Until the Very End

Chapter Four

 Without a moment’s hesitation, Maurice was off through the woods, running and dodging obstacles like she never had in her life. How could this be happening? Maurice thought. Bears and mountain lions stayed in the woods way north of Mount Puckett.

            “LARAMIE!” Maurice screamed, hoping her friend would be someone nearby so they could run like their lives depended on it together. 

            “Maurice,” a whisper came from all around. It sounded something like Laramie’s yet more mysterious and sinister. 

            As she ran, Maurice turned her head and looked behind her. Instead of seeing a carnivorous beast with blooding dripping from its mouth, she saw three human figures. Maurice groaned inwardly and slowed to a halt. 

            “I hate you guys!” She called out to her friends. “Hate.”

            “Did you really think there was a bear in these nick of the woods, sweetheart?” Roger’s voice trailed over the speaker’s hooked up in the trees. “You’ve lived here six years longer than Laramie. You should know there has never been a bear spotted south of Mount Puckett.”

            Maurice walked back to the three in fuming with humiliation and shame. Why couldn’t I just have turned around and see that there wasn’t a bear? If I had been thinking things through I would have known there wasn’t actually a bear. Ugh. 

            “You guys irritate me,” was all Maurice said as she walked past them to grab the blanket she dropped while she was running. 

            “You know you love us,” Laramie said and smiled.

            Maurice looked over at Laramie with slighted eyes. 

            “Oh, come on, Maurice. You know you would have done the same to me if you were in on it.”

            “Maybe, but I wasn’t, was I?” She crossed her arms, hugging the pine covered blanket. 

            “Really, Maurice? You play pranks on me all the time and I can’t get upset about it. Just because you were humiliated doesn’t give you the right to throw tantrums.”

            “I am not throwing a tantrum!” Maurice stepped closer to Laramie.

            “Girls, girls,” Roger soothed. “There’s no humiliation here. No one is being made fun of.  There’s no need to get your undies in a bundle.” 

Philip smiled at the forest floor and shook his head.  

“Don’t let my undies get in a bundle?” Maurice hissed, pointing a stern finger at Roger. “Then don’t get your pull-“

“Hey now, keep it down,” Roger whispered, looking around at the trees as if all of Sherwood Valley’s population were hiding there, waiting to hear what they suspected the whole time when he didn’t go to sleepovers or overnight camps. 

“Let’s just go back to our campsite and we’ll settle down before heading back to the Valley, okay?” Philip ordered more than asked in his peacemaking tone. He was very good at talking to angry people; though somehow he got twisted into being a prankster with the “oh-so-charming” Roger Burns. 

It was a silent walk back to the lake. No one talked and the woods seemed far too quiet to all eight ears. 

Roger and Philip’s campsite was actually a campsite not just a Roger’s lousy tent. There was a dark green army camp surrounded by several pines, closely planted together almost as its purpose was to shelter Roger and Philip’s tenting needs. Roger’s purple tent was set up off the side closet to the lake while another tent was on the opposite side of Roger’s and somehow the two boys had set up a picnic table and a grill off to the side. 

“Nice,” Maurice said. “Are you guys hiding out here until your sentence?”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Roger said. “No, we decided to camp out this weekend. And all week.”

Before Laramie could protest to such craziness, Philip intervened.

“We are still going to go to school and take showers,” he explained. “But instead of going back home, we’ll come back here.”

“Cool, right?” Roger said and disappeared into his tent and came out with a cooler. “Beer?” He said and then smiled; receiving the looks he wanted from the two girls. “Just kidding. Geez.”

            Maurice went over to him and inspected the beverages in the cooler, making sure there wasn’t any alcohol. 

Being the pastor’s kid, people might get the wrong impression that Maurice just wants to rebel and have fun. But she has some limits. 

“I’ll get the fire started,” Philip said, walking over to the pit of ash with rocks circling around it. 

“We’ll go gather some more firewood, then,” Laramie said and ushered Maurice away from the camp. 

“Watch the branch,” Maurice warned, and Laramie maneuvered around it.

Once they stopped, Laramie spun Maurice around and grabbed her shoulders. “What are we doing?” She asked, wide-eyed and on the brim of drowning in hysteria. “We’re not going to stay with them, are we?”

“Maybe, I don’t know.” Maurice removed Laramie’s cold hands from her shoulders. “Don’t be such a worrywart. It’ll be fine.” 

Laramie breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. 

“We’ll go back before it gets dark. I know our parents will be calling the F.B.I. if we don’t return soon. And come on,” Maurice said on a lighter, playful note, “you know you like Philip.”

Laramie blushed. “So?” 

“So you guys can cuddle by the fire and when we tell ghost stories you can jump into his arms even if you’re not scared. Which would be surprising,” she ended with a teasing smile. 

Laramie nudged her friend in the shoulder and attempted to hide a smile. 

“Well, I guess we best start gathering some firewood,” Laramie said.

~~~

“They’re coming back, right?” Roger asked, back at camp. He was leaning against the picnic table with one elbow propped up against the cooler and the other one holding a Pepsi can. 

Philip continued stacking the leftover firewood they had from last night in a firewood-like fashion as he talked. “They’ll be coming back. Probably just talking about girl stuff and how obnoxious you are. But they’ll most likely come back. Maurice isn’t the kind of girl to just leave without letting us know.”

“How do you know what kind of girl Maurice is? Have you been talking to her lately?” Roger asked, not having a care in the world to mask his jealousy.

“Somewhat. We had to do a pair up in English for this crazy thing Mrs. Whickerman had us do. We did the thing over e-mail. It was pretty fun, to say the least.” Philip got up and went into the army tent and came out with a lighter. “Trust me dude, I’m not the reason why she’s staying here.” 

“How do you know this?” Roger asked, walking around to sit on the bench.

“English gets pretty boring once in awhile.”