The Quest for Christmas

Chapter 2

We were having a great time at the camp. All day we had participated in activities such as frozen archery, sledding, and snowball fights.

Frozen archery was when we placed archery targets in a tub of water, left them out overnight, and then attempted to break through the ice to hit the target. Whoever scored the most points, based on the arrows that were actually lodged in the target, was crowned the archer king (or queen).

Sledding was amazing. Snow blanketed the hillside creating the perfect environment for sledding. Racing the sleds was the best part. I could have done it all day long. Four sleds were lined up in a row and the first person to slide to the bottom of the hill as well as carry their sled back to the top of the hill won.

Our snowball fights were brutal. We gathered together our groups of friends and formed teams. Then we built our forts. Our forts were massive, six-foot structures that included a place to keep enemy prisoners. After that, it was war. Teams hoarded arsenals of bone-chilling projectiles of packed snow. Frozen branches became lances used to wreak havoc upon enemy forts. A team was victorious when they had captured all of the opponents' men, or obliterated their enemies' forts. The winning team carried their team leader on their shoulders all the way back to camp

Shortly after lunch Hal, Isaac, Geneva and I decided to explore the woods. Bad idea. Not 10 minutes later, we found ourselves lost in an open clearing due to our lack of resources concerning our present whereabouts. In simpler terms, we didn't have a map.

"Dude, we should, like, totally chill," Hal reassured, "If the 'Like a good neighbor State Farm is there' jig doesn't work we just follow the trail. I'm pretty sure the trail was, like, that way." He was directing his finger to a trail sign that led down a narrow, treacherous path that I was not traveling anytime soon.

"No," Geneva replied pointing in the opposite direction down an even more treacherous path. "I'm pretty sure we came from that direction."

"It's quite simple," Isaac spoke up. "If we didn't follow a marked trail in a marked trail doesn't lead us back out."

Everyone was silent as we realized the paths were the only route we couldn't take.

"Wait," I had an idea, "At camp, I plugged in the location of the parking lot into my phone. Maybe..." I didn't need to say any more. I pulled out my iPhone and opened the map. My grin slowly faded. "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I have the location of camp. The bad news is that I have no service to determine where we are.

"Hey, bro," Hal called from across the clearing, "Look over here!"

Ignoring him Isaac asked, "Are you running the newest iOS?"

"Yeah, I'm running iOS 11, why?"

Geneva caught on, "You should be able to send a message to Mr. Augustus without cellular service."

"Um, dudes," Hal tried to get our attention, "Do you see -"

"Not now Hal," Geneva interrupted, "We are trying to get out of here."

"But -"

"HAL!" we all shouted at the same time

I pulled up iComm, an app that allowed me to remotely communicate between iPhones using new, advanced technology, and selected Mr. Augustus. I started to send him a message. "What are we going to say?" I asked

"Try 'We're lost in the woods and we need help!'" Issac suggessted

"Or," Geneva offered "'SOS, we're lost and were gonna die!' that should get the point across pretty well. Especially the lost part.

"But, um, dudes," Hal told us, "we're not lost."