Very Private List for Camp Success
CONTENTS
Penelope Kingston knew that you were supposed to feel excited about going on school camp. So Penelope was determined not to feel anxious. But she often found it hard to tell the difference between feeling excited and feeling anxious. In fact, one moment she could feel excited, and then the very next moment, WHAM! She was worried and nervous all over again.
Penelope had been using some calming techniques in the lead-up to school camp. She reminded herself that she had been on sleepovers before. Not as many as most other girls, but she had slept in Grandpa George’s spare room lots of times. And she had gone to Tilly’s slumber party back in grade one, and been perfectly fine.
Plus, she had been on camp last year.
But thinking about last year’s camp was
not
very helpful. In fact, it made Penelope’s cheeks flush and her heart beat very fast. Unfortunately, last year’s camp had not been perfect. Mr Joseph had made them all climb a very steep and frightening hill.
She’d also had an outburst when she discovered that Joanna (the naughtiest girl in the class) had put lasagne in the bottom of Penelope’s sleeping bag.
Penelope stopped that memory.
This time, things were going to be very different. Completely different. After all, she was a whole year older. Even though (annoyingly) she had only grown two and a half centimetres, and was still the smallest in her class, Penelope was
definitely
more mature on the inside.
Penelope was determined not to cry this year. And she was absolutely not going to have an outburst.
If she had an outburst at Camp Tribute, Penelope would
never
forgive herself.
Penelope unzipped the secret pocket of her sausage bag, which she had carefully packed. She pulled out her Very Private List. It was just a short list, and she knew it by heart. But she felt quite sure that having it in her bag, and knowing that she could sneak a look at it whenever she wanted, would be helpful.
Penelope was quite sure about the first three rules. Since she first wrote the list (six days ago, when she’d packed her bag), she hadn’t changed her mind about them one little bit.
She was less sure about the fourth rule, however. On last year’s camp, when Penelope had (eventually) reached the top of that very steep hill, the fact that she had cried (only tears, not sobs) on the way up suddenly didn’t seem so terrible. Penelope was just amazed she had actually done it. But this year’s camp was famous for its activities. And they looked
way
more frightening than climbing up a (ridiculously) steep hill.
Penelope was just debating whether to erase ‘all’ in rule four of her list (which would leave a funny space), or to simply put a question mark at the end, when her phone rang. It was only 8 pm, but Penelope was already showered and ready for bed. She wanted to have a good pre-camp sleep.
Since her very own best friend had programmed the ringtone (
Boing
, which was a very
jumpy
type of ringtone that Penelope would never have chosen herself), Penelope knew exactly who was on the phone.
A bolt of pleasure passed through her.
She put a (very elegant) question mark next to rule four on the list, erased ‘all’ and wrote (in small letters, so it would fit nicely) ‘most’ between ‘try’ and ‘activities’.
Then she answered the phone.
‘Hi Bob,’ she said to her very best friend.
‘I am
seriously
pumped, Pen!’ Bob squealed.
Penelope had never much liked having her name shortened. In fact, there were only two people who managed to do it without being annoying. Luckily, Bob (her very best friend) was one of them.
‘It’s tomorrow!’ continued Bob. ‘
To-morr-ow!
Can you even believe it? We’ll be going on the rope course! And we’ll be rock climbing! And the challenge swing! OMG. It’s famous!’
Penelope felt a frown pulling her eyebrows together. There had been a lot of talk at school about the giant challenge swing. Every time it had been mentioned, Penelope had felt her tummy lurching.
She had a suspicion that some of the kids were only
pretending
to be excited about the swing. Although she was very good at deducing things, this kind of pretending was a great mystery to Penelope. For instance, she absolutely could not understand the way Tilly would walk out of every test complaining that she’d failed. Tilly had never failed a test – not one single time. Penelope was always able to judge (within a mark or two) how she’d gone in a test, and she was sure Tilly could do the same.
And some people were always pretending they hadn’t put in any effort before an event. Her brother, Harry, did this all the time. Penelope had heard him tell his soccer teammates that he hadn’t trained at all, when in fact Penelope had seen him kicking his soccer ball around every single day after school.
These things were very confusing. Even more confusing was that when Penelope (helpfully) told Tilly and Harry that they didn’t need to pretend, they did not seem happy or relieved.
Embellishing was another thing Penelope did not understand. If everyone just stuck to FACTS, life would be way less complicated.
For example, she was absolutely certain that kids were exaggerating when they talked about how high the challenge swing was.
Felix Unger (who had a habit of exaggerating the truth) had been ridiculous enough to suggest it was fifteen metres high. That absolutely, positively, could not be true!
