A New Life in San Francisco
A/N; Just a quick note to anyone that know the San Francisco area. I live just west of London, England and therefore don't really have clue about the west coast of America. Therefore multimap showed this as an isolated lake and therefore it's what I am using.
Chapter 7; Setting up Camp
San Luis Reservoir
James glanced back through the length of the yellow school bus over the twenty-nine children ranging from one five year old to the two sixteen year olds that James and Chris had found trying to pick the lock on Michael's room.
He looked back at Chris who was seated beside him just behind the driver of the bus. He hadn't argued with Paige against the impromptu trip even if he'd have to look after so many children unexpectedly. Kevin sat down by the door well on the pull out seat talking to the driver whilst on the other side of the isle sat Alan and Jazz, the two sixteen year olds.
James had his laptop on his lap flipping through the files that Paige had placed on a CD for him for reference. He had spent the last half a day going between reading the files to get to know the children to getting to know either Kevin or Chris, depending on who was sitting next to him. Chris and Kevin both made an effort to get to know Alan and Jazz but James, having set up next to the window, didn't try to talk to them directly but instead kept an ear open to their conversations with the two older men.
James wasn't that knowledgeable when it came to what his feelings were. He had always just ignored them in favour of something else more pressing and he had been feeling very uncomfortable around Chris since he had realised he really couldn't ignore the attraction he felt toward the twenty-one year old he kept running into.
It made him very nervous. Should he just go with the feelings and risk being betrayed again or play it safe? He wasn't even sure if Chris liked him back in the same way. There was also something that bothered him. His instincts screamed at him that Chris was hiding something, that he had always been hiding something.
But then again, so was he. Was that any better?
Over the trip he sorted through the children's files trying to find those that would have been effected the most by whatever had happened in that god forsaken orphanage. Alan and Jazz had automatically gone onto that list. He added nine of the other twelve year olds since they had all been at that orphanage since a young age. The others had either not been at the orphanage long enough to have been severely effected or were too young to have had the warden's attentions. He'd obviously make sure to talk to all of them anyway just in case, but those were the ones who could be permanently scarred for life if they didn't receive enough help now.
One thing he had noticed though with the kids, and pointed out to Kevin and Chris, was that there were no outcasts. In all orphanages there were those that were left out our bullied. But in this group nobody was left alone, they had all bonded together, most likely against the warden. The most obvious evidence of this was Jazz and Alan. They had been quiet most of the journey. James had spoken to them a bit to check details against the records about the other children but never questioned them about their own experiences. Not yet. They were both too bewildered by the sudden change in their lives.
They stopped at a restaurant near the reservoir to eat dinner, all paid for by social services by one of the payment cards that Paige had given both him and Kevin for the two weeks to pay for the expenses. He kept an eye out throughout the meal as to what sort of groups the children split into. The children had been sat at tables of six for the meal, so there were five tables of children. James noticed with a smile that Alan and Jazz had taken in the two youngest children so that the others could talk to their friends.
Luckily at the farm they would have two bunk houses at their disposal, one for the boys and one for the girls. The camp had agreed that putting other children from summer camps with them wouldn't be good for them so they would all have plenty of room.
James, Chris and Kevin sat at a table off to the side of the group so that they could keep an eye out at all times but not intrude. Kevin had also pointed out that since the table was between the children and the only open exit to the room none of them could escape unnoticed.
The three of them, all about the same age, at their dinner with a continuous conversation running and for the first time since making friends with Sam and Jackie he found himself relaxing around someone new. Chris talked all about his family telling James and Kevin all about his brothers and sisters, and his cousins, though Kevin had already met Paige's children and some of the others. It was interesting to James who had never known such a happy family except for the Weasley's who he definitely didn't want to think about any time soon.
It turned out that Chris had not only the older brother Wyatt but also two younger sisters. Prue was 16 and Anna was 14. James already knew from P3 that he had two married aunts. Phoebe had three children, a girl, Patience of 16, and two boys, Felix and Jason, 15 and 13 respectively. Paige had three boys, one of which was adopted and two girls. Joshua was the oldest apart from Chris and Wyatt at 17. Then there was Luke of 15 and the adopted boy Matt, the youngest of the cousins at only 10. The two girls were Pennie, Luke's twin and Ashley at 13.
James was amazed that Chris could remember so many ages let alone all of their birthday but he managed to recite both easy enough. He supposed that that's what happened when there was a full four or more years between Chris and the others.
When Kevin had asked why there was the four years in between him and Joshua and five between Chris and his younger sister. Chris had stumbled upon trying to answer. James put it up to him just not really having thought about it much before but eventually he just told them that it was because his parents had separated for a while hence the gap between him and Prue, and his aunts just hadn't gotten married that early.
James himself was put on the spot by Kevin once the older man was bored of listening about Chris' extensive family and James had found himself having to tell them that his family had been killed and that he hadn't been able to trace anybody else in his family. Kevin had then proceeded to end the uncomfortable spot by endeavouring to embarrass both James and Chris with insinuations as to their sexual preferences. James had just ended up going incredibly red whilst Chris just spat his newly drunk mouthful of lemonade across the table.
Kevin on the other hand had just burst out laughing before saying a quick "Thought as much" before unsuccessfully dodging Chris' playful slap on the arm.
"Looks like you've managed to embarrass him, Kevin." Chris had said joining in with embarrassing James. James had just told them both to shut it before continuing with his meal though highly embarrassed throughout though he was pleased with that fact that Chris hadn't denied being gay, which heartened James immensely.
They spent two hours in the restaurant until they had to get on the move again. James got Kevin to call the camp warden to warn them that they were only ten minutes away. The trip was short and the younger children were almost completely asleep due to their full stomachs and rather eventful day.
When they pulled in front of the administration building it was already starting to get dark. James, who had spent the last ten minutes of the ride in the pull out seat partly to avoid sitting next to Chris after the dinner conversation, got up and turned around to Alan, Jazz, Chris and Kevin.
"Could you see that they are all awake and know where we are, while I go see the director?" James asked whilst avoiding the use of the word warden.
He stepped off the bus after receiving nods from the four and was greeted warmly by an older woman with a smiling expression. "Good evening, I assume you were the psychologist that Paige said to expect." James nodded. "My name is Miranda."
"You are a welcome sight after half a day in a school bus." James laughed, not made uncomfortable by the older woman. "My name is James Evans."
"How about I jump on and show you around to the bunk houses?" Miranda offered, "The two I've put aside are a bit out the way and difficult to find in the dark if you don't know where to look."
"That would be great. I can give you all the forms that Paige sent along." James said as he allowed her on first.
As the bus trundled along in the darkness the children were slowly woken as James pulled out the thirty forms. "We've only got the twenty-nine with us at the moment but hopefully the thirtieth will be along in a few days."
"Yes, Paige mentioned as such." Miranda took the forms. "I'll need yourselves and the two other adults to fill in a form but that can be done once you are settled in. Paige warned me that it would be three male adults and whilst that isn't really a problem she asked me to offer you our resident nurse to stay in the staff bunk in the girls bunkhouse in case they need her."
"That would be great, if you don't mind however I will need to talk to her beforehand." James compromised, not wanting an unknown around twelve possibly distraught girls.
Miranda laughed at his apologetic tone, "Don't worry, she thought you'd say that. She is already moved in and will come and chat with you as soon as you send for her. The larger bunkhouse can be used by the boys since there is an office room you can use and a four bunk room separate to the main room that you three can use."
It was only a short trip and like the warden said, the two huts were indeed isolated. They were on the edge of the lake with trees on the other three sides of the small clearing. The two huts, or more like long houses, sat at angles to the water so that their sides made a triangle with the lake shore making up the third side. On the sandy, twenty foot wide, beach was a circle of study trees cut down to make benches around a well used camp fire. Between the two huts was a small brick hut that was obviously like a kitchen house but wasn't large enough to cater for the whole group, but for things like lunches and drinks. Apart from two large lamppost either side of the road into the compound there were lights strung across the sides of the three huts, casting a dull festive glow over the whole scene.
"Miranda?" James asked, "Could you possibly help Kevin get the girls settled in whilst myself and Chris get the boys in."
"Sure, James." She replied with a smile. "What do you want me to tell Lucy?" She asked referring to the resident nurse.
"She can come and see me straight away if she wants." James returned the smile, "Mind you, tell her it is only a chat?"
When the bus pulled to a stop between the two buildings, James stood up to address all of the, now awake, children. "Ok, guys. This is our home for the next two weeks. Once everyone's off I want all the girls to follow Kevin and Miranda here. All the boys follow myself and Chris."
With that he turned and followed Miranda off and then stood to the side as the bus driver started pulling duffel bags off of the coach. James pulled aside his own along with both Chris and Kevin's before the children started to search out their own. Once all of the bags were claimed James raised his voice to get the boys to follow him into the slightly larger hut as Miranda and Kevin led the girls over to the other hut.
As they entered the hut through the side double doors, Chris found the light switch and flipped it on filling the room with light. The first room was lined with bunk beds on both walls. James and Chris moved off to the side to allow the children to find bed.
"How about we go and find our beds?" James asked and then turned to the side as Chris went slightly red in the face. The walked the length of the room to reach a single door with two arrows on it, one pointing left and the other pointing right. The left one had the words 'washroom' written on it whilst the other had 'staff' written on it. He went through and then turned right. There was another door between the two side doors that said exit but both of them ignored that one and walked into the staff quarters. There were two bunk beds in the room along the right wall and the wall they had just walked through. On the left was a door with the word 'Office' inscribed on it.
James dumped his bag on the top of the bunk on the right since he was undoubtedly the smallest of the three men. Chris took the bottom bed on the same bunk and dropped Kevin's stuff, which he had carried in for the social worker, onto the other lower bunk and then with a smile to Chris walked through into the office with his laptop bag whilst Chris offered to grab all of his paper files that were in a small satchel bag. The office was simple, there were two small windows looking out the end of the hut toward the lake with a door between them so that people didn't have to walk through the staff only room.
There were four chairs in the room, one behind a simple desk, the others against the right hand wall. A map of the camp was pinned against the inside wall with a small red dot marking the location of this compound and on the left wall was a sturdy looking, two draw, filing cabinet. James dropped the laptop on the desk and removed the data disk that Paige had given him and walked over to the filing cabinet. He took the files from Chris and put them in the top draw along with the disk so that nobody but the adults could get to them and then closed and locked the cabinet, putting the key into this pocket.
Chris stayed in the staff room to unpack his own belongings whilst James went to check on the children. Alan had set up his few belongings on the bunk on the first bunk closest to where James, Kevin and Chris would be sleeping and the children had all taken the lower bunks along the length of the room with no real pattern to age groups.
"Is everything going ok?" He asked Alan who was busy trying to get a cover over duvet of his bed.
"Yes Sir." Alan replied sheepishly as was the way with all of the children.
"Call me James. I'm only four years older than you after all." James forced a nervous laugh.
"Yes Sir." Alan said with a grin, looking up to meet his eyes. James really did laugh that time drawing the attention of some of the children around him. Just as James was about to continue their impromptu conversation the main doors opened again and a woman in her early thirties walked. She looked around and then noticed him standing at the end of the hall and headed towards him.
"Hi, I'm the resident nurse, Lucy." She interrupted James from speaking by lifting her hand which to James' surprise had Kevin's cell phone in it. "It's your boss. Kevin asked me to bring it over to you."
"Oh right, Thanks." James took it from her before heading back out into the corridor and through to the office with Lucy following him. Lucy stopped to have a chat with Chris but James headed through to the office immediately putting the phone to his ear as he went. "Hiya? Paige?"
There was a scuffle on the other end as someone picked it up and pressed a button, he had obviously been on speaker phone on the other end. "Hi, Is that James?"
James, not recognising the child's voice, just made an affirmative noise as he plugged in his laptop one handed. There was another scuffle as someone look the phone before Paige's voice came through the phone. "Sorry, that was Luke, my second eldest son." She apologised, "I just called to find out how everything is going."
"Everything is fine so far. We arrived about fifteen minutes ago and the children are just unpacking. I'm going to get a campfire going tonight and explain everything to them and let them get to know us properly before they go to bed." James explained.
"Good, I just got a call from one of the nurses at the hospital." Paige explained. "Michael regained consciousness almost straight away. Your first examination was more or less correct. He had minor internal bleeding in his right lower leg and a hairline fracture to his left arm. The rest of his cut and bruises weren't dangerous once they stopped bleeding. They are going to release him tomorrow morning."
"Is he going to be able to get here?" James asked.
"Yeah, I've got the day tomorrow to come over but I cant stay long since I need to get back to look after the children in the evening since Phoebe has a work thing and Piper has an inspection at the club." Paige explained before answering James' question before he had managed to ask it. "Both things are something the husbands want to help with."
"You know Paige there are enough spare bunks here, even for all of the children in your three families." James suggested and then cut her off in turn before she could refuse. "The social services are paying for the buildings as a whole, not per child. It their summer holidays after all."
"You're the psychologist." Paige said. "Will the orphanage children be able to handle ten children?"
"Of course, as long as you warn them not to bring up the orphanage or mention anything along those line whilst they still don't know them." James assured her.
"I'll talk to the others and I'll let you know later on." Paige assured him. "I'll see you tomorrow one way or the other."
"Ok, bye." James closed the phone ending the connection. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned around however as Lucy was standing right behind him. "Sorry about that. Did Miranda tell you about Michael?"
"Yes, she explained everything." She walked forward and James shook the offered hand with a forced smile. The woman reminded him too much of his aunt to be completely sure of himself.
They chatted for ten minutes, discussion everything from Lucy's experiences with children at the camp all the way to these thirty children's needs. At the end of the conversation James took his leave to find the others. Walking into their bunk room James found both Kevin and Chris talking together with Miranda.
"The girls are settled in fine." Miranda told them, "I'm going to head back with your bus driver. You've got my number if you need anything at all."
"Just to warn you, we should be getting Michael here tomorrow and possibly Paige's children too." James told Miranda but directed it for everyone in the room since all the adults were there.
Miranda nodded and left the room to return to the bus whilst James settled down with a sigh on Chris' bunk. "Kevin," James started to organise, "Could you go set up the supplies in the pantry building?"
"I'll help him." Lucy offered knowing the buildings better.
"Since it's still only eight I'm going to get a fire going down on the beach. If you could get some hot chocolate going and then bring it down that would be excellent." James asked before the two left the room and received smiles in return. "I think we owe it to Alan and Jazz to let them know what it up with Michael before we tell everyone. Could you pop over to the girls hut and ask Jazz to come over here, then take the girls down to the beach?"
"Sure thing, James." Chris said with a warm smile making James feel butterflies in his stomach at the look. "I'll make sure they wear whatever warm things they've got."
James followed Chris out of the room but instead of following him out of the smaller exit he went into the main room. He looked around at the seventeen boys and grinned at one of the youngest boys before heading down to the other end where he could see Alan talking to a group of small boys. Alan saw him coming and stood up.
James stopped a few paces away and Alan left the small boys in the hands of one of the fifteen year olds. "What's up?" The boy asked him.
"We're all going down to the campfire for a while for hot chocolate. Can you get all the boys organised and follow the girls down. Chris will be down there. I need to talk to both you and Jazz as soon as she is over here though before we go down." James explained as well as possible. Alan nodded simply. "Have you found the staff room yet?"
"Sure."
"Once Jazz is here just come on in." James finished with a smile before leaving the boys to leave in peace. He made his way back to their room to sort his own belongings out. By the time he had finished setting up his bed there was a double knock on the door. "Come in." He announced loudly.
"You wanted to see us, Sir?" Jazz asked.
"I'm only a few years your elder, so just call me James." He started as he waved them to sit on Kevin's still unmade bed. "I know the last few days have been tough on all of you but I am going to need your help a lot this week. I am here to help you all after what happened but some of the smaller children will need your help more than mine. Know that that door will always been open to anyone that needs to talk. That goes for you and all of the others."
He received nods. "We've got a weeks worth of activities sorted during the day but the evening will be you own to spend together without us around to disturb you. However I will be putting together a schedule of times for all of you to come and talk to me one on one throughout this week. Starting with either of you two tomorrow morning followed by the other." James continued after letting that sink in. "Now for some better news, I know you are both worried about Michael."
They both perked up a lot at this not having heard any news about him since he had been taken to hospital. "I've just received words from my boss that apart from a hairline fracture on his arm he has just cuts and bruises. He'll be arriving early tomorrow afternoon."
They both smiled properly for the first time and James remembered all other again exactly why he had become a child psychologist in the first place. "Now how about you two go and help Kevin and Nurse Lucy in the pantry building getting the hot chocolate down to the beach."
"Thank you James." Alan told him and Jazz nodded.
"For what?" He asked knowing that they weren't talking about the hot chocolate errand.
"For getting us out of that orphanage." Jazz told him after a couple of attempts before they both ran from the room. James smiled before grabbing his light jacket and following them out of the building towards the small campfire which with twenty-seven children to help was already starting to burn merrily.
The children were talking together excitedly when he walked over to Chris. "You don't mind spending the week with your cousins and sisters do you?"
"It's alright," whispered Chris, gaining confidence in the dull light and the heat of the flames behind them, "I can always run away with you." James choked as Chris wink and started to laugh.
With that James turned to the children and laid out to them everything that was planned for the next week. After that they all sat around with their supply of hot chocolate whilst each of the adults, including Lucy, told the children about themselves at James' request and then an hour and a half or beach games in the dark commenced and songs around the camp fire for those that didn't want to join in.
In the end, after James, Chris and Kevin were gained up on by the sixteen over twelve year old and pinned to the sand, James called it a night. All of the children complained but twenty-nine children went to bed that night with smiles on their faces and jokes in their mouths like they hadn't for many years.
