Hamilton Academy: He's Always Watching

Part Three ~ Chapter Eleven

“It was the girl who hated me. The one who rejected me at the library and then got pissed at me on the volleyball fields. “

-Matt

 _______________________

"What if we won?" Kyle was bouncing excitedly from foot to foot as we finished with the tents. "I love winning competitions! I think we could do it."

"Oh, yes. We all have just perfect luck like that." Julia rolled her eyes, as if it was foolish. I had to kind of agree though, luck wasn't really on our side lately.

"Ok guys, let's just think positively, you never know.

"So you think we can win this then, Amy?" Johnny eyed her skeptically.

"I-I...I mean...we have just as much potential as the other teams." Amy stuttered, trying to catch herself before giving everyone false hope.

Sighing, I laid out the supplies in one of the tents. The gun was safely hidden in the backpack, hopefully forever unneeded. A little part of me did hope that I wouldn't even ever have to click the safety, but a bigger piece of me figured The Agency knew what they were talking about when they gave us a gun. Giving a gun to a bunch of teenagers was probably only done when they really thought it was necessary.

Coming first place in the trip probably wasn't likely. I didn't want to have to tell Kyle that, because I knew he loved exceeding at everything he did, but I also didn't want to give everyone false hope. Kyle was logical though, so I think he realized the situation, but he probably didn't want to accept it.

"I'm going to just ask someone what we are supposed to be doing now, ok?" Staff for the trip was scattered throughout the top of the mountain where all the tribes' tents were set up, and I was just going to try to find one of them. I didn't know if everyone was supposed to be eating or doing some activity of sorts, so if I could just find some staff I'd figure it out.

"Find out when we eat!"

"Yeah, yeah," I waved my hand over my shoulder.

***

A man named Mr. King had helped us figure out how dinner worked on the mountain. They were making one small fire for each tribe for cooking with, but you weren't allowed to have it going unless one of the staff members was around. Certain laws led to this need.

After eating, this small fire was just put out so that the staff could move on to help the next tribe. Immediately following everyone eating dinner, an announcement had been made.

"All tribes have officially arrived at the top of the mountain, and so things will start to get exciting now. You all know how the rest of the competition works, but right now is your 'fun night.' We have some stuff planned for all of you before sleeping and the start of competition tomorrow.

"At the moment we will begin with desserts. S'mores are to be made only on the fire you are instructed to use. We will be making one big bonfire, and after s'mores sixth graders and younger will be going to sleep. The older children may stay up for longer, sitting around the bonfire. If everyone just eats about five or ten minutes, then the fire will be ready."

"Why do we have to go to sleep?" Johnny moaned. "I want to sit around a bonfire."

"You'll get to," Andrew said. "When you make s'mores."

"We have to go to bed after though, I want to stay up," Johnny muttered, kicking some stones.

"What was in the box, Matt. We never really talked about it." My brother jumped in.

"Just some key." I said, still puzzled. "It didn't have a label, so I assume we have to figure out what it's for ourselves."

"What does it look like?"