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Laura and Catherine moped the entire
drive. They didn’t want to campout. They didn’t want to sleep in a tent,
or eat roots of lilies and drink dirty water from a stream. They didn’t
want to run into any scary animals, but most of, they didn’t want to sleep
in the dirt. All they wanted was to be home in their nice warm beds, with
no bugs, wild animals, or dirt.
Their mum and dad often went camping
by themselves but this time they decided to have a family camping trip.
"Mum, you know we don’t like to camp out!" Laura whined, but here they
were, walking along a mountain trail, brushing twigs and leaves out of
their hair every chance they got. Earlier they crossed a river and now
their socks and shoes dripped with water and squished with every step.
At last they stopped for the night.
Dad set up the tents. "Girls, go and gather some firewood so Mum can start
supper. I’m starving."
"I hate camping!" Catherine
complained, as she and Laura picked up dead branches from the ground.
Laura dropped the gathered bits of
wood on the ground. "What’s for supper?" she asked. "Where’s Dad?"
"He’s off catching supper for us,"
Mum replied.
"What is he catching? Butterflies?
Lizards? Fish?" She saw the look on her mum’s face. "Fish? We have to eat
fish?" Catherine griped.
"I brought some snacks in my
backpack, but yes, we’re eating fish for supper," Mum growled. She was
getting fed up with the girl’s constant complaints.
Dad appeared an hour later. A
roaring fire popped and sent fiery embers into the air. "Get the frying
pan ready, Mum. The fish were biting tonight." The girls watched in horror
as he gutted the fish, cut off their heads and tails and threw them onto a
heavy black pan. They sizzled away, sending fishy-scented smoke into the
night air.
"I’m not eating that!" Catherine
said. "You cut its head off. What if you didn’t get all the guts out?
That’s disgusting!"
"Don’t be silly, Catherine. Of
course it’s clean. If you don’t eat the fish, you’ll have to go to bed
hungry," Mum warned.
Reluctantly the girls ate the fish.
They enjoyed it much more than they let on.
Laura and Catherine went down to the
stream and washed the fish scales and tinned beans off their faces and
hands. They went back to their tent, pulled their wet shoes and socks off,
and put on their soft, clean pajamas.
Mum and Dad made up their beds in
the dirt. "Aren’t you sleeping in your tent?" Laura asked.
"No. We want to be out in nature,"
Mum answered.
"I’m glad we don’t have to sleep in
the dirt," Laura said. She lay down in her sleeping bag next to Catherine.
"They’ll get eaten alive by midges and mosquitoes."
Catherine tossed and turned. "Mum,
there’s a rock poking into me," she whined.
"Mum, there’s something tickling my
nose. What if it’s a spider?" Laura feared.
Dad removed the rock from below
Laura’s blanket and Mum checked Laura’s bag for spiders. The girls were
told to get to sleep right away, which is what they did, at least for a
while.
"What’s that noise?" Laura asked,
shaking her sister awake. They sat up and listened. Clouds moved across
the moon, making it look rather spooky.
HOO! HOO! HOO!
"What was that?" Catherine asked,
pulling the blanket up around her neck.
"I don’t know," Laura answered.
HOO! HOO! HOO!
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" screamed the
two girls. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Mum and Dad jumped up from their
bedrolls. Dad bumped his head on a low hanging branch of a tree. "What is
it girls? What’s the matter?" he asked.
"There’s a ghost hiding in that
rowan tree over there!" screamed Laura.
"It’s a monster!" cried Catherine.
HOO! HOO! HOO!
Dad laughed. "It’s only an owl
girls. An owl is a bird and that is the noise it makes at night. It won’t
hurt you, I promise. Now go back to sleep, please!"
Mum got up and tucked the blankets
around them. They fell back to sleep quickly.
CROAK! CROAK! CROAK!
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" screamed the
girls.
Dad jumped up, bumping his head
again. Mama sat up, rubbed her eyes and asked, "What is it this time, you
two?"
"Mum, Dad, there’s a monster over
there. I know there is," Laura said, pointing toward the stream. "Listen,"
she begged.
CROAK! CROAK! CROAK!
"That’s just a frog. It lives near
the stream. It’s small and eats flies. It won’t hurt you. Please, girls.
Please go to sleep," Dad pleaded. Mum tucked them in again and soon all
were sleeping once more.
AAOOOOOOOO! AAOOOOOOOOO! AAOOOOOOOO!
A wolf in the forest howled.
Laura sat up in bed; her eyes wide
open. "What was that?" she screamed, knowing that it wasn’t an owl or a
frog. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Catherine, Mum and Dad were all
awake now.
AAOOOOOOOOO! AAOOOOOOO! AAOOOOOOOO!
The wolf howled again.
Mum shook her head. Dad sat up, but
this time he was careful not to bump his head again. "Girls, it’s only a
wolf. It’s like Jimmy’s dog back home, except it lives in the forest and
comes out at night to hunt," he explained.
"Will it hunt us?" Catherine asked.
Dad sighed and answered, "No girls.
See the fire. We build a fire each night and it scares the wild animals
away. They won’t come near us because they’re scared of fire."
"I didn’t know that," Catherine
said, satisfied with the answer.
"What if the fire goes out?" Laura
asked.
"It won’t. One of us will get up and
take care of it. We’ll make sure it keeps burning through the night. Relax
and go to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us," Dad warned.
Laura woke up again, this time to
the snapping of twigs and branches near the tent. She looked over to see
if the fire was burning. It was, but she screamed anyway. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!
It’s a wolf, Dad. Help!"
Catherine woke up and looked at the
looming shadow approaching. "EEEEEEE!" She screamed even louder than
Laura. "It’s not a wolf. It’s a monster!"
"Girls, it’s only me," Mum said. "It
was cold so I went to get another blanket out of my pack."
Seeing this was going to go on all
night, Dad and Mum asked their daughters move their tent closer to them.
Finally they would be able to sleep.
When the sun rose the next morning,
breakfast was already cooking. The girls smelled the food and jumped out
of their beds. "Fish again?" Laura asked.
Without complaining, they ate the
fish. They both felt a little silly about the way they had acted that
night. "We’re sorry, Mum and Dad, for keeping you up all night," Catherine
apologized.
"We feel like babies," said Laura,
head hanging low.
"It’s all right, girls," Dad said.
"At least tonight you won’t be scared because you know what those noises
are and that nothing will hurt you. Come and eat your breakfast." He
hugged each daughter tightly.
After breakfast, Dad loaded the
backpacks. They hiked a long distance that day. Everyone was tired because
of the lack of sleep the previous night. When they stopped, Mum set up
their tent once again. After another meal of fried fish, the girls happily
climbed into their beds. Dad hoped they would all get a good night’s
sleep. He kissed the girls good night.
HISSSSSSSSSSSSS! HISSSSSSSSSSSS!
HISSSSSSSSSSSS! A snake in the distance made his presence known.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" screamed Laura
and Catherine.
Dad looked over at Mum and sighed,
"Here we go again!" |
