Chapter Six

Felicity was asleep. Still, she was mildly aware of what was happening around her. Suddenly the bus came to an abrupt stop and jolted her to full conciousness. She didn't show she was awake though, trick her Dad taught her.
She heard a thundering of footsteps, then scilence.
Ten voices. Josh and someone else.
More voices. Coming toward her!!!!!!!!
She tensed up and opened her eyes a crack. Josh was coming!
"One step." she thought, "If he gets one step closer," and of course he did.
Felicity immeadiatly grabbed his hand and twisted it between his back.
Her dad had made her take self defence classes. Just in case.
"Nobody, Not even My DAD touches me NO ONE!"
Ms. Wilder gasped. She had seen some prety strange behavior from Felicity but nothing this...violent.
"Felicity, let go of Joshua right now."
"Gladly." she thought as she dropped his grimy hands like touching them would give her cancer.
Their teacher continued, "Now, I put you two together so you could learn to work together and I expect you to. Am I clear?"
Josh nodded. So did Felicity( but considerably less enthused).
Josh filed off the bus. Felicity turned to do the same but she was stopped.
"And Felicity, if I see any more of this nonscense you will be booted of this trip, now go catch up with your buddy."
As soon as the class was back under control Ms. Wilder lead them to a field in front of a small cabin. There they were greeted by a tall,lean man in green pants, a green shirt, and a wide brimmed had.
"Hi everyone," he said, "I'm Rander Mike and I'm going to be leading your first activity at Camp Silverlake: The daily hike!"
"Hike!?!" Felicity yelped. "It's like..." she paused to check her watch, "Only 6:23!"
Ranger Mike chuckled, "I've been up since 3:00." Afew kids gasped in awe.
"Ok now, because this is your first hike I will be going easy on you. How 'bout to Silver lake Pond. Thats what this camp is named after ya' know?"
"Duh!" Felicity thought.
Mike was still speaking, "It's only a one mile hike."
"One Mile!" Felicity shuddered at the thought. The most she had ever walked was to school. She only lived a block away and she never did that again.
Mike frowned, "Well actually it is a two mile hike there and back but if you don't like this trail there is a nice scenic fifteen mile trail a mile that-a-ways." he teased pointing to the right.
"No!" Felicity hollered. "The two mile one is fine. Right Josh?"
Josh, who was standing beside her,nodded, surpried Felicity was talking to her.
Mike grinned, "Ok, two mile hike it is. Now before we start the hike there are two things we have to do."
Mike lead them into the cabin.
"The first thing we have to do is get rid of all electronic devices."
There was collective groan thrughout the the tiny cabin.
Bruce raised his hand, then started speaking without waiting to be called on, "But I just got Brain Smashers IV for my game station MIni!" he whined pulling it ou of his pocket.
"Well," Mike added "I bet you'll find someting more fun to do!"
"I doubt it." He grumbled under his breath.
Mike convineantly ignored him and passed out bags to hold the electronics in.
A girl raised her hand, "Do watches count?"
Mike smiled, "What do they run on?"
She rolled her eyes, "Batteries, what else."
"Ok then. There's your answer."
"What else would they run on?" she asked, mildly curious for the first time since they got there.
The Ranger raised his rm and showed his watch, "Well mine runs on solar power."
She gasped and ran to see it, "Cool!!!!! Were'd ya' get it?"
He smiled smugly, "Bonus."
He collected the bags and put them in a chest with a lock.
"Ok now, each of you get a bag. They hae water and energy bars in them."
As soon as the words 'energy bars' were spoken Felicity's ears pricked up.
She realisedshe hadn't eaten anything since a dry pop-tart on the bus and she had only eaten half of it. For an eleven year old she had more mture tastes.
She grbbed her bag and swllowed the two bars in there. She then grbbed Josh and ate his too.
"Hey!" Josh protested, "She Mhmmgmmh." Felicity thrust her hand oer his mouth.
"Josh's bag doesn't have ny bars in it." She declared, quicky recovering..
Mike checked the bag then smiled, "Nice save. Keep it up and you'll be on your way to becoming a Jr. Ranger."
Felicity cocked her head, "What's that?"
"On every tour we award kid one. Someone who is observent, brave, all that stuff. They get a badge like this," he explained holding it up, "And wenever they go to any one of our camps across the U.S. they get special privialiges. Kinda like backstage psses."
Felicity shrugged her shoulders, "Well, I'm never coming to another one of these crummy parks again so it doesn't matter." she whispered, even though she was secretly interested.
Mike opened the door, "Ok you wimps, lets go alredy."
Everyone filed excitedly out the door to begin the hike.
"Bet you don't last five minutes." Josh snickered.
"Hey!" Felicity started, offended, "I.."
"Make tht five seconds. You're stnding in an ant pile."
Felicity yelped and jumped up in terror. She didn't like anything with more then four legs.
As he watched Joshua rolling on the ground, laughing his heart out Mike stared, sighed, then popped two all natural asprins.
"I better get a raise for this." he grudgingly thought.

Chapter Five

Felicity pouted in her seat. She should be sleeping on her new micro beaded travel pillow (Now arched to relieve tension in neck And shoulders!) but of course, she couldn't fall asleep sitting next to Joshua.
She shuffled in her seat and tried to sit as close to the window as possible.That wasn't very easy because Joshua was sprawled aross the seat, taking up what little space she had. She tried to catch Kimberly's eye a few times but Kimberly was too caught up in her fasinating conversation on lipgloss with Maria Sanchez. Once, about a half hour into the drive, Felicity got Kimberly's attention. She was rewarded with a sympathetic look. Then Kimberly turned right back to Maria and the question of which lipgloss is the shiniest.
She sighed, then yawned. She really was tierd.
"Well," She thought, "If I just close my eyes for a-" and she was gone. Drifting off to sleep before she could finish her thought.
Joshua looked across his seat. Fianally she was asleep. Now he could get to more important isues. Like the mercy championships.
He turned around so his back faced Felicity and his front faced Bruce.
Now Bruce was not the shinest apple in the fruit bowl, and to illustrate my piont: When he brought a paper machae sculpture of himself for his "All About Me" project, evem Mrs. Wilder had a hard time telling them apart.
But what he lacked in intellegence he made up for in strengh. Bruce had almost singlehandedly won the last tug-of-war matches with neighboring classes(Truthfully everyone was holding the rope but only on student was pulling.) That meant, of course that he would be one of the fianalists. In fact, some people wouldn't even challenge him. They just forfeited which was just fine for him. Now in the presense of everyone the mercy finals were about to begin.
Bruce quickly won the first two matches, bending back Josh's fingers with uncanny skill. Josh,However, won the third. He proceded to win twi more rounds. Then Bruce, not to be undone, won the sixth.
Josh cracked his finger sto get ready for the seventh and final round when Ms. WIlder came over and stopped them. Three kids ad already broken fingers playing that game. She didn't want to add two more kids to the list.
"So," Bruce asked,"How are we going to end this?"
Josh thought, any other contest of strengh he would be sure to lose and there was no contest of skill he could do in the bus so he would have do do a contest of luck. Or Not-so-luck.
"How 'bout a coin toss," he said as uninterestedly as he could. "Heads I win, tails you lose."
Now a average person would see through that trick in a few moments Bruce was not an average person. Still Josh was worried Bruce sense the trick. For a second he thought he saw the light of regognition on Bruce's face but it passed as quickly as it came.
"Uh,Ok." Bruce fished a quater out of his pocket and flicked it against his thumb.
"Head's!" Bruce called as it arched then started to fall.
Josh snached it out of the air and smacked it in the back of his hand.
"Tails, you lose." Bruce grunted and plunged his hand into his pocket again. This time he came up with the $5.00 bill he had previously staked on his victory.
Joshua snached the bill and added it to the other 5 his Mother had slipped him. Bruce made a mental note to pummel Josh later.
Suddenly he felt a jolt.
The bus had stopped.
They were there.
Josh peered out the window. An old faded sign stard back at him.
Camp SilverLake.
"Single file." Ms. Wilder said, knowing nobody was listening. How right she was. All the students sped off the bus, happy to be able to finally get up after hours of driving.
Screams of "Where's the bathroom?" echoed throughout the camp.
Josh ran out to join everyone else when he was stopped.
Ms. Wilder.
"Your buddy?" she asked.
Felicity! He had forgoten about her. He groaned and went to wake her up.
He trugged over to where Felicity was still sleeping and streached out his hand to tap her lightly on the shoulder.
He had bearly brushed her shoulder when...
Felicity's eyes shot open, her arm shot out and before he knnew it his arm was twisted behind his back!