AN: I'm back with the third and final installment of the Frozen Summer Fun series of one-shots. I MIGHT do another one but not connect it to this series. As usual, the Frozen brand is not owned by me.
Even though the class improved tremenoudously over the course of the summer and even got certified as official lifeguards, there was still more training to be had, as encouraged by Kristoff. He was right as actual lifeguards were encouraged to seek further training in other areas and combine them in order to be effective lifeguards, even after certified. The campers were nearly complete with their training but they had one final test to complete: Lifeguarding at a water park. That would be hard to do, depending on the venue, lifeguards were more used to mainly reinforce the rules, mostly for the waterslides and if they were at a swimming pool, again, it was mostly just rule reinforcement and also measure how much chlorne was injected into the pool between swimmers and rescues were infrequent if not actually common. After the escapade with Hans, he was ordered to stay away from Anna and Elsa and if he approached either one of them again, he would be thrown out of the camp without a refund. This was better for both girls as they bonded considerably more since the Hans escapade and to ensure this, when they got their postings for their training, he and his group were assigned to an indoor water park while Kristoff and his group were assigned to a watersides park.
When the group arrived, Kristoff escorted the group to the spot where the park director said the head lifeguard would be meeting them at. The head lifeguard came out of his office to meet them and greeted Kristoff as an old friend, which he was. His name was Sven who, like Kristoff, did the lifeguard training camp himself and worked himself up to head lifeguard at the sides.
"This is Sven, you will be working with him for the remainder of your training portion", Kristoff stated, turning it over to Sven.
"Okay", Sven twiddled his thumbs a little bit, clearly not used to this. "So, if you were here than that means you were assigned here as part of your final training portion. Lifeguards here operate more differently at the slides, generally reinforcing the rules and the like", he explained to the best of his ability.
"It's probably an easy job then", Anna stated. Elsa smirked.
"Actually, it's not", Sven stated. He proceeded to hand out pamphlets to the rest of the group, telling them to study these pamphlets to get a better idea of what a waterside lifeguard does and their duties. As the girls read the pamphlet, they found it to be a rather easy job as a waterslide lifeguard simply just conducted traffic when it came to the slides and reinforced the rules and the like.
"This is too easy", Anna stated again for the second time.
"Anna, as someone who had a summer job as a waterslide lifeguard, I can tell you, it may look easy to the people there but when it's actually in practice, it's not easy", Elsa said. Anna looked surprised. She didn't know that Elsa had worked as a waterslide lifeguard before signing up with the camp. "Don't worry, I'll show you what I mean tomorrow", she promised before the group was dismissed for the day.
Next morning, work began. The group reported to Sven for slide assignments and receiving other postings in the park. The lifeguards worked in shifts, rotating out as needed. Elsa, true to her word, decided to show Anna exactly what she was talking about when she said that a waterslide lifeguard was a lot harder than it looked in order to prove Anna wrong about her assumptions of how easy the waterslide lifeguard work seemed to be and truth be told, it wasn't. They had to divide the lines up according to slide ride and into two lines on each side of the slide and had to match the deploy time exactly so there was no collision on the slides themselves, although there were close calls sometimes due to a miscalucation. Anna and Elsa got Slide 4 and Elsa told Anna to stand back and watch the master at work.
"Wait", she told the next kid in line. The kid waited for his next instruction, which was to go to the deploy spot the last kid departed from and get ready while Elsa signalled the next kid to go. After the kid went, at exactly 10 seconds, the kid who stepped in was allowed to go. "Anna, you wanna try it?" she asked.
"Sure", she said and swapped out with Elsa. Elsa stepped out of the mini pool at the enterance and took Anna's spot and vice versa. Anna was flustered immediately upon entry.
"Okay, so, you're next, right?" Anna asked the next kid, even though it was painfully obvious. Aside from that hiccup, Anna actually got it down rather easily, except another hiccup occurred when she accidently let another kid go a couple seconds after the first one left but other than that, it went pretty well for her first try.
Over the next few days, the group managed to get down on the basics of waterslide lifeguarding, mainly through practical work as it became clear that pamphlets weren't really reliable. When Elsa reported to Kristoff and Sven of Anna's minor botch-ups, they decided to take a more active hand in training the group to lead them to success in the lifeguard profession and under their tutelege, the group became adept at the tasks the job required and Anna was able to properly master the specifics of what the job required after her intial screw-ups.
The next day was the final day of training and the summer camp itself was just about over, after which it would be complete and everyone would go back to their normal lives and pretend everything never happened. It was a shame for Anna and Elsa, who had developed a very strong bond over the course of the summer and even though they went to the same high school, they wouldn't talk to each other at all.
"Whew, the camp flew by fast", Anna said as she was packing up her things but noticed Elsa's sad expression. "What's wrong, Elsa?"
"I guess it's back to the status quo, huh?" Elsa asked with some hurt in her voice and Anna could sense how lonely Elsa was on the school front. Anna herself had witnessed Elsa trudge through school a couple times and had seen her eat alone during lunch hours but either couldn't or wouldn't approach her. However, couldn't and wouldn't were two different things in the school sense. Couldn't is when you refuse to approach someone to keep to the status quo of the school hiarchy, regardless of your personal feelings and wouldn't, in addition to the school hiarchy, generally means you don't offer your hand of friendship towards them. "Back to your teasing and bullying of poor old me", she said, voice cracking.
"Elsa, I" Anna was cut off by Elsa's sobs. She thought back to the times she'd seen Hans and his punk friends torment, tease and bully Elsa and while she never took part in it, she didn't have the guts to confront him about those acts. The closest she came was threatening to tell the principal on him for his behavior aganist Elsa but he had threatened to break up with her if she told on him and he'd tell everyone that she was friends with the school deadbeat (ie: Elsa). She cradled Elsa's head on her lap and began softly singing a song which did the trick of subduing her sobs. After the crying subsided, Anna told Elsa the truth of the whole situation in regards to the bullying and teasing she had accused Anna of partaking in when her crying fit started.
"I never partook in any of those things and I actually tried to put my foot down more than one time. When he slammed you into the lockers a couple days before school ended, I actually threatened to report him to the principal for it. He turns around and threatens to break up with me if I ever said anything about his actions towards you", Anna admitted. Elsa looked up as Anna wiped the tears away from the pad of her thumb.
"But you could have stopped him though", Elsa protested.
"Elsa, it was not a question of whether I had the will to put my foot down because as I said before, I did try to put my foot down more than once. I did get him to ease off on you for a little bit and I told him if he didn't quit picking on you, he would get reported regardless of the consequences", Anna admitted rather sheepishly. "When he didn't quit it, I finally ended my relationship with him and reported him to the principal for his behavior", she then said. That simple confession proved to Elsa that she wasn't alone in the world. "Even better, when we return to school, I'll make it a point to hang out with you", she offered.
"I would like that very much", Elsa said.
When the buses pulled into the depot, Anna scribbled something on a slip of paper and gave it to Elsa. Elsa looked at the paper and saw Anna's phone number scribbled on it. She knew she finally found a friend.
AN: That's it! For anyone that's wondering if they got together at the end, I'll say this right now: No, they did not. Giving someone your phone number in the platonic sense means that you want to keep in contact with them. I said in the previous story that while Anna and Elsa went to school together, they didn't really know each other before the camp due to Hans' bullying and manipulations of Anna. I know the "bullying" backstory to Elsa seems cliché and may not make sense when you consider that I said in the first one that she was a cheerleader but it's reality in a sense: just because you're a cheerleader doesn't exempt you from being bullied. Anyhoo, R&R!