1 Day 1: Nine Kids

I remember the day we went and the days before. The plan was to go to Camp Crescent Moon for a week and come back. Of course, that went badly. One week later three kids are missing and you have two survivors and a witness. A week later you have an outrage of parents who want justice for their kids. A week later is when the world finds out because during that time no one knew about what was happening.

But let's start at the beginning, a week before school ended everyone knew that the fifth-graders got to go on a trip to Camp Crescent Moon. Camp Crescent Moon was a legend to the kids in the grades leading up to fifth. Everyone mostly knew it as just 'CCM' and that only good kids got to go which made it even more exciting.

The best part was the bus. It wasn't just a regular school bus, with the yellow paint chipped off. It was those busses that were taller because of the air conditioning and the small tv's inside, not to mention the sofa seats with footrests and cup holders.

I can't remember a single soul who didn't want to go to Camp Crescent Moon.

After we came back I remember that one of the parents filed a lawsuit against the camp and school for all the kids affected.

I remember that my parents were so grateful. My mom cried a lot and my dad always offered something in return, as it turned out the parents were Jasmin Mcknight's parents. It was then that I really became friends with her.

But let's get back to Camp, the first thing I remember was the smell of pine trees. It was the best smell ever, emphasis on was. Now I can't stand the smell, you will soon find out why.

Now the first day. I remember our teacher Mr.Berry, told us to 'form two straight lines and march!' Mr.berry was tall and stalky, he always reminded me of a perfectly straight stick. A stick with lots of hair. Mr.Bery had shiny black hair that went down to his shoulders and he would tie it in a man bun. The last thing I remember about Mr.Berry was how calm he was, almost always calm, you could rarely disturb Mr.Berry.

We marched all the way to the center of the camp in the cafeteria. I think we impressed the camp leaders, they all could hear our marching before we got there. One of the camp leaders, Melanie came up soluted to us.

"At ease soldiers" she then informed us of how more schools would be joining us and so on while mimicking the voice of someone serious making everyone giggle. Since we were the first school to get there another camp leader played Simon says until more schools came.

Then when we got assigned our cabins. One thing you should note, for some reason, all the adults thought it was ok that the boys and girls got mixed up in the same groups. I don't remember where the teachers went; I just knew that they weren't around.

At the time though we thought nothing of it. Now I wish the rules were tighter on things like that, maybe then none of this would happen.

I got mixed in with five boys and five girls I included. One of those boys was Jake Reymond, even before I thought he was kind of weird.

Anyhow, we all unpacked our clothes and picked out our bunks. I got a bottom bunk under a boy, who unluckily for me was a heavy sleeper. The beds were organized in two rows, five across on both sides of the cabin.

I was in the third bottom bunk on the left side of the cabin, Jasmin was in the fifth top bunk also on the left side, Jake was on the fourth bottom bunk on the right. One of the kids who went missing was Juan-Pablo Sutton. He was on the second bottom bunk on the left side, I remember after he disappeared I would stare at his empty bed.

It was noon after got settled so our camp leader, Parker, lead us to the cafeteria for lunch. The lunch wasn't bad, we had sandwiches. After lunch was a walking tour through the whole camp. This took up the rest of the day since the camp turned out to be huge. Finally, though we had dinner, this time would choose what we want from a buffet. I got chicken nuggets.

And now is when the weird things start happening. That night everything went perfectly, we all took turns changing into our pajamas, brushed our teeth with plastic toothbrushes that the camp leaders gave us. I always called them barbie brushes because of how they looked.

Then at 9:30, we went to bed.

And we woke up. Nine kids woke up around 7:00. Nine kids rushed to the camp leader because one of us was missing. We barely knew each other then, but we were terrified. Nine kids were terrified because one was missing. Nine kids not knowing there would be only eight left the next day.