• There once was a school named after a hill. There was a core at that school for the insanely brilliant, at times just insane. That core was called Honors and they went on a trip.

    “Road Trip Road Trip Road Trip.” Chanted Ethan.

    “Shut-up.” Tahverle said coldly.

    “Where are we going?” Mercedees asked.

    “I’ll get to that as soon as some people” Mz. OB1 glared at Tavvy and Ethan “be quiet. Thank you. In two weeks we will be going to Ouray.” The class burst into excited whispers

    “I love Ouray.”I said to my group of Mercedees and Rebecca.

    “We know” Rebecca replied “you’ve only said that about a thousand times.”

    “Not a thousand times just 999 times.” We all just laughed

    “Anyways” Mz OB1 interjected “here are the permission slips. They’re due in two days.”

    A chorus of “M’kay”s rang throughout the room.

    “Now get back to work!” The class broke into their typical small groups.

    “Well this is bound to be interesting.” I said

    “Yeah it will be prodigious.” Rebecca said using our familiar inside joke.

    “Ouray is like the Switzerland America lost.” I said in a dreamy voice.

    “Hate to tell you this,” Rebecca commented destroying my day dream “But America never owned Switzerland.”

    “Or did they?” Was my automatic response. Rebecca gasped and put her hand over her mouth.

    Just then the bell decided to ring.

    “NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO” Merce said, you could see the sad/hateful aura about her.

    “Track?” Becca and I asked in unison. Merce nodded.

    “I’ll see ya guys later.” I said rushing out the door. Can’t miss the bus.

    “Bye.” They called back.

    -Two weeks later-

    I helped Merce and Becca heave Merce’s suit case onto the bus.

    “What’cha put in here Merce.” I said jokingly nudging her with my elbow. “Rocks?”

    “Mom?” Rebecca asked more sensitively

    Merce nodded again. “I told her I didn’t need a freakin’ week’s worth of clothing but she said ‘something could happen’, ’your clothes could get muddy’ something stupid like that.”

    We walked on to the bus choosing seats by each other. I sat next to Rebecca with Merce sitting behind us. Mz. O’Brien started the head count. “Where is Ethan?”

    “Right here” Ethan said jumping on to the bus. Mz. O’Brien rolled her eyes.

    Mz. O’Brien signaled to the bus driver we were ready to go and we were off.

    Merce jammed out to her Ipod and Rebecca and I played hide-and-go seek the whole way to Ouray, our bus ride there was greatly uneventful. When we entered the town of Ouray Rebecca came out hiding from behind her book and Merce took out her ear buds. The bus drove down the main street slowly. We finally turned down a somewhat-paved road and came to the front of the hotel we were staying at. Box Canyon Lodge it sounded nice, it looked like one big cabin. I looked at the surrounding area, there was still snow on the mountain tops and the air smelled fresh and clean but it wasn’t cold.

    “It’s cold here!” Rebecca said trying to guide me off the bus.

    “What are you talking about its really nice here the perfect temperature.”

    “Says the one who never gets cold.” She retorted and rolled her eyes.

    I stepped off the bus and was handed a key. I looked at in confusion.

    “Our room key.” Rebecca said helpfully

    I blushed “I knew that…”

    “Sure you did.” Mercedees said jokingly.

    I grabbed my suit case and backpack. “Come on you guys let’s go find our room.”

    We got room 239, we climbed up the stairs, looking for our room we found it pretty easily. I opened the door with the key and hauled my, Rebecca’s and Merce’s stuff into the room. I liked the room the moment I walked into it but the more I looked at it the more I liked it. It had a small dinning area/kitchen, a living room with a TV, futon, recliner, and game table, also it had a HUGE bathroom, like “how the heck do you use all this room?” sized, and last there was a medium sized room with two queen beds, another TV and a dresser.



    “Lunch time!” Mz. O’Brien called us out of our rooms.

    “I wonder where we’re going for lunch?” I thought aloud. My question was quickly answered.

    “We’re going to the Coachlight Restaurant.” Shayla said informant-like.

    “Ohh.” My voice drifted off.

    “Everybody on the bus!” Caylan said all teacher like and half the class, including me, nearly followed his word. Ethan walked into the bus. Everybody laughed but Mz. O’Brien snort laughed.

    “That was smart.” I said

    “Oh yeah!” we high-5ed and then terrorist fist jabbed. The bus driver opened the door for everyone to come.



    “That was good.” I said, we had just got finished eating at the Coachlight

    “I ate too much!” Mercedees whined, it was adorable.

    “Awwwwwww” Rebecca squleed 5 octaves to high.

    “Let’s go swimming!” I said punching my fist in the air.

    “There’s no pool.” Rebecca said confused.

    “They have hot tubs.” Merce answered for me. I walked up the stairs back to our room.

    Ten minutes later we were soaking in a hot tub 107˚F, complete bliss.

    “This reminds me of something I shouldn’t be reminded about.” I said sitting up from my laid back position.

    “What’s that?” Rebecca asked not even opening her eyes.

    “Isidro.” I knew she and Merce would understand our inside joke.

    “On Wednesday?” Asked Becca.

    “With a giraffe.” I finished. Isidro happened to walk out of his room right then.

    “What are you talking about, Am-ber?” He said butchering my name. "giraffes" he muttered.

    “Nothing, I-si-dro.” Two could play this game.
    “Whatever” He stalked off.


    I laced up my converse, my favorite hiking shoe, and packed my backpack for the hike we were going on today up to the falls. I put my totally school-illegal pocket knife, a jacket, fruit snacks, ipod, cell phone, lunch, and various other items into my backpack.
    “iPod?” Rebecca questioned.
    “You never know!” I defended. She rolled her eyes. “What? You don’t. For all you know I could be saving your life by bring this.”
    “You freak.” She laughed. I glared. -.-
    We headed out on the trail to the top of the falls it was an easy hike. We stop for lunch. A group of us decided to explore the area and before we knew it we were lost.
    “Umm Where are we?” Merce asked.
    “…I think we’re lost.” I said.
    “We’re not lost!” Ethan said.
    “I feel safe and confident now.” I rolled my eyes.
    “We’re lost.” Adam said reassuringly. We had a cliff waterfall on one side of us and a forest on all other sides. Everybody began to panic.
    I couldn’t let us fall apart. “Did anybody bring string?” I yelled above the crowd.
    “What are you going to make a scarf or something with it?” I was so close to punching Ethan.
    “No I was thinking-” I was cut short
    “Congrats you thought!”
    “that we could use it to find our way back.” I finished.
    “How the hell is that going to help us?” Adam asked.
    “Well we could send people in the different directions, Ethan off the waterfall of course, and they’d have the string so if they found the way back they could find us again and lead us to the rest of the group.”
    “That makes sense.” Said Rebecca. “Especially the Ethan goes off the water fall part.” We all laughed, except for Ethan.
    “Yeah it’d be great if we had string.” Caylan said ruining the whole plan.
    “So nobody has string?” This was depressing. Nobody raised there hands. “well keep thinking of ideas.” I pulled out my iPod, music seemed to help me think. Then I saw my how my earphones looked like string, it made me sad, so I put it away.
    I squeeled. Everybody gave me a “WTF?” look. ”How many people have earphones?” Most of the group cautiously raised their hands. The understanding soon spread through out the group like wildfire.
    Twenty minutes later our “scouts” (aka Merce, Caylan, and Isidro ) were off looking for the group with our improvised string and the rest of us were hanging out, Ethan and Adam being jerks to each other, Rebecca and I watching them be jerks to each other and everybody else was talking.
    Next thing we know Adam and Ethan are in a pushing match on the edge of the cliff and before we could reach them and pull them away from each other Adam pushed Ethan off the cliff and laughed demonically. Then Mz. O’Brien, Caylan, Robert, and Josh burst through the trees and tackled Adam before he could do more harm. A cheer rang through out the camp. I didn’t know if it was for either a) Adam pushing Ethan off the cliff, b) Caylan finding the group or c) Josh tackling Adam so he could do no more harm. I decided on b. The whole way back down the mountain was a blur for two reasons 1) We pretty much ran down to find out what happened to Ethan and 2) I was still in shock that Adam actually pushed Ethan.
    Finally we reached the bottom of the waterfall and Ethan was sitting there with a hermit and a stick with some stringy plant on one end at a puddle two inches deep. Josh and Robert had to hold Adam back from attacking Ethan.
    “Ethan are you fishing?” Mz. O’Brien asked.
    “In a two inch puddle?” I added.
    “With a hermit?” Rebecca finished.

    “SHHHHH You’ll scare the fish!” Yelled the Hermit. Ethan continued to “fish”.

    In the end we ended up fighting off the hermit while Caylan and Romei carried Ethan away back to the hotel. Josh and Robert ended up having to tie Adam up the rest of the trip whenever Ethan was in sight. The rest of the trip wasn’t as eventful as that first day but none-the-less fun.