by Christian Jackson
Monday, June 24th.
This is the last summer I’ll be working as a camp counselor, and I told myself I’d either have to catch the little bastard once and for all or drive myself right down to the loony bin. Now that I’m reading it, I think it might be offensive to use that term, but I’ve been there (sorta, long story) so I think I’ve earned the right. Anywho, yeah, this summer’s been the worst. Sandbag in the gut, fog in the mind, ugh. And it didn’t help that, on the first night, my campers were whispering, giggling, and making all sorts of noise deep into the raccoon hours. I practiced over and over in my head just how exactly I’d lay the lightning down on them and make them go to sleep, but the Wild Oak Adventure Camp is supposed to be a safe place for teenagers to experience the beauty of the wild world and forge iron-tough bonds with like-minded peers, and I didn’t want to take that away from them.
But, gosh, the morning meeting was awful. Plus, I had to sit there for, like, ten minutes after the meeting ended listening to Candice jabber on about how one of my campers had already been marked a “special interest camper” as a result of her “very apparent and continuing disappointment in the wild world” as well as her “estrangement from peer group”.
I didn’t know what to say to her. Candice, I’m so sorry Jayda hasn’t made “best friends forever” bracelets with the girls she just met last night. I’ll get right on it! Like, girl, leave the poor kid alone. But, this is my fifth year as a counselor working under her, so I know exactly what it is she wants to hear and I said it.
Whatever, enough about her; that sort of stuff only got in the way of my plans. Remember the little bastard I mentioned? How I’d resolved to finally catch the damn thing? Well, that wasn’t all just nice sentiment. After lunch, when the campers and counselors alike entered into “free exploration time”, I marched straight to my cabin, retrieved my accoutrements, and took the long way around the entire camp in order to arrive at the Big Hill, a steep incline that worked as the final challenge in the first night’s obstacle course. My legs were still sore as hell from trekking up that hill the night before. It’s awful every year, but Candice ensures the counselors every year that the struggle is instrumental to bonding the girls from the very get go. Anywho, it took me twenty minutes in all to make the arduous journey to and up the Big Hill (I took the secret wooden stairs) and drive further into the woods to that special spot where, so long ago, I had witnessed for the first time the beauty of the Blooming Porcupine.
I was a teenager when I first laid eyes upon the creature, my first summer at the Wild Oak Adventure Camp, and, having forged no bonds with the other girls in my cabin (the big climb be damned), I wandered off into the woods all by my lonesome. I went about the wood, stopping to admire a mossy stump here or a fun collection of stones there, until I heard the rustling behind me. I thought for sure some counselor or security guard had tracked me through the bush, but when I turned I saw nothing but a bouquet of flowers someone had left. A gift? That’s literally what my dumbass thought in the initial instant I laid eyes on the multicolored arrangement (who the fuck would be leaving flowers in the woods?), but then the damn thing moved!
I thought maybe some little critter had dragged it from some place or the other, and, if you know me, you know I love little critters, so I tiptoed closer until I saw that it was no critter that dragged this thing along the forest floor; no, the flowers were the critter! It had the furry face of a porcupine, but instead of needles crowding its back, flowers sprouted in rainbow colors. Now, listen . . . I get it. I’m embarrassed just writing it all down, but I have never been so sure of my sanity as when I looked that fucker right in the eyes and realized a bit of magic still hides within the routine of this spinning world.
But I get it sounds crazy, so I’ve gotta catch it this week and prove I’m not a worthless psycho. Kidding. But, I can’t be crazy, I just can’t. And I have several plans to put into motion; today’s was a simple cage (yes, I dedicated an entire duffel bag to this cage and other instruments) filled with food. The Blooming Porcupine is no mere animal, of course, but it’s still gotta eat, right? I thought going with the simplest plan first was the smart move, so the cage awaits me out in the darkness as I write this. Maybe the Blooming Porcupine waits for me as well, already ensnared, eating its fill of berries and tree bark.
To be honest, it’s a struggle not to go check on the cage right now or to wait out in some bush all night long, but eyes watch me. Not just the normal eyes—campers, counselors, security, etc.—but a very particular set of eyes. They could be watching me right now from their bunk. Enough with the secrecy; freaking Jayda saw me coming back down the hill after I’d planted my trap. She asked what I was doing, and I gave her some bulljunk excuse about counselor emergency training in the woods. I don’t really know what that means or if she bought it, but whatever. I’m going to sleep now. I shall record and document my findings as the week goes on.
* * *
Tuesday, June 25th.
No Blooming Porcupine yet. I told myself it wouldn’t happen so easily as I fell asleep last night. I guess that was my way of tempering my excitement and dulling the disappointment of an empty cage, but the whole time I knew I was only telling myself that so seeing the Blooming Porcupine for the first time in years would be even more grand and exciting. But disappointment fell on me like a big piano from an old cartoon when I saw for certain the lump in the cage was only the food I had left out the night before. I might just call it all off, I don’t know.
The reason for that is Jayda. For a girl everyone thought to be shy and quiet, she sure does like to talk about my secret plans to people. She didn’t actually, but she told Evelyn what I said about counselor emergency training in the woods, which Evelyn obviously told her she hadn’t heard anything about. Evelyn is another counselor by the way and is super freaking cool and funny, and I’m afraid I have a crush on her. Well I guess I know I have a crush on her, but I’m afraid it’s more than a crush AHHHHHH!!!!
Sorry, that wasn’t very professional of me; this journal is supposed to be about science and finding cryptids no one’s ever seen before. But I simply must record the fact that now I have two suspicious sets of eyes watching my movements. Evelyn asked the normal questions about what I had told Jayda, and I told her something—I don’t even remember what—but I do remember it felt awkward and unbelievable. If I fall in love with another person at this camp, I’ll rip my head off. I shouldn’t even be writing about potentially being in love with Evelyn because that means I’m thinking about it and my brain is going to associate love with Evelyn and then there’s no going back. I said I wouldn’t keep writing about it, but here I go blathering on. Stupid.
Back to business, and, boy, is there business. I went up into the woods again to set up the new trap after lunch. It’s kinda the same trap, but with clothes of mine coated with the perfume I wore on that first camp trip. When I was going through all of the things that could potentially draw in the porcupine, food was the obvious idea to get out of the way, but then I started thinking about smell. Animals have great smell, and, now that I think about it, maybe the image of flowers also pointed my thinking in the direction of smell . . . but yeah I thought maybe it smelled something it liked, and that’s when I went aha! I remembered I used to wear a certain scent religiously, because I thought it would bring me good fortune (another long story!) and I guess I was right since it led the Blooming Porcupine right to me (maybe—more trials required).
But the real kicker is Jayda followed me all the way up the Hill and caught me in the act of stuffing the cage with teenage girl clothing, which was really not a good look for me. I simply had to spill the beans about the Blooming Porcupine or else I would be shipped off to psycho island for a much darker reason. Plus, the way she responded to my question of “why did you follow me?” with “I didn’t have anything else to do” made me really sad. Maybe another counselor wouldn’t think much of that answer, but the look on her face, the way she hesitated, as well as the fact she had already been marked as a “special interest camper”, I don’t know, it was just really sad in the moment. And I guess I felt a bit guilty about forgetting to take the appropriate steps to try to integrate her better with her peers, because I had been too caught up in my plans. So, yeah, I told her, and, to my surprise, she didn’t seem to think me a nutjob. She said her brothers used to go out into the woods to clack fallen branches against tree trunks in order to lure bigfoot out of hiding.
Long conversation short, I guess I’ve got a new helper in my research and retrieval operations. Let’s see how long that lasts before I get us both in trouble.
No, I shouldn’t speak negativity into my life. Things are going to go great. So so so great. Jayda and I will find the elusive Blooming Porcupine, I will document the lovely creature, I will do interviews on late night shows and I will be very charming and pretty to everyone watching, I will not be tired tomorrow morning after only five hours of sleep, I’m not sad and tired all of the time, I do not feel alone in the slightest, and I’ve always been loved in the ways I’ve most desired.
* * *
Wednesday, June 26th.
So much happened today, and I’m not sure how to even feel about it all. Morning meeting sucked, I was dog tired, took the girls for scheduled water activities on the lake, blah blah, yadda yadda, whatever. Day really started when I took Jayda up the Big Hill with me to check on the trap. I tried to get her to talk some, but when she’s not confronting me about my secret plans she’s pretty quiet and doesn’t have much to say. Well, actually, that’s not fair. Maybe she does have a lot to say but just doesn’t say it. I guess that’s why I write in this journal, to get out all the things tearing up the inside of my head.
I asked Jayda what she thought of the water activities, because earlier it had looked like she wasn’t having a good time, and she confirmed to me more or less that she didn’t. I wasn’t sure how to ask about it, but I managed a stumbling sort of question about the other girls, if she liked them, if she felt like everyone was getting along, that sort of thing. She didn’t have much to say about that either, so I just shut the fuck up about all that.
I pivoted to trying to get to know her better, but all she wanted to do was talk about the Blooming Porcupine; she wanted to know everything I knew about it, which I was embarrassed to admit was next to nothing, an embarrassment fueled even more by the sight of the empty cage. I told her no biggie, I’ve got another trap, and we went about setting up a cozy little home for the Blooming Porcupine in a nearby hollow log. I read porcupines like to nap in logs and little crevices, so I jammed the thing with leaves warmed in the sun, some more perfume soaked clothes, and some other shiny trinkets I thought might draw the Blooming Porcupine’s attention, and then set up a tiny rope snare to catch the foot of any nosy porcupines. Jayda was not impressed.
She didn’t think the Blooming Porcupine would fall for such a scheme, and when I asked when she became the Blooming Porcupine expert, she told me “on the walk up the hill when you told me everything”. No one told me the stinker was a little comedian. She also said something like, “if the Blooming Porcupine is smart enough to avoid people at this camp for so long, then there’s no way it wouldn’t be smart enough to know a trap when it sees one”. I didn’t like it, but she had a point. She went on to say we couldn’t trap it, but maybe we could see it some other way. She looked hard at thought, so I told her to just get back to me on that one.
Now, fast forward to dinner, because Jayda kinda sorta disappeared for the rest of free time. I thought she’d join me at the pool with the other girls, but I didn’t see her scheming ass until dinner. And I know she was scheming. She showed up late to dinner with this story about having to wait “literally forever” in the infirmary for some headache medicine, which would have been whatever, but later we caught her sneaking around like a bandit. The “we” in question: Evleyn and I. Okay, so I said I wouldn’t write anymore about her, but this is crucial to the narrative.
So, after dinner, Candice announced a surprise post-dinner free time period during which several of the daytime activities were reopened for the campers to enjoy under the stars. And during that free time, a certain someone (me!) ended up taking a midnight (10:27 PM) stroll down to the lake with a gorgeous, ethereal princess (I already told you, silly!). Oh my gosh, it was beautiful. The stars bobbed on the water, the cool lake air held us and whispered jokes in our ears, and the exhausting buzz of the camp seemed distant and fading in comparison to the humming of insects and the rhythmic lapping at the wooden pier we lounged upon. We were in our own little world. She sat with her chin resting up on one knee while the other leg skated the water, and I’m glad lightning bugs and the moon were the only things illuminating our conversation, because otherwise she could’ve seen my freckled face looking like a freaking ladybug.
But something, of course, chopped up this moment and chucked it down the garbage disposal, and that something was the erratic flashing of light amongst the nearby tree line. I thought maybe it was staff making sure it wasn’t two campers out here in the dark by themselves, but when the flashlight wielder noticed us, they turned and started back the other way. My uh-oh radar went off, as did Evelyn’s when she registered what I was staring at, and we both raced off after the light, which turned out not to be a flashlight but rather a headlamp that Jayda wore crooked on her brow.
We weren’t subtle in our questioning, but no matter how hard we pushed, Jayda kept going back to this hogwash story about wanting to zip line. She believably could have been walking to the zip line, the stairs up to the launching point being very close, but I took the girls zip lining yesterday during free time, and Jayda refused, she was so scared! So when I could tell Jayda wouldn’t budge on her story, I told her I’d zip line with her.
I wanted to catch her in her lie, but, in my heart of hearts, I knew I was just ticked off about her interrupting my moment with Evelyn and wanted to punish her, no, to break her spirit. Not really, but I was actually really disappointed I didn’t still sit with Evelyn on the dock. I’d still be there if I could. The thing is, I’m not sure if Evelyn is even into girls, and I feel any sort of relationship I have with her will only put me on a flight straight to Heartbreak City with a long layover in Sadstupiddumbsville. Why couldn’t I just have a few more minutes with her on the dock? Ugh. Anywho, Jayda said, “okay”.
And I was like, “okay, what?” Like, okay, you give up? But she told me she’d go down the zip line with me.
I threw sideways glances at her almost the entire way up the zip line steps, hoping to catch cracks in her facade, but she was obviously a professional at hiding her feelings. She gave me nothing, even as the guide clipped her in and gave her instructions; she faced down the deed with the stoic face of a samurai. But . . . even a samurai must flinch at the flash of a blade. As the guide sat her down on the edge of the platform, feet dangling over the lake the size of a swimming pool from this perspective, I saw the fear swimming in her eyes like silver tears.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I could’ve sworn she opened her mouth to call a halt to the whole charade, but by then it was too late; we were off, weightless yet hurtling through space like the stars above us. Jayda’s scream melded with the whirring of the dual zip lines as we coasted along, and I stared down in fascination at the dark puddle of a lake expanding beneath us to encapsulate all. I almost forgot the reason we were even doing this. And as our butts skidded against the water and we slowed to a halt waist deep in the cold lake, I heard Jayda giggling.
Not long after this little vignette, all us counselors herded our campers back into our cabins before a “short” meeting to prepare us for the camp-wide cabin games in the morning. Of course it was not all that short of a meeting, but that’s not the important part, though that did suck majorly. The important part was I sat next to Mary, who regaled me with the story of how Lauren, one of her campers, tripped and grinded her arm something bad on one of the paths and how the two of them had to miss dinner because of the whole unfortunate incident. I was like, wait were you all in the infirmary? And she told me yeah, like, the whole time everyone else was eating. No, she did not see Jayda.
I marched myself back to the cabin to confront the little liar as soon as Candice adjourned the meeting, but, to my shock, the girls already snoozed in darkness by the time I got back, except for a few who popped their heads up like groundhogs at my entrance. I told them to go to sleep, fumbled around for my notebook, and went out to the cabin lounge where I write now, trying to figure out what I’m going to say to Jayda tomorrow morning.
It’s all just so messed up. I wish I hadn’t got her involved in the whole Blooming Porcupine business. In retrospect, I didn’t have to tell her, and now I feel as if whatever trouble she is causing is on me, whether porcupine related or not. And I wish I could just see the thing again, even if it’s only one more time in my entire life, but it’ll probably never happen. It’s as if, all those years ago, someone opened my prison cell door to show me all the wonders of the wide world beyond before slamming it right back in my face, condemning me to live only within that world through memory and fantasy. It all decays a bit more with each passing day.
* * *
Thursday, June 27th. I’m done.
When I get home from camp I’m going to nosedive into my bed and hope Rebecca installed a trapdoor underneath it while I was gone and that she pulls the triggering lever while I fly to assure I continue to fall forever into an unending abyss in which I never have to think or put effort into anything ever again. Either that or I’ll just stay in my room so long it concerns people, and then I’ll stay there even longer.
Jayda, of course, had been up to something, and, of course, Candice had to be the one to find out. I should have known. She wore her judgmental face the entire morning, but she waited until after the camp games were over to pull Jayda and I both into her office and do the whole “do you have anything you want to tell us?” shtick.
It took a while to get it out of her (it felt like someone setting off fireworks in my ribcage the whole time Candice tried to pry the info out of her), but eventually, perhaps knowing there was no way out of this, she fessed up to sneaking into the room in which the staff stored the campers phones and electronic contraband. What she stole: her trail cam that had been confiscated on the bus ride here.
I about lost it. I mean, the whole situation was just so ridiculous. But I didn’t quite have the time to contemplate it all before the fireworks in my chest crashed into lightning as I realized why Jayda had pulled off this heist. I didn’t know what I wanted her to say in that moment, and I still don’t know what I wish would have happened, but a wash of relief doused the fire in my gut when Jayda insisted she only wanted to get footage of the wildlife around camp.
“Isn’t that what this place is all about?” Jayda asked. “Connecting with nature?”
Candice didn’t appreciate this comment. She told Jayda the camp would be reporting the misconduct to her parents and that she would be moved to a new, isolated cabin in which she could be more closely surveilled. The look Candice shot me with in that moment made me want to leap across the desk and slap her.
Soon, she dismissed Jayda and proceeded to lay into me with an exhaustive list of catastrophic hypotheticals. “What if she had gotten lost? What if she had gotten hurt? What if, God forbid . . . ?”
I don’t know, Candice, what if I started pounding my head as hard as I could against your desk until I never had to hear your voice again? I don’t mean that. I just hate that I couldn’t do anything other than sit there and staunch the tears leaking from my eyes with my shirt sleeve.
Why’d I have to tell Jayda about the Blooming Porcupine? Why’d she have to be so nosy and follow me around? It was just supposed to be my thing, just one stupid little thing I could find a modicum of excitement in, but that had to get ruined too.
I think about my first summer as a camper, the night Lindsey and I snuck out of our cabin at, like, two in the morning to drink the warm beers she had somehow secreted in her bag for the first couple of nights. We sat with our backs to some rocks near the little stream that ran through the central lawn, hidden from view, the folds of our sweatshirts brushing one another whenever we moved, and I remember thinking we were drinking her last two out of however many beers she had snuck in, but when I said something about it she giggled and told me they were the only two she had brought. I think I was working out how to ask why in the world she had wasted them on me when she went ahead and answered the question without me even having to ask. She told me she waited to share them with someone special, and, though she wasn’t quite sure what it was, something told her I was special. I still remember the sound of the stream bubbling over the smooth, round stones that made up the stream bed, and the way my heart shook my whole body.
I also remember being embarrassed by the way I laughed and averted my gaze. “Stop it,” I said. “I’m freaking blushing.” She told me it was good to blush, because people didn’t make others blush enough, and then went on to detail how interesting I was. “Interesting?” She said there was an air of mystery around me, that she could tell there was a million and one things running through my mind at all times, but, for some reason, I wouldn’t let them out. She compared me to a freaking flower that hadn’t bloomed just yet but that she was excited for the day I unveiled the beautiful world she could tell existed within me. Well guess what, Lindsey, I bloomed into nothing, and you didn’t even stick around to see it.
She kissed me that night, my first ever kiss, and now I must forever think around the footprints Lindsey left in my life. I have to think around all the memories of love that feel like a sick sort of prank now knowing there are several people in this world who think I’m some sort of psycho because of what she told them about me. And she was the one who broke up with me! How did I become the villain when I was the only one that got hurt? It’s like there’s a loose thread in my life I keep tripping over time and time again no matter what.
And we’ve got another stupid counselor meeting in the morning, but I’m not even going to go to the meeting because who cares? I’m already in trouble for something that’s not even my fault. Thank God I’m never coming back to this stupid camp ever again.
* * *
Saturday, June 29th.
I don’t even know. I mean . . .
Okay, so I skipped the meeting Friday morning because why would I care anymore, but in truth I just couldn’t face Candice and her judgmental eyes and didn’t ever want to see her again. I also didn’t want to see Evelyn, because I spent, like, half an hour before falling asleep torturing myself with thoughts of her and how she’ll never feel the same way about me. But of course skipping the meeting didn’t really matter as I saw them both at breakfast.
Evelyn tossed me a smile and a wave from across the dining hall only moments before Candice herded me towards a side entrance to “have a little chat”. She went over the new protocol with Jayda, then went on to interrogate me about missing the morning meeting. When I told her I wasn’t feeling well today, she simply told me that we all have roles to play at this camp to keep it running. I nodded like I understood, and she let me loose.
Now is when the weird stuff begins. Usually my girls gorge themselves like patricians, but today they nibbled at their food like mice, and, when I asked why they were acting so weird, they told me I was being the weird one for asking.
But later, when I was laying in my bed, staring at the wooden slats of the top bunk and letting my thoughts float stagnant in my head like soup, Caroline, Maddie, and Sarah barged into the cabin all swift and giggly. The realization they were not alone zapped them into the same sort of hushed manner as breakfast, and it felt like we all existed in that hush for a while as I made up my mind as to whether I wanted to get involved in whatever was going on. Eventually I decided that whatever it was they were up to wouldn’t be my problem for very much longer anyways so might as well ask, but they weren’t very forthcoming. They said they were just grabbing some cash for the snack shack and bolted before I could muster a protestation. Whatever, I thought. I’m done. But! It’s one thing to say “whatever, not my problem” once, but having to do it all day long is quite another.
I had to say it to myself at the pool around a half hour later (after I required myself to get out of bed) when Peyton, Julie, Amber, and Susie were huddled around a single pool chair, whispering and looking over their shoulders, and when I noticed Sofia and Ivy lugging backpacks to dinner, and when every girl in my cabin looked as if they were holding in a laugh as they ate and talked around whatever it was that was so funny to them, and I even said it to myself when I saw Caroline and Amber sneak out a side door of the dining hall when they told me they were going to the restroom.
I finally had to give in when I overheard Susie and Peyton say something along the lines of meeting back at the cabin “before Lydia or anyone can get there”. I also heard them say something about nine o’clock, which is when ice cream and other snacks would be passed out to all of the campers on the central lawn. Even though I really wanted ice cream, I decided to play into the secrecy of it all and sneak back to the cabin a little before their planned meet up and catch them with their hands in the cookie jar. Then, after an hour and a half of waiting in an empty cabin for the girls, a realization hit me like a wrecking ball: it wasn’t my cabin they were talking about.
I sprinted to the isolation cabin Jayda had been assigned to, and I reigned up about halfway there when I caught a glimpse of something that told me I was too late. In the dark distance, I saw flecks of light floating up the Big Hill like the embers of a fire.
I sprinted towards Jayda’s new cabin, but now I really sprinted towards the Big Hill, the soup of my thoughts sloshing around so much that I couldn’t make sense of any of this. I just knew if I didn’t bring the girls back to the cabin before Candice or another camp staffer found out what was going on, my butt would be grass. I even pictured myself getting thrown on the hood of a police car, cuffs digging into my wrist bones and policeman-spittle spraying my cheeks.
I’m afraid I would’ve done something crazy if I didn’t hear Evelyn call my name as if from the seventh heaven. At the bottom of the Big Hill, I turned, probably looking like some crazed beast, to see her jogging up to me.“Are yours missing too?” she asked.
I spent a moment taking in the situation. According to my suppositions, my girls had busted Jayda out of solitary, I guess with the help of Evelyn’s girls, and now summited the Big Hill for a reason I technically couldn’t be sure of, but the terror of certitude filled me up regardless; they were after the Blooming Porcupine, surely. I told Evelyn everything.
Evelyn spent a moment taking in the situation. “Hm,” she said. Whether she believed my story or whether it made sense to her at all mattered not, because soon a chorus of whistles cleaved through the normal camp ambience. Evelyn and I both knew what the whistles meant, whistles of our own hanging around our necks. Wordlessly, we bounded up the slope, heaved ourselves upwards with the support rope, and hoped to God we made it to the girls before anyone got hurt.
The security carts started rolling up when we were about halfway up the Hill, several voices shouting out questions faster than we could ever hope to answer. I just hummed to drown them out and kept climbing. The girls had long crested the Hill, but I could hear their voices ping ponging through the trees.
I made it up before Evelyn, my hands sporting a set of mud gloves and my lungs clutching at whatever oxygen they could, but I couldn’t think about those things. Up ahead, I could see the beams from the girls’ flashlights cutting up the forest, and I ran after them like some vengeful forest ghoul.
Surprised shrieks from the girls in the back alerted the group to my presence, and they all scattered, their flashlights shaking erratically as they ran, jumped, screamed, and cackled.
For a moment, Evelyn and I ran parallel through the trees. “These fucking kids,” she panted before lunging at a shrieking girl who had lagged into grabbing distance. Soon I was right on Jayda’s tail, but Caroline and Sarah swerved in to play defense.
“No!” they shouted, laughing all the while. “Don’t take her away again!”
It feels a little weird to write down now, but, in the moment, I was thinking, when did Jayda become friends with all of these girls? All of the activities at camp had been painstakingly crafted and fine-tuned to bring teens together, almost every activity requiring the campers to work as a group (or at least required a partner) and putting the teens into scenarios designed to make them feel as if they had confronted something larger than themselves together. Had it worked with Jayda?
That’s when I tripped on a root.
I only vaguely remember hitting the ground, instead being transported into a realm of white in which the Blooming Porcupine waddled up to my bruised body, gave me a wink, and then waddled off, waggling its floral butt as it did so. The next clear memory I have is looking up at the bewildered faces of teen girls and security guards alike ringed around me.
“Holy crap, are you okay?” Sofia asked, but Jason the security guard told all the girls to give me some space. He even asked if I needed to be carried back down the Hill, but I told him I could do it on my own in a minute. Candice’s voice crackled through the radio, and Jason assured her the situation had been handled before turning his radio off.
“C’mon, little lady,” he said, grasping my own dainty hand with his calloused paw. “Let’s get you back down”.
Soon enough we were down the Hill and corralled into the isolation cabin, and the girls were made to sit on the floor between the bunks as Candice paced before them. Evelyn and I leaned against a bunk to the left of Candice, an icepack on my skinned knee. I picked the dry mud from my hands and clothes as Candice did what Candice does best. To their credit, the girls sat there and took the beratement with no interruptions, no whispering, no anything. That is, until Jayda’s eyes met mine.
I’m not sure if she was trying to make a face or if l was just in a weird mood or what, but something about the girl’s face took me out. I snorted before I could look away or cover my mouth. Candice spun on me as a silent laugh squeaked through my teeth. “Oh, something’s funny about this?”
She didn’t get far into her new tirade before the girls on the floor joined me. The guards and other staff did what they could, but they couldn’t stop the tidal wave of laughter moving through the crowd of girls. Jayda couldn’t even keep her eyes open, she was laughing so hard.
Eventually they got the girls to settle down and sent them off to their own cabins to shower and go to bed, but Evelyn and I were held back for another round of castigation. To be honest I didn’t really pay much attention to what she was saying, but it was something about how irresponsible the two of us were and how we would never spend another summer at the camp. Whatever. Eventually we were allowed to go back with the girls.
At the fork in the path which led to our respective cabins, Evelyn asked how I felt about everything, and I just shrugged. It was the most honest answer I could have given. “I’m just glad the girls had a good time,” she said.
“You think they did?”
“That was the most fun I’ve seen them have all week.” We both laughed, and the moment hung in the air like the moon. “C’mere,” she said, throwing her arms out. “I feel like I need to give you a hug.” I squeezed her tight, and I felt like if I died in that moment, it would have just been alright.
Then we parted ways, saying we would talk in the morning, her promising we’d get into some trouble together when we got back home. My tummy felt like a million cocoons were bursting open in a wondrous display of color.
I practically skipped the entire way back to my cabin. I think a few staffers gave me a weird look, but I didn’t care. When I got to the cabin, the girls were going wild inside. Some were clean and dressed in their pajamas while others still tracked mud and debris as they chased the clean girls around, all screaming and laughing. A few of the girls being chased ran up to me, telling me to protect them, but I said, “why would I help you, when I could help them!” and put my hands up like claws. I ran after them as they shrieked and the other girls cheered me on. Ivy climbed up onto Jayda’s bunk to try to get away as Jayda jumped to another bed. “You’re leading her right to me!” she said, giggling.
I could tell everyone felt the lack of sleep this morning (Caroline even fell asleep at breakfast), but they talked nonstop about their escapade up the Big Hill. My cheeks are sore from smiling so much; they’re just so precious! Some of them even teared up as we were loading the buses, hugging new-made friends and writing numbers and socials on each others’ arms in marker. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Evelyn this morning, but I texted her that we were getting lunch on Thursday.
By the time we were rumbling down the country roads leading back home, at least half of the girls in my cabin were asleep in their seats. I thought Jayda would want to sit with the other girls, but she plopped down right next to me, hugging her pillow, headphones around her neck. We talked for a bit about the week, but she quickly changed the subject to last night.
“I’m sorry we got you in so much trouble,” she said. I asked her if she had fun, and she said “yes”. I told her not to be sorry, then. We talked some more about what will happen when we get home, and I assured her everyone here would see each other again, and probably very soon. Relieved, she pressed her head to her pillow and began to doze off.
I kinda wanted to doze off as well, but instead I started writing this entry. When I started writing, I thought Jayda had already fallen asleep, but she suddenly spoke without raising her head from the pillow or opening her eyes.
“And,” she said, groggily. “I didn’t want to tell you because I thought it would make you feel bad . . .”
“Uh huh?”
“But I think I should tell you.”
“Tell me.” My mind twirled with all the things she could’ve done.
“I saw it,” she said. “I saw the Blooming Porcupine. When we were out last night. It was only for a second, but it was definitely it.” It was like she had pulled the stopper of mind, and everything drained away. I laughed. She opened her eyes. “I’m being serious.”
“I know you are.” I couldn’t stop myself from giggling. “You really saw it?”
Jayda nodded and closed her eyes again. “It was beautiful.”
Like I wrote at the start of this entry: I don’t even know.
© 2026 Christian Jackson All rights reserved.
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