"Jesus Christ, Jonathan, put that thing out! It's clogging my breathing air." Turning around to face the curly haired teenager in the van's back seat, Myranda gave him a direct look of discontent.
"C'mon, Myr. It's just a cigarette." Taking a long draw from the infamous 'cancer stick,' he did nothing more than fix a smile on his face and blew a puff of smoke out of his nose.
"I don't give a shit if it is just a cigarette, I said put it out!" She suddenly reached forward without any previous indication that she was going to, and plucked the half-smoked fag out of the corner of his mouth. Then, without a heartbeat's moment, she lifted the lid off a Styrofoam cup sitting in the console and dropped the stick into the watered-down Mountain Dew. She watched it sizzle out with a dying hiss, before she replaced the lid and ignored the slightly annoyed face of Jon. She turned back around in the passenger's seat and let out a sigh.
"Wow, Myranda. Never seen you get so worked up about a cigarette before." Her best friend, Kristie spoke up from next to the now-sulking adolescent, her blonde and brown hair braided back in a fishtail style.
"My dad got lung cancer from it, remember? Smoking doesn't really sit well with me." Her voice was matter-of-fact, and nobody said anything in response, but in more of a way of apologetic grief. So, she directed her attention to the scenery rapidly passing by her window. There were trees of all sizes; short and tall, thick and skinny, dark and light. A pattern on the ground consisting dirt, grass, dirt, grass, water, then grass again. A bright blue sky with no ailments, with not even a cloud to cover the sun's prominent rays. As the terrain passed in a blur, she thought ahead to their future arrival to Camp Cedar Green.
They had all decided to go together to celebrate Kris' 18th birthday, and what better way than to rent a cabin at the popular lake? They were originally going to rent the entire place, but they could barely make renting the biggest cabin there possible, but management was nice enough to let them have the entire camp to themselves for the weekend, so long as they tolerated a quick field trip from an elementary school that would only last a few hours. Of course, they agreed.
"Hey, only a few more miles to go. It's going to be bumpy, though. Gotta take a dirt road to the camp itself." Everyone nodded to Reggie's input, and anyone in a five-mile radius could definitely feel the excitement beginning to buzz in the air. Reggie was the newest friend out of the entire group, only having met Kris last year. They got along right from the start, and it was a mere three months after initially meeting before Kris presented her new boyfriend to the rest of the group. It was quite the surprise, being she never even hinted that she had one until she had brought him along to their usual Saturday outing one day.
"Guess what else is going to be bumpy tonight?" The silky-smooth voice rose from the very back of the two benched van, belonging to none other than Iriscene. She was the group's biggest flirt, and has gone through six boyfriends in the past year alone. Despite her... imperfect romance quality, she is still one of the most loyal friends and has proved it on several occasions. Sure, she had a quick to anger temper and the sassiest mouth Myranda had ever heard, but the group of friends wouldn't be the same without her in their midst.
"Couldn't guess." Jonathan responded, half sarcastically, and the rest of the young adults let out a unified chuckle. Everyone knew Jon was the next on Iriscene's list, but he shut her down every single time she tried an advance on him. A sudden jolt of the van made everyone jump, and a series of 'damn's,' 'shit's,' and a single 'ow' came from the mouths of everyone in the van.
"Sorry, there was a dip in the road that I couldn't go around." Reggie's voice held a slight apologetic tone to it, and everyone quickly put him to ease. Myranda could easily tell that Reggie was still nervous around the group, but she was sure that he was learning to become used to their ways. "Hey, look, we're here!"
Everyone seemed to crowd to the windows like a group of school children when Reggie made the announcement. Myranda leaned to the right to peer out of her window, and a wide grin crossed her face when she read the large welcoming sign to the camp. It was nicely painted on a rectangular sign, in bold green letters on a yellow background. Almost impossible to be missed.
Welcome to Camp Cedar Green!
As they approached the sign to pass it, she took in the detail work on it. It seemed freshly painted, but the sign itself seemed to be... old. Like it's been there for decades before. Quite odd, but nonetheless exciting!
"Well, there's only 3 rooms in our assigned cabin, so some of us will have to bunk together." Myranda spoke aloud when she pulled out a slightly crumpled piece of paper from the binder she had brought along, which just held some paperwork such as directions, information about the Camp and what day the kids would be coming for their field trip. At this piece of information, everyone merely cast a glance at one another, unsure about who to bunk with.
"Okay... well Reggie and Kris definitely get a room together. I can bunk with... eeuuh." The tall blonde scrunched her nose and her smile turned to pursed lips, just the tiniest bit, before relaxing her facial features and tilting her head side to side in a motion of thinking. "How about... Jonathan?"
"I'm down." Jonathan responded enthusiastically, almost as if he were excited that he was going to be sharing a room with her. Upon this realization, Myr couldn't help but allow a small smile to surface on her face.
"Okay... got that written down. That means Iris, you're going to have a room all to yourself!" She watched in the rearview mirror as the dark-haired girl gave a small victory display, which consisted of an open, grinning mouth, closed eyes and the famous 'jazz hands.' This led to everyone letting out a laugh, and their laughter turned into joyous awes as they passed the front gate, and into their temporary home for the weekend.
"Damn, this place is beautiful." Kris piped up from the back, her eyebrow raised with her lips slightly parted.
"Isn't it, though? I found the pamphlet by some street gutter on Elm and typed the name of the place in the Yahoo search engine. Mom was pissed that I was using dial-up, but I needed to see what it was all about." Jon bragged with a large smile on his face, like he was to be congratulated for coming across a dirty, wet folded piece of paper. And in a way, they were all thankful he did.
"Well, guys. I don't know about you, but I'm so ready to get out of this van and stretch my legs for the first time in hours!" Without wasting another second, Iris opened the van's sliding door and hopped out before Reggie could even bring the grey vehicle to a complete stop, and Myr just rolled her eyes and exchanged an amused grin with him.
"Whelp, time to go." Myranda opened her door as Reg cut off the engine, her sneakers scraping against the loose gravel and creating a crunching sound as she stepped. Everyone followed suit, and as they all went to the back of the van to retrieve their belongings, Myr raised her eyes to the sky. Her eyebrows slowly scrunched together, however, when she noticed the sky's changed appearance. On the way here, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. But now, as she looked up at it, it looked as if a storm were brewing just across the lake with grey clouds hanging in the air and a darkening light.
"Hey, blondie. I'm not carrying your stuff for you." Jon's voice knocked her out of her thoughts, and she just snickered in return.
"Right. Wouldn't want anyone to see a tough guy like you carrying a purple and pink spotted bag into camp, right?"
"Ha-ha." The sarcasm was obvious in his voice as she approached, and she just shook her head with a grin as she grabbed her bag out of the trunk, swung it on her shoulder, and faced the campsite with a raised chin and an anticipating smile.