Over The Top: Going Wild

Imagine wet socks all day.

Imagine a soggy sleeping-bag.

Imagine a wild animal living near your tent,

Every year our school goes camping. I hate camping. I always try to bunk school on camping day so I don't have to go. One year I tried to make myself sick but Mum knew I'd been drinking salty water. She made me go anyway. I threw up at the front gate and felt fine after that. Another time I let the car tyres down. Mum rang a neighbour and had them pumped up again. It soon learned it.

This year we were going to some remote spot in the hills. I didn't want to go anywhere. I packed my things, slowly, wishing the weather would turn to something impossible to go camping in. It stayed sunny. I listened to the forecast like a dying man. Scattered showers. That was all.

"Oh well", I thought, "If I can't avoid it, I might as well take along some 'home comforts'. Like sweets!" Bags of them. I stuffed them into the bottom of my pack, under the clothing. I poked candy bars into the side pockets, and chocolate bars into my folded socks. As long as I had plenty of junk food, I would survive.

The school vans were ready. I climbed in with the other kids and found a seat. It was a squeeze as usual Like sardines in a can. I watched as the school gates receded. It was a sad farewell. Would I ever return?

The city shrank to a dot behind us, then the road began to climb some hills. The seal changed to shingle, then someone got in and out of the van every few miles, to open and shut gates. We crawled on. Dust hung in the air behind us. Dust drifted into me van. It covered us.

We left the shingle road and followed a dirt track. More gates. More stopping and starting, lurching and bumping. Finally, we were there.

We fell out into the fresh air and looked around. There was nothing to see. Only hills, hills and more hills. And there were gorse bushes as big as trees, sheep tracks, willows with trunks that looked a thousand years old, and blackberry. Wonderful.

The teachers organized us into groups of three. I heaved my pack on my shoulders and waited to see who I would be camping with. Two boys came over to me. Spotty and Pundi. That wasn't their real names. They just seemed to be a Spotty and a Pundi.

Spotty was like a chameleon. When he was with teachers, he was a "best boy in the school'. Polite, well-mannered, considerate. All the teachers loved him. But when he was with us, he was his real self. Rude, selfish, inconsiderate. He never listened, and he used his fists to get what he wanted. We called him