Camp Canoa // Luke Hemmings

The One Where They Play Softball

[Day +14]

Sunday brings in the next batch of kids – pasty as always before their exposure to excessive sunlight and exercise, and sweaty from the ride over in those cramped shuttle-buses without air-conditioning. I'm paired with Calum again.

Alistar is still away, so the distribution of children to their volunteer carers is overseen by Amelia by megaphone.

I wander over to the shuttle-buses with Calum to help pull suitcases out of the back, and we actively search for our new ten-year-olds instead of waiting for them to find their way to us. For the most part, with the exception of one boy who has an unhealthy obsession with the group's scheduled activities in reference to the timing of the next full moon, they seem like a nice enough bunch.

We lead them off to their cabins where we stay to help them unpack and get settled in – Calum walks off with half of the boys to the other dorm and I go with the girls. It's all okay until one girl bursts into tears in a sudden wave of homesickness and I have to run and get the compassionate one – Calum – to come and cuddle her until she stops sniffling into his chest.

Once all sorted into their respective accommodation, the first order of the day is a little group session where we all sit in a neat circle on the grass outside the lobby, exchanging names and hobbies and their goals for the camp, which is mind-numbingly tedious as always – nine weeks into this routine, and I'm pretty sure I can only hear the awkward, half-giggly, "Oh, I don't know... uhhh... get fit? And... make new friends, I guess" that eighty-percent of the kids seem to favour so many times before I get nauseous.

Mercifully, the dullness of this activity is then followed by paintball, because apparently there's no better way to break the ice than to turn on each other like savages and attempt to grievously injure each other, leaving bruises that will last all week. Calum and I are on separate teams, to even out our experience amongst the kids, most of whom have never played paintball before, so of course, I go for Calum. I have either got a lot of dumb luck or killer aim for a perfect headshot, and later, Calum is washing yellow gunk out of his hair.

We don't stay sticky with brightly dripping paint for too long though, as after lunch we have Water Sports to wash off the sweat, colour and red dust. We tip our baseball caps back on our heads for a clear view of the sand and sea; we kick off our shoes, ball up our socks.

As me, Calum and the group strip down to our bathing suits and fit ourselves with life jackets, I look across the beach, and there is the familiar figure of Luke: hair flyaway, shirt crumpled. I linger for a second long at the edge of the Water Sports hut – determinedly ignoring Ashton's crooning, turn aroouuunnd, bright eyes, from his duty behind the hut's counter.

On the volleyball pitch, someone smacks the ball wide and Luke jogs over to fetch it back, and as he stoops to grab it, his eyes flicker to mine and they lock. He straightens up and smiles before running back to the pitch.

[Day +13]

I pride myself on many things – my knowledge of all the lyrics to Lose Yourself by Eminem for one; the ability to curl my tongue for another – but I will now say with definitive satisfaction that I can clean a toilet like nobody's business.

Scrubbing the bathrooms in the lobby is my last duty of the day, and they're definitely coming up beautiful, if I do say so myself. It's not glamorous, but it's easy and doesn't require too much concentration; I can break out the sponge and suds, and otherwise be left to my own thoughts – like the two weeks remaining before the end of camp, and the prospect of school waiting for me back home, and the two missed calls from Sam Peters still sitting untouched on my phone.