Chapter X - Fish Emulsion Fertilizers and Other Splendors

"WHAT IS THAT awful stank?"

A girl my age with curly blond highlights in her otherwise straight dark hair and purple contacts in her eyes―she'd said her name was Priscilla or something―wrinkled her nose at me as she looked at me up-and-down.

The train ride had been three hours long, and once we got off the train, we'd grouped together with the other people (total of nine; ten including Yumi) going on the trek. Once we had gotten off from the train, we started walking along the town and through a forest until we could reach the taxi hubs, after which a taxi would take us to the first site we'd be staying at. But until then, we had to walk through the forest, and there were strange things everywhere. Like, everywhere.

I'd had to dodge: an overly friendly chipmunk demanding snacks; squirrels dropping acorns from above; pinecones scattered like a minefield, and even rope swings left by previous visitors that kept hitting me. Could a girl catch a break?

I thought I had escaped everything, but the forest seemed to have turned into a clown house with random things jump-scaring me. And apparently only for me because everyone else was very much not flinching every five seconds because flowered branches kept whacking them upside the head. Sigh.

And this time, the jump-scare in question was not as pleasant as a flower branch, unfortunately; I looked down and saw that I was standing right beside a pile of manure (of which animal, who knew). It was the most disgusting pile of dung I'd ever seen, and the smell was unbearable. It was as if a thousand rotten cheeses had decided to have a party in my nostrils. I quickly jumped away from it, then jerked my thumb at it, informing the girl, "That's the awful 'stank'." Priscilla just rolled her eyes, and then carefully walked on, holding on to Finn's arm.

About that.

As soon as we had gotten off the train, after introducing herself, Miss Priss had latched onto Finn's arm like she was an old piece of sticky tack, or like he would float away if she didn't. The worst part was watching Finn just catch her and flash her a charming smile. I had to watch all this as I pulled my bags with me off the train. It was a wonder I didn't just whack myself in the head with my bag so I could escape this horror in the name of an accidentally-on-purpose self-inflicted concussion.

Miss Priss was all giggles and hair flips, batting her eyelashes so rapidly I thought she might take off like a helicopter. And Finn, being the guy he was, didn't seem to mind one bit. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying the attention.

Not that I cared. Duh.

As we began our long hike, Priscilla turned the trail into her personal drama stage. She kept 'tripping' over the tiniest pebbles and twigs, clutching Finn for support as if the forest floor was some sort of treacherous vegetable grater or something. I swear I saw her stumble on perfectly flat ground and then dramatically fall into Finn's arms like she was in her own k-drama or something.

And normally I wouldn't have really cared, or even noticed, for that matter. But I was stuck behind them, trudging along, dead last because I'd been busy gaping at a beautiful flower tree until Finn had looked back and tugged me along. Yumi was at the very front, and I absolutely would have loved to walk along with her so that I could hear all the facts about this place. Alas, I was stuck getting scratched by random branches and getting random looks from random girls about random stenches that I didn't have anything to do with.

Ugh.

At least Renzo was up there with Yumi, having the time of his life. Jolene had initially started walking with me, and it was fun, but she didn't notice me stop to look at that flower tree and had kept on walking and talking. I mean, I could just ask the two ahead of me to move so that I could make my way back to her because she was turning around and waving at me to join her...

...but then the dude beside me would be alone.

Yes, I had made a trek-buddy who was also dead last. His name was Bryon Alphonso, he had dirty blond hair and green eyes, and he was actually a nice guy, except he wouldn't. Stop. Talking.

About his favourite vegetables.

Yeah. Exactly.

He chattered on about bell peppers and zucchini, which made me sigh because how boring did I look, exactly? What made someone walk up to me and discuss their favourite freaking greens?! But then the conversation turned to the gardening of these said greens, and I actually liked the convo. So maybe I deserved it.

Finn must have caught some of our conversation because he turned around and shot me a wink, grinning, and then looked pointedly at Bryon. "Made for each other," he mouthed, and I glared at him, quickly plastering on a smile when Bryon inquired politely about my stance on fish emulsion fertilizers.

Yup, I definitely deserved this.

But what I did not deserve to see was Priscilla squealing at a perfectly harmless butterfly, leaping ―no, catapulting― into Finn's arms yet again. But despite this, I soldiered on. Because it wasn't exactly like I could suddenly cancel the plans and cartwheel back to Bayport, could I?

After a while, I was so bored I started counting the number of rocks that looked like celebrity faces, and it was when I was deciding beside a Shakira vs Beyonce -looking rock that Bryon and I realized we needed a break. So we decided to stop for a second to, I don't know, tie our shoelaces or something equally ridiculous.

But then I looked up, finished tying my laces before my trekking buddy,  since he was taking his precious time, only for a bunch of trees and an empty path to stare back at me.

I tapped at Bryon's shoulder in shock, starting to get a weird, panicked feeling in my lungs. It seemed to me that we were utterly, completely, and absolutely lost.

"Bryon," I said slowly, turning in a circle in case the group was just behind us for some reason (of course they weren't), "where are we?"

"In the forest, Cora," Bryon Alphonso replied cheerfully, obliviously continuing to tie his laces into a triple knot (bow included) and suddenly, for a brief moment, the briefest one, I was tempted to test his windpipe's resilience before I reminded myself that strangling isn't socially acceptable. I guessed my career in professional wrestling would have to be put on hold.

"I realize we're in a forest, Bryon," I gritted out politely as sweat started to gather uncomfortably on my skin. "But where in the forest are we? I- um, I don't know where our group went."

His head snapped up and he shot up like a rocket after that, eyes widening when he realized what was going on. He turned around in a circle just like I had, and then he stopped and looked at me. I stared back.

"You know what, Cora," he then said, full of energy, green eyes shining, "it's okay, we got this. I'm sure there was a map on the pamphlet that Yumi had given us..."

I watched as he pulled out a crumpled pamphlet from the side pocket of his bag. "There we go!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "Aha!" He smoothed out the page against his thigh, then pointed to the map. "This is the forest we're in right now, and this red line is the path we were on." He traced his finger across the line as he spoke. "And we were about fifteen minutes in, which means we're around halfway through. We'll just continue this way. They couldn't have gotten far."

I nodded, having no other plan. It was then that we realized that after we'd both turned in circles, we actually had no clue which way we'd come from, which made the map useless. So we just started walking forward, and at this point, I was beyond questioning my life decisions.

We wandered around in circles, discussing the map that neither of us knew how to read. Bryon kept insisting we were going the right way, but it was pretty clear we weren't.

Just as I was about to give up and start a new life in the forest, we stumbled back onto the trail and found our group again. Bryon and I even high-fived, and I was feeling optimistic about life.

We quickly merged with the group again, realizing that no one had even noticed that we'd gotten lost, except for, well...

"Decided to join civilization again, did you, Cora?" Finn quipped, grinning at me, and Priscilla giggled like it was the most hilarious joke. I held back from rolling my eyes, and was about to retort when Bryon jumped to my defense, saying, "She wasn't the one leading us in the wrong direction, bro. We'd just stopped to tie our laces."

I wanted to say that I could speak for myself, thank you very much, but I figured Bryon was just being kind, so I didn't say anything. I could feel Finn giving me a look, expectant, but I avoided his gaze. "Ditto," I said instead, making finger guns at Bryon, which he did back. I wanted to slam my head in a tree. "What he said."

Bryon shot Finn a triumphant look (what?!), and Finn just raised his hands in a surrender. "Okay, bro."

"Just make sure you don't get lost again. It'd be scary in these woods to be alone," Priscilla said. I had to stop my jaw from dropping in surprise. Maybe we could be friends after all―

"I heard the bears love people who manage to get lost while having a map. Something about the lack of awareness saturating the meat...I'd be careful, hon," she said sweetly, and my jaw did drop this time as she turned back around. I ignored the dig however, and didn't dignify it with a direct response.

But I had caught sight of the pin on her crop top, which read 'representation matters' in block letters, so I couldn't help but mutter, "Yeah, nice to see you speaking on behalf of all the bears. How about you represent the wild raccoons' thoughts on inclusive picnics next time?"

Absolutely no one was supposed to hear that, but Finn had, and I saw him bite down on his lip to hold back a laugh. He shook his head incredulously and shot me a smile before turning back around and walking ahead, and I felt more positive.

Even when Bryon continued his discussion with me on fish emulsion fertilizers.

Finally, we reached the taxi stand. Everyone was piling into the taxi, and it was like a clown car at the circus. By the time I tried to get in, there was literally no space left. Finn was all, "There's plenty of room!" as he scooted over to make space. But really, there wasn't. So there I was, squished into a corner with Finn's knee jabbing into my side. Ugh.

Then, the driver decided to take the scenic route, which was code for "bumpy dirt road from your nightmares", of course. Every bump sent me flying into Finn, and I could feel his shoulder shaking with laughter. I tried to hold onto the door handle, but my balance was horrendous and my hands were burning as they slid against the thick leather.

At one point, we hit a giant pothole, and I ended up face-first in Finn's shoulder. "Comfortable?" he teased. I muttered something about him needing to invest in a less bony shoulder.

When we finally arrived at the site, I stumbled out of the van, feeling like a crumpled piece of paper. "Next time, let's take a helicopter," I grumbled, while Finn just smirked and said, "Or we could always ride a tandem bike."

I held up my hands. "With you, on these roads?" I asked, trying to catch my breath. "No way."

While holding Priscilla's hand as she stepped carefully out of the van, Finn grinned at me. "At least you're aware."

"Save me the speech, Finneas. I have other ways of developing my Acting-on-a-Whim-101 plan that doesn't include my spleen being splattered across the sidewalk, thank you very much," I huffed as I hoisted my bag higher across my shoulder. Finn's eyes twinkled, but I didn't wait for a response as I subtly shuffled over to Yumi's side so that I wouldn't miss any more important info.

I quickly spotted Renzo and Jolene there too. "Long time, no see. I missed you Cora-bean," Renzo said tearfully, and I giggled as he, Jolene and I did a quick group hug. I really did miss them already, too.

Then I remembered Bryon and when I looked back, he was already in deep conversation about apple orchards with another girl, Abigail, who looked genuinely interested. I sighed, both in relief and because I was happy for him.

Maybe this trip wouldn't be so bad after all, bumpy dirt roads and purple contact lenses aside.

♢◍⛺◍♢

Or maybe I'd jinxed it all because as soon as I tried to sent up a tent, I found out very soon that I couldn't.

I was wrestling with these tent poles that were flopping around like oversized spaghetti noodles. It was like trying to play Whack-A-Mole but with a tent.

"Why won't you fit?" I groaned, holding one end while the other end refused to cooperate. Jolene was beside me, whacking the stakes into the ground like she was playing a very frustrating game of croquet.

"I think this ground might be made of cement," Jolene huffed, her face scrunched up in concentration. She was practically doing a single leg takedown with the stakes, trying to get them to go into the ground, but they wouldn't budge.

I glanced over and saw Priscilla lounging on a blanket, not lifting a finger, while her friend Edna did all the work. She looked as though she were sunbathing on a beach, not camping with bears (and us) in the middle of no where. "Some people have all the luck," I muttered.

I was sitting back for a second, catching my breath, when I realized that most pairs had gotten their tent up. We could ask Renzo or Finn or even Bryon for help, but something stopped me. I didn't really own an ego and my pride was microscopic, so maybe it was that voice in my head telling me that if I couldn't even make the tent, what else would I be capable of doing on this trip? Whatever it was, I was about to turn back to the tent and start working when Yumi clapped her hands loudly and got our attention.

"Hey, everyone! As our first detour of this trip, I wanted to show you something super cool! There's this really interesting flower just down the path. It's a rare blue moon orchid! Let's go check it out!"

Everyone dropped what they were doing like it was a fire drill and rushed off to see the flower.

---

A/N: In case you're wondering, fish emulsion fertilizers are liquid fertilizers made from fish waste.

...Yeah. Exactly.

Also, Synonyms For Better got ranked #1 in trekking! What, when, how...! :)

Thanks for reading, hope you're liking it so far

<3

P.S. Happy 10th chapter!!  ᵔᴗᵔ