Afterwards, we cleaned up. Then we all took off, to look around the place. We’re supposed to - when we hear two gongs, go to the mess hall to assemble. One gong is for meals. We found out later that three gongs meant the tuck shop was open. Yeah, there was a tuck shop open twice a day. Once in the morning, and then again in the afternoon. You could get all kinds of stuff there, like chocolate bars and soda pop.
Some of the kids got up a basketball game, and some of the guys played baseball. And there were badminton racquets and birdies lying around, so the bunch of us played for a while. Then we decided to go on down to the water, to have a look around for a while. So the five of us took off down the path.
It was really, I mean really, beautiful there, with great huge evergreens all over the place, and lining the pathway. You had to watch your step because there were big rocks all over the place, right in the path and you could break your neck if you weren’t watching. Great big tree roots were jangled all over the pathway too, and sometimes it seemed like they were just lying there, waiting for you to come along, so they could trip you.
The nicest thing was all the chipmunks, though. I never, ever, saw so many chipmunks before in my life. I wouldn’t ever believe there were so many chipmunks! What we did, was try to coax some of them to come over to us, but they wouldn’t. I’d love to be able to hold a chipmunk, they’re so small and cute and cuddly-looking.
Anyway, we were told we weren’t supposed to go too near any little critters in case they had rabies or something, it being springtime and all that. No fear of Sally getting bitten by anything. Anything that sees her sour face would run like crazy in the opposite direction.
Now that we’re together all the time, like not at school, and we keep crossing each other’s paths, she keeps saying nasty things to her friends about us. Where does she get off, calling us little goody-goodies anyway? We’re not all that good.
Down at the water, anyway, we picked up all kinds of interesting looking stones, and tried to skip the flat ones. There were some other guys down there too, like some of the guys that’re nice in our class, and they were okay.
Kerry came down too, after awhile, and he tried to skip stones, but he wasn’t having any luck, so he said he was going to look for chipmunks and try to get them, instead. I hope some tree root trips him, and a chipmunk gives him a good nip on the bum so he’ll know better than to throw stones at them.
I wasn’t doing too good skipping stones, and I was getting kind of mad, but then Mark LaPointe (he’s very nice, actually) came over and showed us how to throw them properly. It was very nice of him, and some of the other guys came over too, and showed us, but we still didn’t do so hot, and instead we just sat around and kind of talked. I liked that. Like, I hardly ever get to talk to any guys, just my brothers, and they don’t count, much.
Later, Mr. Henderson got us all assembled and went over compass bearings with us. Most of us knew all that stuff anyway from girl Guides and Brownies. The guy who runs the place told us about the different kinds of trees on the property, and he talked about the kind of animals that come around. Like grey squirrels, and raccoons and red fox. He even said there were some grey wolves around in the winter; deer too. Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing some deer, but I sure hope the wolves know winter’s over, and have taken off.
The tuck shop didn’t open the first day, but we had a very nice supper of mashed potatoes (ucky carrots) and hamburgers in rolls, with fruit cocktail for dessert.
Mr. Henderson divided us up into squads, and the first squad (which wasn’t us) had to clean up the dishes and stuff, from dinner. While we were eating, little chipmunks kept running through the mess mall down at the other end to where we were sitting.
Wouldn’t you know it, Kerry rolled bread into hard balls to bonk them off at the chipmunks? But they were too fast, and he didn’t even hit one of them.
That didn’t stop Kerry, though. I guess he figured if he couldn’t get chipmunks he’d get the girls. I’d like to see him try that stuff on the guys, some time. I bet they wouldn’t be such easy targets.
This was different than in school though, and the girls started making bread balls too, and we all let him have it. It was fun while it lasted, but when Mr. Henderson and Mr. Farraday finally noticed what was going on they made us stop it. We got a lecture about wasting good food, you know?
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