Chapter 21 - Graduation

1 month before graduation

We've known our new friends for a couple weeks now, I didn't trust them at first but I'm starting to, they seem genuine. We've started hanging out after school and I've now got a traineeship as an engineer which I do after school Tuesdays and Thursdays and for five hours on Saturdays. I quite enjoy it and it's reasonable pay. Maddy and I are getting along well, I take her out for rides and walks and picnics whenever I get the chance and she even started joining in ay more of my exercises every now and then.

Graduation is in a month, Maddy seems really excited, I don't really know how to feel about it, relieved that I don't have to go to school but also a little bummed, the year feels like it's gone by so fast yet so much has happened. I'm not one to reminisce so I'll leave it at that.

"Klyde! Dinners ready!"

Well, that's Maddy, she decided she wanted to do dinner tonight and I allowed it, her bookings improved quite a bit since we got together, she wasn't all that great beforehand, can't blame her though, maids did most of the cooking and cleaning for her until I came into her life.

I was out shopping the other week and discovered there were toys based off my vigilante self, 'the mysterious hero' they call me. Surely they can do better. Anyway, I go out to dinner to find a lovely spread of roast pork and potatoes with boiled corn on the side.

"Smells delicious Maddy." I state with a smile.

"Good, I put alot of effort into this for everyone."

"I can see that." I say with a laugh.

Everyone comes in, admiring the smell and they dig in. It tasted as amazing as it smelled. Flowing with flavour and texture, cooked just right with the perfect seasoning.

"I'm impressed Maddy." Elis states. "This has to be by far the best meal you've made for us."

"What can I say, I have a good teacher." She says smiling towards me. I give a thumbs up and continue eating.

2 weeks before graduation

Another two weeks half passed, obviously, which means two weeks closer to graduation. Maddy is bouncing between squealing in excitement and bawling her eyes out in sadness.

"But all my friends!" She would wail.

I merely hugged her and try to calm her, when we weren't at school I'd sit her on the couch bundled in a blanket with popcorn and stick a movie on for her, she seemed to like it when I did that, sometimes I'm pretty sure she was pretending to be upset to get me to do it again, I played along because why not. Her mother found it adorable that I did that for her daughter. However I do the same thing when my little sister is upset, though i tend to put on something much more childish for her as, obviously she's much younger. Anyway, today we have our friends over for a, movie marathon of sorts, I think the plan was to watch star wars? I'm in all honesty a little excited to see who lasts the longest and who falls asleep first, I don't entirely approve of Maddy's decision to chug two cans of energy drink to keep herself awake, it isn't exactly good for you, nor do I think it'll work as efficiently or effectively as she's hoping.

Sure enough, four movies in, twelve o'clock at night, Maddy is out cold along with the other girl. As a prank to I suppose punish them for falling asleep first, the boy drew a moustache on his twins face and I did hearts on Maddy's hand, I didn't wanna do anything stupid that would upset her.

Maddy awoke the next morning and seemed to love my little gift.

1 week before graduation

Maddy's emotions are getting a little out of hand, she's a ball of energy one moment then almost dead the next. The only thing that seems to cheer her up is wrapping her in a blanket and giving her a hot chocolate and cookies then feeding the cookies to her. It's like looking after a toddler. There's not much else to tell honestly, we've just been playing along one week at a time, getting ourselves ready for graduation. Our friends are, obviously still our friends, we haven't been able to hang out as much due to them having alot of work and home stuff to deal with and me working alot also. I've been on dinner most nights with everyone working, despite me also working now, not that I mind, I enjoy cooking.

Graduation day

And so the for some reason dreaded day has arrived, graduation. Maddy had drained herself and was an almost emotionless husk by the time we arrived at school for the ceremony, there was commotion everywhere, everyone was talking and either laughing or crying, or both. I personally struggle to understand the level of emotion people feel at this point of their progression through life, I don't see it as a big deal, we're just leaving school, not like we'll never see anyone from school ever again, though I'd enjoy not having to deal with these people again. Anywho, we sat through the graduation ceremony, awards were handed out, certificates and achievements announced, blah blah blah, and so it was the end of school. To celebrate us all graduating Maddy's mother held a "small" dinner party at their home, and by "small" I mean all our friends and family as well as hers were invited, meaning it was roughly 50 to 80 people present at the party. I put myself in charge of security as I had easy access to everyone's backgrounds and could easily fight off any unwanted guests. Plus I don't trust anyone outside of those who I live with at this point. I'm not really one for parties so I didn't participate much, I tried to avoid conversation and stood outside of the majority of the crowd.

The party went on well into the night, it got to eleven o'clock when I starting shooing people off, they weren't too happy about it but I didn't want anyone staying past midnight as we had to pack and leave for camp tomorrow.

Graduation camp

We all arrived in front of the school, everything we'd need for the week packed and ready to go, camp was going to be quite the experience, lots of emotional teenagers in the middle of nowhere in the woods, cut off from the internet and society for five days, how fun (sarcasm by the way). luckily I have permission to go in my car as long as I took a passenger, could only fit one cus I only have four seats and mine and Maddy's stuff was taking up the boot. Luckily it was one of our twin friends, the other twin couldn't come because he was horribly sick. Anywho, we all climb into my car and off we went following the bus to our destination, the camp grounds.

The ride took three hours but we finally arrived in the middle of the woods at a campsite covered in cabins, each cabin had a boys and girls room, which was two to three people per room. Maddy and I ended up in the same cabin along with our twin friend who would be sharing the room with me. As camps go this one was decent, cabins had been newly refurbished with comfortable bedding and even a miniature kitchen setup, I having researched in advance knew this and brought drinks and snacks to share with my cabin mates and friends. And of course if the camp or campers needed anything the teachers appointment me as the "delivery boy" or "errand boy" as some would put it.

We didn't do much the first day as we were arriving in the afternoon, we settled into our cabins, joined together for dinner then went to bed.

Day 2; We were all woken up at eight in the morning, had breakfast then packed backpacks and were off on a hike by nine. The hike was a long steep windy trip up the mountain, I was quite enjoying myself, half the other people with me however would not stop complaining. Maddy and I are ahead of everyone currently, not by too much, unfortunately too close so we can hear all the whining. We all stopped about two hours in and almost half way up the mountain, I don't think everyone was gonna make it the whole way considering there would still be the four hour trek back down making the full trip about nine hours including all breaks. A small bird comes and sits with me and Maddy as we have our snack, I toss it a piece and it takes it gratefully, it hops around for a bit then someone scares it off, I look at them as if to say "what the heck man" and they back off.

As I suspected most gave up and started heading back down, whilst the few that remained, including myself, continue onward, completing the trek. We sit at the top watching the beautiful view, the clouds floating by at the same height as we were standing, the lush green trees moving like an ocean in the breeze, its incredible.

"Glad you came Klyde?" asks Maddy in a somewhat teasing manner.

"Well, originally I was keen, however everyone's whining was putting me off but this made it worth it." I reply with a slight smile.

After about an hour of admiring the view we head back down to find all the quitters laying flat on the ground groaning.

"I can't feel my legs." Someone complained.

"I think I walked my feet off." Whined another.

I wanted to tell them to quit their whining but I couldn't be bothered, I was finally in a good mood I wasn't gonna let them ruin it.

After they had finally gotten back on their feet we all went and had dinner then obviously, off to bed.

Day 3; After a good night's sleep we all awoke and gather for breakfast.

"You guys are all gonna love the activities planned for today" One of the teachers slash camp leaders exclaim.

Everyone instantly murmured and groaned at his statement.

"We'll have to split you into three groups but first I'll tell you all our three activities for the day, well technically there's four but the last one's a surprise that one of you suggested. Activity one, kayaking, activity two, ziplining and good old activity three, caving with difficulty of your choice, three choices for that by the way, easy, moderate, and very difficult, normally it's just difficult but it's a bit more wet than usual, we have a cave guide who has twenty years of experience so you guys will be fine."

For once everyone seemed excited, I'm looking forward to kayaking and caving the most, ziplining does sound fun too though. Maddy seems a little off-put by the zipline but I'm sure she'll get over it soon. Anywho, we all picked our groups, my group of course was me, Maddy, our somewhat new friend and a couple others, basically all the ones that finished the mountain hike yesterday. first up we have kayaking, i got into the kayaks first as I knew what I was doing already and was asked to demonstrate. Everyone followed my lead and picked up on it pretty quick. For the next two hours we did nothing but rowing and floating on a massive pond, almost could be considered a small lake. Everyone had a blast, splashing each other, racing each other, even linking up and creating a wall of kayaks just for the fun of it, I'd never had so much fun hanging around other people, especially people from school.

Our kayaking adventure comes to an end as we pull back onto the bank and exit the kayaks. We were off to the zipline next, I reassured Maddy that it would be fun but she still seemed unsettled by it. We arrive together and once again I'm first up, I notice they have a 2 person zipline link so asked if Maddy and I could do it together so that she'd be more comfortable, they agreed, she agreed, so we hook up ready to go.

"Both secure and ready?" the supervisor asks.

"Yup." I reply.

"N-no." Maddy mutters.

Either the supervisor didn't hear her or ignored it on purpose but either way we get launched off and begin to glide through the woods, at first Maddy screams but her screams quickly turn to laughter and celebratory yelling, I couldn't help but laugh, she went from absolute terror to pure ecstatic joy. For myself this felt kinda freeing. I was impressed with the length of the cable as it took ten or so minutes to go the full length, but it was fun nonetheless, obviously once we were done we decide to go again and race each other back, and we all know who won that race.

And finally we get to the caving, we went for the difficult one obviously, we all love a bit of a challenge, Maddy was thrilled at first, but now we're in the cave and she seems to be getting uncomfortable. Then it hit me. I call out to the instructor,

"I'm gonna take this one back out she's having a panic attack!"

"Alright!" his reply echoes.

I bring Maddy carefully back out and sit her against the rock wall, we had gotten about half way so it took us a little while to get back, but it was the safest option as pushing on the cave would've become more difficult.

"You okay Maddy?"

"U-um, I don't know, I don't know what happened I just felt trapped suddenly."

"Claustrophobic, your brain panicked because you were in a small dark space."

"But I'm usually fine in small spaces..."

"Well there is also speluncaphobia." for those who don't know it basically just means fear of caves. I escort Maddy back to camp and she gets changed into something cleaner, after about an hour or two everyone returns for dinner.

I won't bore you with the rest of the days but I will say there was a shooting range at one point and someone ended up going to hospital, some idiot was messing around and shot the poor girls foot, and let's just say it wasn't pretty. He ended up getting sent home so that was that. We all went home at the end of the 6 day camp but I have to admit, I would do that again if I got the chance.