Camp Maid pt 3.

After stuffing themselves with delicious food from the maid cafe, Nia and her friends decide to stock up on some ingredients for that night's dinner. Nia wanted to surprise the other girls with an extra special meal after last night's disaster. But picking the right ingredients takes time, and with Ti and Mona also entering the store, it is certain that they will annoy her in some way. Luckily, there was a claw machine standing in front of the grocery store, the perfect distraction. Nia grabbed her purse, pulled out a bunch of coins, and handed them to Mona.

“Please grab yourself a plushy, so the adults can do some shopping”

“Alright, Mama Nia”

Mona grabbed Ti’s hand and they stormed off to play with the machine. They really are like little children sometimes, Nia thought when entering the store. After buying all the necessary products, she found Mona standing outside the store carrying a huge heart-shaped plushy.

“A little present for you Nia”

Mona said as she pushed the plushy into Nia’s hands. Now she has to carry that thing all the way back, how embarrassing!

“Is this a confession of your love Mona?”

“Well Ti, isn’t that obvious? I am deeply in love with her”

Nia blushed, after which she took a deep breath. Of course, it was just a stupid joke they planned. Nia commanded the group to get moving again. She struggled to hold both the map and the big heart at the same time. She couldn’t just leave the thing on the side of the road. Serena saw her struggling and came up with a plan. She used a piece of cord to attach the heart to Nia’s backpack, to free up Nia’s arms. Still embarrassing, but at least not as inconvenient as before. The girls continued on the route to their next destination, a little stream running through the forest.

The water

This stream lies deep in the woods, surrounded by big century-old oak trees. At this spot, there was a little sandy beachy area, perfect to soak a little in the warm weather. Despite these conditions, the girls had the beach to themselves, except for a pair of children who were there with their parents. In the corner of the beach stood a little changing cabin the girls used to change into their bathing suits. A red bathing suit for Mona, a black bikini for Serena, and a pink bikini with a lot of frails for Nia herself. Ti changed into shorts and a T-shirt, proclaiming she was allergic to water. Mona didn’t buy that, so Ti was the first to end up in the water. After pushing Ti into the water, Mona took a run-up and made and dove in herself. After the other girls convinced them the water wasn’t too cold, Serena and Nia slowly waded in. Toes, ankles, knees, hips… a big splash of cold water hit Nia’s face. Mona! Nia returned the favor with an even bigger wave. Soon, the girls found themselves in an all-out splash battle.

After the fighting cooled down, Nia returned to the beach and started searching for her bag. She pulled out a large deflated plastic object with white and red stripes. Nia put the object against her mouth and started blowing in the air. With every breath of air, a beach ball started to take shape more and more. Mona noticed it and started to wave to Nia with both hands.

“Here Nia! Throw ‘em!”

“Who said I’d give it to you? Maybe I just want to keep it to myself”

Nia smiled and threw the ball to Mona, just before entering the water again herself. The girls played ball for a while before leaving the water to rest and enjoy the sun. By this time, it was already getting late in the afternoon and they had quite the hike still ahead. After some pressure from Nia, the girls changed back into their regular clothes, and they ventured their way back to their camping spot.

The camp

“Mr. Cat! I hope you entertained yourself while we were gone”

Mona lifted up the cat and petted him. It seemed like Mona had been taking good care of him, or let’s say at least he was still alive. Nia grabbed a sausage out of her bag and gave it to Mona.

“I bought it so you can feed it to him or whatever”

Mona pulled her mouth wide open and took a huge bite. That was meant for the cat! Nia heard her stomach rumble. Well, maybe she should start with the dinner preparations. Since it was the last night of their little adventure, Nia really packed out with the ingredients. She figured this surely would be appreciated after such a long and active day. But before she could start preparing the ingredients, there was one more thing Nia had to do to make sure everything would go down smoothly…

“Did you really have to tie me up to a tree?”

“I mean, I appreciate the effort, but you could just have asked me to stay away from you…”

After she had the Mona situation dealt with, Nia started focussing on her next priority: building big a campfire. Nia gathered some twigs from the forest and build a big pyramid. She took some tinder from her tinderbox and lighted a match. After some brief sparkles, Nia saw nothing but smoke. She grabbed another match and tried again, too no result.

“Your taking long Nia, I am starving here!”

Ungrateful girl, Nia though, can’t she see I am trying? Ti and Serena joined and tried to help, but to no avail. Nia stamped hard on the ground, she had seen her dad do this so many times, how hard could it be! Just before Nia wanted to leave to ask the groundkeeper for assistance, Serena called her attention.

“Can’t Mona do it?”

“ I don’t want the forest to burn down!”

“Come on Nia, we got a bucket of water here, what could possibly go wrong?”

Nia sighed, walked to Mona, and untied her. Mona walked up to the fire, grabbed a match, and snap.. fire! Nia apologized for earlier and together they started stirring the fire even bigger. After burning for a while, the flames became less intent and hot burning coal started to form. Nia put some aluminum foil-wrapped potatoes on the warm coals and covered the firepit with a grate, on which she put some big steaks. Nia grabbed her salt and pepper mill and started twisting them above the steaks. A pleasant savory smell started to fill the campground. Nia grabbed her thermometer and measured the steaks.

“Grab your plates, the steaks are almost ready!”

Nia took a big bite and… it was delicious. She had totally outdone herself. The other girls seemed the agree, as they finished their plate in no time. It wouldn’t have been possible without their help though, Nia acknowledged. After being done eating, they decided to re-lighten the fire and have a cozy night together. Mona pulled out her ukelele and they all sang together. But when they were about to put out the fire and get some sleep, they heard a strange sound. They turned their heads, and it looked to be coming out of the shed direction.

“Probably just some deer, they live here in the forest”

Nia tried to brush off the incident. But then, they heard it again but louder. A light started flashing ferociously behind the shed's window. Ti yelled and grabbed Mona’s arm tightly. Nia started panicking, no longer able to ignore it. Is there really something going on here?