June 11th

"Erica, wake up!" My mom's stressed face looked over me as I peeled my eyes open as the haze of early morning drowsiness fought with the nagging feeling that I needed to get up and do something.

"Wha-mom..." I wasn't ever considered a morning person. "Just-why are you waking me up this early?" I slurred and burrowed into the layers of thin sheets. I wished that we could afford some warmer blankets and I shivered.

"You need to get up. It's 7:45! Camp Williams is a half an hour away!" Suddenly, my eyes flew open, stinging from the sudden light, and I threw off the sheets

"Oh my gosh! I'm sorry, I don't know what happened!" I yelled as I ran to the bathroom to brush my teeth, take a shower, and pull my ratty hair into a ponytail. My mom entered the bathroom a few minutes later as I was washing my face.

"I made your bed and put your things downstairs into the car. You need to hurry up. We need to be there by 9:00 and the news says the traffic is terrible."

"Ahhhh!" I saw the digital alarm clock read 8:10. I rushed past my mom back into my room and frantically got dressed in a grey t-shirt with the quote, "May the odds be ever in your favor" scrawled proudly for the world to see. After a few frantic minutes of trying to figure out which pair of shorts I should wear, I decided to slip on a pair of athletic shorts and wrapped an extra hair tie around my wrist, along with a watch that was so beat up and scratched, that you could barely see the time.

I rushed downstairs and shoved on my sneakers. "Okay, let's go!" I called to my mom and she double-checked everything before we set out on the drive.

"So," My mom glanced up at the mirror in the car after we had gotten on the highway. "Are you excited?"

"Yeah, of course I am!" I couldn't even concentrate on the book I was reading and slipped it back into my duffel bag. I bounced my leg up and down and suddenly realized how anxious I was. "Are we allowed to make phone calls...at camp?"

"Um, no, I don't think so. You didn't bring your phone did you, because I think that they'll kick you out if they find it." I shook my head and looked out the window. Two months.

"I still can't believe that I'm going to this." I said and then looked at the road ahead of me.

"I know. I'm so excited for you. I never got to do this as a kid. You'll have a great time."

"Yeah."

An hour of traffic-filled driving later and several wrong turns. The hundred foot tall pines of Camp Williams came into view and then the tall flags with the Camp Williams symbol fluttering in the chill became the view from the two front seats of the car. My heart raced faster with the anticipation of my long stay at a place that I had only seen pictures of on a website and in a packet full of forms.

"Here it is!" My mom looked even more excited than me as I could clearly see how red and blothchy my face was in the car mirror. A crowded and very busy parkinglot in the middle of a dusty field sat accross the street from the main campgrounds which were mostly concealed by the trees surrounding it.

A few cheery college kids directed cars this way and that, forming rows and rows of vehicles that caused the sand to puff and swirl around the campers and their families getting out of their cars. We finally pulled to a stop and my mom shut off the car, pulling the keys out of the ignition. This was it, this was Camp Williams.

"I'm so excited!" My mom jumped out of the car and opened the trunk. I beamed, not allowing my nerves to prevent me from enjoying camp. We lugged the gargantuan suitcases our of the back and weaved through the crowd. We reached a gazebo and saw that there were seven different colored flags above each picnic table.

"Where do we go now?" I asked and my mom got the attention of an average-height girl with chesnut hair and a blue Camp Williams t-shirt on.

"Yes?" She looked at both of us and waited.

"My daughter, Erica, she won the raffle and we don't know where to go or where to put her things."

The girl nodded in understandment. "Oh, well, the red, orange, and yellow are the sign-ins for the girls and the rest are for the boys and the counselors-in-training. How old are you, Erica?"

"I'm fifteen." I said and I did a double take as a familliar face flahsed by. Ben?

"Then you are going to go to the orange picnic table over there and you'll get signed in and then you'll go to your cabin!"

"Great, thank you!" My mom picked up the suitcase that she had rested on the ground and we started to walk away.

"Wait, do you know your cabin?" The girl asked.

"Yep, cabin 15."

A line of girls around my age stretched to the other end of the parking lot and I could barley hear my mom chatting away with the camp instructor over the excited babble.
     "So, where are we going?" I asked, so excited that I was bouncing up and down slightly.

     "Well, cabin 15 is at the top of the hill across the street in the Orange Village. It shouldn't be too hard to find." My mom and I hiked though the beautiful campgrounds filled with many sports courts, picnic tables and large buildings; one said 'Williams Dining Hall'.
     Before I knew it, the orange sign stapled to a tree marked the Orange Village. The cabin numbers started counting up.

     "There's one." I said.

     "Seven."

     "Ten."

     "Ah, here's fifteen!" My mom squealed and sure enough, an identical cabin to all the others, with its orange totem pole in the front and wooden exterior. A door sat above a small set of stairs and the number fifteen was prominently displayed below the point at the roof.

     "Okay, do you what me to walk you in?" My mom asked.

     "No, I'm alright." I said, I want even sure if parents were allowed in the cabins.

     "Ok, Erica. I hope you have a great time. I'm so happy for you." She gave me a long hug and when she pulled away, her eyes were misty. "Write me every day. I love you."

     "Love you too." I waved goodbye and walked up the steps into the cabin.

I looked back at my mom and waved her goodbye, already feeling a tiny bit homesick, and tentativley swung open the wooden and then the screened door into the small cabin. Four sets of bunkbeds and shelves framing them, sat snugly to the walls and a separate room for the counsellors was positioned at my right. Besides the door I came in through, there was no other exit except for the long windows along the top and middle of the walls which were about nine and a half feet or so. A bathroom was adjacent to the counselor squatters and a fan spun around lazily.

     Of course, I was the last girl there. The others seemed to have unpacked most of their things into the shelves by the beds and were shyly introducing themselves. Well, except for one girl who seemed right at home and was talking and laughing with one of the counselors.

They all turned to me. "Um, hi."