LJ Idol Topic #20: Whisper
The following is a true story.
The fourth grade overnight trip was the sort of thing that third graders only dreamed about-- at the end of fourth grade, every child (providing you didn't get into too much trouble, like Napoleon Gonzales did) went away for a single night, to camp out in tents under the stars.
It seemed impossibly far off, in the third grade. We didn't think it would ever really be us, especially when our teachers would threaten to take away the overnight trip every time we were too rowdy or not attentive enough in class. But then, suddenly, it was the end of our fourth grade year. We were fourth graders, the big kids, the top of the totem pole. And we were moving up to the middle school the next year.
We would spend two days at the camp, learning to navigate with a compass, and we would have to pitch our own tents. We were split into groups for everything: a different group for activities, a different group for eating, a different group for sleeping. I was assigned to a tent with Sela (Remember Sela? She was the one who was dating James), and with Emma, who was my closest friend that year. Emma would dump me when I kept playing with dolls and she moved on to boys and clothes and makeup. At the end of fourth grade, you could already start to see the fraying threadwork of our young friendship, but we were still best friends, peering at the school directory and giggling over how Erik's dad's name was "Gaylord."
I don't remember who else was in the tent. Two other girls. But I don't remember who. I do remember eating our s'mores, and I remember packing all into the tent, and curling up in our sleeping bags and trying to whisper quietly so our teachers couldn't hear us. Out there in the woods, only two of the teachers slept in a tent nearby, to "keep an eye on" us. The other teachers were sleeping in a nice, heated building about a quarter-mile away from the tents.
One of the girls kept teasing Sela, asking her if James was going to come sneak into her sleeping bag in the middle of the night. There was giggling, and an accusative query about whether he was stuffing her turkey. I was still not sure that boys weren't gross, so I tried to stay out of that one as much as possible. Sela, for her part, shrieked, half-gleeful, half-outraged, giggling even in her embarrassment, because of course, she had a boyfriend.
Our teacher's high, nasally voice scolded us from outside the tent. And then we were all quiet, silent as the grave, even though at this point, she didn't have anything to threaten us with. We were a month from graduation and already on the overnight, but I don't think that occurred to any of us. She said snap our traps, we snapped our traps. She said the next one of us who woke her up would regret it, we all believed her.
I don't remember if I fell asleep first, or if we were still awake, but Emma started to moan softly, high and whining.
"Ems?" asked Sela, keeping her voice as low as she could. "What's wrong?"
"I don't feel well," said Emma.
She didn't sound well, either. Sela put a hand on Emma's head and pronounced that Emma had a fever.
"Can someone get her some water?" someone asked.
"Sh! Ms. Krasinski will hear."
"I don't think Ms. K will care if she's sick."
"She said we'd regret it. We can't wake her up again, we can't."
"I don't remember how to get to the building. Aren't there a lot of turns?"
"Well, I can't go," said Sela. "I'm already in trouble for kissing James on the buss."
"OoooOOOOOooooh."
"Shut up!" Sela thwacked whoever said that.
"Shhhh! You're going to get us in trouble!"
"I'll go," I offered. "I'll just go up to the building and get a cup of water."
As quiet as I could be, I sneaked out of the tent and started down the path to the main building. There were a lot of turns and forks in the road, but I remembered them all.
There was a single floodlight still glowing outside the building, casting a golden halo over the dirt path and the grass to either side. I hopped up the two steps. Everything was surreally quiet; there was the quiet buzzing of the floodlight and the chirping of crickets, and not much more.
I went inside. The teachers were sleeping in bunks; the main central room was empty and unlit. I crossed to the water fountain, pressed down with my foot on the lever that turned on the water, and let it run from the spigot until it was cool enough to tingle.
But there were no cups. I looked through the wooden cabinets and couldn't find anything to hold water. Finally, I cupped my hands and ran them under the water fountain's tiny jet, until they were full. I suspected Emma wouldn't want to drink from my hands, but we could at least dampen a towel or something for her.
Maneuvering the door open without spilling all of the water was difficult, but I somehow managed to do it. I started back on the path to the camp.
There were a lot of forks in the road. This time, I must have missed one.
I didn't notice, and kept on walking. And walking. And walking. The water was slowly trickling out of the creases between my fingers, and the trip back was starting to seem longer than the trip to the building. I kept on going, bravely forging ahead, certain that I was imagining things.
And then I started to hear voices.
The voices were so quiet that I couldn't make out what they were saying over the rustle of leaves in the breeze, but they sounded human, distinct. I shivered and kept going, but a few paces further, and I was stymied by what lay in my path.
A wall, a tall, glistening wall of ivy with a sparkling waterfall that caught the light of the moon as the water cascaded down into a pool below. Across the pool stood a single doe, lapping up water. Its ears pricked, and it looked up at me, but didn't run. The trickling sound of the water, tinkling softly as it hit the surface of the pool, that must have been my voices, I realized, and looked down at the pool. I looked at the water in my hands, the little tiny trickle of water that remained, and I knelt down and filled my hands again.
For a brief moment, I felt like crying. Lost in the woods! But here was this beautiful, perfectly tranquil places, and for all my fear, it left me feeling a deep equanimity. I took a deep breath and began to retrace my steps.
There. There was the fork in the road where I went wrong.
By the time I got back to the tent, everyone was asleep, even Emma. It was just as well, because once again, the water had run out to a trickle. I snuck back inside, crept to my sleeping bag, and climbed into it.
Three times that night I woke up, in a panic, thinking I was still lost in the woods. Each time, I repeated to myself. "I'm sleeping in my tent. I'm sleeping in my tent," until I could calm down enough to sleep.
In the morning, they asked me. "I think I heard you talking in your sleep," said one of the girls. "I'm sleeping in my tent? I'm sleeping with my friends? Something like that? And you were breathing really hard."
"I saw a magical place," I said.
"A what?"
"A place," I replied. "A magical place. With a waterfall."
They all laughed. I told them I would show them.
I took them down the path, but I couldn't find the fork in the road. I led them all the way to the building, and turned back around, thinking it would be easier to find it if I was coming at it in the same direction I had been going the previous night. We tried every fork we came to, but to no avail. There was no waterfall, no wall of ivy, no moonlit pool.
It became a joke, among the other girls, that I had gotten scared of camping out in the woods and made up a story to cover for it. They even made up a song, to tease me around that afternoon's campfire.
"I'm sleeping in my tent, Ow-oom, ow-oom," they sang. "I'm sleeping with my friends, Ow-oom, ow-oom." Soon enough, all the other kids around the campfire were singing it, and then the teachers joined in, too. When I burst into tears, no one knew why, because apart from those four girls, no one realized it was about me. Emma, who hadn't thought it was very funny, explained it quietly to the teachers, and one of them came over and apologized to me. She gave me a hug, and told me it was all right to be scared to be away from home without my parents.
I tried to explain that it wasn't that. I tried to explain about my magical place. Because, to this day, the memory of that place, of that waterfall and that doe and that ivy wall, is more vivid than my memory of the girls who were in the tent.
The fourth grade overnight trip was the sort of thing that third graders only dreamed about-- at the end of fourth grade, every child (providing you didn't get into too much trouble, like Napoleon Gonzales did) went away for a single night, to camp out in tents under the stars.
It seemed impossibly far off, in the third grade. We didn't think it would ever really be us, especially when our teachers would threaten to take away the overnight trip every time we were too rowdy or not attentive enough in class. But then, suddenly, it was the end of our fourth grade year. We were fourth graders, the big kids, the top of the totem pole. And we were moving up to the middle school the next year.
We would spend two days at the camp, learning to navigate with a compass, and we would have to pitch our own tents. We were split into groups for everything: a different group for activities, a different group for eating, a different group for sleeping. I was assigned to a tent with Sela (Remember Sela? She was the one who was dating James), and with Emma, who was my closest friend that year. Emma would dump me when I kept playing with dolls and she moved on to boys and clothes and makeup. At the end of fourth grade, you could already start to see the fraying threadwork of our young friendship, but we were still best friends, peering at the school directory and giggling over how Erik's dad's name was "Gaylord."
I don't remember who else was in the tent. Two other girls. But I don't remember who. I do remember eating our s'mores, and I remember packing all into the tent, and curling up in our sleeping bags and trying to whisper quietly so our teachers couldn't hear us. Out there in the woods, only two of the teachers slept in a tent nearby, to "keep an eye on" us. The other teachers were sleeping in a nice, heated building about a quarter-mile away from the tents.
One of the girls kept teasing Sela, asking her if James was going to come sneak into her sleeping bag in the middle of the night. There was giggling, and an accusative query about whether he was stuffing her turkey. I was still not sure that boys weren't gross, so I tried to stay out of that one as much as possible. Sela, for her part, shrieked, half-gleeful, half-outraged, giggling even in her embarrassment, because of course, she had a boyfriend.
Our teacher's high, nasally voice scolded us from outside the tent. And then we were all quiet, silent as the grave, even though at this point, she didn't have anything to threaten us with. We were a month from graduation and already on the overnight, but I don't think that occurred to any of us. She said snap our traps, we snapped our traps. She said the next one of us who woke her up would regret it, we all believed her.
I don't remember if I fell asleep first, or if we were still awake, but Emma started to moan softly, high and whining.
"Ems?" asked Sela, keeping her voice as low as she could. "What's wrong?"
"I don't feel well," said Emma.
She didn't sound well, either. Sela put a hand on Emma's head and pronounced that Emma had a fever.
"Can someone get her some water?" someone asked.
"Sh! Ms. Krasinski will hear."
"I don't think Ms. K will care if she's sick."
"She said we'd regret it. We can't wake her up again, we can't."
"I don't remember how to get to the building. Aren't there a lot of turns?"
"Well, I can't go," said Sela. "I'm already in trouble for kissing James on the buss."
"OoooOOOOOooooh."
"Shut up!" Sela thwacked whoever said that.
"Shhhh! You're going to get us in trouble!"
"I'll go," I offered. "I'll just go up to the building and get a cup of water."
As quiet as I could be, I sneaked out of the tent and started down the path to the main building. There were a lot of turns and forks in the road, but I remembered them all.
There was a single floodlight still glowing outside the building, casting a golden halo over the dirt path and the grass to either side. I hopped up the two steps. Everything was surreally quiet; there was the quiet buzzing of the floodlight and the chirping of crickets, and not much more.
I went inside. The teachers were sleeping in bunks; the main central room was empty and unlit. I crossed to the water fountain, pressed down with my foot on the lever that turned on the water, and let it run from the spigot until it was cool enough to tingle.
But there were no cups. I looked through the wooden cabinets and couldn't find anything to hold water. Finally, I cupped my hands and ran them under the water fountain's tiny jet, until they were full. I suspected Emma wouldn't want to drink from my hands, but we could at least dampen a towel or something for her.
Maneuvering the door open without spilling all of the water was difficult, but I somehow managed to do it. I started back on the path to the camp.
There were a lot of forks in the road. This time, I must have missed one.
I didn't notice, and kept on walking. And walking. And walking. The water was slowly trickling out of the creases between my fingers, and the trip back was starting to seem longer than the trip to the building. I kept on going, bravely forging ahead, certain that I was imagining things.
And then I started to hear voices.
The voices were so quiet that I couldn't make out what they were saying over the rustle of leaves in the breeze, but they sounded human, distinct. I shivered and kept going, but a few paces further, and I was stymied by what lay in my path.
A wall, a tall, glistening wall of ivy with a sparkling waterfall that caught the light of the moon as the water cascaded down into a pool below. Across the pool stood a single doe, lapping up water. Its ears pricked, and it looked up at me, but didn't run. The trickling sound of the water, tinkling softly as it hit the surface of the pool, that must have been my voices, I realized, and looked down at the pool. I looked at the water in my hands, the little tiny trickle of water that remained, and I knelt down and filled my hands again.
For a brief moment, I felt like crying. Lost in the woods! But here was this beautiful, perfectly tranquil places, and for all my fear, it left me feeling a deep equanimity. I took a deep breath and began to retrace my steps.
There. There was the fork in the road where I went wrong.
By the time I got back to the tent, everyone was asleep, even Emma. It was just as well, because once again, the water had run out to a trickle. I snuck back inside, crept to my sleeping bag, and climbed into it.
Three times that night I woke up, in a panic, thinking I was still lost in the woods. Each time, I repeated to myself. "I'm sleeping in my tent. I'm sleeping in my tent," until I could calm down enough to sleep.
In the morning, they asked me. "I think I heard you talking in your sleep," said one of the girls. "I'm sleeping in my tent? I'm sleeping with my friends? Something like that? And you were breathing really hard."
"I saw a magical place," I said.
"A what?"
"A place," I replied. "A magical place. With a waterfall."
They all laughed. I told them I would show them.
I took them down the path, but I couldn't find the fork in the road. I led them all the way to the building, and turned back around, thinking it would be easier to find it if I was coming at it in the same direction I had been going the previous night. We tried every fork we came to, but to no avail. There was no waterfall, no wall of ivy, no moonlit pool.
It became a joke, among the other girls, that I had gotten scared of camping out in the woods and made up a story to cover for it. They even made up a song, to tease me around that afternoon's campfire.
"I'm sleeping in my tent, Ow-oom, ow-oom," they sang. "I'm sleeping with my friends, Ow-oom, ow-oom." Soon enough, all the other kids around the campfire were singing it, and then the teachers joined in, too. When I burst into tears, no one knew why, because apart from those four girls, no one realized it was about me. Emma, who hadn't thought it was very funny, explained it quietly to the teachers, and one of them came over and apologized to me. She gave me a hug, and told me it was all right to be scared to be away from home without my parents.
I tried to explain that it wasn't that. I tried to explain about my magical place. Because, to this day, the memory of that place, of that waterfall and that doe and that ivy wall, is more vivid than my memory of the girls who were in the tent.