Camp Green Lake

• Hazem Marashdeh, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2011

It was a long hot hour drive towards the Mojave Desert. It was so hot in the bus. John Dickson was sitting in there. He was the only passenger. He was going to Camp Green Lake.
He had once thought that he would experience a nice heavenly air, and luscious fruit dangling from the trees, with hammocks and picnic baskets, and umbrellas, and parasols right around the lake. To his dismay, what sounded like a paradise resort, turned out to be a juvenile detention centre.
The judge had said "Either you go to jail, or you go to Camp Green Lake". John had never been to camp before, so, he gladly agreed to the offer.
He got out the bus, and hobbled towards a nearby post for balance. He had been on the Waw Criminal Van. The prison guard led his hobbling prisoner inside a torn, run down building, where he let loose John's bound limbs.
There was a man sitting behind a white desk, watching them. He had wrinkles all around his face and his lips were purple. It looked like as if he had been biting them everyday. He wore a worn out cowboy hat and had a scorpion tattoo on his left forearm. He got up from behind his desk and walked over to John. He studied him closely before saying: "My name is Mr. Thunder".
Mr. Thunder opened a metal box-shaped freezer. He then pulled out two bottles of soda. John reached out to take one of the bottles, but was refused the drink.
"Better get used to it. You’re going to be thirsty for the next eighteen months".
He was given a pair of red jumpsuits and sneakers. He had to take his clothes off before Mr. Thunder, so that he could see that John wasn’t carrying weapons. Then he wore his new set of clothes. He was shown his bed. A feather filled hard rag bag which was very uncomfortable to sleep on.
He was assigned to a tent. There were a total of 14 boys in there. All had done crimes. John was the only one innocent. The boys in this tent teased Zig Zag, and called him Dillpot. However, John befriends him, and the truth unravels.
Dillpot began telling John of his life in rural Waw. He used to go to the shelter when he was in need of anything. He had pretended that he had a mom in the crowd, otherwise they’d question him a lot.
Having seen the boots on the shelf, he took them off. He looked around and saw that there wasn’t anyone looking at him. He wore them, and left. He realized that he was being chased. He turned around and noticed that a policeman was chasing him.
In a hurry, Dillpot took off the boots and threw them under a thorny shrub. John was passing that area and picked the boots up happily.
This explains the mystery of John’s innocence.