Tips for Taking Over Summer Camp Chapter 16: At Last, After Sixteen Chapters and too Many Pages Than Necessary We Get to do Some Acting

Chapter Sixteen: At Last, After Sixteen Chapters and Forty-Four Pages, We Get to do Some Acting

Our stomachs full, we hobbled down a little rocky path just beside our cabin. It was so narrow that we had to walk in a single file line and it was ridden with strangely shaped roots that stuck up from the ground. Above us, branches interlocked their wooden fingers, barely allowing dappled light to filter through in little specks. Ferns waved at us next to the trail as we passed and a yellow bird would occasionally flutter from a sturdy tree ahead.

After a couple of minutes of marching, we broke past two bushes that grew very close together and into a large clearing. A large wooden stage with vibrant purple curtains sat on the far side, followed by a pack of large stumps. The ground was blanketed with rust-coloured needles and umber leaves, as was most of the stage.

“Welcome to our outdoor theater,” Cora said, throwing out her arms grandly, “The place where we will be practicing our theater-related skills over the course of the summer.”

“What will we be doing today?” Rowan inquired.

“Today, our assignment is to play some theater games and then we will discuss scriptwriting,” Cora explained.

She directed us all onto the stage and and explained a complicated-sounding game to us that involved letters of the alphabet, facial expressions, and yelling Boop! It took us almost two hours to get a hang of the rules, most of which composed of us having a large number of laugh attacks (Griffin even chuckled a little), but we were soon playing the game like pros.

“Ok,” Cora said at last, standing up, “That was your last round.”

Several awws came from us as we gave her pathetic looks.

“Buuuuut,” Cora continued, “We’re doing an exciting script writing workshop!”

Some of us perked up, but Christian and Silvia were still wearing looks of defeat.

“The thing about scripts,” our councillor continued, “Is that it’s very unlike writing stories. It is made of mostly dialogue, so that’s what you use to move a story along. But the key to good dialogue is that it cannot be robotic, meaning that it has to sound natural or it won’t work.

“Another thing about scriptwriting is that there are no details, or a lack of it. That makes dialogue even more important.” She pulled some paper and pencils out of her book bag. “Your job is to create a scene with a minimum of three characters where here is somewhat of a story.”

She quickly distributed our supplies and we got to work immediately, brainstorming ideas and writing down lines.

I tapped my pencil to my chin. What should I write? I thought. Three bears eating someone’s beard? No, where could I go with that? How about pieces of paper that wage war on pencils? A broad smile stretched across my face. Perfect.

I quickly began to scribble down words, my eyes growing more intense. I could feel the excitement of wanting to tell this story vibrate through me as my pencil scraped feverishly over the crisp white sheet. A lot of time passed and the sun was slowly started its descent, though I did not notice. Within a few lines, my story grew and grew and before I knew it, I had flipped over to the other side of the page. With every precious word, my pencil became quicker and quicker. I felt like the characters were my best friends, the ones I knew everything about. I knew the story like that back of my hand, but that didn’t stop it from expanding.

At last, my pencil was a flat stub of graphite and I couldn’t squeeze another word under the crunched letters. I was about to ask for some new paper and maybe a new pencil, but I was interrupted by Christian.

“Ugh!” he complained. “Scriptwriting is such a mystery.”

Silvia gasped. “Link!”

Cora rose to her feet. “What?”

“He disappeared during capture the flag,” she reported.

Cora shook her head. “Oh no. Oh no, oh no oh no oh no ohnoohnoohnoohno!”

Griffin looked up from his page. “What’s the matter?” he muttered.

“We forgot about Link!” I exclaimed.