The Brothers' Camping Trip

By Siva Kuppa

Today is the day before Thanksgiving. I am still in my school with my brother. Sadly, we are in the same class. By the way, my name is Billy and my brother’s name is Bob. 

I just can’t wait for school to end so we will finally have a four day weekend. I am not so sure if my brother will like it or not. Bob is the opposite of me. I have brown eyes and black hair and he has black eyes and brown hair. We even have different hobbies. I like to play video games or play tennis and my brother loves to just simply read nonfiction books or do math problems. I always tell that him that he’s a nerd. Obviously I am a normal person unlike Bob.

I almost forgot. We are going to go camping for the whole weekend. I am not so excited to go camping because I could instead play my X Box. My favorite game is Zombie Slayer. My brother would be excited to go camping because he is very curious about everything. All I am curious about is how to beat level 10 in Zombie Slayer. That is nearly impossible. But the other levels seem pretty easy except for levels 8 and 9. Another reason I don’t want to going camping is that I have to take care of Bob during the trip.

At least I can bring my novel. The book is called "Brisingar" from the Eragon series. It is the third book. I will still miss my friends and Zombie Slayer.

I can’t wait. In approximately five more minutes my bus will be called. When I get home I am going to spend my three glorious hours playing the game.

Later...

When I reached home I played Zombie Slayer as usual. I did some marvels in the three hours. I passed level 10 and 11, but I can’t pass level 12 when too many zombies are attacking me. I finally got in the car.

"We are finally here." Mom called.

Finally we are here. I was groaning since I did nothing, but just sit in the car for more than thirty minutes. I wish I did not forget to bring my book. I am very forgetful. We set-up our tent and I was ready to get bored.

The scenery was very different from our place. Huge bright, red leaves had engulfed the earth’s crust making it look like an ocean of red. Nature was fascinating in autumn.

Within moments Bob had found a very unusual animal.

"Billy come over here. Did you ever see that animal before?" Bob questioned.

"No I never have - ok," I replied.

In a few seconds Bob has disappeared from my sight. I found him trying to chase the animal. Since I was older, I had to take care of him so ran toward him. Because Bob was slow, I was easily able to catch up to him. When I caught up to him, there was a much bigger problem.

"Where are we?" Bob said in a panicking voice.

This was my first time I was ever lost.

We walked for at least thirty minutes. Then Bob had to take a rest since he was panting. I was angry at Bob, but showing my anger would do no good at all. When Bob regained his energy, we started again. Each step I took, I would hear the red leaves getting crushed by my feet. Soon my legs were also tired. We decided to take rest again.

My heart was drumming with fear. I guess we had no other choice except to keep walking.

It was starting to get dark. That was a big problem for me because my wimpy brother had a fear of the dark. He feared that a ghost or things like that would haunt him. He had been scared of the dark since 1st grade. That was when a classmate told him a scary story of a ghost haunting people. For the first time in my life, I was starting to lose hope. I was thinking that we would never reach our tent.

After all the tiring time of walking, I finally remembered something important. I had forgotten that I had a black-colored iPhone 4.

The first thing I did was call my dad. Though I forget many things, I did not forget my dad’s cell phone number. It was so wonderful to hear his voice and he seemed happy that we were safe.

For once I was glad that my brother was a nerd. He knew some survival techniques. He tried to tell me how he knew a way to find our parents, but I could not understand his "sophisticated"language.

It took him like about 5 tries to make me comprehend his nerdy language. He told me that if I put a fire, the flames will rise in the air, which will alarm our parents. Then our parents will receive the signal that we are waiting right here for them to find us. After finally understanding his weird words, I instantly called my parents and told them about the "nerd’s" plan. I told them in a normal way (not "sophisticated") that we were going to light a fire to signal them.

My dad received the call and was waiting for the signal to appear. Bob told me that we needed some wood and some stones to light the fire. Since Bob was not that strong, I had to search for the wood and the stones. I was not foolish enough to run away and get lost again. I found the wood quickly near a small nearby lake where the water shined blue and clear.

I knew that we were not supposed to drink lake water because it could be poisonous. One thing that alerted me to the fact that the water was poisonous was that no other animals were drinking the water. I got the stones and wood and quickly ran back. Bob was there sitting on the leaves.

He told me how to light the fire. It took me a few tries to do it, but I finally got it right. After 5 boring minutes of waiting, I think my parents got the signal. Luckily for me, we were not that far away from the camp. My parents came very quickly. When they first saw us, they ran up to us and hugged us, asking us if we were okay. I was also happy to see them. We went back to the camp and everything was fine. Well, not exactly everything. I still hated camping. After two long days, we went home. The first thing I did when I got home was to play Zombie Slayer. Somehow, I got much better at it. By the end of the week, I was at level 20.

This experience showed me how horrible camping could be. Although I still didn’t understand my brother, I am still thankful that he saved our lives. Of course I won’t tell him that, because I am still mad at him for getting us lost in the first place.