were telling us to look for a certain tree. At the top of this tree there was supposedly some supplies for our night at the cabin. The tree would be labeled though, with a large, green, star painted on it.
“See! I was right!” Kyle cried indignantly. “Stop doubting me. It isn’t just a random tree, it’s labeled, and it has stuff we have to get in it.”
“We didn’t doubt you,” Ethan explained carefully, trying not to hurt Kyle’s feelings. “It was just a little difficult to believe that they would send us looking for a tree in the woods.”
“Well,” Kyle huffed. “They did. Now, we have to continue going this way.”
We moved along the path carefully, watching out for roots and other things we could trip over. I had the backpack on me at the moment, the one with the gun, and it made me a little nervous. I didn’t know if I should feel safer with it, or nervous that we needed it. At least it wasn’t one of the boys holding onto it though; they might actually try to use it or something.
Andrew and I seemed to have made an agreement of our own. Neither Amy nor Julia were to have the gun. Especially not Julia. She was still very…nervous around them…since Mrs. Grey had it pressed against her. Sure, there were no bullets in it, but she didn’t know that at the time. I’m sure it wasn’t a moment she would want to relive. Julia’s reaction to the gun was always the same; fear.
Amy didn’t like it, I was sure, but she wasn’t anywhere near as afraid of it as Julia was. I wasn’t going to let either of them near the gun; I didn’t want anything to happen.
“Just keep your eyes peeled for a green star, okay?” Kyle’s voice snapped me out of any thoughts of the gun and back to the trip. We needed to find that tree, it had all of the things we might need at the cabin. We had to stay for a night in the cabin before going the rest of the way up the mountain, and I didn’t know whether to look forward to a night alone in the cabin with them or not.
One thing was for certain, Amy and Andrew would make it rather entertaining.
***
Pushing through branches and dodging roots was getting old, and I knew that we were all wishing the tree could just fall from the sky and land in front of us. A tree was not an easy thing to find, even when labeled. Even Kyle had been a little mopey about it.
"I'm sure it's nearby. The map doesn't say exactly how long it will take, but I'm sure they wouldn't send us looking for a tree for any longer than half an hour."
"Kyle," Johnny started. "We've been at this for four hours. We are supposed to arrive at the cabin in one and a half hours. If we don't get there at six like they told us we should, it'll get dark soon."
"Relax, relax. We are all alive with no scratches or cuts. Think positive." Even as she said it though, Amy sounded a bit dreary.
"I'd rather be dead than searching for a tree in the woods," Julia muttered. "This is incredibly stupid."
"Your face is incredibly stupid!"
"What was that?!” Julia cried.
"Nothing," Johnny said in a sing-song voice. "Absolutely nothing."
"Guys. Can we just find the damn tree?"
"Andrew! Shhh, little children..." Amy scolded.
"Right. The little children who say things like ‘asses’ definitely shouldn't hear me say the word 'damn.' Of course. My bad."
I chuckled at them, adjusting my backpack over my shoulder. The gun was buried at the bottom of the bag, keeping me cautious the whole trip. The safety was on still, obviously, so it wouldn't shoot by accident, but it still made me nervous that Kathryn and agency thought we would need a gun. What kind of trouble were we going to be in?
"Where do you think we should go? Huh? Huh?" An insistent poking in my shoulder drew me from my thoughts.
"Isn't Kyle the navigator here, Johnny? Why are you asking me?" I looked around the woods, surveying the area for the marked tree.
"Well, yeah, but he hasn't found it yet either." Johnny started kicking a stone as he walked, tuning his focus to that. I shrugged mindlessly and continued walking.
"Guys! If you would just listen to me then you would know that according to the map it will be up ahead on our right. We weren't supposed to have passed it yet!" And that was why we had Kyle along with us. "If we walk about another five minutes though, it should be there. Calm. Down."
"Oh."Johnny said in a small voice. "Oops. Sorry. Heh."
"Let's just go..." Andrew sighed.
After trudging along in the dirt for another few minutes, we came across the tree. Just where Kyle had predicted.
“Open your ears once in a while, and we could have been here without such a fuss.” Kyle unfolded the instructions explaining what we were to do. “Someone has to, uh, climb up the tree and retrieve some supplies for the night. There’s going to be, like, food and stuff.”
“I’ll go.” I decided quickly. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt like Johnny had before, so I wanted to keep everyone safe by going.
“Alright Matt,” Amy rolled her eyes. “Have fun.”
Climbing the tree wasn’t very difficult. It reminded me of the trees in my backyard at home that we all used to climb when we were younger. It had many good notches for where to put my feet and hold onto to pull myself up. When I reached the pack of stuff, I grabbed it and tossed it down to the others. After seeing that Andrew had safely caught it, I made my way back down.
“Well, that was simple,” Johnny said.
“Mhmm,” I nodded, brushing bits of bark off of me. “Now we can go to cabin.”
“Yes, it isn’t far from here,” claimed Kyle as he flipped through the map. “Maybe only another twenty minutes until we get there.”
“We should take a water break guys,” said Amy. She pulled out her own water bottle, and passed out some to the others. I opened the bag I had and handed out a few as well.
“We’ll make it before it’s dark, right?” Ethan asked.
I looked up at the sky, my eyes widening at the breathtaking view. It wasn’t dark yet, but it was slowly fading. A light blue had merged with a magenta-like purple, and it was astounding to look at.
“Yeah, no worries,” Kyle said, waving a hand over his shoulder carelessly. “Just leave getting there to me.”
***
Kyle was, of course, right. It wasn’t fully dark out yet when we came across a cabin in the woods. I pulled out the key that we had been given for our stay at the cabin, fully ready to drop dead on one of the beds. Hiking had taken a lot out of each one of us, and I certainly wasn’t looking forward to our trek to the top in the morning.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Kyle’s hand shot out, covering mine before I stuck the key in the lock. “Double check that it is our cabin!”
“Fine, fine, but I don’t see any other cabins around here.”
“Is this cabin…uhm…” Kyle paused, taking a few deep breaths.
“What? Just say what it is so we can get inside!” Johnny cried.
“Uhm…cabin 302?” I paused, the numbers haunting me, and checked the sign on the cabin.
“Uh…yeah…this is cabin 302, everyone… Where we will be staying for two separate nights.”
____________
so what do you think? Cabin 302... (;
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Ella
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