"Good morning."
Ro opened her eyes slowly, and looked around her surprise at waking up in this new environment was practically nullified as it was the second time she was waking up in this new environment. It was the third day of camp. By the end of the week, she was sure that she would be waking up as if the forest were a bedroom that she'd been living in for the past five years of her life. "Morning," she replied. She looked down at Mandy's tent. The door was zipped up. She couldn't tell if Mandy was still in it, or if she was already awake. She'd have to ask her how the run on the boy's camp went later.
Zee knew that she was still asleep, though. Probably was exhausted from running around last night. "We have kitchen duty this morning," he reminded Ro.
"I know!" she replied. She wasn't completely incapable of remembering important facts. With Zee remembering every single detail that went on it was easy to not bother to remember anything on her own, but that would only lead to bad habits later in life. She rubbed her eyes, hoping it would help her to wake up a little more. "So, what happened last night?" she asked.
"Mandy got up at 4:30, like she planned, and went out with a couple of girls from our site for about an hour."
"Wow. I didn't think they'd go through with it. Well, she's probably tired then, so we'll go and get dressed first, then wake her up."
Ro and Zee got up with several of the other campers and headed to the bathrooms. When they got back, they unzipped Mandy's tent door a crack to see if she was up yet. She was a sight. She had bags under her eyes, and her hair was all over the place. "You up?" Ro asked, even though it was clear that se was awake as she was sitting up in her sleeping bag.
"Yeah…man, I'm tired, though."
"How did things go last night?" Ro asked.
"Wonderful. I'll tell you about it over breakfast… Tell you what, though. Wake me up five minutes before we head up to the kitchen. I'm going back to bed," she said, then lay back down to get half an hour more sleep.
"Sneaking out at night does seem to have its downsides," Ro smirked, zipping up Mandy's tent. As they were already dressed, they began to clean up their campsite as they wouldn't have time to do it after breakfast because they had clean up. The campsite hadn't gotten that dirty since the day before, so there was not much to do. Jennifer collected all of the trash into one big bag to save for when the inspector did come by. After a half hour, they went back to Mandy's tent to let her know that she had five minutes before they headed to the flag ceremony. While Ro was used to getting dressed and ready to go quickly because they never knew when the feds might barge in on them, she didn't think that she could only spend five minutes getting ready in the morning. She didn't even think it was possible until she saw Mandy do it. More impressively, it wasn't that Mandy just put on a bra and tied her hair back. She actually looked decently presentable.
They hurried to the flag circle with the rest of their group with Jennifer in the lead. Ro half expected to see more clothes or towels from the Redwood girl's campsites up, but there weren't any. Some girls from the Buckeye campsite were in charge of the flag.
"We should sign up. I can teach you how," Mandy offered.
"Maybe… But not today," Ro said. She didn't want to devote any of their free time hours to learning how to raise the flag until they'd settled things with Bucky. "Maybe in the second half of the week?" she suggested.
"Sounds good."
When the ceremony was over they walked to the kitchen. The competition between the counselors to be first in line for breakfast was a bubble gum blowing contest. Each had three minutes to chew the gum, and whoever blew the biggest bubble at the end got to be first in line. Needless to say, Jennifer was last. Three minutes hadn't been enough time to chew up the gum so when it came time to blow a bubble, she practically spit out the entire piece of gum. Everyone laughed, "This isn't a gum spitting contest. That was yesterday!" the director teased her.
"Don't worry. We'll be in line for lunch first," the rest of the Laurel campsite assured her. No one was mad that she'd gotten last because the piece of gum had landed right near the Redwood girl's table. When they'd seen it come flying towards them they'd shrieked and had leapt back away from the table, thinking it was going to land on one of them.
"I actually have a confession," Jennifer whispered to her girls. "I wasn't trying to blow a bubble with the gum. They say that I got last place, but I really think I deserve second. The only thing I didn't account for was that I was facing the breeze… I was just a few feet short…"
Their table burst out laughing. The line moved quickly, so it didn't seem like they had to wait that long to get food. Today for breakfast they had French toast with fruit salad, and ham or sausage. The cooks definitely outdid themselves with cooking their meals. It didn't seem like clean up was going to be bad. At least it wasn't like cleaning up rice from Chinese, or trying to get rid of the tomato sauce smell from the cooking pots for spaghetti. Cereal might be a little gross to clean up, as everything would be soggy, but they only had to clean up after breakfast once during the camping session.
"So, what did you do last night?' Ro asked over breakfast.
"Well, we thought we were going to sneak over to the boy's camp and create some mischief, but… the funniest thing happened. We bumped into this group of guys who were sneaking over here to do the exact same thing! It was really funny because we scared the living crap out of each other! We totally thought we were busted or something."
"So what did you do then?" Ro asked. She knew without a doubt that it was Bucky and his friends who had been the group they'd bumped into.
"Well, since the element of surprise was ruined we decided to change our objectives. Instead, we went over to Redwood's camp…"
Zee looked mildly interested in the story now. He wished he'd been there to deal some revenge on the group, except that it would have meant that he'd left Ro alone. "What kind of pranks did you play?" he asked.
"Nothing big. Didn't want to waste them on Redwood, as much as they might deserve it. I'm still going to go over and play our intended pranks on the boy's camp another night. We just used the minor stuff… fake beetles and spiders in their shoes, animal noises outside the doors of their tents… Mainly the stuff was supplied by the guys. They were getting to play their pranks on the intended party... You know that it was a good prank because they all looked rather put off at the flag ceremony," Mandy smirked, referring to the Redwood girls. Ro had to agree that if she found a fake beetle in her shoes she would be rather annoyed. Just thinking about it made her feet itch in her shoes and she wanted to take them off and check to see that a real one hadn't crawled in her shoes.
"How do you know it's because of that? Don't hey always look like someone's holding a dirty sock under their noses?" Zee asked.
Ro laughed loudly along with Mandy. Zee smiled. He actually had a sense of humor!
When they'd finished eating, they went to the back of the kitchen to begin to wash the several dishes that had piled up. "There's gloves in the cupboard," the cooks instructed them.
"Thank goodness. There's no way I'd touch those dishes else wise!" Ro said, looking at the stack.
Zee looked at the cheap disposable gloves and wondered if he should put one on, or if she should just create a hologram of it. But, as Ro seemd utterly detested at touching the plates with their food scraps on it, he figured that she wouldn't want to touch his hand if he touched the dirty plates without the gloves. So, he picked up a pair, and began to slide it on over his hand. It was fairly difficult for him as the latex was apt to clinging to his metal hands, rather than smoothly sliding over like they did for Ro and Mandy. He had to work the gloves onto his hands.
They began an assembly line with Mandy scraping the plates of the food into the trash can, Zee washing, Ro rinsing, then another girl from their campsite drying. The girl would stack the dishes until another girl finished eating, and was able to put the dishes away. Even though they didn't think that it would take them that long to clean up, with all of the cooking utensils, pots, and the dishes that the girls actually used, they were there for an entire forty five minutes. There was definitely no time to clean up their site for inspection, which made Ro glad that they'd done so before leaving for the flag circle.
"Good job ladies, now let's go," Jennifer said, once they'd finished.
The group began the slow trek back to their campsite. They got to pass each of the other sites on their way back. Some of the groups had already begun their lessons in water purification and the food pyramid, while others were in the process of getting ready to start their lessons. Strangely, however, the Redwood group was sitting idly by their campfire with smug looks on their faces.
"What's up with them?" Ro asked, noting their expressions as they passed.
"That," Mandy said gloomily, pointing to their campsite up ahead.
If he hadn't been actively listening to Mandy, he might have noticed the white streamers of toilet paper strewn all over their campsite earlier. Their campsite had been hit, big time. Sometime from when they left it for the flag ceremony they'd been hit big time.
Jennifer hurried to the front of the group, appalled. Their beautiful campsite was a mess. And to top things off, the director was standing right there, waiting for them. Jennifer began to apologize for the state of their campsite, and assured her that they would clean it all up. However, it was obvious that they would not be winning the cleanest campsite award today because of this event.
"They did this?" Ro asked, staring at the mess.
"Who else?" Mandy sighed. "No one from the boy's camp could have made it over here to do this in broad daylight."
"How did they know that it was you last night?" Zee asked, assuming that this TP-ing was their form of revenge for the fake bugs in their shoes.
"I don't know. But, they wouldn't necessarily have had to know that it was us to do this. We were conveniently delayed afterwards because of kitchen duty. They had plenty of time to do it."
"I guess we'd better start cleaning it all up, then," Ro sighed. Luckily for them, they'd covered today's lesson yesterday so they could use this time to clean up the toilet paper rather than have to spend their free time cleaning it up.
Cleaning up the toilet paper went rather quickly. It was more of the insult that they wouldn't get the cleanest campsite award for the day that hurt more than the task of cleaning it up. Jennifer was muttering threats and curses under her breath to whoever was responsible for this. Being a counselor, she wasn't permitted to admit that she knew it was Redwood, as that might cause hostility between campsites. Being a counselor, she was to set a good example by not encouraging revenge, but everyone knew that she was expecting (even hoping) that they would deliver revenge anyway.
When the toilet paper had been collected, Jennifer gathered the girls into a group by the campfire. She instructed the girls to dump the toilet paper into the middle of the campfire. She then produced a fine wire mesh covering, which she placed over the top. Her next instructions were, "Burn it."
They lit the toilet paper, and burned brightly and quickly. The mesh prevented the fine ash from flying into the air and possibly causing a forest fire. Jennifer stood behind it and delivered her speech of renewed optimism, "Girls, we've been wronged today. But that does not mean that we will not have another opportunity to be first in line for lunch. I would tell you that 'here's always tomorrow', but tomorrow we're having lunch at our campsite, so we'd only be able to be first in line for dinner, and we want a complete victory! Now, while I'm sure that we could cover tomorrow's lesson in the twenty minutes that we have left for today's lesson, I was thinking that we might start brainstorming skit ideas instead."
After she said this, several girls raised their hands excitedly. But, Jennifer did not call on them but added, "Also, I don't want anyone to suggest a skit that they've seen performed here before, no matter how many years ago it was. We don't want any repeat ideas." With that, the girls put their hands down. The only skits that they'd ever heard or seen of had been at this camp. "Oh come on," Jennifer sighed, "someone has to have some idea!"
One of the girl's spoke up, "What if we do that one where you have the cook, and everyone likes his dish because of the special ingredient…"
Another girl interrupted her, "Rabbit droppings being confused as raisins is NOT funny. That's sounds like something the boys at the other camp would think of!"
The girl added sheepishly, "My brother goes there…it was the skit they did last year…"
Exasperated sighs were heard throughout the entire group.
Another girl suggested, "What about the one with the sheet…"
"If you're suggesting it like we've heard of it before, chances are we have," someone snapped.
"Oay," Mandy sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingers.
"Maybe it would help if we talked about what kind of a skit we'd like to put on? Like, a comedy, a drama, perhaps an adventure skit?" someone suggested.
"That's a good way to start," Jennifer agreed. The group began to brainstorm ideas of what type of a skit they'd like to do. However, their conversation was mostly arguing and putting down other people's suggestions. Nothing was really being accomplished.
Two of the younger girls, bored with the bickering and disharmony, got up from the circle. Seeing two long branches for tending the fire they picked them up and began having a mock sword duel. As they became more animated in their game, their voices grew louder, and it became harder to hear what anyone was saying.
"Should it have a moral, or should it reflect our experiences here at camp?" another girl suggested quietly. With the put downs everyone else was receiving for their ideas, she hadn't been sure if she wanted to speak up at all.
"I can't hear you, Lindsey. Say it again," Jennifer instructed her.
"I was just thinking that maybe it should have a moral…" Lindsey said a little louder, but still very quietly. Jennifer still couldn't hear her over the dueling girls.
"I can't hear!" Jennifer shouted. "GIRLS! Could you please keep it down!" she shouted, as she turned around to see what the girls were doing that was causing so much noise. She didn't shout in a way that suggested that she was angry with them, but more on the lines that she was trying very hear what Lindsey had to say. The two girls dropped the sticks, and looked sheepishly at her. They both knew that they'd gotten carried away, and looked at Jennifer reproachfully, hoping that she wouldn't scold them too much. However, Jennifer didn't say anything. She was very quiet, as inspiration struck her. "I've got an idea!" she declared loudly, standing up so quickly from her fold-out chair that it fell over.
"What is it?" one of the girls asked her.
"It will be a sword-fighting skit. I know you'll all love it. We can gather large branches, and start whittling our own swords today! You all brought your knives, right?"
The girls in the group nodded. Ro did too. If Jennifer was assuming that they'd brought them, then it must have been on the list, so she knew that Zee had brought them. "Good! Then those of you who know how to properly take care of a knife and the safety procedures can go and look for large, long, branches, and those of you who don't can stay here while I give you a short tutorial. You can make them during free time or whenever you have a free moment during the week, or at our personal campfires."
Ro could imagine Jennifer's version of a tutorial on knife safety, "This is the sharp end. Sharp objects can cut you. If you didn't know that how the heck are you still alive?..."
"Now, does anyone here know anything about sparring or fencing?" she asked next.
The girls looked around at each other. They'd all seen movies about fighting with swords, but none of them had had any special training or instruction in the art. "Well… I guess we'll just have to choreograph something ourselves…" she sighed. "But! It will still be a kick-butt performance!"
"I might be able to help out," Zee spoke up.
Ro glanced sharply at him. When did he learn to fence? "Could you?" Jennifer asked. "Any little hints you might have to make it look more authentic would help out."
"Sure," Zee replied.
Ro tugged on his sleeve and pulled his ear closer to her lips. "What are you doing?" she hissed. "You don't know how to sword fight!"
He whispered in reply, "If we make it over to Bucky's cabin I can download a tutorial for it off of the net. If not, I've got several vid clips sword fighting in it stored in my memory from movies that we've seen together."
He was a smart robot, indeed. Apparently he was capable of helping out. Ro felt a little pang of guilt for thinking that he was offering to do something that he didn't have the skills for. Zee would be an excellent teacher.
"Are we going to go over there today?" she asked quietly.
"We can always try."
Jennifer began to plan out the details for the skit while the girls went to their tents to get their knives, or to look for a branch to make their sword out of. The next thing on the agenda was lunch so they the option of leaving if they wanted to, or they could stick around and learn how to handle their knives.
"We can find a branch or a stick later, let's go," Ro said to Zee.
"You guys going somewhere?" Mandy asked them as they got up.
Great, now they'd have to think of an excuse that would deter her from wanting to go with them wherever they were going. Unfortunately, Ro couldn't think of anything off the top of her head. The best thing would be to say that they didn't really know where they were going so there was no point in her tagging along. "We just thought we'd see what there was to do in these few minutes before lunch," Ro replied, trying to make it sound like they weren't doing anything important that we'd want to accompany them on.
"Well then," Mandy said slyly. "Want to try and make a daytime run on the boy's camp with me then?" she asked quietly. "I was actually hoping to get together with those boys again and possibly plan our revenge on Redwood with them… I told them that I'd try to meet with them this afternoon over at their camp, but I didn't make anything official, so we don't have to if you don't want to. But… if you're interested, it could be lots of fun…"
"What about lunch? You don't think we'd be able to get over there and back in just a few minutes, do you?" Ro asked.
"I'll tell Jennifer that we'll be hiking and taking a sack lunch so she won't have to worry about us."
Ro was surprised, yet pleased. This was perfect. "Absolutely," she replied, "but how do you suppose we sneak over there in broad daylight?"
"There's a trail that goes around the mountain. If you cut off it at a certain point, it leads to one of the trails that goes into the boy's camp. If we leave now, we can make it over there and back before dinner," Mandy whispered.
"Sounds good to us," Ro said confidently. She was more than up to learning a secret way into the boy's camp. That way they wouldn't have to worry about coming up with an excuse to give to the counselor guarding the path again.
Mandy went and told Jennifer that they would be hiking and bringing a sack lunch, and that if they were more than a half hour late to dinner that they should send a search party after them.
"What are you going to pack for a lunch?" Jennifer asked. "You know you're not supposed to have food in the tents because it attracts animals."
Mandy looked up sheepishly, trying to look innocent. "But it's all individually packaged…" she said optimistically.
"I don't know, it still might not be enough. I'd have to see it for myself…" Jennifer said, smirking. Mandy had the same mischievous smile on her face as well. Ro could sense some form of a bargain was about to be made from their sly tones of voices, but didn't know exactly what they were going to do about it. Zee was completely clueless.
Mandy led Jennifer to her tent, and went inside. Jennifer crouched while entering, and followed her inside. Mandy brought out her bag which had all of her snacks in it from her larger duffle bag. She spread out the contents on her sleeping bag. While not all of the items were individually packaged as Mandy had said, Jennifer didn't comment on this. Instead she eyed the candy, looking over the large selection. Then she announced that the chocolate bar would have to be confiscated as it was unsafe to have in the tent because the chocolate smell would attract animals more than the smell from the other items. Mandy handed the bar over to Jennifer, not grudgingly but as if she were sharing the food with a friend and not handing it over because of her superior's orders. Jennifer announced that Mandy could "keep the rest", but then paused at the doorway to the tent, and decided that the HoHo's would have to be removed as well. Mandy tossed them to her, smiling.
"I don't know about you, but I certainly don't think I want to eat just candy for lunch," Ro commented.
"Nah, this was just to bribe Jennifer. I've got some healthier snack foods in my other pack. Jennifer loves chocolate. She'll let you do anything for a bar of chocolate, but she won't come out and say it—you have to find a way to 'bargain' with it."
Mandy then brought out another bag of her pack that had trail mix, beef jerky, drink boxes, and other non-perishable travel foods. She packed them into her backpack. The backpack also had a first aid kit in it, and some other emergency supplies that they might need if they were really hiking.
"Why all the food?" Zee couldn't help but asking. When he and Ro traveled they never carried food with them. He couldn't imagine why any normal person would though. Also, the food wasn't that bad here… He could see someone bringing junk food as none was provided, but why would someone bring this much trail mix and drink packs?
"My mom packed it all for me. She knows that they feed us well, but she always says, 'You never know when you'll get hungry or when you'll be wanting a midnight snack.' And--knowing that I'm going to a camp full of girls she knows that packing for one person is not going to be enough. It's always eaten by the end of camp, so she doesn't have to worry about it going to waste."
Ro thought about her mom. Would she be the kind to worry about her getting enough to eat? She knew that her mom did care about her as she'd left them in the care of her grandparents, but when they'd died, why hadn't she bothered to reclaim her rather than letting her and Casey go to the orphanage? What about her dad? Surely one of them could have taken them in…. Whatever the reason they'd left, it must have been really important, or maybe… they really didn't care about them at all? She had to stop thinking about it. She might start crying if she dwelled on the thought.
"That's nice of her," she commented, then changed the subject quickly. "Let's go before it gets any later."
Mandy lead them to the trail they would be following. A few feet down the trail, it branched off into two separate trails. Mandy informed them that the trail on the right would lead them to the "Hidden Falls", but that they would be following the trail on the left. Zee made a mental note of this junction in case Ro would want to come back to it. After all, she had said that she wanted to find the hidden falls for this camp. They followed the trail for half a mile, and then Mandy signaled that it was time to leave the trail and start bushwhacking.
"Watch out for poison oak," she warned them. "It looks like that," Mandy said pointing to a bush that had the poison oak growing out of it. It certainly didn't help that it was disguising itself inside of another plant. "You're really going to be hating it if it gets on your skin or clothes…"
Mandy was careful to make sure that she didn't touch the bushes with poison oak growing out of the, but brushed up against the ones that didn't. Ro was overly careful to make sure that she didn't touch ANY bush or plant. Maybe coming down this trail in the middle of the night wasn't as good of an idea as she'd imagined that it might be. She wouldn't stand a chance at avoiding all of these bushes in the dark. While it didn't matter if he came in contact with the poison oak or not, Zee avoided the plants so that it seemed like he was actually worried about touching them as a human would be. The oils from the plant would not cause him to become itchy or for a rash to break out on his metal skin, but it would be a problem if he spread the oil to someone else because he didn't wash it off.
"How many people know about this trail?" Ro asked, as they began a short uphill climb.
"Not many. Jennifer might be the only counselor who knows about it. I don't think any of the others do. I don't know how many of the boys' camp counselors know about it either… It's not marked or maintained like the other trails are so no one really ever uses it. "
"How did you learn about it?" Zee asked curiously.
Mandy laughed to herself, "Jennifer showed it to me. She's not that old, you know… She used to be a camper here. She was 17. It was her last year here as a camper before she was old enough to become a counselor… It was my first year here. She showed me the trail and we went and played pranks on the boys' camp every night. But, as the poison oak has grown so much over these past few years I wouldn't dare to come here at night. I'll have to ask her who showed her the trail… Then again, I wouldn't doubt that she found it for herself when looking for a way to sneak over there herself."
After reaching the top of the small incline, the hill they were on sloped downward. There at the bottom was a well marked trail. It was the trail that would lead into the boy's camp. Perfect. "Now, we should be careful not to make too much noise as we don't want to get caught," Mandy said, leading the way down the slope to the trail.
In her excitement to go see Bucky, Ro hadn't given much thought to how they were going to move around inside of the boy's camp without being caught. They couldn't use the bracelet or Zee's hologram for disguises with Mandy here… "Uh, Mandy?" Ro commented. "How are we going to sneak around the boy's camp? Won't someone see us?"
"They're going to escort us to their cabin."
"How far is it away?" Ro asked, even though she knew that it was well on the other side of the boy's camp.
"The other side of the camp."
"Oh really?" Ro said, trying to sound a little bit surprised. "Doesn't that mean we'll have to run through the entire camp? How are we not going to be seen?"
"They said that they'll let the closest cabin on this end of the camp know that we might be coming, and that they should just email them word if we show up. We only have to worry about being seen by a counselor before we reach their cabin though."
"I wouldn't have too much faith in their integrity to keep their word," Ro said uneasily.
"Nonsense, what more could a camp full or hormone raged-pre-pubescent teenage boys want more than to have three gorgeous women knocking on their cabin door? Or walking around their camp for their viewing pleasure?" Mandy winked.
Ro laughed nervously to herself. How strange it must be for Zee who was only pretending to be a girl for the time being!
"I would still be a little suspicious," Zee cautioned. "If we were to get caught, or if they were to turn us in that might be qualifications to be sent home."
"You worry too much. I'm sure it will be fine," Mandy brushed the thought off.
"You're sure willing to risk a lot to see these guys," Ro teased her. "They must be pretty cute."
"Oh please," Mandy said, rolling her eyes. They're all rather young, and quite unattractive. One of them, if he were older, might be worthy of going on a date, but not now. Then again, it was dark so I didn't really get to see any of them that well."
The trail was ending, and they could see the cabins of the boy's camp off in the distance. "This is it," Mandy whispered. "See anyone?"
"No one," Zee said stately.
"Are you sure?" Mandy asked.
"Oh yeah. If Zee says there's no one. There's no one," Ro corroborated.
"Let's go then!" She led the group into the boy's camp, running. They were surely going to draw some attention to themselves if anyone was around. They were kicking up dust in addition to making a scene by breaking the "no running rule". Ro was sure it applied to this camp, as well.
Ro lightly jogged after her, keeping a careful eye out for counselors. Zee would alert her if there were any so she didn't worry too much. They made it to the door of the closest cabin. Mandy knocked on it eagerly, and a crack in the door appeared. The pair of eyes behind it quickly looked over them, then admitted them inside. Ro felt herself dragged in by Mandy, and Zee quickly leapt inside before the door slammed shut.
Once inside they were quickly instructed to crouch closely to the floor and to keep their heads down below the window levels. The boys in this cabin were all stationed at various points in the cabin. They had small radio transmitters in hand, and headphones on. They were speaking a strange code language between each other that made Ro roll her eyes so hard she thought they might get stuck in the back of her head.
"Come in Mother Bird. Eagles have arrived at the nest. Come to outpost Toucan to escort Eagles, stat. Vulture is still unloading at shit-house," one of the boys spoke through the radios.
"It's code," Zee commented.
"Thank you, captain obvious," Ro commented.
"What the heck is this nonsense?" a voice shouted through the radio. Several of the boys quickly fumbled to turn down the volume control, then had to remember to turn it up again when the voice had stopped shouting. "Just say they're there! No need for this gibberish!"
"They're coming. They'll be here momentarily," the boy replied, a little humbled. Rather than feeling embarrassed, everyone in the cabin started laughing. The boys continued to watch for the counselor until Bucky's cabin arrived to pick them up. There was a strange pattern of knocks on the door. The boy stationed at the door responded with another series of rhythmic knocks. The person at the door responded…
"I can't take any more of this!" Ro said, standing up from where she was crouching on the floor. She hurried to the door, and pulled it open. The boy at the door looked rather surprised. Ro recognized him from yesterday, but wasn't going to say anything about it. As far as he knew, he'd never seen her before.
"Come on, let's go," Ro said, leading the way out of their cabin.
"Shhh!" not so loud! The boy whispered. He quickly pulled her around the back of the cabin. Zee and Mandy followed. The door to the cabin shut.
Behind the cabin were several more of the boy's from Bucky's cabin, and some others whom Ro had not met or seen before. Mandy was familiar with them all, though.
"We brought you some disguises," one of the boys said. Their "disguises" were hats to hide their hair in and some grunge-looking T-shirts. They had pants for them as well, in case one of them happened to decide to be as ridiculous as to wear a pink or frilly pair of pants to camp.
Even though they were dressed up now, the boys still insisted on darting from tree to tree all the way back to Bucky's cabin, as well as radioing to the scout ahead. Next time, Ro and Zee would defiantly be sneaking back here alone in their holographic disguises. Ro was more than glad when they'd finally made it to Bucky's cabin. They knocked on the door, then entered unceremoniously.
There were several boys in Bucky's cabin, several which Ro knew didn't sleep there. Apparently word had spread that some girls might be visiting later in the afternoon, so they'd conveniently found an excuse to come and visit. Several of them were playing the same game that Bucky had been playing yesterday. Bucky wasn't with them though. He was at his laptop computer. He turned around when the door closed again, and everyone was inside.
Ro could already feel the sweltering heat building up from having so many people in the two rooms. There seemed to be plenty of room if everyone was standing, but there would be some shuffling going on if they were going to try and make it so that everyone could sit down. Luckily, someone graciously opened a window so they could breathe some cool air. They removed their disguises and handed them to one of the boys to be taken care of. He looked at the clothes disgustedly as they had been worn by girls, while another was breathing in the sweet smell of Mandy's lotion.
"Who's your friend Ro?" Bucky teased her, looking at Zee. Ro recoiled her arm to smack him upside the head. Not only for making a bad pass at Zee, but for giving away the fact that he knew them. "Just kidding, just kidding!" he apologized, putting his hands up in defense.
"You know him?" Mandy asked suggestively. In her mind she was wondering how Ro could not have told her that she knew someone from this cabin!
"Yeah, but I wish I didn't," Ro wittily replied.
"So what brings you guys all the way over here?" Bucky asked.
"Some plotting, and some other business," Ro said. "Did you really sneak over last night?"
"Yeah, which is why it was your turn to sneak over today. But we made it easier on you by taking care of the patrol…"
Giggles spread throughout the entire cabin. "Does this have to do with ' the vulture is still unloading at the latrine?" Ro said, using a nice euphemism.
"It wasn't my idea, but it seems to have worked out rather well. Carl over there brought the X-lax…"
"EWWWW!!! GROSS!!!" Ro said, covering her ears with her hands. She didn't want to hear any more of it. When it looked like they weren't going to say anything more she uncovered her ears and asked, "So, how did you know we'd be coming then to take care of the situation?" she asked. She'd been under the impression that Mandy had said that they wouldn't be expecting them but knew that they might be coming over.
Carl smirked, "We didn't. Well we did, but we didn't do the X-lax thing for you. It just happened to work out coincidentally."
"But when we came to the other cabin they were in their look out positions," Mandy pointed out.
"That's because you tripped the laser on your way over."
Carl felt a sharp jab in his side and realized that he'd said too much. The girls weren't supposed to know that they had rigged up an alarm system to let them know when someone was coming. Now they would know to look out for it, and might possibly find a way to get around it. Then again, if they were bothering to plot together, they'd be revealing many more of their secrets.
"So you willingly put the X-lax in that poor counselor's food, just as a prank?" Mandy asked.
"We've done worse," another boy spoke up. This started a long conversation about the details of those other previous pranks, and what else they could do which was even more evil. Rather than joining in the conversation, Ro and Zee took the opportunity to talk to Bucky. He was uninvolved in the conversation.
"How's it going?" Ro asked him. She didn't really expect him to have spent any time looking for information for them.
"I'm working on it right now," Bucky surprised her. "I've got the ISP numbers for their database. It's all monitoring from here to find out which one goes to which employee…"
Ro looked at the computer screen more carefully. The window wasn't open to some technical document, but a lamp on Ebay. "You're not looking at all!" she accused him.
"Yes I am!" he replied, offended.
"You're shopping online!"
"Wrong, this person is shopping on line. Watch," he said, then closed the window. The regular default screen for his computer came up. There were several other small windows open, each showing a different browser page. Each seemed to be running in its own little world, not being controlled by Bucky at all. He had a list in front of him with several numbers printed up on it. Some numbers had red lines through them, and others were marked with a question mark.
So he was monitoring after all… "I'm sorry… I just thought that you were goofing off again… like yesterday…." Ro apologized.
"I'll have you know, I lost that game yesterday," he added. "But that's okay. Thanks for apologizing. You can take me out to dinner sometime to make up for it."
Ro had been feeling humbled for a moment, but the feeling soon passed. "So, how do you know which ones to cross off?" she asked him.
"Well first of all, I can only see what they're doing if they're computer is on, and they're online. Then I can view the page that they're viewing. I've started out by eliminating the ones that I know are female, or that I don't think are Bennet. The ones that aren't online are another story."
"So how do you know if one person is female or male?"
"Well, out of all the guys you know, how many do you think will go shopping for a Vintage lamp on Ebay?"
House decorating was a woman's art, meaning that the person was probably a female. "None, actually…" Ro had to admit.
"So, probably a female," he said, then opened up another window. It was an ordering page for a work uniform.
"I can't tell on this one," Ro said.
"Male," Zee deduced.
"And how did you know?" Ro asked him.
"The size measurements are too large for a female."
"Precisely," Bucky agreed.
"But how do you know it isn't a woman who is big-boned?" Ro asked.
"The buttons on the jacket are on the right, rather than the left," Zee explained. Ro hadn't been looking that closely to notice… They really would have to take Bucky out again. This was really hard work!
"After watching them for a couple of minutes, it becomes really easy to separate them. Thinning out the selection of men becomes harder though, but I find ways to manage," he said, sounding rather cocky. Ro didn't care anymore as long as he got the job done.
"What if they aren't online?" she asked.
"Then I have to go to the network server, and download their hard drive to my computer and look over the files there to see if there's any thing that will let me know more about them. It's really hard because the NSA has tight security so they don't let large files be randomly sent over their server, and they don't save everyone's hard drive on the network."
"Well then what can you work with?" Ro asked.
"They're personal preferences log on. If they sign in on anyone else's computer, then they can request to have their computer files sent over to that computer—if their computer is online—and turn someone else's computer into their computer. Just by seeing what they've got for their wallpaper background, I can easily tell who they are."
"Very impressive," Ro complimented him, noting the separate list of usernames and log-in passwords. While the NSA was a large organization, he apparently only was focusing on the head quarters Bennet was stationed at.
"Yeah, but it's hard. I can't be watching all of these windows at once, and I can't be trying to download someone's preferences while using up this tiny bandwidth to keep these other windows open… If I was at home I'd have a faster connection…"
"Maybe I could help you look faster," Zee offered. Ro saw his wrist flick upwards, as if he was about to shoot out his computer cable to connect himself to Bucky's computer to search through the windows.
She quickly smacked his wrist. "Not here!" she hissed.
He'd almost forgotten that there were other people in the room. "Maybe I could come back tonight while you're sleeping?" he suggested.
"You could, if Ro didn't mind being alone for the night," he mocked her.
She glared at him evilly. She would have been prepared to spend a night on her own if she hadn't been overhearing some of the evil things that the boys and Mandy behind her were planning to do to someone in their sleep. But, Zee's freedom was far more important… "That'd be fine with me," she conceded.
"I also should look up fencing some time…" Zee added.
"Tonight would be a good time for you to get that done as well," Ro commented. Yes, she'd have to do without Zee for a night for the sake of a better cause.
"I hate to break things up because you guys seem to be enjoying each other's company, but we need to leave in time so that we can make it back before dinner," Mandy interrupted.
"Has it been that long?" Ro asked. It seemed like they'd been there for less than an hour.
"It's been two hours, nine minutes and…" Zee started to say before Ro silenced him with an icy glare. She couldn't have him spouting out such information like a computer.
"Okay, it has been a while…" Ro sighed. She knew that they hadn't spent that long talking to Bucky, so hiking around the outskirts of camp, and waiting for Bucky's cabin to come and escort them must have taken longer than she'd thought.
With Bucky and his friends on their radios again, keeping an eye out for counselors from cabin to cabin they were successfully escorted back to the trail where they'd be able to hike back into the girl's camp as if nothing had happened. "See you tonight!" Mandy waived, then turned to start hiking back.
"Tonight?" Zee asked.
"Yeah, we're going to TP Redwood. Only, we're going to do a much better job of it than what they did to us."
"Aren't you still tired?" he asked her.
"Maybe I'll take a nap after dinner or something, but right now I'm really excited so I don't feel tired."
"If you go out, I'd like to go with you," Ro commented. If they would be getting revenge on Redwood, she'd love to be a part of it.
"Anxious to see that guy again? You two seemed to be hitting it off very well, though. You dating him?" she asked.
Ro laughed slightly to herself. It was hard to tell if Mandy was teasing, or prying for information. Either way, she felt uncomfortable by the joke or the question.
"Ro would never date anyone like him!" Zee spoke out a little rashly. Both Mandy and Ro were shocked by his assertiveness. It was their shocked faces that let him know that he'd spoken out of turn. But… it'd seemed to him like Mandy had been implying that Ro might have a level of romantic interest in Bucky… It was a topic of conversation that he couldn't keep quiet about or let her talk blasphemy about. Or was it really ridiculous to think that Ro might be interested in Bucky more than as just being friends? Sure he was younger than her, but age differences were becoming a thing of the past. It might be possible that Ro could feel something for him, even though it seemed like she tried hard to avoid such impressions whenever she was around him, but maybe by denying her feelings, she was trying to hide her true feelings? He could only wonder how humans managed to deal with such emotions on a real scale, rather than on a theological level. For Ro's sake (and his) he hoped that he hadn't offended her with his comment, and that Mandy had only been joking.
He looked to Ro to see what she had to say in reply. At first she'd been shocked that he'd been so assertive about something that didn't necessarily concern himself. She'd known that he'd always been adamant to do the "right" thing and to help others out, but was very surprised to hear him speak out so defensively about such a trivial thing. But, then she couldn't help but start laughing. He was even being over protective of her feelings! It was cute.
"Did I say something wrong?" he asked sheepishly.
"No, you actually said what I was going to say!" he laughed even louder.
Mandy smiled and started laughing as well. Things had been feeling rather awkward until Ro had started laughing. "Too young and immature for you then?" she asked, turning the whole matter into a joke.
"How about too short?" Ro added.
Zee didn't make any more comments, but contemplated on how grateful that he hadn't offended Ro.
They arrived at the mess hall feeling rather hungry. While Mandy had brought the food with them they hadn't bothered to eat any of it. It made being last in line for dinner seem even longer, and the fact that they didn't get to be first in line, even worse. "Redwood's going to pay…" Mandy continued to mutter under her breath. Ro was now certain that the competitiveness of the campers was being taken to an unhealthy level.
Since they'd had a long time to wait before getting dinner, someone at their table had introduced "the cup passing game" to make the time go by faster. It was fairly easy to catch onto, and anyone who had a cup in front of them could play. The game didn't have any winners, but was a test to see how long it could be played. The game consisted of drumming rhythmic beats on the cup and table, intermixed with clapping, and stomping the cup on the table, then deftly flipping the cup over in the person's hands, while smoothly turning it over to the person on their right. This continued in a circle around the table, creating a rhythmic pattern of sounds. The game progressed by having to do the rhythms faster until someone lost their grip on the cup and knocked it over, breaking the continuous flow of cups around the table and ending the game.
The game started out slow while everyone learned the movements but by the time they were called for dinner, they'd managed to send the cups around the table at least 3 times before someone messed up and they had to start over. While the game did look catchy, none of the other campsites could participate they'd already filled their cups with water or juice, making them unable to be played with. Enviously to everyone else, this was a game that for tonight, was only for the Laurel campers.
After dinner, everyone headed to their campsites to get their flashlights, then headed over to the group fireside. There would be two skits performed this night, meaning that they wouldn't have as much time for individual campsite firesides as yesterday as things would run longer for this campfire. The camp director opened the fireside by welcoming everyone, reviewing kapers, as if someone had forgotten since she'd mentioned it last night, then by reminding the girls on only taking 15 minutes showers. While no one's clothes had been stolen, complaints that people were taking too long had reached her attention. "I'm sure it's Redwood again, "Mandy whispered to them.
Other than the fact that they'd been really rude to them on the first day here, and that they'd taken a long time in the showers, and that they'd TP'd their campsite this morning, Zee hadn't found any real reason to continue to dislike them as much as everyone else seemed to hate them. Because of their own snobbery, they were doing well to avoid contact with everyone else which didn't create any problems for him or Ro. If they kept their distance, he saw no problem in keeping theirs.
"You don't think we're being too judgmental of them, do you?" Zee asked.
"They're not being as rude this year as in past years, but I strongly feel that they deserve every prank they get."
"But, we're not taking things too seriously, are we?" he asked.
"I'm sure it's all in good fun, Zee," Ro tried to assure him, though she was thinking the same things as he was. Pranks were a part of camp. But, if they weren't mature enough to take one, such as getting TP'd, did they deserve to be playing them on other people?
The first skit sucked. There was no other way to describe it. There was no creativity, and Mandy even made the comment that the exact same skit had been done last year. "It'd sucked last year too!" she added. It was one of those skits, where even though you hadn't seen it before, you could predict the punch line—which wasn't funny to begin with.
The second skit was a little better. The campsite had decided to take the path of "drama" rather than comedy, and had created a theater production where they made up lines for a made up Shakespearian-type play and spoke in ridiculous British accents. While the whole play was lacking in about every aspect, the ridiculous accents, and over dramatized acting, as well as the fact that they were making a mockery of classical literature made it fairly entertaining. Ro didn't blame them though for only having a day to prepare such an act. Even though she didn't really know what their skit was going to be exactly, she was sure it was going to be better.
"Well, that was a little lacking. But you can't blame them. They only had a day to prepare," Mandy commented as they headed back to camp. "Ours is going to be good, though."
"Have you started on your sword yet?" Ro asked.
"No, I haven't had time to find a stick. Been with you guys all day, remember?"
"I guess that makes sense," Ro trailed off. She hated it when she blurted out obvious things. If only she thought about it for one more second she might have realized this, and have not discredited her intelligence.
"I was thinking I'd look for one tomorrow when it's light out."
"Sounds like a good plan," Zee agreed. However, he was imagining himself going out in the dark with Ro tonight looking for sticks with his night vision.
They reached their campsite, where Ro was about to grab her showering items when Mandy stopped her as she was about to grab her pajamas. "You don't want to put those on," she warned her. "If you're coming to TP with us in the middle of then night you won't want to do it in those. They'll get dirty, and it's going to be colder tonight than last night. You're not going to want to change out of your pajamas at 4:00 in the morning. And even if you did want to, it'd make too much noise."
"Thanks for the warning," Ro said, leaving her clean pajamas in her bag.
It didn't matter to Zee one way or the other. He could silently change his hologram whenever he wanted to. Ro still insisted on showering, to at least get rid of the dirt layer that had accumulated today, even if she was only going to put on her dirty clothes again.
She knew that it was going to be hard to fall asleep as she was excited about getting up early in the morning to do a raid on Redwood with Mandy and Bucky's cabin. The only thing she worried about was that if there were too many of them they would make too much noise and wake the Redwood girls up. Or what if they were expecting them to seek revenge and stayed up all night long, waiting for them to sneak up on them. Either way they'd suffer from lack of sleep or having to clean up the toilet paper the next morning.
She felt the net hammock sink lower as more weight was added. It was only Zee, climbing up as well. "You really going to go over to Bucky's tonight?" she asked.
"I thought we'd planned on it. Is something wrong?" he asked. There was a deliberate hint of concern in his voice. Was Ro having second thoughts? All she had to do was show a little regret in the plan and he'd change his mind in an instant to stay with her for the night, even if it was as simple as watching out for her while she went TPing.
"No, just making sure," she said optimistically. She'd just been asking a simple question. He'd gotten himself worked up over nothing.
"Mandy said it was going to be colder tonight. Are you warm enough?" he asked.
"I didn't think we brought any extra blankets…" she commented.
No, they hadn't. He cursed himself for having not brought any extra, though he didn't entirely blame himself entirely s it hadn't been on the list.
"Here, I've got an idea," he said, sitting upright in his sleeping bag, then climbing out of it. He began to unzip it.
"What are you doing?" Ro asked him. She then hissed in a quieter voice. "You are not going to give me your sleeping bag and sleep with nothing! That would just be screaming "I'm a robot!"
"Unzip your sleeping bag," he instructed her, ignoring her comment. He knew that humans wouldn't' be spend the night uncovered, so he couldn't appear to do so.
She was beyond arguing. She climbed out of her sleeping bag and unzipped it, wondering what it was that he had in mind. He took her sleeping bag, and found the zipper. He then held both sleeping bags face to face, and zipped them up together as one large sleeping bag. It was now queen-sized rather than twin sized. "Climb in," he offered, while climbing in at the same time.
"I'll turn up my internal heaters if I sense a decrease in the temperature outside. And, if necessary—I can open up my heat shield."
"I wouldn't risk it, even if we have the sleeping bags to shield outside viewers."
She turned over on her side to face Zee. He had a blank expression on his face as if he didn't know what to make of the situation. He'd just placed himself and Ro alone in the same sleeping bag. "You know I'd never let you get away with this if it weren't for the fact that you're wearing that silly hologram," she teased him.
It certainly had to be the fact that he looked like a girl that she would allow herself to sleep in such a close vicinity to him. It was okay for best friends to sleep this closely, but not if they were of the opposite sex. Still, as she closed her eyes, she didn't see a girl next to her, but Zee. In her mind she saw him dressed pajamas, looking at her while she slept, yet being very careful to keep his distance from her. She smiled when she envisioned Zee wearing a real pair of pajamas, but her smile lessened when she thought of the absurdity of the idea. Since when would Zee ever need to wear clothes, or actually need to sleep? Still… what if one day it was possible. And who was to say what was sane and what was not?
Zee monitored the temperature outside. It was indeed colder than the night before. He constantly scanned over Ro's body. If she showed any sign of being cold he would immediately turn up his heaters. And if those weren't enough he'd use the heater inside his chest, despite what Ro had said about someone overseeing it.
The night was quiet, until 3:45 when he heard quiet sounds from movement inside of Mandy's tent. He had to admire her for her stamina. She'd done the same thing last night, and now she was carrying on her lack of sleep from the day before as well. She didn't awake anyone from any of the other tents this time, but waited in her tent for a while. Apparently she was getting the toilet paper ready for tonight, and was inflating her mattress for when she returned. Then, the zipper to her tent began to inch down. She quietly put on her shoes, and came over to their net.
Zee lowered his head even more when he saw her coming closer, and pretended to be asleep. He hadn't thought of how Mandy was planning on waking them up, but would make things really easy on her as he was just pretending to be asleep.
Mandy's idea to wake them up was to poke the underside of their sleeping bags with a stick as she wasn't going to shout their names and couldn't let her self up to their net.
He couldn't feel the stick pressing itself into his back, but knew from the sound, and the slight movement of the sleeping bag underneath him that that's what she was doing. He quietly sat up, pretending to blink, then looked to see who it was curiously.
He looked down at Mandy and nodded, then turned to wake Ro up.
She'd been sleeping peacefully until she was woken up by someone gently shaking her shoulder. "Ro, it's time," Zee whispered quietly.
"It's not morning," she yawned.
"No. I thought you were going to go out with Mandy. She's waiting."
"Oh! Right!" Ro said sitting up quickly.
Mandy didn't immediately silence her, as it would make noise itself if she were to say anything, but made a signal with her hands that Ro was being a little loud.
As Ro climbed out of her sleeping bag she could feel the cold that Mandy had mentioned, and that Zee had protected her against. She was almost ready to forget the whole thing and tell her to go on without her just so that she could stay in her warm sleeping bag. However, no sooner had she sat up did Mandy toss her a roll of toilet paper.
Barely awake, Ro somehow managed to catch it. She was becoming more and more awake as the excitement of what they were going to do filled her. She dropped the ladder down, and carefully climbed down, with Mandy holding it for her at the base.
"Ready?" she asked.
"You bet," Ro replied.
"The boys will be waiting by the dumpsters on this edge of the camp. We'll meet them there before heading back to Redwood."
"Are you sure? What if they aren't there?"
"I don't think they'd stand us up like this, but it's always a possibility. If they aren't there then it will be just you, me, and Zee ."
"Actually, I might pass this one up. I've got some business elsewhere to attend to," Zee chimed in. He'd been so quiet Ro hadn't heard him come down from the net.
"Making secret plans without us?" Mandy pouted, but made it obvious that she wasn't offended.
"Nothing big," Zee chimed.
"Well let's go. We've already been too noisy. On our way out, no talking, silent footsteps. We'll be walking in our socks. Leave your shoes behind. I'll give you hand signals on when we move it. And whatever you do, don't laugh. Nothing gives you away more than laughing. If they wake up, you are to duck behind a tree and wait at least ten minutes before making a move again. If you immediately run away, they'll definitely know someone was there."
"Okay, I think we can easily use common sense to figure that out," Ro chimed.
Mandy didn't reply, but pointed with her finger that they were to move forward. They quietly made their way out of the camp, past all of the tents with sleeping girls in them. Being new as this prank stuff, every time a girl rolled over in her sleep Ro froze in her tracks, in fear that even someone from their own camp was about to wake. Mandy ignored these movements and the snoring sounds, as well as the occasional mumble from a sleep talker. People usually slept uneasily in a new environment which lead to lots of tossing and turning in their sleep, so these movements were to be disregarded.
As far as Ro could tell, no one was waiting for them at the dumpsters. They'd been stood up. The boys hadn't come. Zee knew better. "They're hiding," he whispered.
"Quilted with aloe vera," Mandy spoke the password, announcing their presence.
Several boys stepped out from behind the trashcan, while two poked their heads out from under the lid of the large dumpster bin. If their noise didn't wake up Redwood, surely their stench would.
They crawled out of the dumpster, being care careful when lowering the lid again. Ro was just grateful that Bucky had had enough sense not to be one of the people who had gone trash diving.
"You sure you'll be fine?" Zee asked one more time.
"Yeah, you go on ahead. I'll scream if anything goes terribly wrong," Ro assured him.
So this was it. Zee sought out Bucky amidst the boys. It was very hard as most were wearing dark clothing with ski masks on. He found Bucky by analyzing the height of each boy until he found one that matched Bucky's exactly.
"Is your computer all set up?" he asked, taking Bucky aside for a private word.
"Yeah. But there isn't much internet surveillance you can do. Most of them turned off their computers at 5:00 this afternoon. Bennet isn't going to have a graveyard shift, so if there are any on, you can eliminate them anyway. The files are all up though if you want to look through the data for any clues," he tipped Zee off. "And watch out for the trip wire. You don't want to wake the whole camp up on your way over," he added.
"Thanks," Zee said. He then broke away from the group and headed off towards the boy's camp. His night vision was on, as well as his infrared scanners. He just hoped that Ro didn't get caught on her adventure. When he was sure no one was looking he resumed his regular appearance. It would be better to appear to be a boy while in the boy's camp than a girl—and he was beginning to realize that he actually did prefer to be in a masculine form rather than a feminine one.
Mandy quietly led the group back down the main road, towards their campsite. She stopped the group, so that she could go back to her tent and begin to disperse her toilet paper collection among the party. Needless today, everyone had an armful, especially since the boys had brought some of their own. Mandy carried the toilet back and forth from her tent rather than having everyone group around it, causing a commotion.
When each person was well supplied they continued down the road in small groups. There was very little moonlight, which was bad in that that they had a hard time seeing where they were going without flashlights, but was good as it provided more cover for them. Once they came close to Redwood's camp, Mandy issued more specific instructions. "Make it pretty, but messy."
Apparently they'd already discussed who was in charge of which area of the camp, as the boys already knew where to go. Ro found herself wondering what to do with her self until Mandy tugged her arm, and guided her around the side of the camp.
They approached the first tent. Everyone was sleeping rather heavily, judging by the snores. Mandy showed Ro what to do with her first roll of toilet paper. They were draping big loopy ribbons around the tent, with big toilet paper bows on the corners. On the tents that had poles, they'd wrap the toilet paper around, striping them like a candy cane. What the boys were doing was far more evil. They were tossing the rolls high into the trees where no would could reach to be able to pull it down. It was evil indeed. Redwood hadn't been this mean to them. They'd merely run the rolls through their campsite, which being easy for them to do, had made it easy to clean up. By spending the extra time to wrap it around the tent poles they were making sure that they had a miserable time unwrapping it, or collecting all of the small pieces from where they ripped it off. Whenever Ro ran out of toilet paper, there always seemed to be another one available.
Inspired by the devilishness of the entire act, Ro felt inspired to criss-cross the toilet paper in front of the door to one of the tents. While they could easily rip through it when getting out in the morning, the fact that when the opened their door in the morning and saw nothing but a wall of toilet paper would make it worth it.
Only once did it seem like someone had woken up during their prank, but it was only for a second, and the person immediately rolled over and went back to sleep. They were safe.
Around five fifteen in the morning, things began to get light out. They'd used up all of the toilet paper, and had sufficiently covered the Redwood camp in white streamers. With the amount that Mandy had brought, and the extra rolls the boys provided they had at least four times more toilet paper than what Redwood had used on them. "Now, for the last touch," Mandy whispered. One of the boys produced a rolled up sign from under his shirt. Mandy placed it in the middle of the Redwood camp, weighting it with some rocks to make sure it didn't get carried away by a light wind. The sign read, "A job worth doing, is worth doing well."
They quietly turned around and headed back to their camp, their prank well accomplished. Their socks were black from having crept around in them all night.
"Hide your socks or rinse them out at least," Mandy warned them once they got back to camp. "They'll link you to the crime scene."
"What are you talking about? All of my socks look like this," Bucky wittily replied.
The group began to giggle, which they'd been suppressing for the entire night, but quickly quieted down. They didn't mention anything about meeting again tomorrow or anything. Ro knew that if they had, they'd already discussed it this afternoon. Instead, they separated. Bucky and his friends began to make their way back to their camp while Mandy and Ro returned to their tents.
Ro was a little concerned when she got to the net and found that Zee wasn't back. She knew she didn't have to worry about him having fallen and broken his leg, but she couldn't help but worry that agents were hiding in Bucky's camp somewhere—waiting to find him alone.
"Is Zee going to be back soon?" Mandy asked.
"I hope so," Ro replied, a sick feeling in her stomach welling up. "I'll leave the net down for h…" Ro said, stopping herself quickly. She'd almost said "him," "I'll leave the net down for her." She'd spent 3 days so far not having accidentally slipped up on his fake gender, now was not the time to mess up.
She tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. Until she knew he was safe she couldn't bring herself to fall asleep, and forget about him. She just lay there in her oversized sleeping bag, looking up into the trees above her, listening to the night sounds. But, as it was really cold, and most of a person's body heat is lost through their head, she pulled her head inside of the sleeping bag. She looked through the open end, but it was facing the wrong direction to see Zee coming. She'd have to listen carefully for him as he approached. She toyed with the idea of going out to check on him, but as it was getting closer to daylight, surely some of the early morning counselors would be waking up and would see her sneaking around. If he wasn't back by the time everyone else was waking up she'd have to go and look for him anyway, because otherwise she'd have to explain why he disappeared. Then he'd get in trouble for wandering around alone in the night.
She continued to wait, but the longer she waited, the warmer she became inside of her sleeping bag and the more heavy her eyelids started to feel. "I'll just close my eyes for a sec. I'll still be able to hear him coming," she thought.