Camp Where The Hell Are We? | ✓

15

In the fourth grade, Gabby Collins and Marley Hoover did a science project on Isaac Newton's Three Laws of Motion.

Their teacher, Mrs. Jenson, spent the majority of the day watching kids walk up to the front with messy, sometimes glittery posters about rocks and minerals. They could choose anything they wanted, she said.

The current unit was rocks and minerals, but Gabby and Marley took it to the next level by delving into the science of erosion. And then they were reading about gravity, and that eventually led them to the three laws of motion.

Mr. and Mrs. Collins had to tackle the whole situation of taking them out for their supplies together. The nine-year-old girls were talking over each other in the car, a detailed list in both their hands of what they needed. They were going to do a demonstration of each of the three laws. They had a poster they spent days toiling over with diagrams and detailed explanations, and it was going to be great!

It was the two of them, against the world. Walking up to the front with their poster and their excitement because they loved proving they learned as much as the actual learning part.

Millions of people had seen an apple fall from a tree, and Isaac Newton was the only one who wondered why.

They killed the presentation. The principal was called into the room, and all of the other kids were out of their minds with boredom (Marley now remembers little Aiden Matthews throwing paper balls at the other kids in the back row), but the two girls had never been happier. They were both given a student of the month award for All-Around Student in front of the entire school during an assembly.

They spoke about it for days afterwards. Their parents were worried because nine-year-old kids going gaga for Isaac Newton, some old dead guy, wasn't normal. Nevertheless, they continued with their obsession for about a month. They even picked their favourite law and had a very adorable debate as to why they chose it.

The third law was always Marley's favourite: every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Bumper cars. Crashing into something and watching it fly away with the same force with which you exerted.

Before, when all the cool kids would throw a tennis ball at the wall during recess, Marley sat there and watched and thought about how everything affected everything, it all has energy.

Now, when she thinks about the third law, she thinks about detachment. How the reaction of an object is equal and opposite to the other; how you can throw yourself at something only to watch it retreat with as much opposite force. It makes her worry. It is possible to strive for a dream to fail with the exact opposing intensity. It is possible to make it somewhere, somewhere good, only to fly away without even a chance of holding onto it. It was the reaction to your action — involuntary destruction of rebirth.

How you can love, love incredibly hard and with everything inside of you, only to watch the thing you love drift away.

For Marley, love was not enough for them to stay.

She figured it would happen again. What with everything going on with her father's prelim hearing, it was only a matter of time. Bail was denied, which wasn't surprising. Her father was going to be in the Lakefield Detention Centre for the entirety of his wait until court. Detective Bryan, in her phone call with him afterwards, told her that it could be a few months or closer to a year.

On Wednesday of their second week, two days after his hearing, Marley woke up at 2 am. She woke up panting and heaving, her whole body trembling and the onslaught of anxiety hitting her.