After talking for about an hour we decided to call it a night. Derek and Ridge were fighting about who gets to sleep with me, in my tent, I mean. In the end, Carson and I were the ones sharing the tent, leaving Derek and Ridge together.
"Let's see who can finish setting up their tent first," Derek challenges me and Carson.
An hour later me and Carson were drinking hot coco, already done with setting up our tent, while Ridge and Derek were still trying to set theirs up.
Keyword: Trying.
"You take the left side, I take the right," Derek says.
"But there's twice as many poles and loops on the left," Ridge says.
"I know how to count, Ridge."
They start building up their fort again somehow, with zero coordination.
"It goes here," Ridge says.
"Yeah, if you don't mind sleeping in a coffin a few hours later," Derek says, taking the pole away from his hand.
"How can we possibly die even if the tent doesn't hold up?" Ridge nudges him.
"By shortage of oxygen, an allergic reaction to the low quality cloth used in the tent, by being in the breathing distance with a tool," Derek says.
"Oh Sorry, I almost forgot about your baby sensitive skin," Ridge says.
"Skin sensitivity is not a joke," Derek nudges Ridge.
"Neither is lip sensitivity, specially when you're sleeping with your former snog buddy," Carson says and we laughed at them both.
"You've to let it go," Ridge says to us.
"I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go," Carson says in a dramatic Titanic manner.
After hours of trying Ridge and Derek had finally made something that looked like a tent. Their tent looked like a broken dream, a crippled old man or Crash and Eddie from 'Ice Age' just after a fall.
"I would just like to compliment how your tent looks so energetic," Carson says.
"Energetic? What do you mean by that?" Ridge raises an eyebrow.
"I don't know, Energetic like the sloths from zootopia, like Muriel from the suite life of Zack and Cody or Chandler and Joey on their leather armchair day," Carson says.
"It totally looks sleepable," I gave them a thumbs up.
"Right?" Derek says patting the tent and a pole from the tent falls on impact.
"We can totally fix this," Ridge says and picks the pole up.
He tries to find where the pole goes and finally manages to fit it somewhere.
"See! As good as new," Ridge says.
"No! Even better than new!" Derek says patting the tent again, but this time keeping his hand light, hardly touching the tent.
This time the entire tent came crumbling down to their feet.
"I don't understand how that's even possible," Derek says.
"Yeah, we used every single piece in the bag," Ridge says kicking the bag away, while the bag made clink and clank sounds.
Carson eyes the bag then says, "I think your tent was mostly standing on vibes."
"Oh, yeah. If you're so good at it, then why don't you show us how to put it up," Derek challenges Carson.
"Not falling for that one, come on Ashley. Let's go get some sleep," Carson says getting up.
We both ended up going in our tent as Ridge and Derek started shouting at each other and after a few minutes I fell asleep.
***
I wake up early in the morning but to my surprise I was alone in the tent. Carson was not with me.
I leave my tent and see that Derek and Ridge's tent was even worse than last night. I got ready for the day and had breakfast with Chloe and Amber. Derek, Ridge and Carson didn't show up for breakfast either.
After breakfast I informed Gage that I would be leaving to go to the pandas.
"Oh Good, I should come along to see the pandas too, just give me a minute," Gage said.
Gage finished his breakfast and we were walking in the big garden. We came to the intersection in the garden where the path intersects into 4 different roads, all four sides of the garden had different colored roses planted along the way, Red, white, yellow and pink.
We took the pink one which leads to the zoo, "Where does the other roads go?" I ask Gage.
"The white one goes to the stream the red one goes to an orchard owned by Arick and-," Gage says but I interrupt him.
"Arick?" I ask.
"Arick Ashton, Ridge's older brother," he answers.
"Oh, I knew Ridge had a brother, but never asked him his name, how silly of me."
"Well, here are the keys to the cage, Good luck for today," he said giving me the keys.
"Thanks, Goodbye."
"No problem, by the way do you know where the trouble makers are?" Gage asks me.
"You mean Derek, Ridge and Carson?" I asked.
"Uhh, Yeah? You are their friend, Right?" He asks.
Even I don't know what I am to them. "Yeah," I reply, "but I don't know where they are."
"It's okay, I'll go look for them."
"Good luck."
I went to Litty, who came crawling to me. I fed her, played with all three of them for sometime then decided to take Litty out for a walk again. Her parents gave me a lazy look and I knew even they would be relieved to get rid of her for sometime.
I picked her up and started to walk towards the mansion, we were not supposed to go inside, so I was just walking around it in the garden when I saw that my laces were undone.
I put Litty down on the ground and sat down to tie my laces up. I tied my laces and stood up but, I couldn't find Litty anywhere.
"Litty, Litty," I called out and looked around.
There she was near an open back door going into the mansion, Great!
I ran after her but she was long gone, I went inside on my toes and the room I'm currently in looks like the kitchen, not a normal one but like the commercial ones you see in the restaurants. There were a few newly baked cakes sitting out.
I looked for Litty and there was a door in front of me, opening into the main mansion. Should I go in or not?
Who am I kidding? Like I can just leave a baby panda crawling in the mansion.
I stepped in and there was a tall main door to my left and to my right was a marble staircase going up and some doors.
The second door on my right was open and there I saw it, a small black tail attached to two cotton bums.
I ran after it inside the room and picked Litty up, "You can't run away like that Litty."
I was talking to Litty when I heard someone groan. My eyes shot up and in front of me was a King sized bed and on it, Derek, Ridge and Carson.
Carson, Ridge then Derek with his leg hanging down the bed.
That's why Carson wasn't in the tent this morning. I looked around and the room looked like it belonged to all three of them. There were pictures of the trio on the table, all of them hanging from a wall with the help of a rope, Carson had his spectacles on in one, explaining something to Derek on his laptop while Ridge was sleeping next to them with his head on a spilled drink.
Another one where Ridge and Derek were drawing something on Carson's sleeping face, another one where all of them were in a towel. This must be the day Derek told me about.
Then, another in which Carson smiled for the camera with little umbrellas in his hair and cocktails in both of his hands. I picked one frame up in which they all were wearing a matching black hoodie with the words, 'Upto no good' printed on it.
One of them groaned again and I placed the photo frame back in it's place.
"You three can't be sleeping in here," someone calls from the door and I turn around, to see Gage in front of me.
All three of them open their eyes as Ridge shouted, pointing at Gage.
*Ahhhh*
"What the hell?" Carson says.
"Are you stupid, Bro?" Derek asks.
"You guys! You know I had strict instructions to not let you three in when you're here on a college trip," Gage whisper shouted at them then looks at me, "and what are you doing here, Ashley?"
"I'm sorry, Litty just lost her way and came in, so, I had to come in here after her."
"Oh, okay, back to you three, Get up! What are you doing here?" Gage asks the boys.
The boys get up lazily and start to move around in the room, in a half asleep state.
"These three sneaked in here at night after everyone else went to sleep," I answer Gage's question.
"And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!" Derek says looking at us both.
"And your stupid dog!" Ridge says pointing at Litty.
The three of them were thrown out of the house the next minute as I made my way back to Litty's place.