- “Morning, campers!” Justin chirped to his patrol. It was a brand new day and Justin was determined to keep it catastrophe-free. The trouble-maker, Sam, was refreshed and promised to be good from then on. “I think you’re all gonna really like today’s activities”, he told them with genuine enthusiasm. It was apparent to the campers which of their counsellors was the cooler one.

Finishing yet another yawn, Brian stepped forward. Only being allowed to have two coffees at breakfast really was becoming a problem. If anything would destroy him, Brian was sure it would be that. “We’ve got some typical old fashioned camping activities. So be at ease, troops”, he said to the kids, adding a joke to the end as usual. The kids all chuckled in response, of course.

Justin wouldn’t admit it, but he was starting to like Brian’s jokes and wise-cracks. With a slight smile, he said, “We’re gonna be working with rope, pegs and mallets, so we need to run you through some safety.” The kids all shifted on their feet, prepared to listen to the safety rules. They had been warned by Sally at introduction that failing to adhere to any rules could be very bad for them. “Mostly; use your common sense. Don’t tie the ropes around yourselves or others, don’t poke anyone with the pegs, work together patiently with the tents and-” Several kids gasped in delight upon hearing the word ‘tents’. Justin and Brian smiled at their campers’ enthusiasm. “Yes, we will be putting up tents today”, Justin confirmed cheerfully. “Which means working with mallets. So be smart with them. Holding them exactly how we show you, and do not hit anyone, or drop the mallet. We’ll get to more of that when it’s time to pitch the tents.”

The kids shared high fives and excited smiles. It was wonderful to see their campers so eager for the day, once again. “Here we go”, Brian said, indicating that they were ready to begin their activities for the day. Each person, including Brian and Justin, was given three small ropes. The two counsellors stood in front of their kids, who gathered around with their ropes. “These will probably come in handy for something”, Brian commented, eliciting a laugh from the group. Together, they learned how to tie over 20 different types of knots including a wreath knot, an overhand knot, the half hitch knot, the fisherman’s eye knot and several more. Some of the kids got stuck and very confused along the way, but eventually everyone was on track as a result of working patiently together. Brian and Justin were pleased and proud that not one of their campers purposely mucked up or caused trouble that morning. They supposed it may have had something to do with the shenanigans of the previous day. Whatever the reason, both counsellors were grateful.

After a nice lunch, the Rangers gathered together again in the same spot they had been at earlier. Brian and Justin led them to the equipment shed where they collected the items they’d need for the afternoon. Carrying the tents, mallets and pegs was an activity full of anticipation for each camper. They could not wait to put up the traditional tents. “What we’re going to be pitching today is called a bell tent. It looks similar to a tepee, but is more modern. That being said, the tents we are pitching are almost 40 years old.”  

The kids all gasped in surprised amazement after Justin told them this interesting fact. “That means we’re gonna have to be really careful with them”, Brian told their campers, finishing what Justin would have said. With each day, they grew to be even more of a team. It was oddly nice for both of them. The counsellors rehashed the rules and safety guidelines they would have to adhere to for this very ‘campy’ activity. “Pitching a bell tent is trickier than your standard dome tent”, Brian said once that necessity was out of the way.

Justin nodded and added, “They take several people to put up and full cooperation, participation and communication. We have to work together. There are 5 tents, which means you’ll be putting them up in groups of 4. Each tent will be put up one at a time for safety reasons. Brian and I will be guiding you all along the way.”

Eager to begin, the kids all nodded in understanding. Justin found it rather sweet. “Who’s ready to start?” Brian asked the campers, intending on building their enthusiasm even further.

The Rangers all responded with “Me!” or “I am!” With a smile, the blond and brunet announced that they had begun. The kids were quickly sorted into five groups of four. Thankfully, no one complained, as they were all too preoccupied with their eagerness to be bothered about the groupings. That, and each kid appeared to be getting along.

The first group to put up the tent together while everyone watched closely, was the group containing Sean, Nina, Masamane and Duke. “This’ll put my old boy scout skills to the test”, Brian joked. Justin did not mention that he had also been a boy scout when he was younger. The campers listened closely to their camp counsellors while they instructed them on how to pitch a bell tent. It was hard work, as the men had promised them, but when everyone worked together well, the task was done well. Together, the campers fit the canvas onto the centre poll once the necessary points were pegged down. They then carefully lifted the poll up, making sure to dig it into the ground a little. With their counsellor’s help, they pulled the sides of the tent out and pegged each guide rope down. It took several minutes and a bit of fiddling, but each camper had fun.

Finally, once the first bell tent was up and standing well, everyone stood back to view and admire the job well done. “You guys did an awesome job”, Justin told them, which Brian reiterated to them in his own words. Seeing the first tent up brought the counsellors a memory of the first time they put up a tent at Camp Peatree…

FLASHBACK- Summer, 2000

Emmett Honeycutt wiped the slight sweat from his brow. He put his hands on his hips and huffed out a tired sigh. “It’s soooo hot!” he complained, fanning himself with one hand in a manner that was very drama-queen esque. Drew quietly snickered at the boy. 

Trying to pretend that the sweltering heat wasn’t affecting her just as much, Charlotte turned to Emmett and said, “Well, that’s what Summer Camp is all about.”

“Dying of heatstroke?” Emmet mused, eliciting a few chuckles from his fellow campers around him.

Charlotte gave him a serious look and told the group, “Look, I know it’s hot, but we’ve got to get this done this afternoon or we won’t get another chance. You don’t want to miss out on this exciting camp activity do you?”

The campers did not respond to their camp counsellor in a definite sentence. Instead, they all muttered things to each other, weighing up their possibilities. Charlotte did her best not to roll her eyes and simply shook her head instead. She was in no mood for the teenager’s crap that hot afternoon.

All the while, Brian, Justin, Curtis* and Tracy were pitching a standard 4 metre bell tent. This was the last of the tents to be pitched in the group. Their counsellors had told them that the order had been random, but considering their track record, neither Brian, nor Justin believed that. So they had waited ‘patiently’ in the hot air while the other 4 tents were successfully pitched. The activity did not go without any chaos, however. It wouldn’t be the Waterloo patrol if it had. All of this meant that the rest of the campers were now impatient and uninterested, not paying attention to what the current tent-pitchers were doing. They had no desire to watch them, despite the fact that they had watched them.

Several minutes of fidgeting about later, the final group stepped back to observe their finished work. “Great”, Carl said as enthusiastically as he could manage. The truth was, everyone was just as hot and over being outside as each other. He turned to the group and said, “Now, we have to take them down.” Each camper let out a pained groan and Carl added, “It won’t take as long to take them down as it did to put them up. But we also have to pack everything away and that will take longer than the unpacking did.”

The campers huffed and groaned again. “You can stand around whining about it, or you can get to it”, Charlotte told them. “The sooner you get to it, the sooner we can get inside.” That was incentive enough to get the teenagers off their butts and working. The tents went down in the order they went up in and the campers worked as promptly as they could so they could rush back inside where the fans were.

Finally, when they got to the last tent; Brian, Justin’s, Curtis’ and Tracy’s, something very particular went wrong. Tracy was the first to step inside the tent. A small ‘poof’ sound was heard, followed by Tracy yelping, “Yuuuuck!” The girl hurried out of the tent coughing and gagging, followed by Justin.  

“What’s going on?” Carl asked the teenagers.

Justin coughed again and answered the man, “Some…some jackass put something disgusting in there!” He pointed to the tent, which had a small amount of smoke coming from it.

Carl rushed over to the opening of the tent and stuck his head in. When he pulled back, his face had a sour expression. “A stink bomb”, he heaved. Most of the campers burst out laughing.

Charlotte, however, did not find it funny, unsurprisingly. “Everybody, get here”, she demanded. Each camper gulped as they did what they were told. “I am only going to ask this once. Who. Did. This?” Painful silence reigned for what seemed like a thousand years. Charlotte did not back down and gave all the campers a serious stare. “If no one comes forward, we’ll just have to penalise everyone”, she said. “I’m waiting.”

Silence prevailed for a couple more seconds before the camper named Turk** spat out, “Okay, it was me!” Everyone looked at the prankster with amused looks on their faces. “But J.D helped! So did Max***!”

“What?!” exclaimed J.D.

“Dude!” Max, a sassy girl complained.

Turk shrugged guiltily and said, “Sorry. All for one and one for all, right?”

This appeared to satisfy their cranky camp counsellors. Carl and Charlotte shared a nod before Charlotte gestured for the three culprits to follow her. “Come with me you three.”

The campers trudged on after her. Max called back to the rest of the patrol in a melodramatic manner, “If I don’t come back…tell my mother…she sucks!” Everyone laughed at the sarcastic girl’s comment.

Carl shook his head and let out a sigh. “What are we gonna do with you kids?” he said, more to himself than to everyone else. “Okay, I guess we’re going to have to let this air out for a while”, he said after taking another moment to himself. Brian looked over to Justin, who was still recovering from the assault on his nose. When Justin met his eye, both boys looked away.       

PRESENT

It took a decent amount of time for all the tents to be pitched correctly and safely. With Brian and Justin’s supervision, the afternoon’s activity went well. Both men wondered what they had done to deserve such a good group. Especially considering all the trouble they had cause when they were campers themselves. Only one minor problem had arisen; Moira hit her thumb with a mallet, but Brian helped her get some ice on it and rested her. “You should all be very proud of what a terrific job you did”, Justin told the patrol.

Brian gave Moira, who was still holding a frozen pea pack to her hand, a wink. She returned the look with an amused and slightly shy smile. “The Boy Scouts would be proud”, he said. Right on cue, the entire group had a chuckle at this.

“They would”, Justin responded with a smirk. “And now we have to pack it all away!” exclaimed Justin.

The kids all sighed, but got to the task at hand without any real complaining. They were lucky to have a nice day, unlike the humid disaster when Brian and Justin had to pitch tents 10 years earlier. The group was free to have their break once all the equipment was taken down and packed away back in the shed. The boys walked their patrol back towards the cabins. “Did everyone have fun?” Justin asked them.

All the campers answered “Yeah!” causing both of their counsellors to smile.

“Fabulous”, Brian said while they walked.

At dinner, a while later, all of the camp counsellors enjoyed talking about their days. Brian and Justin sat next to each other again and Ethan Gold sat right across from them. The curly haired man spent the evening flirting with Justin in a way that Brian found revolting. “We were in this beautiful spot where the sunlight hit us just right. It would’ve made your hair look like gold”, he said to the man with a smile ghosting his lips.

To Brian’s great discontent, Justin chuckled in response in a way that people laughed when they were flirting. Brian wondered why the blond was hanging on this chump’s every word. He was a total twat. Aria, who was sitting on the other side of Brian gave him a little nudge. “You alright?” she asked him when he looked at her.

Brian gave the pleasant girl a nod and finished his drink. He would do anything for a glass of scotch. “I’m perfect”, he answered her. And he was; he was Brian Fucking Kinney, after all. Brian Fucking Kinney without any Jim Beam, sex and not enough coffee. Perfect…

TO BE CONTINUED…