The Cedarville Review 2024

THE CEDARVILLE REVIEW 59 We sat on the curb, throwing rocks, until just before sunrise, when Aunt Kay pulled up in that canary yellow truck. We piled into the back seat as victors, silently high-fi ving as the truck rumbled down the highway. Aunt Kay, puffi ng smoke in our faces like a snake’s venom, lectured us about the virtue of gratitude and how she and my parents sacrifi ced just so we could go to camp, and we shouldn’t be bratty about it. She topped off her speech by telling us how much she and my mom loved Camp Nasworthy growing up and that kids these days are just spoiled. We were too busy celebrating in the back seat to be paying any attention to her threats. “Sean, isn’t that the turn-off for home?” Pat whispered, shaking his brother back to reality about ten minutes into the drive. We watched as the fork in the road rushed past us. The only thing that differentiated it from every other swamp-lined corner was the big To I-75 painted on the road. Our party turned to stunned silence as the white CAMP sign appeared in the distance. Aunt Kay laid on the horn until a confused, half-asleep, barefoot counselor appeared and opened the gate. She jumped out of the truck and started having ‘words’ with him about supervising children and not letting them wander through the woods at night. Her words were blurred by the window and the dense blanket of morning mugginess, but the counselor’s eyes were wide in panicked horror. I wondered what she had been saying to us when we weren’t listening. “Don’t make me come back up here!” we heard her yell, jabbing her fi nger at the councilor like a knife, then she turned to us, crowded in one window. “What are you doing? Get out of the truck!” We knew better than to disobey. We fumbled with our seat belts,

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