Chapter 2: Preparations
So, Raz and Lili are going camping, Milla is, apparently, at Whispering rock, and Linda and Sam are together. I wrote a one-chapter story about that once. It was dumb, but I think the Level 100 skit needed more because it was SO DUMB. You can see it at One of the links there should take you to the skits, where you can see that one.
Planning for camping only takes a couple of hours, unless you're in a Girl Scout troop, because then it takes about six two-hour meetings. Or maybe more. I lost track.
I noticed my last chapter didn't have a disclaimer. I'm really, REALLY sorry. I'm going to change it right after I update, but I just forgot in my rush to type up another chapter. So, I don't own Psychonauts, and I'm really sorry I forgot. For this chapter, I don't own Trader Joe's, Junction Campsite, Juniper Campsite, Sterno fuel, Power Bars, or any other random things you might find in here. I don't think I have to do a disclaimer for Mt. Diablo.
It was finally Easter Sunday morning. Not that she cared. She did care, however, that today was the day they were going camping. Raz was at the house that her family stayed in most of the time, in the Bay Area in California. She, Raz and her dad were doing all the last-minute planning.
"Okay. So we're going to have pizza tonight. What are we going to have tomorrow night?" Silly Truman. Trying to keep two ten-year-olds organized.
"Maybe some Trader Joe's frozen thing. Like, the mushroom risotto or something." Really. It's good.
"Uh… Sorry if I sound dumb, but who's Trader Joe?" Raz wouldn't know Trader Joe's, huh?
"Trader Joe's is a chain of food stores. They sell good food." She was thinking of that "Slate of Bliss" chocolate when she said that.
"Oh."
"Yeah. Are you okay with that, dad?"
"Sure. I'm not sure it's going to stay frozen, though."
"It just has to stay cool. It'll work. Trust me."
"Okay." He wrote down "Trader Joe's – frozen" on the list he was making of food to bring.
"Do we want some sort of meat with that?"
"Sure. They have a meat section. Maybe we could find some sausages or something."
"Actually, I'd prefer not." She was so stupid. Of course Raz wouldn't want… even if it was half a year ago, the "Meat Circus" would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.
"Okay. So, no meat. Let me guess. Ground-up bunnies?"
"Actually, yeah. I'd prefer not to talk about it."
"Whatever. So, cross that off, dad."
"Okay. Anything else you kids can think of?"
"S'mores." The camping essential. Actually, she and a couple of her sisters and Raz had made s'mores over a little can of "Sterno" fuel. They were actually pretty good. The fuel itself was pink. Or magenta. Whatever. And there was blue fire over it. Well, they weren't trying to be healthy.
"Okay." Truman put "S'mores" on the list, with little lines connecting it to "chocolate," "graham crackers," "marshmallows," and "firewood/kindling." Good to think of every possibility.
"Okay. Anything else? We've got pineapple chunks, milk, and pizza for dinner tonight. For breakfast tomorrow, we have hot cereal, bananas, and orange juice. For lunch, we have sandwiches and dried fruit. Then, for dinner the second night, we have mushroom risotto and more dried fruit with milk. For breakfast on Tuesday, we'll be back here. Any problems with that?"
Raz and Lili both shook their heads.
"Okay. So, what do we want on the pizza? Mushrooms? Do you like pizza with mushrooms, Raz?"
"I don't care. When you live in a gypsy caravan for ten years, you kind of stop caring how good the food is, as long as it's food."
"Okay. So, a large mushroom pizza." He pulled out the Yellow Pages from a shelf, which also held school directories from many years ago.
About two minutes later, after calling about five different pizza places, he finally found a place that was open.
"Hello? I'd like to order a large mushroom pizza. Zanotto. Uh, yeah, z-a-n-n-o-t-t-o. Truman. Okay, when can I pick it up? Okay, and, uh, where are you? Okay. Thank you. Bye." Then, turning to the kids, "Let's go to Trader Joe's. Or, let's actually look here first."
After about two minutes, they had hot coco mix, bananas, jerky, Power Bars, and orange juice, along with ice in the big Styrofoam cooler to keep their sandwiches, fruit products and milk cool.
Later
"Okay. Is that everything?"
"Why don't you consult your magic list?"
"You can stop that now, Lili."
"Okay. Whatever."
Raz, who was obviously bored, followed them out of the store. They put some of the stuff in the cooler, stashed the rest in the paper bag that everything else was in, and set off for the pizza place.
"Mr. Zanotto? I read the paper wrong, so we accidentally made an extra large instead of a large. Is that okay?"
"Uh, I guess it can't hurt."
"Okay. We won't charge you for it, so you'll still be paying for a large. It'll be about five or six minutes, though."
"Okay. Thank you."
They headed for the nearby garden supply store, asked for firewood, found out the store didn't carry it anymore, and walked back to the pizza place.
"Okay. Here's your pizza. Sorry we mixed up your order, though."
"It's okay." He payed her.
"Okay. Thank you. Happy Easter!"
"Happy Easter."
They put the pizza in the front seat of the car since Raz and Lili were sitting in the back. They were all surprised that it fit.
Finally, they were at the campground. Some high schooler was doing stuff at Juniper for her senior project, so they were camping at the Junction campsite.
"From now on, kids, you can't use any of your psychic powers. Which site do you guys like?"
"I like the second."
"I like the second, too. It's kind of isolated, and it looks like it has a lot of space."
"Let's go up and look at it." He pulled into the parking spot marked "2."
Lili pulled on her waterproof jacket and opened the car door. It closed. "Dumb angle," she muttered under her breath. She pulled it open, held it with her foot, and let it close on Raz. Then she laughed at him.
They walked up the little path.
"This looks good. Doesn't look like there's that much plain dirt, though."
"No, there is. Over here. It'll be fine."
"Okay. Let's go back to the car and get the tent. You kids get the tarps."
It was drizzling.
The three of them set out the first tarp, which accumulated a lot of little droplets of water in a couple seconds. They looked at each other. They didn't mean to, but they all told each other telepathically, Let's eat dinner first.
They took all the equipment back to the car, piled it in the trunk, and got back in the car. They ended up going to the summit, where they took the pizza and three folding chairs to the Observation Room. They put the pizza box on the big pedestal in the middle, unfolded the chairs, and had their cold mushroom pizza while chatting and looking out the windows, which didn't really have any purpose because, apart from the snow that was blowing onto the windows, they couldn't see anything because they were in the middle of a cloud. It was odd that it was snowing, though. It was the middle of spring, and the snowy season on the mountain was really short.
During the time that they were eating their pizza, some foreign people and a biker came in. The foreign people wanted to find a place to have coffee, and the biker was having a race with his friend. They had a third of a pizza left afterwards. Then they went back down to Junction, where the second campsite still hadn't been taken, and where it had stopped raining, and they set up the tent and waterproof stuff. Then they took all their stuff up to the tent, set up the camp stove with a new bottle of propane, and boiled some water for hot coco.
Yeah, this is the shortened version. We also spent a couple minutes getting kindling wood, then we grabbed some old newspapers, just in case. And we didn't bring anything for s'mores. But we did have a chocolate bunny the second night. It was solid Cadbury chocolate, so we didn't have that big of parts. I had the ears and my dad had the head. That was good chocolate.
Question for people who read Rescue: Should I do a story about Zig? I've got some good ideas. And it could have Whispering Rock. It cold show why people don't like psychics. I mean, I might be kind of nervous around someone who could read all my random thoughts, but it's mean not to accept people for things they can't control, which is the point of Zig.