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It’s Beverly Toegold V’s last summer as a Green Teen, or at least he hopes it is. If he can collect his final badges, then he’ll be a six-leaf Green Teen and then, maybe, hopefully, a Junior Green Knight. That’s the goal of Operation: Summer Camp (and then, once camp is over, the Jamboreen. But he’s too excited about camp to think about that yet).
Recently, the cabin had stopped being gender segregated, so when Beverly arrives, he makes a beeline for the cabin he’s been assigned, with Derlin, Erlin, and Cran, stopping only to hug his mom goodbye and thank her for dropping him off. His dad hadn’t been able to come, but that was okay. He’s busy. Beverly understands. He’s going to make him proud.
He arrives at the door to the cabin, giant pack bulging on his back, at the same time as Erlin, and they hug like they hadn’t spent the entire previous day together, tracking the sun as it passed overhead, trying to earn their Daylight Astronomer patches.
“Hey, man,” Erlin says as they pull apart to do their handshake, and Beverly grins back, braces sparkling in the sun. He leans against the door of the cabin, trying to look cool, and it creaks open ever so slightly, just enough to make him stumble. Erlin grabs to catch him, almost instinctively, and lets go as soon as Beverly is balanced again. Beverly blushes, just a little bit, not even enough to be called a blush, really, and covers it by turning and opening the door to the cabin. It’s dark inside, and cool, and Cran and Derlin are already there, their stuff piled across the lower bunks of the two bunk beds, just like last summer. Except better than last summer, because last summer Cran hadn’t been officially allowed in the empty bunk, and they had had to hide her every time someone came by to inspect. Honestly, all of them should have earned their Stealth badges for that, but that would mean they would have to admit to it, and Beverly was terrified of getting in trouble.
Derlin and Cran jump up as the door opens, and run over to Beverly and Erlin, hugging them and already talking over each other about how Derlin’s carriage had broken a wheel and so he had had to ride with Cran, who had luckily been passing by. Beverly listens to them talk as he jumps onto the top bunk of the bed that Cran has claimed, and grins again. Camp just makes him happy. It’s his favorite place in the whole world, and these are his favorite people in the whole world, and this is going to be the best summer ever.
The door creaks open once again, and all four of them quiet down, although Beverly carefully hangs his merit badge sash from the bedpost. Standing in their doorway is Scoutmaster Denny, who must be their cabin leader for the summer.
“Scoutmaster Denny!” Erlin and Derlin exclaim, and Beverly makes eye contact with Cran, below. They have a lot of respect for Scoutmaster Denny, of course – he’s a scoutmaster – but Erlin and Derlin hadn’t been there when Beverly and Cran had gotten lost last summer and Scoutmaster Denny had run away with the pack, leaving them to find their way back to camp themselves. It had been eye-opening, to an extent, but then Cran and Beverly had both gotten their Wilderness Survival patches, and it seemed like maybe that had been Scoutmaster Denny’s intention. And they had seen some giant fire beetles and everything.
Scoutmaster Denny gives the usual speech, about cabin inspections and safety and working together. Beverly won’t ever admit it, but he zones out a little, tallying up the badges he’s hoping to get before he goes home to Galaderon. He knows the speech by heart, after all. Maybe after he graduates the Green Teens, and becomes an amazing paladin, and goes on all kinds of adventures, he could come home and be a scoutmaster. Maybe. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be worthy of that honor.
He’s just thinking swimming, and cooking, and intermediate swordplay, and violin appreciation, and – when Denny comes to the end of his speech, tells them activities will begin tomorrow, and then leaves, shutting the door behind him. The cabin is briefly silent, before Derlin asks, “so, uh, gang, what’re we going to do?”
Derlin and Erlin both look towards Beverly and Cran, expecting them to have a plan. Which, of course, they do. Or at least Beverly does.
“Let’s go exploring!” he says, bouncing a little bit on the bed in his excitement. “Erlin, do you still have the map?” It’s a rhetorical question. Erlin has been official Keeper of the Map for years.
Erlin pulls out a lovingly folded, hand-drawn map, and unfolds it. It’s painstakingly detailed, marking out every place they’ve discovered over the past five years, and it’s Beverly and Erlin’s pride and joy. There are some spots on there that even Cran and Derlin haven’t been, and Beverly is perfectly happy to keep it that way. Beverly’s eyes scan the map, but Erlin finds the answer before him. “The lake! Everyone always says there are caves there, and I brought a flashlight this year. If we don’t do it now, we’ll never get another chance.”
Beverly could have kissed him. There were supposed to be all kinds of cool monsters there, and he, Cran, and Erlin all had their Beginner’s Swordplay patches now, and so they’d for sure be safe and if anyone tried to stop them it was clearly an important step towards getting some patch (he was so excited he couldn’t think of a specific one) and, anyway, Denny was their cabin leader, and Denny wasn’t gonna try and stop them.
“Heck yes!” he exclaims, and he, Cran, and Erlin do a sort of awkward high-five that doesn’t quite work because high-fives are not made for three hands.
“Uh, guys, isn’t that dangerous?” Derlin asks, and Cran rolls her eyes at him.
“It’ll be fine, dude. I’ll protect you or whatever.”
She probably can, Beverly figures. She had been the one to navigate them out of the woods when Denny had ditched them. “Cool cool cool,” he says. “Everyone get their packs ready and we’ll leave as soon as possible.” He’s not really sure how he ended up sort of default-in-charge, but this is usually how it works, and none of the others have ever questioned it. He has the most patches, and has been a Green Teen the longest, and also they’re all friends because of him, so maybe that’s it.
It doesn’t matter. They’re going on an adventure.
After a little bit longer than ten minutes, due to some complications with food and water and being fifteen years old and having no idea how to plan a trip effectively, they set off. The sun is just starting to set, and the camp is truly beautiful. The cabins line the banks of an unnamed river (it’s called The River Homeon their map, but that’s just Erlin’s thing, not official), and west, where the light is staining the sky pink, is a forest, within which they’ve all spent days and weeks hiding and searching and discovering. And even further in that forest, is the lake. And, if they’re lucky, the caves.
The lake doesn’t have a name, even on the map. Some of the stricter observers of the Oath of Ancients think that naming natural phenomena, unless absolutely necessary, sullies them, takes them away from the purity of Pelor. That’s not why it’s nameless on the map, though; they just don’t name anything until they’ve been there, and this lake is hidden deep. They’ll need to move fast if they have any chance of getting there and back before full dark.
“Alright, who has the compass?” Beverly asks as they walk, mostly not speaking, as if four teenage halflings in full armor might go unnoticed if they don’t laugh too much. Erlin and Derlin both reach for their packs, but, because Erlin is also wielding the map (and the heaviest pack of all of them), Derlin gets to it first.
“This way’s west!” he says, pointing in the direction they’re going, but he’s so focused on the compass that he stumbles over a rock, and tilts dangerously towards the river, which, for some reason, he’s closest to. Cran grabs his arm almost without even noticing she’s doing it; they’re all used to taking care of Derlin, but Erlin and Beverly tend to disappear into their own world sometimes, and so she has a long history of making sure he doesn’t die. Once he’s stable, they all laugh, still trying to be quiet but not coming anywhere near succeeding; they love each other too much and they love the world too much to keep it internalized.
Following Derlin’s lead (he’s never once been lost, despite every aspect of his personality), they sneak around cabins and under bridges, feeling like real adventurers, even though the distance is maybe a thousand feet. The forest looms up at them when they stop at its edge, the trees framed in shadow by the setting sun. It occurs briefly to Beverly that maybe it would be a better idea to save this venture for the next day, but then he glances at Erlin, who has the crease between his eyebrows that he gets when he’s determined, and Cran, whose hand is on the hilt of her sword as if she has every certainty she can protect them against any danger, and Derlin, who won his Navigator’s Patch the last day of camp last year and has been waiting to show it off, and laughs at himself. What dangers could the dark possibly hold for them?
They take the first step into the woods. It’s not the first time that they’ve been here – this is camp, after all – but it’s the first time they’ve been there at night, and the first time they’ve been without supervision. There’s something grown-up to it, something giddy. Beverly, never far from a goof, waits until they’ve walked far enough that they can no longer see the edge, and spins around, jumping over fallen logs and laughing. “This is our forest!” he declares, and he means it. Erlin joins him, grabbing his hands and spinning around like in old folk dances, and then Derlin, and then, eventually, Cran, after she mutters about how they’re being too loud, and something is going to find them.
Nothing finds them. For this night, they are invincible.
Eventually, they get tired, and remember the initial goal of their mission. The lake. And the caves. If they’re invincible now imagine how much more incredible it will feel when they map the caves that no one has ever mapped before!
Derlin directs them, once they’re no longer dizzy, head looking up and down from the compass and only avoiding protruding roots or trees when Cran moves him around him. They are all very focused. If asked, none of them could give a full answer as to why, but this feels important.
It takes them a long time to get to the lake, even with Derlin’s direction. It seems as if maybe the map isn’t fully accurate, or none of them have a sense of scale, and Beverly can tell, as full dark creeps closer, that Erlin is blaming himself. “Maybe we should turn back?” Erlin says, voice thinner than usual. With Derlin focused and determined, it falls to Erlin to be the scared one. Not that he is scared, of course, but sometimes there are things that need to be said that Cran and Beverly won’t say.
“We’re almost there!” Beverly declares, based on basically nothing, and then, more quietly, just to Erlin, “It’s a good map. It’s just a little farther than we thought.” Because some things matter a lot more than they seem to.
As he makes this declaration, Derlin stops walking, and Cran almost crashes directly into him. “What’s happening?” she asks.
“It should be right up there,” he responds, pointing, and Beverly follows the direction of his finger, using the last of the dimming light to look for the caves and the lake they had been promised. Through the trees, he sees it, a glimmer of light reflected off of water. He makes eye contact with his friends, and then, without even having to speak, they run off towards it, sprinting as quickly as they can in full armor and carrying camping packs. Derlin trips over a protruding root, but he picks himself up, barely seeming to notice. Cran gets to the lake first, and then Beverly, and then Erlin, and then finally Derlin, stepping into his usual spot between Erlin and Cran.
They watch the sun set over the lake together, the purpose of their mission momentarily forgotten. The sky is red, and pink, and a clear, deep blue, and Beverly is hyperaware of how close he and Erlin are standing, their shoulders almost-but-not-quite pressed together. It’s beautiful. Camp is the best.
Eventually, the sun finishes setting, and the sky darkens, the stars breaking through the canvas of the sky in a way that never is visible over Galaderon. They all reach the obvious conclusion at the same time, but Derlin is the one to say it. “Uh, gang, I don’t know if we can go in the caves now. It’s, uh, completely dark and none of us have darkvision. There could be anything in there.”
Beverly looks at him and rolls his eyes, but he’s right, is the thing. He usually is, even when nobody wants to admit it. “Fine. What should we do, then? Go back?”
They’re standing in a little circle now, unintentionally mimicking what they’ve all seen their parents (or, in Erlin’s case, his sister) do when planning for something important. “No,” says Erlin, and the other three look directly at him, a little bit surprised. He’s not usually particularly assertive. “I mean, we’ve come all the way out here, and we’ve all gone camping a million times. We’ve all got sleeping bags, right?”
Beverly and Derlin look at each other, and then down at their feet, both of them shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t,” Beverly says, sounding a little bit defensive, and Derlin echoes him.
“Oh.” Erlin’s a little bit deflated for a second but then, quickly, like he’s afraid if he doesn’t say it immediately he’ll never say it, “Bev-you-can-share-with-me.”
Cran smirks a little bit, but Beverly doesn’t notice – he’s too busy focusing very, very hard on trying not to blush and make it weird. They’re best friends. It’s fine. It’s normal. What else would they do? The silence stretches out, and eventually Cran has pity on the three boys, and says, “Mine’s pretty big. Derlin, you can share with me.”
It’s so simple. The four of them have known each other since before they could speak, since before they knew what a Green Teen was. They’ve had hundreds of sleepovers and gone camping together hundreds of times. But the stars are glowing above them, and the sky is vast and welcoming, and the sound of the lake as it laps against its shores is like a giant, slow heartbeat. As they set up their sleeping bags on the grass and distribute the food, they all feel, separately, that this is the last summer that it will be like this. And they all feel, together, that that is okay.
Beverly and Erlin stare at each other in the dark for a long moment, standing over the sleeping bag which is going to have to fit both of them. Neither of their faces are clear, and they are both grateful for that, but both sure that the other can’t possibly be feeling the same way. Eventually, as the wind picks up and the nighttime chill begins to make itself known, they clamber in together, neither daring to speak. They both convince themselves that it’s because they don’t want to wake Cran and Derlin, who are lying side by side like nothing could be more natural.
Erlin is warm, beside Beverly, and as he gently lays his head on his shoulder, Beverly allows himself a smile. Tomorrow, they will explore the caves, and tomorrow they will probably get in trouble, and next year everything will be different, but right now, right here, he and his best friends love each other, and who caresabout anything else?