“What about camp?” My mom said, walking into my room, “That could be fun right?”
“Yeah,” I say, more preoccupied with the drawing I’m working on.
“Yeah? Want me to look for one? Maybe you could make some friends, get to know some kids before the school year starts.”
“Okay.”
“What about this one?” Mom says, handing me her phone, “Camp fifty! Kinda sounds like camp 18 back home. You always wanted to go to that one.”
I take her phone and scroll through their website.
“Let me know what you think, okay? We can drive out there tomorrow to check it out.”
“I miss you too Danno,” I told my dad on the phone.
“I love you monkey, I’ll be there in a few weeks, just finishing up some stuff here at work, if I could leave right this minute I would.”
“I know Danno.”
“How’s Hawaii? Is it hot? How much sunscreen should I pack? Should that be all my suitcase is?”
I can’t help but laugh, “It’s fun dad, and they sell sunscreen here too you know!”
“You’re mom told me you’re gonna do a summer camp?” Danno asked over the phone.
“Yup! It actually looks really fun!”
“That’s awesome, I’m sure you’ll learn a lot of fun things and make a lot of new friends! And by the time camp gets out I’ll be all moved in and I can go pick you up!”
“Any first time campers?” The camp director, Kai, asked.
My mom elbowed me until I raised my hand. I looked around and was relieved to see that almost half of the kids were too.
“You were all given name tags,” one of the teen counselors, Noah, said, “On the back of your name tag is a sticker, please find the table with that sticker and meet your cabin mates!”
The camp is huge! I mean, it’s no camp halfblood, obviously, but still!
There’s a big clearing and a stage at the center of camp, and creating almost a circle around the clearing are our cabins. And then there’s also other “bungalows” a little further beyond our cabins that we go to for activities and stuff.
There’s also a fire pit area that they said we’ll use every night of camp!
And there’s a big house too! (No Chiron or Mr.D though :/) That’s just what they call the main building, where the cafeteria/auditorium is.
And the ocean is nearby too, and there’s an archery range too! We’re supposed to get a walking tour soon, I’m excited!!
“I really recommend doing two to start off with,” my cabin mate Allie, a returner, was telling us, “This year I’m doing three, dance, theatre and aquatics. ”
“I’m doing aquatics and music!” Another cabin mate said.
“My sister did the survivalist track last year and she really recommended it to me,” another cabin mate, Sophia, said, “So I’m doing that one and the endurance track!”
“What about you El?”
“I’m still not sure,” I said as I flipped through the track binder they gave us. They all sounded so cool, I kind of wished I could do them all. “Well, the art one for sure! And, I’m kind of leaning towards the survivalist one.”
We cheered and hollered as Sophia climbed back down.
She turned and looked at us, grin big on her face.
I knew the feeling, my heart was still racing from when it had been my turn!
Kai gave her a high five as she joined us.
He looked at us, a proud smile on his face. “How many of you looked at that ropes course and thought you couldn’t do it?” He asked.
My hand shot straight up, as did almost everyones.
“And yet,” He said, “All of you did, what-”
“Papa Seal going off again on his speeches,” Sophia whispered to me.
I tried to hold back my grin as I listened to Kai. I always liked his speeches.
“DANNO!!!!” I yelled as I ran to my dad.
“MONKEY!!” He shouted out, picking me up and twirling me around.
“Alright, but that’s enough about me. I wanna hear about you monkey. How was camp?”
“It was SO MUCH FUN!!! Danno, you’re never going to believe all the things we did!”
“Tell me all about it!”
“So, what do you think?”
“You, a camp counselor?”
“Yeah,” Danno shrugged.
“At camp,” I repeated, wanting to make sure Danno understood, “with trees and bugs and dirt.”
“Yes.”
“Yeah,” I grinned, “That sounds fun to me Danno.”
“It was-” Dad said, shaking his head side to side as he made a face, “It was nice... He made us run.”
I laughed, looking down at his shorts and shirt, an already uncommon sight to see my dad in on a workday, but these clearly weren’t his. “Is that why you're wearing Kai’s clothes?”
“Um yeah,” He said, sounding almost surprised, as if I had pointed out a Sherlock Holmes level observation, “I guess I’ll have to return them on Monday after I drop you off at school.”
“Do you have camp again on Monday?” I was pretty sure he’d told me they only met on Fridays.
“No, it’s just Fridays. But I can stop by Kai’s house. It’s not too far from us.”
Oh.
I nodded at him.
Why does Dad know where camp counselor Kai lives?
“What’d you do today?”
“Well, hello to you too Monkey, I’m good how are you?”
I rolled my eyes, “Hi Danno, how are you? How was camp?”
“You know, I’ve noticed a pattern forming. On Fridays whenever you call it’s just to talk about camp.”
“Well, it’s cause while I’m at school and doing homework you get to be at camp having fun!”
“What fun?” Dad scoffed back. “We hike. And then we run. And then we hike some more. Then we do some more athletic activities. I don’t know where you’re getting this idea of fun!”
“What’d you do today?”
Danny sighed, “We had a water balloon fight.”
“Daaaad!!!”
“What? You’re the one that wanted to know! We also ran three miles, so, it was the least Kai could do.”
“Were you on his team?”
“No, I was very purposefully not on his team.” He said, and I could hear the proud accomplished grin through his voice.
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