Personal Narrative

It started on the peaceful Monday afternoon. Busloads of girls had just arrived at Camp Alice Chester, where they would spend the week canoeing, riding horses, cooking, or just relaxing. The councilors were guiding the happy girls, full from the evening meal, down to the beach for a ‘Welcome to Camp’ beach party. There were small activities to do, but most people just sat in the sand and talked to friends, either ones they had made plans to come with, or people that they were bunking down with.

The sun seemed to be happy as well. Fluffy clouds that half-covered the sky split into vibrant colors that washed and blended into the joyous sounds of new campers. Everybody seems content with the way camp was going. It looked to be a good week.

But it was not going to be that way.

Dark clouds were on the horizon. None of the campers seemed to notice except one girl. Or, if the other campers noticed, they didn’t care. They were having fun, and nothing would disrupt their games. Yet the councilors had to. A storm was brewing, and it was going to give every girl in camp a nightmare.

The dark clouds continued closer to the camp while the councilors herded everyone inside the main building. In the short time that it took to walk up the hill, thunder had been heard, and raindrops started splattering all over the dirt. The girl noticed all of this. She had a bad fear of thunderstorms, and she had a good reason. This storm in particular would turn out to make her spend almost two hours down in a basement that was not built to accommodate as many people as there were.

The basement was small. Probably one built for 50 people at the maximum. And that was without the tables taking up most of the space. But after those 50 people filed down the short, winding steps, they kept coming. There were about 150 people in a basement that could not fit that many. The girls were sitting on the floor as well as at the tables. Some board games were brought out to keep the girls’ minds off of the storm. But the girl decided she would rather sit by the stairs, so she could eavesdrop on the councilors and hear the updates on the storm.

Nothing exciting happened for an hour, but to the girl it felt like an eternity. Even her best friend, who came here with her, didn’t know what was happening. But it didn’t seem like she cared. Yet the girl knew that she should care.  Storms were not a force to be reckoned with, because of the things that could spawn from them.

The last 45 minutes were the worst part for the girl. Councilors had admitted that the storm was getting worse, and it would be hard to hide how bad the storm was. The girl heard this, and her heart quickened. She was panicking when someone came up to her. It was an older woman, a senior councilor. She tried, without much success, to calm her nerves and have her join the group where people let the councilors deal with the problem. That mission failed, so she just sat and talked with the girl until something happened.
The lights went out.

Then they came back on. Over the din, someone said that someone just bumped against the light switch, and for a while, she was gullible and the  girl believed it. Yet after few minutes they decided to ‘turn off the lights’ and bring out a battery powered projector. It put images of the night sky on the ceiling of the tiny basement.  That was the point where she didn’t believe them anymore. For a while, she  thought about how well timed the blackout was, and came to the conclusion that they were lying to their faces. But by that point it was about 10 at night and the girl was tired. She took her wet towel that had come from the beach and lay against the wall and just waited for when they could go outside.

Finally the call came. The storm was over and they could go back to their platform tents. Only flashes of lightning reminded the girls that there had been a angry storm that had ripped through land only a few miles down the road.