What Happens at Camp Stays at Camp: A night to Remember “Hey umm Coral, can we uhh talk to you in the bathroom?” “Yea sure,” she answered quizzically. Coral was one of our counselors. She has been working at the camp for three years and it was my 4th year being a camper there. Therefore, we are both very crazy and not scared to do risky things. My camp is called Wicosuta. It is in New Hampshire. It was the second to last night of camp last summer. We all had our sleeping bags on the floor; we were planning on spending the whole night awake. My friend Carrie and I had really wanted to raid the kitchen. We didn’t know what we would get, but I think it was just the thrill that made us want to so badly. We decided that tonight was our best and last opportunity to do that, but if we got caught, we could get in huge trouble. After a long debate, we decided that Coral would be the most likely counselor to allow us to go, without a fear of punishments. “So, we really want to raid the kitchen. We know that it is risky so maybe just Carrie and I should go with you and no one else in the bunk has to even know that we left…” I held my breath when I was done asking, awaiting her response. “Umm girls that sounds very fun and I think we can… How about we wait until a little later and then we will go?” asked Coral seeming a little hesitant, but a smile was creeping to her face. “YES!” we yelled quietly and hugged Coral. We went back into the bunk as if nothing had happened and we joined in with our bunkmates and counselors laughing, talking and of course crying about camp almost being over. My eyes were repeatedly glancing at Carrie anxiously and the same was happening to her; I know that because we kept making eye contact. Neither of us talked a lot in the conversation with everyone else. Carrie was fidgeting with her flashlight. We didn’t tell a single other person about our plan. Finally, I looked up at Coral and noticed that she was silently slipping on her shoes. I took that as a signal. It was time; I nudged Carrie. We both subtly left the group on the floor and slid on our own shoes and sweatshirts. We made sure that we were wearing our dark colors. It was pitch black outside. We stepped out of the door and into our unforgettable adventure. “Come on!” we followed Coral, quietly jogging towards the dining hall. We had gotten about halfway there and were very anxious. “Duck!” Coral whispered abruptly to us.
We all held our breaths, while we hid behind the gazebo. The strict head of the waterfront drove by us in a golf cart on the way to her cabin. To our surprise, she didn’t see us. “Whewww that was close! The coast is clear, let’s go!” I whispered. We continued to quietly run all the way to the back of the dining hall when we heard voices and saw shadows. We froze. I grabbed onto Carrie and Carrie latched onto Coral. The shadows shined their flashlights on us and laughed to themselves. They shined their flashlight on themselves and to our relief it was only 2 more campers that were a year older than us. They apparently had also planned on raiding the kitchen. The garage was locked and so were all of the doors. We needed to start being creative. “I could climb onto the dumpster and maybe we could open the window and I could crawl through!” I exclaimed with a huge smile. “Yes yes! Smart!” replied Coral nodding her head in approval. Carrie reached up and tried to unlock the window. Instead of unlocking it, she accidently broke it and the window screen fell off, but it didn’t matter really, as long we could get in. I climbed up onto the sticky dumpster. I had black goo on my hands but I didn’t really care that much. I was willing to get down and dirty. I reached my leg onto the windowsill and everyone was waiting down below telling me to “Jump!” and “Go. Go. Go!” I could see their eyes widening with excitement. “Uh. Oh. Uhhh, you guys there is a staircase right below the window. I can’t jump because there isn’t solid ground; I will fall and I’m too short to reach my legs to the top of the stairs. It’s too far!” my smile faded and I really badly didn’t want to let any of them down by not getting inside. It was time to think again. “Hmmm…Look there are some milk carton storage boxes over there! Lets stack them up to the window on the other side.” We stacked the crates on top of each other as carefully as we could then a girl got onto the tallest girl’s back and they both climbed up onto the crates. The window was nailed in way too tightly to be able to open it. We were all starting to loose hope when I thought “Hey! Why doesn’t someone that is taller just go through the window at the dumpster, because she can probably stretch her legs all the way to the top of the staircase! Then she can unlock the door and let us all in!” After a lot of convincing one of the older girls finally climbed up onto the windowsill with some help from Coral and she stretched towards the floor inside.
Coral strained to hold onto her tightly but still trying to help her reach. Finally she hopped inside and safely landed on the ground without falling down the staircase. The rest of us ran around the side of the dining hall. There was adrenaline rushing through my body. The girl who was on the inside unlocked the door for us and we all rushed inside the dark creepy kitchen. Coral knew where all of the snacks and good foods were kept so we all followed her. She led us down the steep staircase and we felt like we were walking into a magical world. “Wooow!” “This is so cool!” “Oh my gosh! Why don’t they ever serve good food if they have it?” We all laughed a little. Coral unlatched a metal door, which opened up a walk in freezer. It was a rectangle, about 6x3 feet. The walls and ceiling were made out of a white, powdery ice. We all walked inside. Amazed by just the shelves filled with snacks, this made our fascination double. There were ice cream sandwiches and bags of raw cookie dough patties all around us. Obviously, like any girl in that situation would do... we stuffed our faces. We were passing around the ice cream and cookie dough and filling up our sweatshirts with extras for the bunk. It was pretty much heaven. “Girls calm down! Don’t eat all the cookie dough or there wont be enough for them to make cookies for campfire tomorrow!” Coral said laughing at us. “It’s ok! They will buy more if they need to!” Carrie told her and we all nodded our heads and continued pigging out. “You girls are crazy! …Did one of you just turn on the lights out there?” Coral asked noticing the light had turned on outside the freezer. “No, what are you talking ab..” before we could finish answering her we were interrupted by an unfamiliar, deep voice. “OUT! Get out now! All of you! Now!” a man yelled at us crinkling his forehead and squinting his eyes. “Ahhhh! Who is that?” we all shrieked in unison. I was as scared as a mouse about to be attacked by a cat. We stuffed our sweatshirts with more food and sprinted as fast as we could out of the freezer and away from man. He was big, bald and definitely angry. By now there was not a single light on outside and we absolutely could not see a single thing. Right when we stepped outside rain started coming down as hard as a bunch
of mini hammers falling from the sky and there was lightning and thunder booming and flashing. I was completely disoriented. I was trying to grab onto Carrie and run for my life, but I couldn’t see anything and I didn’t want to trip on the rocks or fall into the stream that is down the hill behind the dinning hall. I also didn’t want to trip over the steps that lead down from the back doors, so I was TERRIFIED. Just to remind you again…I couldn’t see a SINGLE thing. We finally passed the gazebo and were running up the softball field towards our cabin. We could see a little better from the lights that were in the parking lot next to the field. We barged into the cabin and everyone screamed a little. “Where have you been?!” “We were worried to death!” “Are you ok?” “Where’s Coral?” That question is actually a good one because we honestly had no idea. “You girls should not have gone! That was so stupid! You could have gotten killed in this storm! Gosh I hope Coral is alright!” my other counselor angrily scolded us, talking really fast and continually glancing out the door window. We were bombarded with questions nonstop. They didn’t even give us a chance to settle down or take off our sopping wet clothes and shoes. We looked at each other and sighed. We started to hand out the ice cream sandwiches and cookie dough that we had stolen, while we repeated over and over again that we would explain the whole story to everyone all together, because we didn’t want to repeat it over and over again. Finally Coral busted into the out of control cabin, seeming calmer than I had expected. She told Carrie and me that the man was the nighttime security guard. My heart stopped racing, I put on warm clothes, and I sat on my friends’ sleeping bag with her. It had been an adventurous night. Carrie and I made an eye contact that I knew meant that we could never really explain all the details and emotions that we had felt or experienced, because the fear and excitement was so overwhelming that you had to really be there to understand what we were talking about. That was a night that I will always remember.