Snow ... by Mink

The rain pelts down on the rocks washing away dirt and grit. I look out from our tent and see Jack out in the pouring rain, he is going to get into so much trouble I think.

"Kate," moans monkey Max peeking his head out of the tent next to mine, "why do you always wake up so early" he yawns, "maybe because I am sleeping with her" and he points to miss high heel lip gloss freak, to me she looks like a rattlesnake with bangles and fangs, her name is Penelope "but it is school camp what could go wrong?" I smile and look back at Jack, he has gotten out of the rain now, well more like the rain has stopped. I change into some clean clothes and get out of the tent. "Jack" I yell, he looks at me and grins, "how did the night in the tent go" he says laughing, "hey what if  you had to sleep with her" I say nudging him in the ribs. Monkey Max comes over to join us. "I slept like a rhino!" "Is that good or bad?" Jack says, "Well what do you think?" He chuckles suddenly. Mrs. Rumblelow our schoolteacher comes out of her tent "and what do you think you're doing?" she says. Mrs. Rumblelow is Penelope’s mother and is so strict but spoils Penelope.

 "Sorry Mrs." I say and smile "well…" she starts but is soon interrupted… "Mother, mum!" I look behind Mrs. Rumblelow and Penelope is walking out of the tent looking very neat. I don’t know how she does it. "Mum, I want to sleep with Stacy tonight" she yells. "Yes dear" says Mrs. Rumblelow and turns back to us. I can see Penelope in the corner making faces at me "Kate you will sleep with…" I cross my fingers "Jack and Max" she says "but you will also be packing up everyone's tents for coming out of your tents and going onto the road, I could have lost you!" You know the only reason she is worried about losing us is because she might get sued.

There are eleven tents in total so we spent about 50 minutes packing them all up. We take it in turns carrying them but I always have to carry it when I am with Penelope and Mrs. Rumblelow says it is good manners. I say it is a great way to break your back.

We start to walk down the road with the rest of the class with our back packs filled with stuff we use to sleep the night with and Mrs. Rumblelow is saying it is going to snow because we are in winter and it always snows. I love snow but also don’t in a way. "It takes 45 minutes to get there so don’t use up all your energy. Now we are also going to take a break at the frozen river, that is were you can eat your lunch." We all nod and keep walking. We are going up a mountain so my legs are burning, we get to the river about five minutes later. I am puffed. Mrs. Rumblelow holds up a big thermos, "you can all have a hot chocolate if you want it is over here." Me, Max and Jack start to walk over to the thermos. We grab the cups from our back packs and fill them up. I put the lid on mine and put it back in my back pack once it is full. "Not thirsty" I say and sit back down. It starts to snow and I pull a jacket from my bag. "Sorry kids we are heading back, we can walk when the snow stops" Mrs. Rrumblelow says. "Ok" I say and start to walk back. 

After three or so minutes the ground is white. Jack picks up a stick and starts to poke a frozen river, "stop it" I say and walk over to him with Max. "Hey stop it" I say again "you will crack it!" "Yeah yeah" he says. We are behind, I say "lets go catch up alright?" "Alright" he says throwing the stick behind him. I look at the stick flying through the air, it lands on a mountain and a lump of snow falls off, followed by more "JACK!" I yell, "run!" I sprint ahead and scream because I almost fall down the mountain but Jack and Max sprint ahead. Jack topples over and Max does too, they go rolling down the mountain hitting sharp rocks. "Max, Jack" I scream and run after them. "Kids" yells Mrs. Rumblelow who is ahead of us. She starts to run and so does everyone else but Jack and Max are taken by the snow and pushed down another path. I am getting pushed under snow and feel so cold. The icy wind makes it hard to breathe and after about ten minutes I think I pass out.

"Kate! Kate!" I open my eyes and see Max standing before me. "I cant find Jack" he yells and I sit up. "He must be pushed under some snow" I say and start to dig. Suddenly I hit something hard. It is Jack’s back pack. I yell and dig it up. I soon find him lying under some snow, "found him" I yell and pull him out. Max runs over to me, "do you know CPR?" he says. I scowl at him and look back at Jack. "Come on Jack" I whisper "come on," he coughs.  "Jack" Max yells. He opens his eyes and smiles. "What happened?" he says in a weak voice. "I think we passed out" I say. "I feel really sick" he says and coughs again, "come on" I grab one of his hands and Max grabs the other. "Lets look for the class" I say. "Ok" Max says and Jack nods. I start to walk over to the place where I think we landed but Max stops me. "Lets have a rest first" he says, "Jack looks like he needs it." "Yeah" I say and look at Jack’s face. It is pale. I unzip my bag and take out my hot chocolate. "Take this" I say and give it to him. He drinks it and Max gets out a jumper for him to wear. We take him again by the hands and pull him up and start to walk over to a small stack of snow. "I don’t know where we are" I say slowly. "Neither do I, neither do I" Max says, but we walk on for about an hour and suddenly Max stops. "This is no help" he says "we don’t even know where we are going." "Let's just set up camp here" I say. "here!" Max yells. "Well our teacher did say we needed to test our survival skills" I say. "Oh god, here we go again" Jack mumbles, so we sit down and talk about it.

An hour later we are all squeezed into one tent with our sleeping bags, blankets, pillows and other supplies. "Don’t worry" I say "someone will see the tent and find us." "Yeah sure, in the middle of nowhere" he says and flops down on the tent floor. "This sucks" he says, "I never wanted to come on this camp trip anyway" he moans. "Well you are, so suck it up" I say.

Jack and Max are asleep but I am not, all I can think about is getting home. I love camping, but not if I know I am lost. I get to sleep at about 11:00 and don’t dream at all.

We trudge along the snow half awake. I am carrying the tent and Max has the bags. We are both holding Jack up because he still feels sick. We walk up a heap of snow that has grass sticking out of it and when we get to the top I yell in delight "the bottom of the mountain!" I say "we are almost there!" I start to run and so do Jack and Max. I jog around a corner expecting to see a load of tents and all of the kids there but it is empty, "they’re gone" I say "they have left!" I flop on the ground and close my eyes, how long was I going to be in this place for? Was Jack going to be ok? Questions buzzed around my head but all the answers were blank pages just waiting to be written on.

Bus marks are in the snow so I know they have left. I start to whimper "I don’t want to be left alone in the snow, I want to go home." I picture someone running toward me in the snow and I close my eyes. "Kate… Kate? Kate!" I hear a voice say, but it is not the voice of Jack or Max but a voice of someone I only just know… my step father.

To be continued …