The sun was setting over the lush brilliancy that was the third rate standards of Camp Campbell. It was dinner time, so everyone had gathered in the mess hall for the miserable excuse for dinner. The counselors ate separately from the campers, so as not to upset anyone, but Max had no such consideration as he shoveled down the small mountain of food. It was still the same crap everyone else got, but just in greater quantities befitting a predator. The campers were used to that, however. Yet all still gave him more space than usual, even the two people he hated the least.
“Alright, what’s going on here?”
“Can you not smell that?” griped Neil, his voice even more nasally than usual as he pinched his nostrils and fanned his hand. “Smells like the south end of a northbound cow.”
Nikki, finally dressed, took several tentative sniffs. “Hey, it does!” she cheered. Now that things had been recontextualized for her, she scooted closer to Max, who just rolled his eyes.
“That’s cuz I literally came out of David’s ASS!” he growled. “Stupid jerk ate me, shit me out, and told me to go clean myself off in the lake. Bastard even gave me a bar of soap that not only disintegrated the moment it touched the water, but it turned my clothes tie-dye. How the fuck does that work?”
“A few reasons,” Neil replied. “Most I’m pretty sure are illegal in this state. Still, at least you’ve got your spares.”
“Yeah, and now they’re gonna smell like shit until this stupid camp can get a decent bar of soap.” Miserably Max rested his cheek in his palm while his other hand popped what might have been a sausage in his mouth, though it tasted unsettlingly like broccoli. “I hate this stupid camp.”
“Ya knowww,” Nikki began as her head whimsically swayed. “Smelly clothes wouldn’t be such a big deal if this were a proper nature camp.”
“How do you figure?” Neil asked, wary of any ideas that came from the hyper girl.
“Well, nature sounds like naturalist, which is another word for nudist. If we went around naked all the time, we could just burn our clothes and frolic freely through the woods, just like mother Gaia intended.”
“Hippy garbage aside, that’s not a bad idea,” Max allowed.
“Seriously?” whined Neil.
“Seriously. The temperature’s pretty mild morning, noon, and night, we’d only need rain coats for rain, nudity is pretty liberating, and it saves me the trouble of stripping you people down before I eat you. So far I’m not seeing a downside.”
“Oh yeah?” questioned Neil authoritatively. “Did you forget about David?”
Max blinked. “I did, actually. Dammit. It was nice picturing a world without him around to always mess with my fun.”
“Pardon my intrusion,” boomed the deep voice of Quarter Master; real name, age, and possibly species all unknown. “But I couldn’t help but overhear your proposal for camp-wide nudity.”
“Yeah? What of it?” Max asked defensively.
“To carry out such a policy change, you’ll need signatures from all the campers’ parents, plus Cameron Campbell and at least two other camp staff.” QM produced an official looking petition to make the camp clothing optional, already complete with his and Cameron’s signatures.
“Uh, why do you have this?” Neil asked, backing away from the old man.
QM blinked and snorted. “To make this a reality, I suggest you work on your sales pitch for your fellow campers. Either that, or find someone who can forge some signatures.” He then set the petition down on the table and walked off without another word.
Max picked up the paper and read through the lines of big but manageable words. His face lit up with the almost alien expression of enthusiasm. “Alright! Finally something to make camp tolerable.”
“I’m still not sure,” Neil said. “I mean, this is Quarter Master we’re talking about. Even his signature is sketchy.” He pointed to the scratch marks on the page that looked like they’d been drawn with the man’s hook hand.
“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Neil,” urged Nikki. “Besides, its clothing optional. If you’re too chicken to show us your naked butt, then go right ahead and hide in the prison of clothing. As for me, I look forward to embracing the call of the wild!”
Max set a hand on Nikki’s shoulder. “Hold your horses there, girl. It says here we need signatures from all the parents. Hmm. How do we make this happen?”
Neil hummed thoughtfully. “Well, so long as this is only optional nudity, we could try breaking into the counselor’s cabin and finding our application forms. Those have our parent’s signatures.”
“Good thinking, Neil.” Max really must’ve been optimistic about this plan. He almost never complimented anyone. “So, who here’s got the least shitty handwriting?”
Nikki raised her hand. “Oh-oh. How about Dolf? He’s an artist. That’s basically the same thing, right?”
“Basically, yeah,” agreed Max, his grin growing, only to shrink again. “But even if we tricked him, we run the risk of the others complaining and getting things changed back to normal. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Quarter Master’s right. We’ve got to convince everyone that this is for the best.”
Neil rolled his eyes. “Best for you two, maybe, but how are you going to convince everyone else. Space Kid never takes his suit off, and just about everyone else has some kind of weird attachment to some specific article of clothing, like Magic Kid’s hat.”
Max stroked his chin. “Space Kid we could probably convince that it’s just a new level of training, and Magic Kid only needs his hat and wand. We could say it’ll improve the trick if he literally has no sleeves to hide things in. Oh yeah! This is gonna happen!”
“Ered’s so cool, she’d look cool in anything, even her birthday suit,” swooned Nikki.
Max nodded. “Good angle. So we’ve got the parent signatures, we’re working on the campers’ compliance, so all we need is one other camp worker to make things happen.” Max’s smile finally fizzled. “David’s a bust. I can already hear his stupid lecture about comfort and maturity and bleh. Makes me sick just thinking about it, so I’m not even gonna bother. So how are we gonna sell this to Gwen?”
“She’s a pred, just like you,” Nikki reminded. “Maybe you can tell her that it’ll be like having her food already unwrapped? That sounds like something a pred would like.”
“It definitely is,” Max agreed, his good mood returning. “So we’ve got some base pitches going. Let’s work on them tonight, see what we come up with in the morning, and put our plan into motion to make Camp Campbell tolerable.”
“I was just gonna say better, but that works too,” agreed the ever chipper Nikki.
Neil shrugged. “Eh. We were due for another adventure anyway. This actually seems like it’s on the tamer side of things, so why not?”
Where do our rambunctious campers go from here?
Someone is skulking around the camp at night.
Someone is skulking around the camp at night… who doesn’t belong.
Skip to the morning and try to sell their plan to the campers.
Skip to the morning and try to sell their plan to Gwen.
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