At the challenge course, Sharky leaned on the gate. “Hey chat! Good morning and welcome to challenge course, where I’ll be making you do a rope swing over lava.” They opened the gate, letting the CITs in before disappearing into a shed and emerging a moment later with a tattered-looking stuffed turtle. “BEHOLD, JEREMY! You all will need to cross that-” they pointed to a series of cables suspended maybe a foot off the ground, “holding Jeremy, and if any of you drop him, you ALL have to start over again, and I will be very disappointed because Jeremy is my son. Any questions?” 

Snickering, Flapjack raised their hand. “Who’s Jeremy’s other parent?”

“Maple. Alright, someone get up there.” 

Sprite climbed up onto the first cable, and Sharky handed her Jeremy. She, of course, made it across the cables quickly, without dropping Jeremy. Showoff. 

Sprite hopped down, “Alright, who wants to go next? And little tip, have whoever thinks they're gonna mess up go first so fewer people have to do it again.”

Lilypad raised her hand. “I’ll go!” She slipped Jeremy into the pocket of her overalls and climbed up onto the cable, wobbling more than Sprite had, but she made it across, and Jeremy remained safe.

The rest of the CITs went, none of them falling-and oh right, Avocado had to go too. She’d been trying to hide at the back of the group, hoping everyone would forget to send her up there, because she knew she’d fall. But no such luck-Sharky pointed at her and said, “Alright, you get up there.” Great. 

She shoved Jeremy in the bandana holding back her hair and shakily climbed up, clinging to the tree the whole time. “Do I really have to do this?” she asked Sharky. 

“Yeah! You’ll be fine!” Wow, very helpful.

Probably sensing she was nervous, Artemis added, “If you fall, we’ll catch you, okay? You’re gonna be okay.”

Avocado sighed and took her first step away from the tree, and then another-and promptly slipped and ended up on top of Flapjack. 

Her face burned, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes. She mumbled, “uh. Sorry,” not sure what to even say. 

Flapjack helped her up. “S’alright, you good?” She shook her head.

Sprite just had to be unhelpful. “It’s not even that hard! Now we all have to do it again! I bet you weren’t even trying.”

Rex sighed. “Sprite,that’s really unkind of you to say. How would you feel if that had been you?” 

“It wouldn’t have been me, ‘cause I actually know what I’m doing.” Sprite crossed her arms and huffed.

Flapjack whipped around. “WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? If we do it again, I’m gonna trip you and make sure you fall on your stupid smug face, you absolute-” 

Rex stepped between them and said sternly, “Both of you. Take a minute and calm down. Separately.” 

Sprite stormed off. Flapjack leaned against one of the trees. “Avo, I’m sorry she said that.”

“It’s ok. Thanks, but you didn’t have to do all that.”

After a couple minutes of silence, Sprite rejoined the group. She muttered a “sorry, Avocado,” not looking up. 

“Alright, if everyone’s okay, let’s move on to the next activity!” Sharky led everyone over to another thing with cables-this time, it was two cables suspended between trees that started out close together and got farther apart in a V shape. “Chat, you’re gonna pick a partner and stand on either cable, pressing your hands together. See how far you can get.”

Probably wanting to show off how they were clearly better than Sprite, Flapjack grabbed Avocado’s hand and held it up. “We’ll go first!” Once up, Flapjack laced their fingers through hers, and Avocado immediately leaned into them. The two of them slowly shimmied sideways, making it about halfway across before they couldn’t lean in any further. Flapjack hopped off and helped Avocado down. “I’d like to see the rest of you beat that.” 

“That was pretty great!” Sharky said. “Someone wanna go next?” 

Sprite stepped up with Lilypad. The two made it to about the same spot Avocado and Flapjack had, but they also couldn’t lean in far enough. Sprite hopped off, still looking sulky. Artemis and Cricket went next, getting a bit farther than the previous two. Finally, Dot and Muffin stepped up, and only made it a quarter or so of the way across before Dot somehow tripped and fell, knocking Muffin over in a comical repeat of what had happened to Avocado earlier. Dot laughed. “I’m okay!” 

“Chat, take a water break,” Sharky announced. “We’ve got enough time for one more activity, and then lunch.” Rex was about to go with the CITs when Sharky grabbed her arm, “Can I talk to you for a sec?” 

After their water break, Sharky shouted, “Time for the evilll rope swing!” They skipped over to the rope swing and held it up triumphantly. “WHO WANTS TO GO FIRST?” 

“I feel like I kinda have to, being the originator of the evil rope swing thing,” Dot stepped up to the rope. She took it from Sharky and jumped up to grab the highest knot on the rope, swinging across the tiny stream under the swing and landed on the other side. “The rope swing isn’t evil! I survived!” 

Next, Sprite pulled herself onto the rope and, when she swung across, got splashed by the stream. On the other side, she gave a forced smile. “Guess the rope swing is kinda evil after all.” 

Flapjack walked up to the rope. “Let’s see if it’s evil for me.” They also got splashed, and did not seem pleased.

Avocado went next, and surprisingly didn’t get splashed. Flapjack stuck out their tongue at her. After everyone else had gone, Rex took the CITs to lunch. (Sharky stayed behind to pack stuff up)

At lunch, Candy waltzed over. “He-llo, CITs!” She was right between Zero and Avocado, very much in both of their personal space, and yet Avocado kind of…didn’t mind? It was extremely disaster-bisexual-y of her but like. Damn. Candy could probably crush Avocado’s head between her thighs-Whoa. Ok. No more being gay. 

Zero said, “What do you want, Candy?” 

“Aw, y’all are famous around camp at this point, to the point where it’s taking my status as the coolest person here. I guess y’all deserve it.” Candy stood up and stretched, her t-shirt lifting up and revealing her slight abs. Holy…

“Don’t you have a group to get back to?” Zero asked.

“Nah, I’m on break, so I can annoy you guys!”

“I’m so excited.” Zero very intentionally looked at their mac and cheese.

“As you should be!” Candy clapped her hands. “What are y’all doing today?”

Avocado spoke up, “Uh-challenge course this morning, and…” 

“Archery this afternoon!” Candy exclaimed. “I should know, because I’m facilitating.” 

“Cool!” Avocado forced a smile. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Candy-ahem, far from it-but she knew the other CITs and counselors couldn’t stand her, and Avocado didn’t want them to have to deal with that. 

After lunch, the CITs, along with Rex and Zero, walked up to the archery range. Candy, amusingly, did not appear to be there. After a few minutes of waiting, Zero took out their walkie-talkie, “CITs to Candy.” 

A moment later, Candy’s voice came crackling over, “HUH?”

Zero sighed. “Archery?”

“Oh yeah! I’ll be there in a minute!”

A second later, Candy came running up to the archery range. Zero sat on a bench with Rex while Candy got out bows, arrows, and arm guards from the archery supply shed. She looked judgmentally at them. “Help me out over here?”

Rex shrugged. “I’m not certified, I’m not allowed to be in there.” Zero just ignored Candy.

“Screw y’all, I’ll do it myself,” Candy passed out arm guards. “I’m gonna hope y’all are more helpful than your counselors. Can anyone tell me any rules?” 

Zero called out, “Don’t listen to a word out of Candy’s mouth and tell leadership to let me do this instead of putting up stupid decorations?” 

Candy huffed, “Can any CITs tell me rules we have here?”

Dot raised her hand, “Listen to Candy’s instructions!”

Clapping her hands in excitement, Candy exclaimed, “That is exactly what you should do!” After she’d gotten everyone else to tell her more rules of the archery range, Candy got the first couple of people (Artemis, Flapjack, and Sprite) set up with bows and arrows and told them they could start shooting. 

Artemis literally immediately got a bullseye, and Avocado jumped up and down cheering for her. Dot and Lilypad joined in, and both Rex and Zero applauded. Flapjack was in the middle of shooting their own arrow (which missed the target completely and ended up stuck in the ground), but as soon as they finished they gave her a high five. The only one who didn’t seem even slightly happy was Sprite, whose eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and she pulled her bowstring back just a bit further, letting go and hitting the corner of the target. All her other arrows did similarly. Flapjack managed to hit the target once (out of five total) and seemed quite satisfied. And Artemis didn’t shoot a single arrow that didn’t hit the innermost circles.

After the three of them finished and returned to the bench, Rex came over to give Artemis a high five. “I suppose you being good at archery makes sense-doesn’t Artemis in Greek mythology have a bow and arrow?” 

Artemis nodded. “Yeah! I didn’t name myself after her-it was actually for the NASA Artemis missions, I’m really into space.” 

Avocado called out, “NERD!” It was completely accurate, but like, in a cool way. Artemis was one of the awesomest people she’d ever met. She just also happened to be a freaking nerd.

Artemis laughed. “Guilty as charged. Though I think we’re all nerds here.”

Candy announced, “ALRIGHT, NERDS, WHO WANTS TO GO NEXT?” Cricket, Dot, and-entirely because she wanted to try and show up Flapjack-Avocado stepped up to the shooting line, picked up bows, and started shooting. Cricket hit the edge of the innermost circle with her second arrow, and while the rest of the CITs cheered for her, her only reaction was a little smirk. That probably meant she was overjoyed. Dot missed every single arrow, but kept smiling the whole time.

Avocado missed her first four but managed to hit the edge of the outermost circle, which was a bit better than Flapjack, so of course, she had to turn around, point directly at them, and laugh. They gave her a very judgmental thumbs-down. 

Candy snorted. “Lilypad, Muffin, y’all wanna go?”

The two of them got up, along with Sprite, who was probably trying for a rematch. Lilypad missed all her arrows but shrugged it off, all of Muffin’s hit around the corners, and Sprite? Sprite, in what must have been karmic justice, missed every single arrow.

Candy checked the time and declared, “Time for you to go! Bye!" She skipped over to the bows and arrows and started putting them away.

Rex got up and collected the CITs, taking them down to Pines (Zero went off to do program stuff) and to the unit house. Avocado sighed, expecting yet another lesson, but for once, Rex didn’t pull out any paperwork. “Hey, we need to have a chat.”

Koala, who sat next to her, jumped in, “You’re not in trouble! We just need to talk to you all about something.”

“This morning, we noticed comments being made that could be hurtful, and similarly during archery, people were getting pretty competitive. While winning is fun and there’s nothing wrong with being proud of yourself, it’s not okay to put other people down in the process. You’ve all done pretty well with managing arguments on your own, but as a reminder, if something’s getting out of hand, you’re always welcome to ask us for help. Again, you’re not in trouble, and you’re not being punished.” 

Everyone nodded, and, after a moment, Sprite spoke up. “I’m sorry, everyone, I know I got competitive earlier. I shouldn’t have said the stuff I did and I’ll try better in the future.” Avocado smiled at her and made a heart with her hands, trying to communicate that she accepted her apology.

Rex checked her watch. “Look, y’all, we were going to have a lesson, but it’s a long day, so you can hang out until dinner, ‘kay? Let me know if you need anything!” 

In Tent Two, Cricket was, unsurprisingly, writing in her journal. Avocado asked, “You writing about all our stupid drama?" 

Cricket shrugged. “Not particularly, but I like to keep track of how everyone feels about each other. Helps me pick out patterns and anticipate future events.”

Artemis leaned in. “Have you thought about going into some sort of science? You’re so smart and analytical, you’d do great.” 

Cricket responded, “I’m more interested in journalism.”

“That’s cool too!” She turned to Flapjack and Avocado. “What about you guys? What are you thinking about, like, studying in college?”

Avocado flopped on the floor. “Do we have to talk about college? And I’m thinking about studying music or something. Yeah.”

“Uh, maybe environmental sciences-or, wait, if I could go to college entirely to study the Appalachian mountains, their history and nature-that’d be cool.” Flapjack said.

“Awesome! I’m sure you all know this ‘cause it’s kinda all I talk about, but I want to study astronomy.” Yes, Artemis, we know, Avocado thought, but didn’t say out loud-mostly because she did respect Artemis’ passion for space. 

Flapjack, of course, had no such reservations. “We know, nerd.” They shoved Artemis lovingly. “If NASA doesn’t hire you, I’m gonna go to their headquarters myself and knock some sense into ‘em.”

Artemis laughed. “Please don’t beat up NASA on my behalf.” 

For the rest of the afternoon, Avocado (unsurprisingly) napped, until she was rudely awakened by Sharky smacking open the tent flap and yelling, “DINNER!” She hauled herself out of bed, grumbling.

At dinner, she sat with Viola, a member of program staff, who got quite excited when she found out Avocado was a CIT. “You get to hang out with Zero!” Viola exclaimed, “Wonderful! They’re my favorite coworker. Do they seem to be having a good time?” 

Avocado laughed. “I would say so, yeah. You play viola?”

“I used to, yes! It’s actually not my favorite instrument-I’ve started playing percussion, and I like it much better. But that doesn’t make a very good camp name!” Viola giggled, brushing her wavy black hair over her shoulder. 

“Cool! I play guitar; I like music a lot. And yeah, a lot of instruments suck as camp names. Viola’s cute, though, I like it.” 

Viola smiled. “Thank you!”

Back in Pines after dinner, Rex stood on the unit house porch. “Y’all can hang out in your tents until lights out. Try and get to bed quick, ‘cause we’re gonna wake up real early to watch the sunrise.”

On the way to Tent Two, Artemis exclaimed, “Watching the sunrise is gonna be so awesome!”

“I don’t wanna wake up early!” Avocado whined, “And it’s gonna be cold. I hate the cold.”

Flapjack shoved her. “Take your blanket! It’s June, it can’t get that cold.”

“I get cold every single night! I wake up freezing my butt off! It’s gonna be even worse on that mountain!” Avocado flopped down on her bed, burritoed herself in her blanket, and shut her eyes. She didn’t even bother putting pajamas on-she took Rex’s advice very seriously and was gonna try and maximize her sleep. 

She heard Cricket mutter, “Jesus, Avocado,” but only barely-she was already drifting off to sleep.