Authoress's Note: Wow, I actually got reviews! Thanks! I'm not really sure how to change categories unless I delete the story and restart…so it will have to stay in the Digimon/Pokemon section even though it really doesn't have any Digimon in it at all. I'm so glad at least one person likes it, as I expected it would get lost in the oncoming pour of fanfictions and no one would bother reading. Thanks for the great advice, Pete! The plan I have for the story is a bit crazy, I want to know if you think I should continue with nice and normal and maybe a little bit crazy or do you think I should go onto the planned track with totally wacko. Hopefully, you won't think this chapter is too short…so welcome:
2. Is Having the Bunk You Want Really Worth It?
As the bus zoomed off, clacking noisily. Most of the students milled around confused or stood staring at the huts. With suitcase in hand, Helena caught up to Alexa again.
"I can not believe that this is Camp Breakaway," Helena said, still in shock.
"I'm sure it won't be too bad," Alexa said, in shock as well.
"WELCOME CAMPERS! TO CAMP BREAKAWAY! AFTER RETRIEVING YOUR LUGGAGE, PLEASE MEET IN FRONT OF THE MAIN CABIN AND SEAT YOURSELVES!"
Helena eyed a bigger-but-not-any-better-looking hut that stood in the middle of the twenty.
"Er…do you think that's the main cabin?" Helena whispered to Alexa. Others rushed all around them, finding their own friends and talking or whispering as well.
"Well, seeing as everyone seems to be headed there, I think so," Alexa told Helena in what she hoped was a calm and steady voice.
Helena set off at a fast pace, catching Alexa off guard. Alexa took a deep breath and ran with her suitcase to catch up with Helena. Both Alexa and Helena took seats in the middle of the slightly dusty ground. On a wooden platform overgrown with moss there stood a girl around sixteen. She wore a tight white tank top that had, in black block letters, "CAMP BREAKAWAY". Her jeans were slightly frayed and her sneakers were more than scuffed.
"HELLO EVERYONE! I AM THE CAMP MANAGER!" she bellowed, making people sitting near the front wince or cover their ears. Helena wondered if she had even used a speakerphone before…or maybe it was just her voice? Pulling an old lady mostly in her eighties or nineties to her, the manager said, "THIS IS THE ASSISTANT MANAGER. EVERYONE, SAY 'HI' TO GRAMS."
The old granny looked as if one touch on her fragile body would make her fly away. However, she walked right up to the edge of the platform and shouted, "YEAH! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!"
She suddenly doubled over, shrieking in pain, and fainted. Most of the campers looked at each other or sucked in deep breaths. A low whispering began in the large group again.
"I guess that's where the manager gets her voice from," Alexa muttered to Helena under her breath.
Not seeming to notice that her grandmother had obviously been in pain and was currently unconscious at her feet, the manager said, "AS YOU CAN SEE, WE HAVE TOP OF THE LINE CABINS, BUT WE ALSO HAVE TOP OF THE LINE CABIN LEADERS TO LEAD THEM!"
Nineteen assorted peoples, who looked around fourteen, all stepped forwards with grins at the same time, bowed, and stepped back. All were wearing black tees that said in white block letters on the front, "CAMP BREAKAWAY", and on the back, "CABIN LEADER." They all looked happy and eager to please, but if you looked closer you could see differences. One of them, a girl, had a cheesier smile that seemed really artificial. She had a cake of makeup on and kept fiddling with her shirt with special embroidery that showed the word Xwenza, the name of a popular store. You could see genuine smiles on most of them, though. Alexa thought it would be nice if they got the sweet looking girl with lots of freckles for their cabin leader, but didn't want to jinx herself, just in case the girl happened to hide a cruel interior under that soft façade.
"CABIN ASSIGNATIONS ARE AS FOLLOWS…CABIN 1: ENNA ORATA, SERA CHILEA, CARINA PITAI, VANESSA ARUDOIR, CABIN 2: HELENA SHIMARIS, ALEXA ANTISE…"
Not bothering to listen to the rest of it, the two friends shrieked in joy. They were in the same cabin…er…hut!
"OKAY, YOU MAY HEAD OVER TO YOUR CABINS-" before the manager could finish, kids dashed in the direction of their assigned cabins, desperate to get away from the ear-splitting voice of the manager who weakly finished, "-YOU CAN CALL ME SHELLS…"
"Cabin two…cabin two…" Helena muttered.
"Hey, is cabin two counting from the left or is it counting from the right?" Alexa asked with her brow furrowed.
"Um…let's try that one!" Helena said, pointing to the cabin two from the right. They dashed quickly there, as they didn't want to get the worst bunks.
When they got there, they realized that the two other people were already inside.
"Top bunk!" Helena yelled dashing in and flinging her things on the top bunk of the one remaining bunk bed.
"Top bunk!" Alexa called as she too dashed in.
"Sorry, it's taken," a snooty and preppy girl said from the other top bunk. She was examining her perfectly manicured fingernails and her face was just as coated with makeup as the girl who had fiddled with her shirt. She was wearing designer jeans and a v-cut pale green short sleeve. She tossed her hair as a smirk appeared on her face.
Just then, the cabin leader stepped in. Just our luck, Alexa thought, we get "Xwenza girl." I must have jinxed us just thinking of her.
Upon entering "Xwenza girl's" face immediately changed from glum and disgusted to uber-happy.
"KELLY!" shrieked "Xwenza girl".
Kelly, who happened to be the "Snooty", looked up in shock. Her eyes widened visibly, "Lea?"
"Oh my gosh! I was, like, I'm going to be stuck in this stupid camp and die of boredom with all these campers and disgusting huts. OH MY GOSH! I'm so glad you're here," Lea said, pulling Kelly into a tight hug.
Meanwhile, Helena whispered to Alexa who scrambled up to the top bunk to talk to her, "It's okay; we can switch off so you can be partly on the top bunk."
"By the way, I will need a bottom bunk because I just, like, don't DO cots. It's not my thing so I will be taking this one," Lea flounced on to the bottom bunk that Alexa had got.
"EW," Lea wrinkled her nose, "This bunk is FILTHY!"
She turned to face everyone in the cabin, "Look, you guys have to clean this bunk up…well everyone except Kelly."
"Actually we don't. It says on the rules page right on the bulletin board next to you that CABIN LEADERS are to have the duty of cleaning the cabin." Helena told Lea.
"I'm the cabin leader and I say you have to clean this bunk up. It's so filthy. In fact this hold cabin is filthy! Clean the whole thing up!" Lea said, "Also, seriously, no one's ever going to know."
"I don't think we need to do cleaning," a voice piped up from the bunk under Kelly's.
"Yeah, but I'm the cabin leader. Not you. You are supposed to listen to me. Now get to work or I'll go to the owner and tell him that you're not listening to your cabin leader. You guys will get kicked out. Kelly will back me up, right?" Lea said with an offhanded wave. Kelly nodded, but the person spoke again, "You would be telling lies and the owner sure wouldn't believe you."
"If you dared to argue against me, which I think you're smart enough not to do, the owner would believe me, as a cabin leader, not you, being just a kid; he wouldn't be able to tell," Lea smiled smugly.
"I've been here a lot longer than you, Lea. Plus, the owner's my dad, and I think you just insulted him," the voice said emerging into the light. The owner of that voice was a small slender girl with straight but slightly straggly blonde hair. She wore ordinary jeans and a tight long-sleeved shirt that flared out at the sleeves. She looked model-perfect. And her fists were clenched tightly.
"I suppose you're one of those stupid idiotic losers who have to spend time with their dads over the summer because they're too pathetic to have anywhere else to go or even want to go anywhere else. Besides, what do you think you could do to me, little girl," Lea sneered at the girl, with her clenched fists.
"Oh, I think a whole lot," the girl said casually rolling up her sleeves and cracking her knuckles. Without warning, one fist struck. Hard.
"OWWWWW!" Lea said one hand clutching her stomach, where the she had been hit. She stared at the girl, "You. Hit. Me."
"Want me to do it again?" the tiny girl asked, and in a few seconds, the cabin leader was unconscious.
The girl dusted herself off; as if it were something she did everyday, and smiled gently at Kelly in a way that totally contradicted the words she spoke, "Would you like some treatment?"
By the time this happened, Kelly had paled visibly and she nervously darted her gaze all around. Gosh! Kelly thought, She can punch me from below and she might creep up the ladder when we're all sleeping and KILL me! What am I going to do? What am I going to do?
Shakily, she turned to Alexa and asked, "Er…maybe I could trade bunks with you? I noticed you wanted a top one…. and I'm REALLY sorry I was rude to you earlier…but I'm willing to trade now…."
Alexa smiled and said, "Now, why would you want that? I'm actually perfectly happy with this bed and you seemed perfectly happy with yours. I'll have to say no."
"Well…. ungh...mn" Kelly wrung her hands together while Alexa, Helena, and the girl all waited for her reply.
"I just can't take it any more! I'm leaving this stupid camp with all this crazy people who are mean to me," Kelly shouted grabbing her stuff and running out the door.
"Guess it's just us three!" the girl said warmly, "By the way, my name's Eris."
"Yeah! Hey, Alexa, you also can get a top bunk now since we don't have annoying, snobby girls to tell us what they want us to do. Thanks to you, Eris," Helena's eyes sparkled with mischief, "You can call me Helena."
"You already know I'm Alexa," Alexa said, holding out her hand. Eris shook it firmly, "Now we better call the paramedics before this…cabin leader wakes up. I don't want to be around when she does."
Saying so, she picked up the emergency phone and started talking. When she finished, she hung up. Helena hesitantly started to say something, and Eris turned to her.
"Not meaning to sound like the others, but why do you stay here for your summer when you can be elsewhere? No offense, but this place is really filthy. Also, you've already been here several times, judging from your conversation with Lea."
Eris paused thoughtfully and finally responded, "Well, I don't know. I guess I find it a great opportunity to make new friends here and I won't take offense about how sanitary the facilities are, but I will tell you that we are trying to get more customers so we can replace these old…huts…and people might enjoy it more."
Alexa, drawing the conversation to a more cheerful note, asked, "If you've been here already, could you please tell us the camp schedule…Helena and I just signed up after seeing the pictures and the title, "A Step Into the Wilderness". It just sounded cool."
Eris smiled and she said, "Usually we would start with the nature hike. You Poke-watch and see if you can find any Pokemon. You ask your cabin leader about the creatures and it's sort of a contest between who can spot the most. However, today we heard on the radio that there's some sort of rockslide on the mountain, and we don't want anyone to get lost or hurt just in case. Instead, today we're getting our Pokemon we are to train and spend the time we would on the hike, "getting acquainted.""
"When will that be?" Helena questioned excitedly. She could not wait to get her Eevee. She would choose a nice one of course so that it would be easier to train.
Shells's loud voice suddenly blared out, "WE WILL BEGIN THE POKEMON AQUAINTANCE NOW. I AM PICKING A RANDOM CABIN WHICH I WILL USE A CARDBOARD BOX TO CHOOSE FROM…WILL CABIN TWO PLEASE COME TO THE POKECENTER?"