Goddess Boot Camp
Page 35
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Right. Camp.
I glance down at my sweat-soaked I RUN THEREFORE I AM CRAZY T-shirt and shorts. For a second I consider going as is—and taking every opportunity to brush my stinky self up against Adara. But then I remember my dignity—and her e-mail last night about not wearing shorts. As much as I’d like to completely ignore her instructions, I don’t want to wind up bit by a snake or a hydra or some other creepy-crawly just to spite her. With my luck, today would be fight-a-mythological-monster day.
“You’re right,” I say before I get sucked into those bright blue eyes for a lifetime or two. “I need a shower.” Pressing a quick kiss to his mouth, I ask, “Maybe you can come by after you get back from Serifos?”
“I’ll have to help Aunt Lili put everything away.” He gives me a lopsided grin. “But I’ll try to steal away. Why don’t we meet at the dock at seven for a sunset walk on the beach.”
“We could always fit in another training run,” I tease.
Griffin groans. “Are you trying to kill me?”
I glance at my watch and realize just how late I am.
“Of course not,” I say, backing away across the quad. “If you were dead, who would I train with?”
“Today we are going to do a team exercise called Navigator,” Stella explains as I try to slip unnoticed into the group assembled behind the maintenance shed. She glares at me. I’m not that late. A minute or two. Five at the most.
“We have divided you into four teams—three teams of three and one team of four.” Adara throws me a glare of her own, like I intentionally ruined her even division of teams. She gives me too little credit for inventiveness—like giving her an odd number of campers is the worst thing I could think of—and too much credit for interest in her. I have better things to do with my mental faculties than make her life miserable. It may be a bonus effect, but I have plenty of my own miseries to worry about.
“Each team will be assigned a supervisor, either Miss Orivas, Stella, Xander, or myself.” She flips over a page on her clipboard and reads aloud. “The teams are as follows . . .”
As Adara reads the names on the list of teams, I glance around at the ten-year-olds. They are all dutifully wearing pants and either sneakers or hiking shoes. She lists the members of the first three teams, those supervised by Stella, Adara, and Miss Orivas. The girls line up behind their assigned leader.
“The remaining four campers—Tansy, Muriel, Gillian, and Phoebe,” Adara says, with an extra-sugary-sweet grin at me, “are assigned to Xander.”
“Each supervisor will now explain the exercise,” Stella says. “The teams are not allowed further communication until Navigator is over.”
As Stella, Adara, and Miss Orivas lead their girls in separate directions for the debriefing or whatever, Xander doesn’t move from the spot where he’s comfortably leaning against the maintenance shed. My three teammates settle into the grass at his feet.
He glances at me and raises a brow.
The rebel thing doesn’t do it for me. I move to stand behind the older girl—I think her name is Tansy—and cross my arms. As if I’m going to sit at his feet.
“Navigator,” Xander begins, “is an exercise in strategy, teamwork, and most of all, trust.”
Again with the trust thing? We’ve already done that.
He pushes away from the shed and jerks some pink papers from his back pocket. As he hands them to Gillian he says, “Hidden in the woods behind us are a dozen team flags. Three for each team.”
Tansy twists around to hand me one of the papers. It’s an odd-looking map, with a series of twisting trails, bushy kindergarten-looking trees, and a dozen Xs marked in evenly distributed spots. There’s a map legend at the bottom and the Is are dotted with little hearts. Adara’s handiwork, no doubt.
Although, with Stella’s crazy crush on rebel boy, she might have sunk to heart-doodling, too.
“Are we to find the flags?” the third girl on my team—what was her name?—asks.
“Let him finish, Muriel,” Gillian says.
“Yes, Muriel,” Xander says, not a flicker of emotion in his lavender eyes, “we will find the flags. The trick is finding the right flags.”
Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m traipsing through the woods behind the ten-year-olds, with Xander bringing up the rear. This is the dumbest game I’ve ever played. Like I don’t have better things to do than hunt for stupid flags in a stupid forest. I could be visiting Serifos with Griffin or helping Nicole with her research project or figuring out who is sending me mysterious messages.
“You’re falling behind.”
I don’t have to glance over my shoulder to know Xander is right behind me. “And your point is?”
“This is a team effort.” Twigs crack beneath our steps. “Maybe, since running is an individual sport, you’re not familiar with the concept.”
Like he has a clue. Sure, each race is an individual runner against other individual runners, but there’s also the overall competition. Every race is worth team points. A different number of points for each scoring place—the number of scoring places determined by how many runners are in the race. If there are thirty runners, then usually the first three finishers get points for their team. These points accumulate over the course of the meet, and the team with the highest total at the end wins the overall.
I glance down at my sweat-soaked I RUN THEREFORE I AM CRAZY T-shirt and shorts. For a second I consider going as is—and taking every opportunity to brush my stinky self up against Adara. But then I remember my dignity—and her e-mail last night about not wearing shorts. As much as I’d like to completely ignore her instructions, I don’t want to wind up bit by a snake or a hydra or some other creepy-crawly just to spite her. With my luck, today would be fight-a-mythological-monster day.
“You’re right,” I say before I get sucked into those bright blue eyes for a lifetime or two. “I need a shower.” Pressing a quick kiss to his mouth, I ask, “Maybe you can come by after you get back from Serifos?”
“I’ll have to help Aunt Lili put everything away.” He gives me a lopsided grin. “But I’ll try to steal away. Why don’t we meet at the dock at seven for a sunset walk on the beach.”
“We could always fit in another training run,” I tease.
Griffin groans. “Are you trying to kill me?”
I glance at my watch and realize just how late I am.
“Of course not,” I say, backing away across the quad. “If you were dead, who would I train with?”
“Today we are going to do a team exercise called Navigator,” Stella explains as I try to slip unnoticed into the group assembled behind the maintenance shed. She glares at me. I’m not that late. A minute or two. Five at the most.
“We have divided you into four teams—three teams of three and one team of four.” Adara throws me a glare of her own, like I intentionally ruined her even division of teams. She gives me too little credit for inventiveness—like giving her an odd number of campers is the worst thing I could think of—and too much credit for interest in her. I have better things to do with my mental faculties than make her life miserable. It may be a bonus effect, but I have plenty of my own miseries to worry about.
“Each team will be assigned a supervisor, either Miss Orivas, Stella, Xander, or myself.” She flips over a page on her clipboard and reads aloud. “The teams are as follows . . .”
As Adara reads the names on the list of teams, I glance around at the ten-year-olds. They are all dutifully wearing pants and either sneakers or hiking shoes. She lists the members of the first three teams, those supervised by Stella, Adara, and Miss Orivas. The girls line up behind their assigned leader.
“The remaining four campers—Tansy, Muriel, Gillian, and Phoebe,” Adara says, with an extra-sugary-sweet grin at me, “are assigned to Xander.”
“Each supervisor will now explain the exercise,” Stella says. “The teams are not allowed further communication until Navigator is over.”
As Stella, Adara, and Miss Orivas lead their girls in separate directions for the debriefing or whatever, Xander doesn’t move from the spot where he’s comfortably leaning against the maintenance shed. My three teammates settle into the grass at his feet.
He glances at me and raises a brow.
The rebel thing doesn’t do it for me. I move to stand behind the older girl—I think her name is Tansy—and cross my arms. As if I’m going to sit at his feet.
“Navigator,” Xander begins, “is an exercise in strategy, teamwork, and most of all, trust.”
Again with the trust thing? We’ve already done that.
He pushes away from the shed and jerks some pink papers from his back pocket. As he hands them to Gillian he says, “Hidden in the woods behind us are a dozen team flags. Three for each team.”
Tansy twists around to hand me one of the papers. It’s an odd-looking map, with a series of twisting trails, bushy kindergarten-looking trees, and a dozen Xs marked in evenly distributed spots. There’s a map legend at the bottom and the Is are dotted with little hearts. Adara’s handiwork, no doubt.
Although, with Stella’s crazy crush on rebel boy, she might have sunk to heart-doodling, too.
“Are we to find the flags?” the third girl on my team—what was her name?—asks.
“Let him finish, Muriel,” Gillian says.
“Yes, Muriel,” Xander says, not a flicker of emotion in his lavender eyes, “we will find the flags. The trick is finding the right flags.”
Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m traipsing through the woods behind the ten-year-olds, with Xander bringing up the rear. This is the dumbest game I’ve ever played. Like I don’t have better things to do than hunt for stupid flags in a stupid forest. I could be visiting Serifos with Griffin or helping Nicole with her research project or figuring out who is sending me mysterious messages.
“You’re falling behind.”
I don’t have to glance over my shoulder to know Xander is right behind me. “And your point is?”
“This is a team effort.” Twigs crack beneath our steps. “Maybe, since running is an individual sport, you’re not familiar with the concept.”
Like he has a clue. Sure, each race is an individual runner against other individual runners, but there’s also the overall competition. Every race is worth team points. A different number of points for each scoring place—the number of scoring places determined by how many runners are in the race. If there are thirty runners, then usually the first three finishers get points for their team. These points accumulate over the course of the meet, and the team with the highest total at the end wins the overall.
