Camp Canoa // Luke Hemmings

The One Where They Break Out

[Day +15]

The dulcet sounds of screaming and raucous laughter drifts in from the beach, where the volunteers are playing some dangerous and for the most part legally dubious game involving a badly-shaken bottle of Sprite and a baseball bat, but back in the apartments, me, Calum, Luke, Nora, Danni, Ashton and Michael are otherwise occupied.

A few days ago, Kazza Clifford mailed Michael a handful of coupons to Six Flags Fiesta Texas that she'd cut out of a newspaper – OFFER LASTS UNTIL AUGUST 26TH, it declares in colourful print – and she had attached a short note saying that she didn't know if we would ever get a day off, but if we did, then it was near-enough to the end of our summer employment that we deserved some fun. We are more than happy to take her advice.

It's twelve thirty by the time all the kids had left on the shuttle buses, and a four hour journey to San Antonio in the heat of the day stretches ahead of us, but we know that this is probably our only opportunity to go – not only because there wouldn't be any more changeover times to give us a free half-day, but also because it was declared over breakfast that Alistair is away on a short business trip into Houston and won't be back until tomorrow evening, and therefore is unable to stop us from escaping camp.

We get ready as fast as possible, cramming backpacks full of money, snacks, cameras, sunscreen and anything else we could possibly need, before grabbing bicycles from the lot behind the apartment building and cycling off the Alben as fast as our legs can take us. We don't so much as glance behind us as the camp-site dwindles into a heat-warped blur of grass and concrete behind the sugar plantations; we're looking ahead.

In town, we lock our bikes to the stand outside the café, and with a wave to the owner to apologise that we aren't stopping for any ice cream, we hitch our backpacks higher on our shoulders and sprint for the bus station. It's midday on the Saturday and the pier is at its busiest – we dodge and weave between giddy couples, over-excited children, living statues whose carefully-painted silver arms move to entertain onlookers with the jerky grace expected of stone, dawdling elderlies; the tinny electric soundtracks to the fairground rides already in full swing are the background noise to the slap of sneakers on salt-cracked boards.

Thanks to my immaculate planning, it's only six minutes until the next bus arrives to Houston when we arrive at the station, and so we spend the available time getting ready for the day in ways that we had been unable to spare the time for back in the apartment. Namely, taking great delight in slathering me with obscene quantities of sunscreen to protect my delicate complexion, splattering everyone's faces and clothing until we look like inverted Dalmatians, while we meticulously deodorise in preparation for a long afternoon of running back and forth under the heat of the sun. Luke brushes his teeth in the water fountain, after having not had the time to do so after a lunch that included some particularly offensive garlic-chicken. Ashton pulls his cap down over his forehead.

We scramble onto the bus once it pulls in, making an instinctive beeline for the backseats and we sit on the shaded side of the bus, only to be immediately thrust into the dazzling sunshine for the entirety of the journey once the bus turns around.

It's just over an hour to Houston – an hour of trying to share one iPod with two headphones between seven people, of the question game and shameless gossip regarding the other volunteers. The transfer onto the bus to San Antonio is easy enough, and from there it's just a couple more hours down the highway. Danni falls asleep on the bus, sagging gently against Calum's shoulder, and he holds carefully still while the rest of us busy ourselves attaching assorted objects in her hair and balancing things on top of her head. She wakes up as we're passing Schulenberg and doesn't notice the damage until the turn-off to the Carter Memorial Airport. She only finds it a little funny as she picks wrapped candies out of her hair; Calum is the only one she doesn't punch in the arm.