When there was enough wood, the ranger told everyone to stop and made a fire naturally by rubbing two sticks together. He dropped them into the large pile of sticks, igniting the whole pile, creating a bonfire. After the sun went down, he instructed the teenagers to sit together around the bonfire so they could all engage in more activities that include "bonding".
"Stick your sticks above the fire, kids," instructed the top ranger, "so your marshmallows can get toasted."
All of the teenagers moved closer to the bonfire and raised their skewers with marshmallows stuck on them above the cackling fire.
"Why didn't you get a marshmallow, Maddie?" asked Lizzie, looking at Madeline from behind as she toasted her marshmallow.
"Because I'm on a no sugar diet," answered Madeline. "I don't want to wake up tomorrow with bags under my eyes."
"Everything you eat has sugar in it, Maddie," said Andrea, observing her toasted marshmallow.
"I disagree with that statement."
"Oh."
"Now who would like to tell a ghost story?" asked the ranger.
"I would," said Skye, raising her hand.
"Of course Casper the Ghost wants to tell a story," commented Pamela.
"Don't forget: you're sleeping in my tent."
Pamela snarled and nudged her head.
"Okay, once there was a kid; let's call him Jimmy. He was a prankster, a practical joker. He loved making himself laugh and he would do so by messing with others. Some found his pranks hilarious while others found them annoying because that's all he would do. So one day, he was staying at his grandmother's house because his parents were getting sick of him. His grandmother was losing her hearing so Jimmy took that fact to his advantage. He saw her in the kitchen chopping onions for a stew. She didn't see him so Jimmy decided to tiptoe into the kitchen and sneak up on her."
"Oh, lord, she done chopped his head off!" shouted Andrea.
"I'm telling the story! So... yeah, she chops his head off. And his grandmother freaked out but she didn't want to call the police because they would've arrested her. So when night fell, she digs a hole in her backyard and buries his body. She cleaned up the evidence and told everyone that Jimmy ran away. Yet she had no idea herself that even though she buried Jimmy's body, his hijinks would never stop. So one night, a month after the accident, Jimmy's grandma got up from bed to get a glass of water. She walked down into the kitchen and tried to open the cabinet for a cup but it wouldn't opened. It was as if it was glued. She pulled harder and harder until it opened. However, there weren't any cups; there were knives. Butcher knives that fell down on top of the old lady with one of them cutting her hand!"
Skye showed her hand which was covered with a red substance. She shrieked, making most of the teenagers scream. They were wide-eyed, squirmy and stuck staring at her. Skye began to laugh, making the campers calm down and some of them look at her with confused faces.
"Skye, your hand," said Lizzie.
"Oh, relax," smiled Skye. "It's ketchup. I found it outside the chaperones' tent and I decided to keep it."
"I knew we had more ketchup," said the ranger to himself.
After the bonfire, everyone was told to go to bed. All of the boys and girls dressed in their pajamas and tucked themselves into their sleeping bags inside their chosen tents. The girls were surely asleep by midnight except for the best friends and the Cow Belles.
Lizzie wriggled inside her sleeping bag before laying on her side.
"What's wrong, Liz'?" muttered Madeline, blinded by a sleeping mask but sensing it was Lizzie moving.
"It's hard for me to go to sleep," Lizzie answered. "It's so cold in here."
"I know," agreed Andrea. "It's colder than a Pamela's teat in here."
Pamela took off her sleeping mask and sat up. She glared at Andrea but Andrea had her eyes closed. Pamela put back on her mask before laying back down.
Lizzie switched sides and tried to keep still. But she opened her eyes when she heard rustling as if the leaves outside were being vigorously shaken.
"What was that?" she asked. She then gasped. "Is it a bear?"
"It can't be," said Andrea. "Mauricia's right here."
Mauricia slipped off her sleeping mask then sat up to stare at Andrea, whose eyes were closed.
The tent itself began to shake with the rustling noise still continuing. Madeline took off her mask, hearing the noise.
"Oh, my God, what if it's Jimmy?" asked Lizzie, sitting up.
"Jimmy's not real," said Skye.
The tent continued to shake but harder than before.
Pamela pushed her upper body up and pushed up her mask. "Okay, what is going on?"
The tent's door unzippened and a strange boy popped his head inside.
"There's Jimmy!" shouted Lizzie, pointing at him.
Suddenly, more boys put their heads inside and raised up water guns. All several of them began to shoot water at the girls. Except for Debra, all of the girls screamed and squirmed. They put their hands out to block the water but it didn't help them. The boys kept shooting at them as the girls crawled towards the back of their tent. Pamela held up their sleeping bag in front of the girls while Madeline opened the tent's "emergency exit" and slithered out, doing it almost out of notice. However, the boys didn't stop until all of the girls were drenched with water. The boys backed out of the tent and zippened the door closed. The girls put down the sleeping bags and gasped and panted while wiping the water from their faces.
"Where did they get super soakers?" screamed Andrea.
"Oh, my God," whined Mauricia, petting her head. "My hair."
Debra sat up from her sleeping bag then stretched and yawned. "What happened?" she asked while dripping with water.
"You didn't feel that?" asked Skye.
"Feel what?"
"Wait, where's Madeline?" Lizzie asked.
While the boys were shooting the girls with their water guns, Madeline slipped away and took a trip within the forest. She thought the prank was a distraction so that Speed could get some alone time with Madeline without anyone really noticing. She scrambled through the trees for a while, searching for Speed.
"Speed? Speed," she whispered and called.
Madeline kept walking until she saw a lake from afar. From her left, she saw Speed, but he was with his punk friends. She hid behind a tree so the group wouldn't see her.
"So are you and that Madeline still running around with each other?" asked one of the friends.
"Yeah, I spoke to her today," Speed answered. "She is pretty hung up on me."
"How long are you going to stay with her?"
"Until she makes me popular. Madeline knows that we can't date publicly because I'm nothing like her. So, based on her personality, I can tell that she'll make me join the committee and convince the members to take me in. And before I know it, I'll be running the school. Heck, I might convince the students to make me president and inauguarate her."
"Shoot, man, you're a mastermind," said the other friend. "I like that."
"Yeah. Also, Madeline is rich so free gifts."
Speed's friends laughed.
"Come on, let's get out of here. This lake is boring."
The group walked up the hill into the forest towards the campsite.
Madeline was appalled. They promised to not tell anyone about their relationship and even though she told her friends, their relationship was based off a plan to become popular. She was being used and she was disgusted, even though it wasn't the first time. She entered back into the forest and clambered through the trees, leading herself towards the campsite. When she found her tent, she unlatched the back door and stuck herself inside the tent. She crawled tediously inside of it, almost scaring some of the girls. Pamela and Mauricia scooted away from her to give her space. Once she was all the way in, Madeline sat up.
"Madeline, where the freak did you go?" questioned Skye.
"I got an idea to get back at the boys," Madeline said.
Half an hour later, the boys were inside their tents, laughing about the prank that they planted on the girls. Speed and his friends laughed along with them although they missed the action. Just when most of the boys got themselves situated in their sleeping bags to get some rest, they heard strange voices. The boys could see odd shadows moving around on their tents. A certain group of boys could see a hunching girl's shadow outside of their tent and hear constant coughing. One of the boys crawled toward the tent door slowly and with a shaking hand, unzipped the door. In front of the tent door was nothing until Skye, covered entirely in mud and leaves, jumped out. She spit out what seemed to be mucky water at the boys, scaring them and making them scream like little girls. The boys in the other tents could hear the screaming, creating anxiety inside themselves. In one tent, a girl who was also covered in mud tore a hole in the tent with a pocketknife. The boys inside shrieked as the girl crawled in through the hole and started growling like a monster. In another tent, the boys inside noticed a strange lump of dirt settled on the edge. When one of them moved closer to it, a dirty hand shot out of the lump and grabbed the boy by the wrist. A girl in mud slithered underneath the tent through a tearing hole, freaking the boys inside out. She shrieked at them like some wild animal. The other boys in the other tents were confused about the distant noises. So in one tent, one of the boys opened their tent and facing it was a girl holding two open bottles of a pink liquid. She chucked the bottles at the boys inside, drenching most of them with the liquid. The same thing happened to the rest of the tents, especially Speed's tent with which Madeline poured two bottles of a perfumed liquid on top of Speed and his friends.
"What the freak, Maddie?" he flipped out. "Now I smell like girl."
"Good," said Madeline before throwing one of the bottles at his face and leaving.
Yards away from her, she could see Skye being driven out of a tent by the boys who eventually knew it was her. As they walked out of their tents, Andrea and Lizzie, helping each other, chucked a bucket of mucky water at the group of boys. They stood surprised, drenched, disgusted and freezing. Two other girls did the same thing to a group of boys trying to get out of their tents. The boys who were outside went back inside their tents, feeling defeated. The large group of girls huddled together, swimming in success of their plan.
"Don't mess with this, don't mess with me," Andrea yelled at the boys.
"I'm the queen of everything," stated Madeline arrogantly.
"Whatever you say, Maddie," said Skye, rubbing her mud across Madeline's cheek.
Madeline flinched and sprinted away from Skye who began to laugh.
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