Chapter 5

Getting Used to Camp P.O.S.SUM
Posted on 05/05/2022
This is the image for the news article titled Getting Used to Camp P.O.S.SUMWhen I woke up this morning, Cameron was standing on the ladder, staring at me, obviously waiting for me to wake up. When I finally can get a grip of my surroundings, I push him off the ladder with a shove to the face. He hits the ground with a thud, waking up both Aleya and Milo.
“What the heck!!!” screams Aleya.
“What happened?” screams Milo.
“Cameron decided to stare at me while I slept, and he knows that when I suddenly freak out, I go into protection mode and freak out. And, besides, I wanted down and he was blocking the ladder.” I respond, climbing off the ladder.
“You didn’t have to shove me that hard,” says Cameron, picking himself off the floor.
“I barely pushed you,” I respond, annoyed.
“As if,” says Cameron, finally standing up.
“You’re weak, scrawny, and couldn’t take a punch to the face without falling down,” I say as I turn towards the bathroom and shut the door.
. . . .
When I get to sit down with my breakfast, Cameron quickly finishes his breakfast, not wanting me to see his face, which was already bruising, but he was too slow, because I was able to get a good look, and able to tell that his bruise is shaped like my hand. Before he’s able to leave, though, I call out to him, “Where are you going, Hand-y Man.”
He scowls at me, and I stick my tongue out. He turns around and walks off another towards the table with the weird scrawny guys. Oddly meant just for him. I decide to just ignore him and not look back at him and turn towards Aleya. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Milo with his friends in the far corner, near the door.
“How are you enjoying camp so far?” I ask.
“It’s been a day, Maye, I really can’t say anything,” Aleya says with a little tired drawl, “I’m knackered from this morning, you all waking me up and all.”
“Sorry, but I thought I explained myself earlier. He was looking at me while I slept, and went into freak out mode, so I pushed him, and I accidentally pushed him too hard and gave him a bruise.”
”I hadn’t asked how he got the bruise. I just don’t think you had to push him.”
“Do you know what it’s like to have a sibling?” I ask.
“Yeah, didn’t I tell you about Megan? We love each other! She never gets on my nerves. She can’t talk yet, but still, it’s so cu–”
“Do you ever fight? If not, you are not siblings, you are friends, NOT siblings! I’m sorry to say this, but you don’t know what a sibling relationship is!”
When I say this, Aleya bursts out laughing.
“That may be the case here in America, but all my friends that have siblings get along with them like peanut butter and jelly.” She says with a cheery note.
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Peanut butter and jelly! What about two peas in a pod! Have you ever heard the saying ‘friends are my rock’? Is your sister like a rock to you? Are you very dependent on her?” When Aleya doesn’t answer, I say,” That’s what I thought. But, it doesn’t mean she isn’t your cheese to your macaroni!”
At this, Aleya laughs, and so do I.
When we calm down enough to where other tables aren’t looking at us anymore, I say, “But seriously, have a friend that depends on you just as much as you depend on them.”
“You know, I wasn’t expecting best friend advice this morning, but I love the tips. And the metaphors! Those are hilarious!” Aleya says.
“What?!? I love looking them up!” I say.
. . . .
When we leave the mess hall, Aleya says, “I have to meet up with Milo and call Mum and my aunt. I’ll catch up with you in, like, thirty minutes, okay?”
“Okay, see you,” I say.
As she walks back to our cabin, I start walking around the camp towards the pond. We have an hour before we have to go to “The S in S.T.E.M! Science!” and that goes on for about two hours, and then lunch afterward. When I reach the pond, there’s a guy I hadn’t seen before sitting on the dock. When I get there, he looks up and walks over. When he reaches me, he says, “Hey. I’m Jason. You must be Maye.”
I look up at him and say, “No that’s my best friend. I’m curious how you know her name?” because I don’t know him or how he knows my name, so I swap me and Aleya’s identities.
“Oh, I pointed at you because I thought… and her brother might know her. I asked him and he said ‘That’s Maye, my sister,’” he says.
“I’m sorry, I missed that little part, and if MY brother told you, then I am Maye. The girl I was sitting with is Aleya.”
“Oh, well nice to officially meet you.”
“Yes. Now, I’m curious what you mumbled?”
“Oh, well, um, that’s… er… um… not important,” he says, rather quickly and hesitantly.
“Okay,” I say, not wanting to drop the topic, but dropping it anyways.
After a long silence, I say, “Wait, my brother came to sit with you?”
‘Um… yeah,” he answers.
“That blows me away. For someone like you, that looks like they’re the star of the middle school football team, to have my brother come along and sit with them, that’s HUGE! I mean, at least for him.”
“I don’t know? He seems pretty cool. But, then again, his sister says that compared to a newly found friend.”
“Yeah, true,” I say, and then, “Y’know, we’re actually twins.”
“Seriously! He never mentioned that, he just said he was older.”
“Yeah, by, like, two minutes.”
“Ha! That is rich!”
“Yeah!”
After a few seconds, he says, “I’m actually not a part of the middle school football team. I am on things like the STEM Club and the Beta Club.”
“Interesting. So I’m gonna guess you have siblings.”
“Yeah, an older brother and sister, both sophomores in high school, and a younger sister in first grade.”
“That has GOT to be a handful.”
“Obviously.”
I look down at my watch and realize I was supposed to meet Aleya five minutes ago and say, “Well, it’s been nice losing track of time with ya, but I’ve got to go.”
“Oh, ok,” he says.
I walk away towards our cabin and think twice. I reach down to grab my phone and text Aleya, Where r u???
She texts back, I’m at the cabin. You need to hurry bc I found the coolest spot!
K, meet you there in 5 mins???
Ok, she texts.
I head towards the cabin, my mind racing, curious about what Aleya found. It could be something as simple as an odd-colored ponytail holder, or, as she said she had found something, it could be a path in the woods.
When I find her, she says, “Come on!!! I found an AMAZE spot!!!”
“Okay, okay,” I say, not quite sharing her enthusiasm.
She tugs me to a path behind our cabin that I had never noticed before. When we finally reach the path’s end, I say, “Oh. My. Stars!” with a little squeal, “This place is absolutely beautiful! I can’t believe I never noticed it. This is way more than the coolest spot! This is the awesomest spot!”
The place is a meadow overflowing with wildflowers, like cleome, globe candytuft, blanket flower, and Drummond phlox. It was gorgeous!
“I told you I found the coolest spot,” Aleya says.
After a pause, I say, “How did you find this? I thought you were waiting at the cabin.”
“I was looking out the window when I saw the path. I didn’t know what was at the end of the path.”
“Oh, that checks out.”
“Yeah, Mayonaise.”
“Okay, A-1 sauce, let’s just chill.”
We walk to the middle of the meadow and sit on a log. I turn to Aleya and start telling her about the strange encounter with Jason.
“Apparently, he asked my brother about me. He asked if I was Maye, but changed our identities. I then changed them back, you know, cause he asked my bro. He didn’t tell me that Cameron told him my name.”
“Let’s let bygones be bygones, then.”
“Do you even know what that means?”
“No, but it seems to apply to the situation.”
“Okay,” I say with a laugh.
“Okay,” she agrees, also with a laugh.
We spend the next few hours in that meadow, talking and laughing. It makes me wonder if anything could ever go wrong at camp.
Written By: Blaire Baker
Art By: Madi Adcock
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