Name

Anything Goes

Premise

The first person to post will get to determine the setting and verb tense. The plot will develop based on Player's actions.

Additional Rules

None. Just come on in and play.

Act Characters (to be used by the AM)

Meagan - camper

((Setting - A small river in the woods -- A popular national park/campsite))

Deep down, Demi knew that walking across an unstable log over a slow-running but deep river was a bad idea, but it was just too fun to pass up. Plus, his parents were fighting again, so what else should he do? His arms outstretched to balance himself, he wobbled slightly but pressed on, telling himself that he wasn't going to fall.

Worst school trip ever. Who thought camping in the middle of no where would be fun?

"I should have faked sick," Meagan grumbled. Her boots crunched on the leaves and twigs on the ground. she wiped her forhead with her sleeve but kept walking. She had about a dozen canteens in her backpack and had o find a place to fill them for that afternoon's hike. Joy.

As she walked along the river, she had half a mind to fill George's pouch with the murky waters. Some E. Coli would teach that jerk some manners. Meagan smiled, the thought of George being hospitalized liting her spirits.

Almost there, Demi thought as he reached the latter half of the fallen tree, the half that had unfortunately stripped of its bark. Pulling his soiled Mets cap closer to his head, he prepared himself. Not gonna fall, not gonna fall...

So of course, he fell. He landed with a loud splash in the water and began floudering desperately before realizing he was only two feet away from the riverbank.

"...Oh." He looked around sheepishly, climbing up onto the shore. "I survived."

He deflated when he realized that not only was he soaked to the skin, but he'd have to get back across the river somehow.

Meagan had never laughed so hard. The splashing and gargling had drawn her attention to the river. The boy looked like a wet dog now, sitting on the opposite side of the river.

When she collected herself, Meagan yelled, "Hey! Are you alright?"

Demi looked up at the sound of the voice, and he saw a girl across the river looking at him.

"Yeah!" He called back, taking off his cap and shaking it so it would dry, "soggy, though."

Then he tilted his head to the side, his eyes curious, "who're you?" He called to her.

"I'm Meagan!" she said. She motioned vaguely to the area behind her. "I'm on a camping trip with my school. How 'bout you?"

"Name's Demi!" He called back, "and I'm on a trip with my parents but I got bored and decided to see if I could walk across the river on that log!" He gestured to the fallen tree.

The boy stood up and tried to wipe the mud off of his jeans, "it didn't work." He added unnecessarily.

Meagan snickered again. "Obviously." She shifted the backpack and remembered her task.

"Oh! Um, I have to go find fresh water! Can you handle yourself?"

"Uh..." Demi scanned the river for any sort of way across, "maybe." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

Spotting some stepping stones, he walked over to them, "huh. Rather...precarious." But Demi, never being one to think things through, began crossing anyway. He almost slipped off several times, but made it to the shore without severely injuring himself.

"Hah. I knew I could do it." He lied. He looked at the girl more closely and remembered what she had said.

"Uh, I think there's a water fountain somewhere..." he scanned around and pointed, "in a general...that way direction."

"'General that way direction?' Gee your so helpful." Meagan pushed the bangs out her eyes and tried to tihnk of a way to avoid going by herself. The last thing she wanted was to be attacke by some wild animal while on a water run...

"You know you look like you could use some water too, Demi. If you want you can tag along and wash up." She added with a shrug, "or something..."

"Well, okay," Demi decided after a moment, "but I doubt washing up is going to keep my mom from killing me..."

'Don't even think about going into that river, Demitri O'Malley!' He winced as her words rang in his mind. It definitely wouldn't hurt if he could prolong his time away from his parents anyway.

"Mothers are all talk," Meagan said as she handed him her backpack. "My mom's always threatning to send me to my dad's house but one quick look of remorse and she's over it." She smiled, clearly impressed with herself.

"So, you gonna lead the way or what? 'Cuz I have no idea where I'm going."

"Oh, right!" Demi nodded, "uh...this way. It was over here, behind a Winnabago." As he lead her along, he began talking.

"So, what brings ya here? I mean, I know a school trip, but are you supposed to learn something or is it for...uh," He tried to think of the word, "recreational purposes?"

"It's supposed to be like this alternative spring break type thing. Like instead of having fun at the beach or an amusement park, we have to come learn about the environment and clean the park and stuff." Meagan kicked a pebble. "It's so lame. I wasn't even gonna go if it weren't for my stupid fake bleach blond bimbo of a best friend..."

She kicked another rock, this time stubbing her toe.

"What, you don't like park?" Demi asked, "there's all sorts of interesting stuff here. Like, you know, I keep thinking that if I explore enough, I'll find some sort of secret place nobody knows about, like in books. And there are lots of cool animals too, like, yesterday when I first got here, I found a snake." He rambled.

"Huh, water fountain is right over here somewhe--ow!" Well, he'd found the fountain. He hadn't been paying attention and tripped over it. "Oh. Found it." He grinned.

"I cannot believe you just put 'cool' and 'snake' in the same sentence."

Meagan listned to him go on until he hit the fountain. She couldn't help but laugh again. "Nice going. Pass me some of the canteens and we'll fill 'em up in know time." Meagan thought for a bit. "And then maybe we could look for a secret place that doesn't have snakes."

"Sounds like a plan," Demi smiled, and helped her with the canteens, "so, they made you come and fill up all of these?" He shook his head in pity, "these are gonna be real heavy when they're filled. I could help ya, but I gotta warn you: I tend to--uhm--drop things...so I hope some of your classmates don't mind some dirt in theirs." He said, laughing nervously.

"Those losers deserve to have dirt in their water!" Meagan blushed. "It's kinda my fault though. I was trying to put up my tent and somehow managed to break like 3 other peoples'. Yeah. I'm kinda clumsy with the equipment."

"Pfft." Demi snickered, "sounds like a charming bunch, your class." He picked up some of the canteens, happy to have another excuse not to go back to camp. He wasn't sure how much bickering he could stand today. His smile faltered for a split second as he thought about it, but instantly returned.

"So, where is this class of yours?"

Meagan stretched and looked around. "Um, it's by a tree... next to a really big rock... I think." She loked down at her shoes.

"And you said I was no help," he laughed. He looked around, scanning the woods. "Is it them?" He pointed to a group next to a large rock and looked at her.

"Yeah! It is!" Meagan gathered most of the canteens into her arms. "I'm gonna run over and drop these off. The teacher will probably want me to stay out of the way so I'll be right back." She gave him one last look and hurried toward the class.

Demi took her departure as a short opportunity to sit down. He was wet, a bit tired, and his parents wanted him home before dark. He busied himself with watching other families, happy ones, enjoy their spring break. Sometimes he wondered if his family could change into one of those, just for a day or two...

He shook his head, snapping out of his short bout with depression and gaining a neutral, bored expression on his face to replace the previous melancholic one. Thinking about it wasn't going to help.

Demi then distracted himself with looking at a crow that was picking through other people's garbage. It wasn't nearly as cool as the snake he found, though. He let out a long, bored sigh and looked up.

Great. A boring spring break vacation, and it looked like rain.

Meagan jogged back to where she had left Demi.

"Hey, sorry I took forever! The teacher was lecturing us about the importance of 'respecting nature.' But I brought you a smore.. well kinda." Meagan held up a ziploc bag with chocolate, marshmallow, and cracker amalgamation.

She smiled. "Needless to say I'm not the best camper."

"Hah. That's good compared to what I've done with 'em," he mused, taking the bag, "you wouldn't know how to get chocolate and marshmallow gunk off of a sleeping bag, would you?" After a moment, he added, "and the bottom of a shoe, and a car seat..."

He trailed off, realizing how long his list would be if he were to go on. Now he looked at the bag holding a sweet smelling blob of white and brown, trying to figure out how to go about eating it. He knew from experience that s'mores stuck to everything.

She lay on the grass watching him fiddle with her concoction. "So! Where are you taking me, Demi?" She surprised herself her own eagerness. Meagan wasn't really interested in snakes and other critters but she figured some cool trees or rocks would be harmless.

"Huh," Demi rubbed his chin in thought. "M'not to keen on trying to cross the river again, so we could try over there." He pointed to the dense trees on their side of the river.

"Thought it doesn't feel quite right without my exploring hat..." Demi trailed off. Meagan would soon learn that Demi had a hat for everything. "We can't waste daylight goin' to get it. So, with my super awesome sense of direction, I say we go..." Demi pointed at various areas to enter the trees, silently counting off 'eenie meenie miney mo' in his head.

"There." He grinned, pointing at a large gap in the rows of trees. "Looks inviting ta' me."

"Awesome!" Meagan jumped off and picked the grass out of her hair. "We'd better get going. I have good feeling about this." She nodded, in awe of her own wisdom. "If we play our cards right, this could be the best spring break ever!"

((I'm so happy with how much we got done today! I have early classes tomorrow so I have to get off now. We can pick this up tommorrow :P ))

"Now you're getting it!" Demi snickered and lead the way.

((Yeah, it's getting a little late over here too. Got a driver's ed class at 7:30. Tomorrow, then!))

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