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The man at the table smiled and waved at us to join him.

“Come on girls,” he said. “Does anyone want to fish? Don’t be shy. I should have enough poles or we can share.”

Carla said something inaudible. The rest shrugged but seemed uninterested in fishing. I wasn’t, either, but mostly because I was starving and wanted to find the guys and get lunch.

But then I spotted Silas, who had been facing the water and I didn’t recognize him until he turned toward us. He had some string in his hand. The string was stretched out into the water, tugged taut by something on the other end. He held the string and was slowly dragging it in. Standing beside him was Ian, wearing the same Yankees cap from the night before. He watched Silas pull the string in.

“You got him?” Ian asked Silas.

Silas nodded but didn’t say anything. Something tugged at the string and jerked it in another direction, but he held on, and slowly reeled it in. Just a bare string? Why didn’t he have a pole? It took me a minute to figure out others around him had only strings, too. A few had poles, but they had split off to go further up the river. Silas’s group all fished with their hands.

I peeled myself away from the girl group, grateful that we had permission to split up. I hoped Mrs. Rose would come to me if she still needed my help.

When I walked toward Silas, Lake followed, which I didn’t mind. Then Carla followed her, seeming curious as well. Once she did, the other five girls followed her. I wondered if they had gotten used to following me and simply stuck close by. I imagined if they were dropped off and didn’t see someone they recognized, they wanted to stick with someone familiar. I knew the feeling.

Mrs. Rose remained by the table, talking to the man in charge of the fishing station. He read her signing, nodding along, so I knew she didn’t need me right now.

I walked up to Ian, who smiled at me. “I recognize you. How’d it go?”

“We took a hike,” I said. “Almost got stuck in a cave. Ran into some nettle. But we made it.” I was on a roll with talking all of a sudden. Was it because they were Academy that I was able to talk more? Also, with Silas right there, I was feeling a little braver. I was relieved that I could join with him or any of the other guys. I was off duty for the day.

“You let Mrs. Rose in a cave?” Silas said over his shoulder. “Didn’t anyone warn you?”

“Yeah,” I said and stepped up beside him. “She had asked a ranger about the caves and led us right to it before we even realized.” I paused as he was easing the string in. “What are you doing?”

Silas continued to pull the string, focusing on where it dipped into the water. “Hopefully, you’ll see in a minute.”

Lake, Carla and the other girls shifted around Silas, watching.

Something white appeared connected to the string. As it was still under the water, it was hard to tell, but it looked like a raw chicken leg, bone and all.

“You feed the fish with chicken?” I asked.

“It’s not fish,” Silas said. “Girls, step back. I don’t want him to pinch.”

The girls pulled back, as did I. Ian stepped up beside Silas, reaching a net out into the water.

When the net came up, it caught Silas’s chicken, but attached to it was a blue crab. I hadn’t even seen it in the water; it blended so well until it had nearly surfaced.

The crab dangled in the net, hanging on to the kitchen with legs wriggling.

“I’d rather eat the chicken,” Lake said.

“Crabs aren’t my favorite food, either,” Ian said. He held the net carefully and swung it wide, bringing it over to a cooler that one of his team members had been sitting on. I couldn’t remember his name. He opened the lid of the cooler quickly when he saw the crab coming his way. Ian dumped the crab inside. “But they’re fun to catch.”

“I’ll eat one or two,” Silas said. “They’re good. Hard to find good blue crabs. This river is full of them today, though.”

“Come here, girls,” Ian said, waving us toward the cooler. “Come see this.” His friend held it open so we could see.

We peered in, looking at a blue crab with its pinchers open and active. It had released the chicken and looked like it was feeling threatened and ready to strike. It backed up into the side of the cooler, its hard shell meeting up with the plastic wall.

“Aw, it’s a girl,” Ian said. “Pregnant, too.”

I studied the crab, but couldn’t tell how they knew it was a girl, or pregnant.

“Got to throw it back,” Silas said.

“Why?” Lake asked. “Why not just eat it?”

“Because she’ll have babies,” Silas said. “She’ll make more crabs for us to eat.”

“We only want the big boys or the girls without babies,” Ian said. He dropped the net and helped his friend bring the cooler back toward the river. They carefully tipped it until they dropped the crab into the water. The crab took its chicken and disappeared back into the depths.

“I don’t want crab,” one of the girls said. “Is this lunch?”

“I’m hungry,” another one said. “We need real food.”

“If you go down to the beach, there’s a group making hamburgers and baked potatoes,” Silas said. “Enough for everyone for lunch.” He rubbed his stomach. “I had some, but I left room for a crab.”

“Can we go?” one of the girls asked, looking to me, Lake and Carla.

The three of us looked at each other and shrugged.

“You don’t need our permission,” Lake said.

Still the girls waited. “Shouldn’t we stay together?”

Carla and Lake again shared a look with me. Maybe they needed help finding their way around. I was hungry, too, though, so I didn’t mind walking with them to lunch. “I could use a hamburger,” I said.

“Might as well go,” Lake said.

The guys waved goodbye to us.

We found the same grill the guys had used the night before, and it was surrounded by more tables dragged in from other camps. There was a pile of hamburgers already cooked, along with potatoes, all stacked in coolers with other supplies.

A woman was stationed there, in charge of directing us to eat and where to throw our trash. We sat together at one of the tables. I didn’t see any of the other boys here and wondered if Luke and Nathan were still following and would they come out to eat, or if they had stopped following after we got back to the general camp area.

After eating, we explored different stations, one was first aid training, which was busy as Dr. Green and a couple other people taught people how to check vital signs is someone was unconscious. He was so busy directing the talks, he didn’t see me. I didn’t want to distract him, so I stayed in the background.

We were going to do a full circle of the entire camp until one of the girls said they were tired of walking. The others agreed with her.

“I’ve been up since four this morning,” one of them said.

I shared a look with Carla, who shrugged. Lake nodded. “Me, too, actually,” she said. “The people who brought me in had to give me the lecture on secrecy before we even got here. And I live over in Georgetown. It took a few hours to get here.”

Carla checked her map. “Why don’t we try the craft section?” she asked, glancing up at Lake and me. “That should give us a place to sit and still participate while giving us an opportunity to sort out who doesn’t have a place to sleep tonight.”

That made sense. Hopefully, they’d make friends with other Academy members, too, and they’d feel more comfortable going off together. I thought that was the point of the different booths: To get to know other people.

We stopped by the latrine for a break, but then followed the road that led to the designated arts and craft tables. Soon we came across another pole, this one flying a flag that had a paint brush on it.

The area was inside a pavilion, with a concrete floor and a wooden roof overhead set up on pillars, but was otherwise open. There was a stage made out of wood, where a

few tables were set up.

On the concrete slab under the roof, there were dozens of tables set up in rows, and each row appeared to feature a different craft to work on.

A couple of older members stood and watched over the group, speaking to the people at the tables—giving guidance and advice, I assumed.

We didn’t really look at the craft options, just for a spot where we could all sit. I scanned the tables for familiar faces, and I didn’t see anyone. Carla pointed out a table with room for all of us.

We weaved our way through to get to it. It was covered in a bright yellow tablecloth and had several small buckets containing seed beads, fishing string, and some tools and clasps.

“Necklace or bracelet making?” one of the girls asked.

“Looks like,” Carla said.

“It doesn’t seem like Academy training,” Lake said.

One of the gentlemen passing by to give assistance smiled at Lake’s comment. “Some of the crafts do require more skill and perhaps a lesson. And some are just meant to be a break from lessons and just for fun. Take everything at your own pace.” He motioned to the empty areas we had been walking toward. “Have fun.”

I sat on the end of one bench. Lake sat next to me and Carla sat next to her. Another girl took up the spot next to Carla, and the other side filled in with the other girls.

I looked over our supplies. Besides the buckets, there were craft organizing kits filled with different sized and colored beads. Some were painted with designs and many with letters and charms, too.

One of the girls wiped her forehead. “Can we just stay here and make bracelets until it’s time to go to sleep?”

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