Twenty Four

Day 1- The woman beyond the mirror

“Alice! Where’s the water?” I hear Lola and her regular screaming. Someone ought to put that girl in a well. There’s water there. I chuckle as I carry the bucket of water over to our grand leader. Lola had magnolia frangipanis in her hair and was busy ordering more people around. I saw that she had breakfast arranged, rather neatly. I wave the bucket around to get her attention, the water sloshed out of its bucket. 

“Took you long enough. Work more efficiently next time.” She rolls her eyes, she takes the bucket. I felt the urge to push her off that rock, watch her fall to her demise. That will be funny. We assemble in front of the rock, and she hops down elegantly. The camp counselor moves onto the rock, his back arched and his eyes full of a certain seriousness. The tension in the air was high, as he scanned the crowd. 24 of us sit quietly in front of his authority. Well, except me- I’m squatting. He breaks the tension by letting out a wide grin, his eyes squinting while he spreads the laughter. I laugh along, but I’m clearly not amused. I wonder if people notice? He opens his mouth to speak, but he starts to clap instead. 

“Today! We’re doing something special! Alice, where did you get the water from?” He bellows, he bellows very loudly. I look around, trying to find other ‘Alice’s. I’m so funny. 

“The river, sir.” My quiet replies never fail to amuse my classmates. I hear them cackling, annoying ones. Some of them are starting to hum songs- song I cannot identify. 

“Yes! Where else? Well, today we are going to do something with the river! Can anyone guess what it is?” The fake interest in curiosity in his voice made me want to hurl. I glance to my right and see other counselors carrying kayaking boats and oars. I know the other 23 see it too. Making this overly obvious? 

“Ah, I think we’re going kayaking.” Kenny replies his fake question. Annoying twit. I smile and put my head down. A sign that says: Don’t make me talk. Water activities, I’m bursting with joy. The counselor- counselor Dan- tells us the basics of kayaking. I tune him out and stare at leaf patterns. One has veins that go all the way out, the other has shorter veins. Veins are so pretty. I laugh to myself and pick up one leaf. He splits us up into halves, and I split the leaf into two. Through the space in between, I spot the man laughing about with the other students. I roll my eyes, and smile. 

Lola orders us to take the supplies. I was assigned to take the life jackets along with the other girls. I guess it’s relatively easy to carry something that’s supposed to be light. They have all sorts of functions too. Lights, whistles, blow ups. They’re orange. I see the boys carrying the oars over to the kayak, and Lola checking things off a paper. It’s oars and life jackets, you don’t need a list. She puts it down and smiles at all of us, waving for us to come over. I distribute my portion of the jackets, realizing some of them have holes in it. Shouldn’t be a problem, the core is still intact. Except for this one, which looked more yellow than orange. It had this rip at the buckle, but it looked...‘buckable’. 

I’m positioned two people behind the leader- whose job is to just shout commands. That level of difficulty astounds me. Kenny and the other guys are in another boat, they look fully prepared to go faster than us. I don’t mind, I’m more of a slow person. I fit myself into the wooden structure nicely and prepare the oars. Lola, faces us and sits down. She chats with the person in front of me, I make do with my eavesdropping. We start moving, and Lola ends her conversation with her yelling. 

“ROW!” And we row. Row. And we row. Row, and I think we all get the point here. We move steadily, the other team clearly going faster than us. All the fit ones are there! It’s really not fair. I hear Lola humming a tune to some Korean song I don’t recognize. I felt something hit my face, then I felt something hit my arm. Raindrops. Rain is the only thing good thing right now. I watch it pour and blur our way on the river. Lola turns and squints. She fully turns her body around and tells us to go right. We listen. We go right. We hit the rock wall. We were at the rocky waterfall passage. One side was water that would lead us down to our death, the other was a rock wall. I hear the roar of the falls, and the cool air. The rain makes it special too.