Red Stuff, Parachutes and Sneakers

"Pika Pika!" one of the girls screamed as she banked a corner of the cafeteria at a full tilt, "Kelsey fell down and there is red stuff everywhere and everybody's flipping out!"

Following her back I rounded the corner of the cafeteria to the tray return and was met with the sight of almost everything being covered in red. When I found out it was just rather thick kool-aid I nearly killed that messenger.

My first real job at the fine age of 17 when, due to a series of incredibly bizarre events, I was "2nd in command" so to speak for a middle-school girl scout sleep-away science and engineering camp. If this was the government we'd wind up with the sort of acronym middle managers find a sexual attraction to out of that mess. Something like MS GS SASEC? If it doesn't make a word yet we can always add some vowels like "Advancement" and "Achievement" and "Excellence" until fluent English speakers have a chance at actually saying it.

Anyway, long story short, I was still young enough (and looked young enough) to be mistaken for a middle school girl in the eyes of adults and yet I was responsible for taking care of them. It was rather exciting.

I can respect why taking students camping on a campsite is such a popular activity. Probably the two most dangerous things that could happen would be students wandering away from the campsite unauthorized and playing in the campfire. If you leave one counselor near the cooking fire and take frequent headcounts both these risks can be mitigated. All that's left after that is slaying spiders and convincing spoiled brats that they do in fact want to eat the food you are providing them because there won't be more coming.

This event was held at a local university. It is amazing how much trouble students can get into on a university campus. Even simple things like handing students between the ages of 11 and 13 access to an infinite supply of Mountain Dew (read: the school cafeteria's soda fountain) can have very exciting results.

The program overlapped with summer courses there and the world peace conference, who was so mad at us they were filing complaints and coming up and shouting from time to time. I guess that says something about my charges when we managed to piss off a world peace conference. Personally, I never knew repeatedly doing the Cha-cha slide was such a grievous offense, although I do understand the contempt earned when we set off the elevator alarm the fourth time in a single week.

Often enough I was left taking care of the girls entirely myself for brief periods of time.

We had just been forced to remove some girls from the program prematurely due to a disciplinary issue and to say morale was low was a bit of an understatement. The head of the program took half the girls swimming and I was left with the task of cheering up the rest.

"So," I bounced into the room holding the official activity manual, "Who wants to do some science experiments?"

The girls turned and faced me with only the most basic gesture of interest they felt they owed to an authority figure. Quickly I flipped open an activity and pitched the description. They remained completely expressionless. I tried a second one. Their eyes reminded me of laser sights on a sniper rifle, all trained on me.

"How about," I grappled with a moment for an idea, "We make some parachutes and throw things out a window in them?"

The middle schoolers tried briefly for a moment in vain to sound like they considered this idea boring too before curiosity broke them down.

"Really?" one asked.

"Can we ride it?"

"No people," I answered, "we'll only put things are ok to lose on them."

"I've got a second pair of sneakers that are ratty and only for playing in the mud, can I send those?"

"Yeah that will be great."

Two carefully sliced and taped trash bags and a ball of twine later I'm leaning out of the 9th story window with our latest creation. Far below I can see some of the girls milling around excitedly and looking along my level I can see more heads poking out windows.

"Ready?" I ask the chorus.

"Ready!"

I released the contraption and it fell a few feet before the parachute properly plumed out. I could hear the kids cheering below. For the split second before the parachute abruptly changed course I felt like everything was looking up. After that there was a lot more eye-rolling on my part.

"Alright," I said to the girl who was looking rather forlornly at her sneakers dangling someplace near the 5th story window, "go get your other sneakers."

"What other sneakers?"

"The ones that made those ones ratty spares."

"Oh," she looked a little sheepish and nervous at this point, "I don't actually have a second pair of sneakers. I just really wanted to you to choose to send my stuff down in the parachute."

I handed her a pair of my flipflops and headed to the elevator with the other students.

The 5th floor is a somewhat bad place to get something stuck. None of us were strong enough to throw something high enough to knock it loose, and the only windows we had access to throw things down from was the 9th floor. I unlocked the sports equipment and sent two of the more mature girls up with a bag of soccer balls and basketballs. The rest of us had the duty of making sure nobody was nearby when she threw.

One of the students, Alex, was leaning out the window and scouting the area when a little old lady walkered her way past. Her badge read that she was from the conference below.

"Is that little girl going to jump?" she asked.

I assured her she wasn't and she went away, seeming content. The fact that campus police showed up about 5 minutes after she left makes me believe she in fact, wasn't. The officer didn't even really try to keep a straight face as I explained to him that we were removing a parachute of shoes from a tree, but he didn't seem annoyed by our activities. He was preparing in fact to pack up and leave when Alex poked her face out of the 9th floor window clutching a basketball in two hands. She wound up her throw the whole way so both hands were above her head before noticing the officer, at which point her jaw dropped and quickly withdrew into the room, still clutching the basketball.

"That little girl," the officer grinned, finding an opportunity to give me shit, "she wasn't about to throw that was she?"

"Of course not officer."

"You'd better make sure she knows that."

"Alex," I shouted, "don't throw anything out the window."

"I'm not sure she can hear you," the officer said, "why don't you make her come to the window?"

Alex didn't want to go to the window. Alex mostly wanted to hide up there and pretend that if she acted like the cop didn't exist that he wasn't there. After some significant time she finally peered out the window and the police man shouted at her for a bit, and then left.

At the end of the week it was time to return the students to their parents. I watched the shoeless girl, still in my flipflops, run up to her parents. Following her slowly I greeted them and then chose my words carefully.

How much would a new pair of sneakers for her cost me? Poor kids don't normally go to summer camp, was it a nice 70 dollar pair I had lost? The parents were notably well-dressed and seemed the sort of people who really cared about brand names. I upped my estimate to 130.

"I'm very sorry," I said, "but your daughter's shoes seem to have been misplaced during the course of camp."

The mom looked slightly confused, "Misplaced?"

"Well, actually I do know where they are, they're in a tree near the fifth floor of the dorms. We couldn't get them down." The mother's eyebrows crashed together for a moment and she looked at me skeptically. "I'd be pleased," I added, "to pay for a replacement pair of shoes since they were lost under my supervision."

"These were...white shoes? Red stripe on the side? Pink shoelaces?"

I nodded.

The woman suddenly lept forward and hugged me, "That's WONDERFUL sweetie."

"Uh...what?"

"We bought her new shoes simply ages ago and she just insists on wearing those old ratty ones because she likes them. We've tried everything, and its just an embarssment to have her running around like that you know? Makes it look like we don't provide for her. I can't believe this...this is wonderful...what an excellent job."

"Really...uh...it was nothing..."

"Oh no, no I need to talk to your boss. You did a great job this week."