Our last day of the trip came surprisingly fast. I don’t know why, but time really flies. After two days of being tired, wet, and muddy, suddenly it was already time to go home.
We started the morning with buttermilk pancakes. That sounds pretty good, but these were some seriously solid pancakes. You could literally use them as Frisbees. We actually tried. We managed to find at least five pancakes that were almost completely solid. There was also something called “Orts Stew,” but you know what? Scratch that. Breakfast was decent enough.
When I stepped outside, I realized something amazing: for the first time, it wasn’t raining. It also wasn’t completely muddy. That alone made me pretty happy.
For our last activity, we went outside looking for crayfish and salamanders. We found some, and that was basically it. The ending of the trip was honestly a little underwhelming. After three days, I guess I was expecting some huge final event, but instead we just went out, looked for little creatures, and then it was time to leave.
Something that was definitely not underwhelming, though, was our coach bus. When it arrived, it looked amazing. The inside almost felt like an airplane. Then we looked at one of the cup holders and saw a bunch of mysterious stains, so maybe it wasn’t quite as luxurious as we first thought.
On the ride back, we finished The Incredibles. When you’re exhausted and sitting on a bus with your friends, apparently one of the funniest things you can do is make comments about a movie. Why are that guy’s feet so huge? Why is that guy so small? Why are those two doing that? We weren’t exactly making fun of the movie. We were just really tired, which somehow makes everything funnier.
After that, we watched The Pacifier. You probably haven’t heard of it, which may tell you something about how famous it is. It sounds like it should be a movie about babies, and I guess technically there are kids in it, but it’s actually more of an action movie. There’s this secret system called GHOST that can supposedly disable almost anything, a scientist gets killed, and then a Navy SEAL ends up becoming a babysitter while trying to protect the scientist’s family. Somehow military missions and babysitting become the same story. Again, we had a lot of comments.
Eventually the bus pulled back into Beaver.
I wish I could say I went home and collapsed, but no. We put our bags down, and then I had cross-country practice.
I was already pretty tired, but I still did it. Honestly, I rely a lot on swimming when it comes to cross-country. I don’t think running practice is where I especially shine, but somehow during races I’ve been around the second-fastest Beaver runner. I think all those hours of swimming give me the endurance to keep going even when I’m exhausted.
And then, because apparently returning from a three-day field trip wasn’t enough for one day, we also had our Student Rep election.
Student Rep is basically our version of student council. If you become a representative, you talk about things students want to change or improve. Maybe you suggest field trips people would actually like, or explain which activities students don’t like, or bring ideas from your classmates to the school. Basically, your job is to represent people and actually do something.
I was running.
We all had speeches prepared, but when it was my turn, I decided to go off script. The whole thing already felt scripted enough, and reading straight from a piece of paper didn’t feel right to me.
One thing I talked about was the boys. The boys are kind of like loose sand. We’re all separate grains going everywhere, and we can’t seem to agree on one person to support. The girls, on the other hand, seem much more organized. They support each other, and because of that, I started thinking they might end up taking all the seats.
There are only two positions.
I don’t know who is going to win. Of course I hope I win, but I also just hope at least one boy gets a seat. Not because there is anything wrong with the girls winning. They might simply be better organized. But sometimes boys need somebody to push them a little harder. Otherwise everyone just spreads out and does their own thing.
So that was the end of the trip, the bus ride, cross-country, and an election all packed into one day.
There wasn’t some huge dramatic ending. It was just another day in the life of a kid. Maybe not the most interesting day ever, but there is always tomorrow.
See you tomorrow.
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