Page 23 of My High School Rebel Boyfriend
“It’s a three hour walk,” I scoffed, “It’ll be a piece of cake.”
“You sure you don’t need a piece of cake?” Titan laughed at his own wit as he picked up some gum off of the counter, letting me pay for it.
I rolled my eyes at him. I don’t know why he always thought I had money to burn. Like a ten-year-old kid I got a small allowancea week for doing the chores that Mom couldn’t, but that barely covered gas for the car. Mom would always slip me a bit of her childminding money, or if she won on the scratch cards, but it was never a lot.
“So, you’ll be back for volleyball training, right?”
“Should be,” I said, “unless some of the losers get lost or can’t make it.” A few kids had taken the class thinking it was easy credits. Most of the activities were, in my book, a breeze but I guess there were some who would struggle with three hours of hiking.
We were scheduled to leave on the dot of eight, and Mr.. Barron was a stickler for punctuality.
“Okay, bro,” he said, snatching up the gum with a grin as the clerk rang up my sale.
I hung around with two guys from the basketball squad in this class, Reid and Aaron. Neither were in the starting lineup, but both were over six feet tall. We owned the backseat of the bus. As we arrived at the hiking trail Mr. Barron went through his list of safety instructions and ordered us to check that we had enough water, food and warm clothing. An overcast mid-November day would actually be ideal walking conditions he said, but we were doing an ascent of several hundred meters, so it could be cooler the higher we climbed. We were to be careful of the slippery rocks and steps, but we’d get a magnificent view of the river valley at the top, and maybe see some eagles if we were lucky. No one was listening and no one cared.
Mr. Barron wanted the group to stick within a moderate range of each other, but within ten minutes we’d spread out. I stayed at the back with a bunch of kids, herded by Mrs.. O’Neal who was assisting on the trip. It’s not like I couldn’t keep up, but basically it was the ‘good’ kids like Dane and Jeremy, moderately talented kayakers at the front getting a full on description of plant life and rock formation from Mr. Barron. Oh yeah, did I say that Harper Dent was at the front, too? In her figure hugging leggings and a fluorescent orange rain jacket. Surelythat clashed with her hair color. Copper and orange? Even I knew that didn’t match. She was taking the safety element a little too seriously.
An hour into the walk we assembled for a talk about the Eagle Cliff Lookout that we were approaching, and Mr. Barron suggested it would be a good place to stop for lunch. My sandwich was long gone.
Bored, our group which included Demi, a girl who wore Doc Martens and was heavy-handed on black eyeliner started throwing pebbles. Then rocks. Then our trash—plastic sandwich trays, empty cans and bottles.
I wasn’t exactly okay with that, but nonetheless I found myself vying for the longest throw with my crushed aluminium can. Hearing the yahoos as mine went the furthest, Mrs. O’Neal came snooping over. We all quickly sat on the ground looking at our phones.
“Mr. Barron’s talking about the history of the river valley,” she said, “come over and listen.”
We begrudgingly followed her over to where Mr. Barron was pointing down below. I cast my eyes around for the fluorescent jacket, momentarily fazed when I couldn’t see it in full view. Was she lost? Then a flash of color caught my eye; she’d taken it off and tied it around her waist, revealing a green thermal underneath. A strange sense of relief engulfed me.
“Hey.” Aaron was calling me over. Demi, Reid and Pax were standing around the pile of backpacks, some of them open, lunches left lying around. Pax picked up a carton of juice and started drinking from it. I wouldn’t have minded a sip, but I wasn’t that desperate.
The three of them were eyeing up the bags, Mr. Barron’s voice droning on about something that happened over two hundred years ago. Who cared?
“Ah ha!” Reid spotted a bag of candy and deftly eased it from the open pocket of a purple backpack, holding it up like he’d found lost treasure. He reached back in, and in wonderment retrieved three mini juice boxes, tossing one to me and Aaron. The giant ziplock bagwas full of an assortment of gummy worms, snakes and jelly beans, every kid’s dream. He tucked it under his jacket and we went back to our spot. I didn’t want to admit that I hadn’t brought enough food and drink, so when Reid passed the bag around I dived in for a big handful, devouring the sweet candy. Within minutes the bag was empty, and a new game invented: spitting jellybeans over the cliff.
Nobody heard Mr. Barron approach, and his booming cry of “What’s happening here?” caused us all into an automatic reaction of snatching our bags off of the ground. But it left Reid almost choking on his jellybean and having a coughing fit. Nobody had any water to offer him.
Mr. Barron declared us inconsiderate, self-centered human beings with no respect for the environment, and we were told we had until Friday to hand in an essay on that very topic. Aaron’s defence that cherry pit spitting was in fact a legitimate sport didn’t sway him one bit.
I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, but hey, it was a bit of harmless fun. I mean, whoever brought all that candy probably intended to share it anyway. Mr. Barron wanted us to step up our pace and attitude for the remainder of the loop track. We were doing well for about twenty minutes, but then we had to go through a steep climb and Demi’s feet started to blister. We showed her no sympathy, instead making fun of her for wearing her new floral pair of Docs on a hike and not her regular plain black ones. We ended up dropping back again, as Demi kept adjusting her socks.
“Maybe Mr. B has a band-aid,” someone said, “pretty sure he has a first aid kit.”
We encouraged Demi to suck up the pain and walk a bit faster to catch up. Turns out we didn’t need to, there appeared to be an unscheduled stop ahead. Mr. Barron was with a small group of students off the track. They looked to be huddled over someone.
Mrs. O’Neal guided us through, telling us to keep moving. We wondered if someone had taken a fall, the trail had been slippery in places.
“Is everything all right?” Reid asked.
“Just carry on, please. Carry on to the bus everyone,” Mrs. O’Neal said. We kept going, speculation rife on what had happened. Demi waited to get a band-aid for her blister.
Without her we were able to increase the pace and it wasn’t long before we’d caught up with the lead group, the kayak boys.
“What happened back there?” Aaron asked. “Did someone break their ankle?”
“No, Harper wasn’t feeling well,” Dane said.
My ears perked up, but I resisted the urge to ask for more detail, hoping somebody else would.
“What? Is she sick?” Aaron asked.
