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Chapter Two – Unpacking
John pushed the door of cabin 23 open and stepped over the threshold. It was a simple, square room, with two windows on opposite walls. These were hung with linen blinds. There were two wooden beds, each with a small bedside table and a large trunk at the foot of them, and two armchairs either side of the door.
Oh, and a boy about the same age as John stretched out on one of the beds.
"Hey," said John as the boy raised his head off the pillow and looked at him.
"Hey," he replied.
John walked further into the cabin and dropped his bag onto the spare bed. Then he walked over to the other boy, extending his hand. "I'm John Sheppard," he said.
The boy propped himself up on one elbow and shook his hand. He had a very strong grip. "Ronon Dex," he said.
"Nice to meet you."
Ronon just let go of his hand and lay back down. John walked back over to his bed, searching around for something to say. Ronon certainly didn't look like the quiet, retiring type – he wore torn jeans, an elbow-length t-shirt with a huge tropical flower on the front, beads round his neck and his hair was in dreadlocks. Really long dreadlocks. He must have started growing them when he was five.
John just had to get him talking.
"So, when did you arrive?" He asked.
"This morning." Nothing else. John nodded, not letting the shortness of his answer get to him. Ronon didn't sound annoyed by the questions – he just didn't have anything else to say about the subject. Fair enough.
"I only just got here – the drive was a nightmare," said John. And it had been – four hours of Rodney checking and re-checking his list of 'survival supplies', as he called them.
John opened his bag and pulled out the few posters he'd packed – they weren't too creased, which was good. There was a cork noticeboard above the head of his bed, and John unrolled his Johnny Cash poster and started to pin it up.
"How old are you?" He asked Ronon as he did so.
"Seventeen."
"Me too – I think they put people together by age," said John.
He finished putting up the poster and stepped back to admire his work. It was wonky, put who the hell cared? He quickly put up his other, smaller posters – one of famous WWII fighter planes, and another a picture of him with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Super Bowl team when he twelve, that he'd had blown up into a poster.
John looked over at Ronon when he'd finished and saw that the guy was eyeing his Johnny Cash poster with a little bit of a smirk, but the small sign of emotion disappeared very quickly. It was then that John noticed that Ronon too had put up some pictures – one was of a beach, and the other of a big house surrounded by palm trees on the edge of a beach that looked like it might be the same one.
"Is that your house?" John asked, nodding to the photo.
Ronon twisted his neck round to look at the picture, and smiled. It was a small smile, but a smile nonetheless. "Yeah," he said.
"Nice," said John. "Where is it?"
"Oahu," said Ronon. "It's right on the beach – my great-grandfather started to build it seventy years ago, and then my grand-dad and dad both added to it so it just keeps growing. It faces East, so we get the sunrise every day."
Wow. Someone likes his house. "Sounds amazing," said John. And it did – he lived in a pretty old house, but it sure as hell hadn't been built by his great-grandfather.
"Where do you live?" Asked Ronon, sitting up.
What time of year? John decided to forego the sarcastic response and embrace the fact that Ronon was asking a question at last.
"San Francisco, mostly," John replied. It's where he went to school, and his mom was from there. "It's a great city, but I guess it's a far cry from living on a beach in Hawaii."
Ronon smiled again and from then on, the conversation flowed. John had been to Hawaii enough times to have enough questions to ask, and once the subject got onto surfing, John forgot that Ronon had ever been hard to talk to – here was someone who loved surfing as much as he did. Ronon was actually very easy to talk to once you got him started, and John decided that he had lucked out on his roommate.
He wondered if Rodney was doing quite as well with his.
A gong sounded out of nowhere, followed by an announcement that it was time for dinner. John was surprised – they had been talking for a whole hour!
"Great I'm starving," said Ronon, standing up. John hadn't appreciated until that moment just how tall he was – well over six feet. John wasn't exactly short, but he felt a bit dwarfed by this guy.
"Yeah me too," said John, realising that it was true. "Let's go."
"Don't you want to finish unpacking?" Asked Ronon.
John looked down at his forgotten duffel. He opened up the trunk at the foot of his bed, upturned his duffel over it so everything tumbled out, and then shut the trunk again.
"Done," he said, standing up again.
Ronon grinned. "That's exactly how I unpacked," he said.
John chuckled and followed him out of the cabin – the door didn't have a lock, so John was glad he'd followed the instructions and not bought anything valuable with him. Rodney on the other hand…
"Hey Ronon – you know anyone else at camp?" John asked.
"Nope," said Ronon. "Why, do you?"
"Yeah," said John. "A few people, actually. But you'll meet Rodney any second – let me warn you now, he will say something to offend you, but he's alright really."
Ronon looked a little confused, but shrugged and nodded. And not a moment too soon.
"I'm going to kill you!"
John gave Ronon a rueful smile and turned to see Rodney hurrying towards them. He looked livid.
"Not only am I stuck here for two damn months because of you, but I'm living in a cabin with no facilities or even a lock on the door, without mosquito nets,with a stupid jock!"
"Hello Rodney," said John calmly as his irate friend stopped in front of him. "This is Ronon."
"Hey."
Rodney barely spared him a glance. "I'm going to call my dad right now and tell him I'm coming home – I don't care what he says," said Rodney. "And when I see you again, Sheppard, you're going to wish you'd never been born."
And with that he turned on his heel and stormed off. "Later, Rodney!" John called out cheerfully.
He turned to Ronon and rolled his eyes. "He won't leave, there's no way his dad'll let him," he said.
"How is it your fault he's here?" Asked Ronon.
John had the grace to look sheepish. "Ah, well, it kind of is… I spent like two hours telling his dad all about this place and how important the summer camp experience is for reforming wayward youths…"
"Is Rodney a wayward youth?"
"His dad thinks so."
Ronon didn't question what he meant by that, and the two of them kept walking towards the hall.
"So, who else do you know here?" Asked Ronon.
John shrugged. "Rodney's sister Jeannie's here too, and, er, there's a couple of other girls from my school as well," he said.
Unfortunately.
TBC – next we spend some time with the Lake Atlantis girls.