At Camp

I wrote this when I was 13 or 14. Again, I am going to refrain from editing. That includes actually putting in several wince-worthy commas and modifiers. I have, however, omitted the first few paragraphs because they contained too much embarrassing teen angst. Yeah, I know, you're disappointed. My grownup commentary will be inserted in italics.

I laughed as my friend and I skipped down the dirt path to the bathrooms. We were both quite winded, as the little "jog" had been about half of a mile, from the cafeteria to the bathrooms.

The sun beat down with excruciating brightness.

"It's funny about this weather," I thought to myself. "In the mornings and at night, it is so cold that it's almost like winter. So you layer yourself up with all these clothes." I looked at the thirteen-zillion sweatshirts tied around my waist. "Then, in the afternoon, you have to take all of your clothes off."

hopefully not all of them.

I smiled as I watched my friend, Christine, skip along in her log-legged style. Her honey-blond hair was in braids and tied up in a blue handkerchief. She had arched brown eyebrows and serious blue eyes. She has a small mouth which spread readily into a surprisingly large grin.

We skipped along the path and admired the beautiful wildflowers that grew alongside. Once in a while we stopped to admire the fresh green bits of grass that grew here and there among the weeds.

Christine thought that it was silly (the writer in me has to point out a POV problem. Be quiet, grownup Sarah) stopping so often when trying to get somewhere as fast as possible, but went along with it anyway.

We came to a large sumptuous mud puddle whose waters were too deep for one to wade through unless one wants mud clear up to ones knees (disagreement in tenses. OK, I'll stoppit). Christine took the board lying on the side of the road for that very purpose and handed it, wordlessly, to me. I smiled and put it across the puddle, and then I and Christine (wince) tenaciously picked our way across it, stumbling now and then, but luckily, not falling in.

"When we go to the bathrooms, let's make a stop by our tent and get our bathing suits. I want to go swimming," she said. I agreed. We ran down the dusty brown path, passing the Adventurers' camp and arriving at the third year girls' camp.

The end. Did Christine and Sarah get eaten by a bear? Did they sneak over to the other side of the lake to spy on the boys at boys' camp? (sadly, this is highly unlikely.)(14 year old Sarah would have been shocked at such a scandalous proposition.) In any case, the world will never know.