Thoughts From A Tween: 6th Grade Camp

Give The People What They Want is a monthly column on the happenings of a preteen, written by 12-year-old Henry Jones.

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Roughly a month ago, I was signed up for 6th Grade Camp. Now for people who don’t know what that is, it’s basically any old summer camp but for 6th Graders. These five Days were one of the most painful moments of my life. It all began when my mom dropped me off at the bus pickup. We got on the bus; it was all big, modern-looking, basically just a Band Tour bus the school borrowed. The drive was normal, just me and my friend goofing around, annoying the girls in the back; just like any old 6th Grader.

We finally showed up to camp, it was cold, but not freezing. We were met by this guy, maybe 30s to 40s. He took attendance and led us to our cabin; which is one way to say it, because it really looked like a giant public restroom, like at a city park or something. The beds were rusty and screws were hanging out of the sockets, they held two tiny hole-filled mattresses.

We met our camp leader, who was going about spreading random lies the camp made up to think me and my buds were special, The Camp Leader apparently claimed Barack Obama and Marine One had landed at the camp and visited the cabin I was sleeping at, and that the “Bunks” were from the USS Midway and all that BS. The first day went by as expected, kids were homesick and in tears about their parents. Somehow some kid gained control of a dry-erase marker and drew some very interesting things on the door.

The one thing I remember about this camp, was that my school had to share the cabin with another school from some random city. The kids from the other school were the most annoying, obnoxious living beings i had ever met, they were all patriots, in fact one kid, let’s call him Jimmy, this kid would not stop watching FOX news at home, and apparently spread the rumor that the 2020 Elections were rigged with nanobots. The next few days went as expected, terrible showers and terrible food that five kids ended up puking in one day.

The most memorable experience here was the talent show on the last night there. It went as expected: Rubik's cube solvers, people playing the piano. But one act, one single play nearly caused me to faint. It was 2 kids, they were short, had black hair, lets call them Ronald and Donald, they played the Ukelele. I have this tendency to start dying laughing whenever I hear the ukelele. I don’t know why, but they sound damn goofy and funny. During the act, I was snickering and one of the parent-chaperons looks at me and tells me to stop. Now by complete accident, I give him a side-eye, which causes my two other buddies who were sitting next to me; to start laughing.

The chaperone told me and my buds to go into the bathroom to laugh it out, so we do that. I laugh so much I probably caused my lungs to look like a raisin, then the chaperone comes back in starts getting mad at us. So me, my buddies and the chaperone are in the bathroom, and I’m leaning against one of those metal trash cans built into the wall, I pull out my Lozenge wrapper and attempt to drop it in, but I completely miss, and that is how I sat next to the chaperone, completely quiet for the rest of the Talent Show.