The angel and the lightning rod

Phase 2

Immediately I decided that I was going in a canoe with Nate, but the teachers didn't seem to agree. It felt like they wanted to separate us, as if we would be dangerous together in a canoe. I didn't understand why they would think that.

Anyway, it didn't stop me. A thousand oceans couldn't separate me from Nathaniel.

We got helmets and of course Nate slapped my head a few times while I fastened mine. His tufty chestnut hair stuck out from under his helmet and he was blowing loudly on the whistle hanging from our lifejackets. I followed his lead.

"Beautiful, beautiful!" cried a teacher with her hands over her ears.

"Cut it out!" screamed a girl, all worked up. It made Nate jump and he looked at me. He could make me laugh with just a glance.

It all took me far too long, the way the teachers distributed those canoes, so once there was an opportunity, I tugged Nate's elbow to take matters in our own hands. We jumped in a canoe, pushed off and paddled away from the shore before anyone could physically stop us.

"Haha!" I sat at the front and Nate was behind me, but he didn't look as sure of himself as he did on land.

He absently touched his elbow. "I can't move, my boy."

"Don't panic."

I briefly explained how paddling worked. Canoeing wasn't any more difficult than that, I thought, so once everyone was off, we paddled along the river with the rest of the group.

The first waterfall was after a few meters already. Girls screamed, boys yelled, people got totally soaked scooping water, but for us it wasn't bad. I barely felt the waterfall actually. I'd expected more.

Nate was sitting a bit stiffly in the canoe, but grinned when I looked around at him.

"You wanna race them?" he said.

Immediately I began to paddle like mad and he joined in.

In no time the group was meters behind us. Teachers shouted some things we couldn't make out.

We turned the canoe around to wait until they reached us. But somehow the canoe was still moving – backwards.

"Shit! Stu!" laughed Nate.

I looked around and yelled.

We were drifting backwards, off to a new waterfall, which looked much higher than the previous one.

I cursed and tried to paddle away from it to give us some time to turn the right way around, but it didn't change a thing. Nate plunged towards me to squeeze his arms around my neck – that didn't help.

Backwards, we rumbled down the water, over rocks and through waves like the ball in a pinball machine. Our landing was quite rough, we scooped buckets of water and were thoroughly soaked. We almost capsized, but with some help from my paddles – and not from Nate's screams and strangling arms – we stayed upright.

Nate was howling with laughter, but only when we calmly drifted ahead again, I dared to laugh as well. "You and your ideas..."

The journey continued. Halfway, Nate's nerves about the first time canoeing vanished and immediately he saw not the least bit of danger in it anymore. The helmet bothered him and it took me a lot of effort to convince him to keep it on. You'd always see that the moment he took it off he would bump his head, and then I had to go to the emergency room with a bleeding friend. I had no interest in that at all.

Nate had no interest in my opinion, that much was clear. So I turned around to look at him. "I just love you too much to see you get hurt, okay?"

He sighed, but a big smile lit up on his face. He slapped the helmet on his head again. "You do know how to convince a guy."