Camping

• Julia Coates, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

Finally, after 2 weeks of planning, my two best friends and I get to go camping for the weekend!! We are sitting around the fire toasting our marshmallows when the fire suddenly goes out, so we decide to got to bed because it is really dark without a fire. Before we make our way to our tent, we look around with our torches for a moment to appreciate the outdoors. As we look around we notice a big dark cave, so we go and investigate. As we near the cave we hear deep growling, then we see two red eyes and a black nose emerge from the cave, so we all race back to our tent, get into our beds and into our sleeping bags. We decide to talk for a while, in the safety of our tent. As we talk I notice a dim light up on the hill in the distance and I hear a faint splash on the lake near to our tent, so I snuggle down in my nice, warm, cozy sleeping bag and I close my eyes as Emma and Ashley's voices die down. We all wake up a few minutes later to a ssssssssss noise, "Ahhhhhhh!" we all screech. "It's a snake," screams Emma. I grab the stick just outside out tent and start whacking the ground. "Wait!" yells Ashley, "it's just Emma's air mattress going down." "Phew!!" We all sigh in relief. "Well where am I going to sleep then?" asked Emma. "Well if Ashley and I put our beds together it might be enough for 3 people even if it's not very comfy," I suggested. "Ok let's try it." After fiddling around for about 10 minutes we all finally get to sleep. In the morning we wake up to something banging viciously on the door. "Ahhhhh!" we all cry for the second time. Ashley, being the brave one, edged her way to the door, quickly opened it and raced back to Emma and I. We slowly open our eyes to see......... Mum with breakfast. We all get out of the tent because she made yummy pancakes, our favourite. I look over to where to cave was and see Coco, our dog, with her body laying half out of her kennel. I look over to where I saw the light and I see my Dad in his bedroom, opening the curtains. I hear a splash near where the lake was so I look over and see Brandon, my little brother, splashing about in our backyard swimming pool. "Sorry girls that I had to turn the heater off, but I was going to bed and I didn't want to waste electricity." "That's fine," we all said. Finally it all made sense!!