this has to be the longest chapter I ever made, in the amount of words that is. Sorry I took a while to make. Review and favorite so I know you enjoy this.
"4 years ago… I was with at my grandfathers house. My brother, my mother my father, everyone was there. And me and my brother were supposed to live there for a few months, until my father could find us a real home to stay in. And god… I hated that place. Every night we ate fish, the ones with the small bones that when they go down your throat it scratched it and would cause a little pain.
My grandfather loved the fish and he always ate them for dinner, every night. And he picked the ones with the most bones in them…and every time he ate the fish the bones would get caught in his throat. He would start hacking and coughing, until my mother or father told me or my brother to get a bowl of water or some mango juice and give it to my grandfather. Every night he would eat the bones of the fish, and every night he would begin to choke." Huey shook his head as he spoke.
"The old man couldn't help himself though, he loved fish but the fish didn't love him. And every time he started choking on the fish my brother or myself had to go fetch some water. My family was so stressed out, when we leave how would grandpa get by? If he started his choking session if we weren't here, he would surely die. It was worst for me and my brother, we both wanted the old man to stop eating the damn fish!"
I leaned in closer to the owls story, the hollow we were sleeping seemed to grow darker as the story kept up.
"Now the reason I never ate another fish in my life I will tell. I hate fish… it was a day like any other. My brother, his name was Quincy, and myself were the only ones at the dinner table. My grandpa finished telling some story about how he used to be a star soccer player when he was my age, and more about his passion for fish. And as usual he started to choke on the bones, I was about to get up and go get the water but I didn't move… his coughing became worst and it was clear that he was in pain, he signaled for us to go get the water, but neither me or Quincy made any attempt to go get it.
We just looked at each other, then back at the old man… his coughing became violent, and he started spitting up mucus. Me nor Quincy made any attempt to get the water. He became desperate swinging his wings around as he choked. After a few more minutes the old man stopped moving. He was cold, that night my brother Quincy tucked me in bed and put himself in bed to make it seem like we were asleep during the whole ordeal. He said to me 'The old man had it coming'. Our parents were so heartbroken, and they said to the both of us that grandpa went away on a vacation and would never come back because the weather was too cold. Ever since that night, a fish never crossed my beak again", Huey finished his story.
"Goodnight, and sweet dreams." Huey said in a kind of devilish way.
He waded his way to his bed in the dark hollow.
I heard the chattering of someone's beak coming from the bed above me.
"Hey, how come Huey is tucking us intoned telling us the scary story? " Apache asked somewhere from in the hollow.
"Because I'm the oldest one here. Not to mention you guys couldn't come within a mile of my story telling. " Huey said.
"Your stories aren't that scary, okay", Ithaca said.
"Tell that to Seneca", Naomi pointed at Seneca's bed.
"Seneca is scared of her own shadow, its not that hard to gross or freak her out." Roberto pointed out.
"I-im -not s-s-scared." Seneca said her beak still clattering.
"sure, alright everybody get some rest we have a huge day tomorrow", Tuskee lectured us.
The morning. Everyone in the camp was gathered at Canarsie, breakfast was being served at a man made shelter net to the river. The shelter seemed to be some sort of human storage house but we converted it into a dining hall.
Cayuga sat at a table near a window, and immediately I lost my appetite.
"You know, if you put a little salt on it they aren't that bad!" Apache said, showing down on a fresh roasted centipede.
I shook my head and pushed my mango away from me.
Everybody else's breakfast didn't look that appetizing either.
A fried mouse for Huey, a cockroach for Onondaga and Thurgood, some kind of worm/caterpillar rotisserie for Naomi. Everyone else didn't seem to eat, or want to eat. Seneca wouldn't even touch her bowl of water (this could still be from the story Huey told earlier).
My dad came over to my table and said hi to everybody and asked how the breakfast was, but I knew he came specifically for me.
Me and him talked about normal father-daughter stuff but other than that he just left.
That's when people started to notice.
"Hey, if Jewel is the big boss's daughter. Then that means that he is more likely to help us and be more biased towards us." Onondaga said before biting on a roaches head.
Everyone at the table then just looked at me.
"Uh, well… see um my dad doesn't really do favors, you know?" I said awkwardly.
That's when the begging came, I hated that.
"Aw come on, you could tell your dad to at least give us a map of the area, or a spear to hunt with. " Tuskee said to me.
Everyone followed suit, with the please and begging.
"No I can't, that's cheating. Cheating is bad, being bad means you get disqualified. And if they catch my dad what will happen to him?" I said.
"Yeah Jewel is right, lets do this the easy straightforward way. No cheating no sideswiping no lying. " Roberto came to my defense.
"I don't remember you being a saint Roberto, but anyway we should…not cheat because… That's bad. And being bad .means we could get booted from the game." Naomi said.
A few minutes later we all stood outside waiting for the director of the camp to tell us what to do.
"Listen here everyone, I may not have introduced myself yet but my name is Luke. I am the camp director here in Canarsie. I was the one who created the hiking challenge up Mt. Erasmus, and I heard you guys had a lot of fun hiking up the wrong mountain (please don't remind me), anyway I coordinate all the activities here and we have another challenge for you guys. " Luke raised his wing. The seagull looked over all of us, he had a kind of laid back and relaxed accent. America, or Canada but he definitely wasn't from Brazil .
"Today your next challenge is to race to the finish line, but you don't have to run. We will hike through the mountains and hills of the Appalachian mountains. Once you cross that you must cross the Paerdegat river valley." Luke finished.
"Paerdegat? How do you pronounce that?" Ithaca asked.
"Then once you cross the Paerdegat river valley you will find Eduardo,and the camp assistant director, Hyde (he pointed at Hyde a tall crow who stood next to the seagull) , there you will receive a baton and you must carry it back here where there will be more adults here to check you. This journey should take no longer than a day or two, but beware there are a lot of dangers along the way. There will be obstacles along the journey and at each a adult will be stationed there waiting to give you instruction to make sure you survive. And to assist you on your journey you will be assigned a adult to lead you through the hike, Good luck and remember have fun!" Luke finished his lengthy speech and my father came up to the podium.
"Alright, we will split you all into teams. Hideaway: Cayuga, Lenape, Shawnee, Dakota, and Sioux! You guys are on team Hideaway, you are the youngest in the camp and you must work together to survive in the middle of the Appalachian mountains. Hideaway, Luke will guide you along the Appalachian trail, and he will be your instructor from then on. Good luck and safe travels." My dad officially sent us off into the middle of the jungle with a complete stranger and about 30 other kids.
Luke, a young white, male seagull held up his wing.
"Hideaway with me!"
We went over to Luke, he was at the edge of the clearing, near a trail and a big box of supplies and some other stuff.
"Hey Luke, you are going to stick with us for the entire trip?" someone from the Dakota asked.
"yeah, I kinda have to you guys don't know where to go." Luke said.
I looked at Onondaga who always carried a map but he remained silent.
Luke called us into a congregation in front of him.
"So I will be staying with you the entire way, you guys know my name and I hope I learn yours along the way. Now im sorry for the Mt. Erasmus challenge, that one was kind of not planned to well and one kid actually broke his leg on the hike and had to be taken home."
As expected there was the usual murmuring among the crowd.
"You guys must stay with me. The path is very dangerous if you don't know what you are doing",
Likes voice became deeper a little less hazy and a whole lot more serious.
"Last year we had a kid die because he was bitten by a poisonous insect after straying off the trail. I don't mean to scare you but this is serious." This shocked everyone, someone died attempting this.
Luke leaned in and lowered his voice to a whisper.
"But honestly out of the other 5 teams, I think that you guys are going to be the winners by at least a mile. So I have high hopes for this year."
The other teams were assigned and then we were off.
Luke led us into the forest, the first challenge was making our way up the hill to the beginning of the trail.
The clearing was surrounded by both sides by steep hills, the path to the top covered in rocks. We were allowed to fly but we wouldn't be able to fly far, the dense jungle would make it hard to fly around, and we wouldn't be able to fly too high either. Some tried and worked it out but they still had to remain behind Luke who had chosen the easier method of walking.
The hills cooled down. At least for now.
After about a half hour of walking my legs grew sore. I think it set in everyone's legs too.
"At this rate, I don't think we have too much farther until we can just sit down and relax", Roberto said
"What do you mean by relax? I don't need to relax, I'm not tired", Tuskee said his ego not to be outdone.
"Well if that's the case I wasn't talking about you", Roberto said once again.
"Hey Luke. How much further do we have to keep up before we stop?" I asked him.
"The first challenge should be about two or three kilometers away. Don't worry we will stop before then", Luke said, eyes set on the trail.
Apparently all the other teams went up a different path to challenge number 1, and Luke said that the way were going diverged off our main path but was faster than the original path we went along.
But faster didn't always mean better, the dirt path was incredibly narrow, tree roots, rocks, fallen trees etc. clogged the path. At this rate we were going only a little faster than we would have on the main path, so Luke made us walk faster.
The one benefit about this is that it doesn't cut through as many steep hills, rather it wraps around them on the more easy going slope so the terrain will get gradually steeper, but not so much that you have to climb on all fours.
The sun began setting and as Luke promised, we stopped. To Luke's surprise we were actually ahead of schedule. We stopped in the middle of the forest and build a shelter. There we spent the rest of the night.