Moss: Part III

We hiked The Porcupine Mountains, the collective crew of Counselors in Training--big and small, blistered and bouncing. I was afraid to go on the trip because what if I didn't hike fast enough? And I had to carry the pots in my pack. And I hadn't gone to REI like the other girls for those special swishy trail pants. And we weren't supposed to wear t-shirts. Well how was I supposed to know?! I had been wearing a t-shirt for literally occasion of my high school life!

On the third day we made it to Lake Superior. It was too cold to swim, but the water brought a newness. A sense of accomplishment and a marker that we were halfway there (oh-oh-livin on a prayer!) and the trip couselors could use a break too so they basically went to bed as soon as we had put out the fire. Tee, Rench, KHo and I were up, determined to get on that lake if not in.

We wobbled atop a path of rocks just peeping from the water's surface. Tee pointed down at a very mossy one. "Slick," she said. I stepped as delicately as I could but I still flaked for a moment before sticking the landing.

The sun was setting and Rench listed all the schools she visited and which she was applying for and the ones her friends were going to which were just short of disgusting. Rench was the cabin dum-dum but she had a million polos and chacos in the way that made it seem her intelligence would have little to do with where she ended up at school.

"Where are you guys going?" In the distance a tiny boat squatted just under the pinking clouds. KHo came from money too. She pressed her. "I don't want to talk about it." KHo said. "Can't this be the one time in our lives we don't talk about it?" The orange floated away, we tip-toed to shore.