Chapter Eight

Felicity paced back and forth in front of Joshua, who sat yawning on Bruce's pack.
"OK, we're totally lost."
"Check." Josh held up a finger.
"We have no map."
"Check again." and then softer, "Thanks to you."
"And we don't even have a clue where we are going."
Josh stood up, "Well look at the bright side," he said sarcastically, pulling an energy bar out of Bruce's pack, "Bruce is such a pig we're never going to starve."
Felicity snatched the bar, ripped it open and chewed on it angrily.
She looked around for something NOT covered in nature to sit on then, finding nothing, hesitated then dropped her brand new $500 pack on the ground and sat on it, her head down.
After a couple of minutes of brooding, Felicity heard leaves rustling and looked up.
Josh had his head buried in leaves, looking for a trace of humanity.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Josh turned around, "Oh,look who finally stopped feeling sorry for herself" He stopped to scratch one of his many mosquito bites me had gotten, trying to find his way back to camp.
"If you must know, I'm trying to find a way back to camp."
"Why didn't you ask me for help?" she asked offended.
Josh snorted, "Are you for real?!?"
He straightened his back, pushed out his chest,put his hand on his hip, and mimicked Felicity.
"I'm a perfect princess. Do this, do that. I don't want to get my hands wet. Eeekk water."
And that was it, Felicity was done. Even though nobody had seen her cry since kindergarten when her teacher cut her bread into rectangles instead of triangles, but all the tears she had been holding in since she got paired up with Josh flowed out.
Josh felt terrible. He hadn't meant to make her cry.Just annoy her a little. He walked up to her to say something clever, like they do in cheesy movies, but when no one-liners came he just dragged his pack over to hers and waited for her to stop bawling.
And then,she did the most unbelievable thing.
"So, tell me about your family."
Josh looked at Felicity like she was crazy.
"Excuse me?"
"You know , your Mom, Dad, home life." Felicity asked this, partly to pass time while she calmed down but deep down inside, she really did want to know about his home life, a little, maybe.
Josh was surprised. Nobody had really asked about his life before, except for once in second grade when they did all about me books (and he didn't even get a chance to present his),but he had been waiting for someone to care for so long that he didn't really care who he spilled to.
He told her everything, about the time he was bad intentionally so Santa would bring him the coal his Mom needed for a barbecue, how great his Mom was, how much he hated his Dad."
"Anyway, I hope my Mom is O.K. when she finds out I'm missing." he concluded. He shuffled his feet on the ground a little uncomfortably then saw a shadow fall over him.
"Get up." He saw a hand reach out to him.
"Wha...?"
"Get up, We're getting out of here."