Sheezy presents… a fire, slightly childish culmination of a story

…

If you had told me – before I was unceremoniously stuffed into my parents' car, dropped off at summer camp along with my closest pals while our families slinked away to a summer-long getaway cruise – that my summer would turn out to be anything like this?

I probably woulda laughed dead in your face.

But now?

(Music: The Bucketheads – The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind))

"Lemme hear you say, 'Yo, baby, yo, baby, yo!"

"Yo, baby, yo, baby, yo!"

I wasn't sure where I even was amongst the mass of people crowded around the tiny stage that was supporting a lotmore people than it was probably made to hold. My throat was scratchy and raw from screaming lyrics and responses into the night air for the past hour.

"To the girl next to ya…!"

I looked at Tootie, cheeks absolutely aching from grinning for so long. I gave her a wink and wrapped an arm around her joyful form as we, with the rest of the camp bounced and yelled back-

"Yo, baby, yo, baby, yo!"

The dirt beneath us actually shook every time we landed from jumping to the rhythm of the… otherworldly music filling up my ear-holes. I'm definitely not the poetic type, but the things those guys up there were playing, what they were making-

"Ladies!"

"Yo, baby, yo, baby, yo!"

The girl with the snow-white hair on guitar flipped her locks around gracefully, face completely clam and engrossed into the groove her and her friends were blaring into the airwaves. The black guy with the asymmetrical braids, in comparison – and AJ says I never learn anything! - was playing the drums with a type of skill and infectious energy I'd never seen before.

"Fellas!"

"Yo, baby, yo, baby, yo!"

The shy girl with pigtails surrounded by other people from the camp hyping her up, danced daintily with a bass in her small hands, sticking closer to the main table. The redheaded guy on piano seemed to be in another world entirely – his head and neck bobbed up and down rhythmically, fingers tapping along at a mile a minute. The music began to swell up and quicken. I looked around at the people starting to form small open circles, everyone literally trembling with excitement and brimming to the rim with barely-restrained energy.

The pretty black girl with the curly hair and square glasses was doing some seriously fancy scratching on the turntables. She grinned ecstatically as she spun back the black wax and stopped it once more, her other hand flying like lightning over the horizontal switch that turned the sounds from the record on and off.

"I better see some Got-damned circles open upppp! Everybody get low, right now!"

And finally, the colorfully dressed black guy on the mike flew across the stage, grovelling out demands to the crowds on the stage and below him with boundless, child-like stamina. The music sped up and the guy turned around and got low to the ground on one knee, his flowy button up pooling around his foot.

"Now when I turn around, I better see absolute chaos. 5!"

I was shoved into the middle of the moshpit and immediately panicked. I couldn't survive this!

"4!"

I tried to squeeze my way back in but the wall of people couldn't budge.

"3!"

I looked around and braced myself. If I was gonna be in this pit, I wasn't gonna go out like a baby!

"2!"

I smiled, the power from the music giving me the same untouchable giddiness the guy on the stage commanded.

Yeaaaaaah!

And then all hell broke loose.

…

How did all this even happen?

…

"Are you guys sure it's too late to cancel on this thing?" I pleaded. "I don't mind staying home 'till you guys get back home from your cruise!"

"Oh don't be silly, Timmy," Mom said from the front seat, smiling. "We can't possibly expect you to stay in the house until summer ends!" Dad nodded with a mirroring grin, weaving our old station wagon through the sunset-kissed highways. "Your mother's right, son. I mean, what could you possibly do for three months on your own anyways?"

I looked down at the pink and green button pins on my backpack, who gave me a wink. I held back a grin – if they only knew…

"Besides, all your friends are gonna be at Camp… er, what was the name, honey?" Dad asked with a sheepish smiile.

"Camp Etienne, dear."

"Yeah, what your mom said!"

"Your dad does have a point for once, sweetie," I heard Wanda's voice comment inside my head. After being my godparents for almost seven years, we'd figured out how to do certain things so that I didn't look like I was losing my marbles talking to inanimate objects. Neat, huh? "It'll be at least a little fun with AJ and Chester and Chloe-"

"And Tooootie!" Cosmo's giddy voice teased, flashing a suggestive grin at me from his spot on my backpack strap. I felt my face heat up and I looked out the window. "Aw, s-shuddup, Cosmo. She's probably gonna be on the girls' side or whatever," I meekly replied. Wanda gave me a knowing look that all moms seemed to have the ability to make their sons – or in my case, godsons – highly embarrassed. Mine happened to be very good with it.

My godparents were only trying to make me feel better. They never said it out loud, but they knew how much it bothered me that my parents still treated me like a second option. Even if they never showed it, they knew how sad it made me that they didn't even consider bringing me with them on their cruise.

The longer I gazed out my window at the hills and cars passing by, I felt myself starting to get drowsy. A warm blanket silently appeared over me and I looked over to see Cosmo smile at me, right before he closed his eyes and began snoring. "At least I got one set of parents who puts me first," I said in a bittersweet thought.

And so I napped.

/

By the time I woke up, we'd gotten to the camp entrance and I was positively miserable.

Since I was stuck there 'till the week before school started – and this camp didn't waste any time getting started, it started the week before school ended, too – I was stuck with lugging around nearly four months worth of clothes. Once I'd finally gotten my bags and stuff out of the car and into a comfortable resting position – comfortable because I didn't have 47 pounds worth of clothes in my arms – I gave my mom and dad a long hug before they giddily hopped in the car and sped off, the car's stereo blasting island music back down the way they came.

That stung a little bit.

"Timmy!" I heard a raspy feminine voice call me excitedly. I turned back around and almost got tackled to the ground in a bear hug by the diminutive, but power-packed form of my girlfriend.

"Jeez, Tootie, leave some of him for the rest of us!" Chester's lax vocals commented, mirth bubbling in his words; he, AJ, Chloe, Trixie and Veronica were all happily heading toward where I was currently locked in a Tootie-Trap. I immediately felt myself grin once I saw my friends all gathering around me. "Guys! I almost forgot you were stuck here with me too," I replied, hugging Tootie back tight.

"Duh!" Veronica sassed with a smile. "This is only, like, the most exclusive summer camp in California." Trixie rolled her eyes, "That's code for 'My parents dumped me off here for the summer' for those unfamiliar with Veronica Speak." The blonde stuck out her tongue childishly, earning giggles and restrained chuckles from everyone.

"When did you get here, man? We've been waiting for an hour to get inside the camp," AJ asked grabbing one of my bags for me.

"I just touched down a second ago. You guys really been waiting that long?" Chloe gave an exhausted nod, swiping at some sweat that threatened to drop down into her eyes. "It's hot as the dickens out here, Tim. You're lucky you haven't stood out here for as long as us."

Suddenly, as if on cue, there was a resonating gong sound that rang through the air. The gates groaned and sluggishly swung out, rocking and trembling the ground and gravel beneath them. Out of the shadows walked a physically intimidating Black man, strangely dressed in… a chef's uniform?

"Alright, maggots!" The man yelled, shutting us all up with the timbre of his deep voice. "You six are the last ones we're waiting for. Don't got a lotta time to waste so let's hop to it! Grab whatever you brought with ya and follow me! Hang behind and you will be left behind!"

Me and my friends shared a look and scrambled to get our bags and follow the mystery chef man into the camp.

/

"There's something very familiar about this place…" I heard Wanda ponder. "What was the name of this camp again, sport?"

"Camp Eh-tee-something," I replied mentally, strained under the weight of all my clothes. At least I wasn't carrying Veronica and Trixie's too like Chester and AJ," I thought, wincing at the sight of my friends trying their best to not be smushed under Trixie's entire shoe collection.

"Hey, that sounds kinda like that place in Fairy Lore that only appears once a blue moon or something like that," Cosmo commented, enjoying himself by discreetly transforming into zippers and patches on my backpack. Wanda's eyebrow rose in surprise. "You actually remember studying that in Fairy Elementary?"

"Yeah! The Fairy Tales class was always my favorite section. Didn't have to be too smart to read bedtime stories," He said with a sheepish grin.

"What's he talkin' about, Wanda?" I asked.

"Well…" She started, "In the old days, there was a legend of a place called Eta. It showed up once every seven hundred years and gave heroes from all over a place to go and rest their weary bones in a peaceful, musical paradise, if only for a little while.

"The keepers of Eta were six musicians, all of whom where skilled in different instruments. It's suspected that they were angels in disguise, and that by allowing heroes to rest at their paradise they were able to share their peace through music that touched their hearts and souls."

"Woah." I replied. "So what happened?"

"Nobody knows," Cosmo spoke up. "The last time it was seen was way before me or Wanda were even born! Even back then it was still considered a legend."

"...Cosmo, you are one strange individual."

"My head's full of chicken fingers and soap!"

"There's the man I married."

"Uh, guys?"

Once we reached the crest of the mountain of a dirt hill in the woods we had to climb, the camp was finally in view. And oh, boy, was it a view.

I'd never seen a place so pretty and huge before in my life. A river flowed directly down the middle, sparkling in the gleam of the lowering sun. From above it looked like its own miniature city, complete with apartments (bunks), a center hangout spot, the works. The tall pine trees circled around the camp like an enclosure, an oasis among nature itself. Way back in the distance was a gigantic flat space and a stage in the back, and across the way next to it was an actual, physical beach!

"Holy shit!" Chester exclaimed.

"What he said," Tootied breathed.

"Welcome to Camp Etienne, ladies," The chef man said. "Now, if you'll kindly make your way down to where your other camp-mates are waiting, we can finally get this show on the road!"

"Wait! How are we supposed to get down?" Chloe asked. The man smiled deviously and walked next to the edge. "Same way everybody does."

And then he stepped off.

We gasped in horror and rushed over to edge of the cliff, only to see the burly man sliding down the world's biggest water slide and into the crowd where the rest of the teenagers waited at the bottom. Once they saw us, the campers below all began cheering for us to make the jump. I looked back at Trixie, who looked terror-stricken. As soon as she saw the look in my face, she frowned and crossed her arms. "Don't."

I smiled innocently. "Don't what, Trix?"

"Timmy Turner, I swear to God-"

I shared a look with Chester and Tootie and grinned excitedly.

"I am not going down that slide, I just got this skirt last weeeeeeeek~!"

Suffice to say, we grabbed our bags and followed after our now very-wet friend, whooping with laughter the whole way down.

Maybe this summer wouldn't be as bad as I thought.