That final here looks perilously close to the actual forest. I squint over at the trees and make out a stone path with a few red signs that seem to say bathroom. Um. Whose idea was it to bury the toilets in the woods???
“What if I need to pee in the middle of the night?!” Aurora whispers.
“Squat, babe,” is Sophie’s advice.
“Are you all right, mate?” I hear Raj murmur. When I look over, Brad seems to be seriously contemplating his life choices.
“Fine,” he whispers back. “Just coming to terms with the whole public shower thing.”
“My mum packed some sanitizing wipes, if you want them.”
Brad is clearly offended by the suggestion that he has not come armed to the teeth with his own cleaning products. “Um. Thank you. But. I have my own.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Holly continues, “you’ll need to pack up your tents, take your maps, and begin day one of the expedition through Glen Finglas. We expect to see you for dinner at the Duke’s Pass campsite by four o’clock, ready to rest up before the next day’s hike. Your route and your time management are your responsibility. The manner in which you travel is your responsibility.”
Our group exchanges furtive glances; we’ve already decided to move as a team. Strength in numbers. Plus, I’d be bored to tears if I spent the next three days wandering through the woods on my own.
Anyway, Brad and I have to stick together. Our parents told us to, so we’re only doing the responsible thing.
“There are multiple Golden Compasses hidden on various routes, with clues marked on your maps. We’ll be considering your speed, efficiency, and hunting skills alongside the usual Explorer qualities, as laid out in your handbooks. You will be given your GoPro cameras in the morning to record your expedition experience. This footage, along with your interviews at the campsite every evening, will be used to devise your scores.”
Another significant look, this time slightly (okay, massively) stressed, or maybe that’s just me. We can turn the cameras on and off whenever we want—for example, if we have to poop in a bush, which is a possibility no one’s mentioned but I bet it’s happened to someone before—but just the thought of being filmed during every single moment of this woodland fiasco is kind of high pressure. Film doesn’t change or fade. Film is precise and unforgiving. I have to be the perfect BEP alum these next few days. I want a scholarship.
But do I want to show up at the ball and claim it, if it means seeing my father? In the months since I laid eyes on him, I still haven’t decided, and it’s eating me alive.
“Good night, Explorers,” Holly says, all doom and gloom. “And good luck.”
There’s an angsty, wind-howling pause.
Then Zion announces, “I brought hot chocolate, by the way. Shall we set up the camping stoves?”
BRAD
The first day of our hike dawns so bright and so frosty, I am in serious danger of snow blindness. It turns out Scotland is like a fear factor version of England, in that almost everything’s the same but 10,000 times more extreme. The sky? Bluer. The grass? Greener. Unfortunately, the cold is also colder, and the morning dew is wetter. I learned that last part around 6:00 a.m., when I was woken up by the drip-drip-drip of icy water on my nose.
That’s right. Our tent let in water. I mean, Raj says it was condensation and called it “perfectly natural” but the point is…outside water touched my face. I may never sleep again. I’m still scrubbing at my nose in absentminded disgust when Celine appears, looking ridiculously gorgeous for a girl who slept on the ground last night like the rest of us. Her cheeks are shiny and rounded by her way-too-chirpy smile. She makes her plain black rain jacket look Instagram-worthy, and the straps of her Breakspeare-issued rucksack are doing magnificent things to her boobs. If I don’t die of horror during this expedition, I might die of lust instead.
“Hey,” she says to Raj, then catches my wrist and tugs my hand off my face. I tangle our fingers together. She gives me a look and pulls gently away because we are not a couple. We are next-to-nothing. I can only touch her in private, and that might never change.
Every time I remember those facts, a section of my stomach shrivels up and curls in on itself. At this rate I won’t have anywhere to put my food and I’ll be permanently nauseous.
“Your nose is red,” she murmurs.
I roll my lips inward, curl my hand into a fist, and remind myself of a few things.
You offered her this. You mostly enjoy this. And it’s not forever.
“Are you okay?” Celine nudges me.
“Yeah.” I’m getting myself together. Remembering the plan, because that’s a thing I do now: I have plans to reach my goals, and I execute them. I learned that from Celine. Right now, my plans go something like this:
Goal A: Become a writer.
Apply to uni in Leeds and Bristol, where I’ll study English. ?
Receive acceptance letters. ?
Tell parents. X
I’m still working on that last one.
And then there’s Goal B: Date Celine. Unfortunately, this plan’s not quite as straightforward, but it goes something like this:
Kiss Celine a lot. ?
Show her she can trust me. ?
Confess my true feelings and ask her for more (third time’s the charm). X
Things get complicated after that because the rest is up to Cel. Either she’ll say YES PLEASE! and I will live the rest of my life in a frankly indecent state of joy (that’s my preferred outcome), or she’ll say no. She’ll say, It’s not about trust. She’ll say, I’m just not that into you. And I’ll have to get over it, somehow, and fall out of—you know, stop caring about her like that, somehow, and just spend the rest of my life slowly and quietly dying of longing in the corner. Which will make me a real drag at parties.
“Have you two packed up your tent yet?” Celine asks, louder this time.
Raj looks at her, then looks at our still very much upright tent. “What do you think?”
“You do realize we’re the last ones still here? Sophie’s gonna lose it.”
“Did someone say my name?” Sophie calls, trudging across the grass toward us with maps tucked under her arms and Aurora hurrying behind. “Guys, is that your tent still up? Come on. Have a word.”
“Brad was having a crisis,” Raj says, and my cheeks heat because I think he’s talking about my very minor and totally reasonable water-based freak-out. Then he says, “Couldn’t decide what to wear,” and my cheeks get even hotter. I didn’t think he’d noticed that. I’m just trying to look…you know, dateable! In walking boots! It’s harder than you think.
Celine looks me up and down, her long braids falling forward as she absorbs my forest-green tracksuit and white thermal shirt. It’s casual and practical because, duh, but coordinating colors seem more effortlessly put-together and green looks amazing on me. I am an autumn. Celine clearly agrees because she has the same look on her face that she gets when I put aside whatever book I’m reading and tackle her onto my bed. This look involves slightly vacant eyes and a small bite of the lower lip, and I like it very much.
I arch an eyebrow. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” she murmurs under the sound of Sophie and Raj bickering.
“Liar.”
“Take your tent down before Soph has conniptions,” Celine says. “And don’t forget to bend from the waist. I read somewhere that crouching is bad for your knees.”
My snort is skeptical. “I am feeling very objectified right now.”
She grins. “I have no idea what you mean.”
CELINE
The aim of this expedition is to find as many Golden Compasses as possible while reaching your destination within the allotted time frame. So here’s our galaxy brain idea: we’ll work as a team to find the most compasses in the least amount of time.
Theoretically, I mean.
Of course, compasses aren’t the only thing that contribute to our scores this expedition. We have to show all the usual Breakspeare qualities while we’re camping under Zion’s, Rebecca’s, and Holly’s watchful eyes and have to illustrate them during our end-of-day interviews, and everything we say has to be backed up by the footage taken from the little cameras attached to our coats. Maybe that’s why the first two hours of our trek through the woods are quiet and awkward; we all feel super self-conscious.