-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Bush Tucker -*- Copyright 2002 by Ellen Hayes.

Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual
persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when
used for satirical purposes.

This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and
possibly sex.  If you are legally not allowed to read materials
containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading
this.  I am not responsible.
Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it
in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally
allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish,
state, and country.

All rights reserved.  See the bottom for distribution rights.


Bush Tucker


***
18:19 2 Aug

     "FOOD!" I called as I opened the door, and people appeared to
relieve me of bags.  "More coming!" I called over my shoulder as I went
to get the rest.  There was far too much for just two of us to carry in
one load.

***
18:40 2 Aug

     "And no dishes," I chortled at Brian, and we high-fived each other.

***
19:04 2 Aug

     We stood around and rested for a minute or so after lugging
everything up from the basement.  "What are we doing again?" Amy asked,
just to be annoying I was sure.
     "Injection, inspection, deee-tection, infection, neee-glection and
seeeeee-lection!" grinned Dad.
     "Go pick up the garbage!" Brian and I yelled at the same time.
     From the looks we were getting, except from Mike, this seemed to be
another one of those family traditions that didn't make sense to
outsiders.

***
19:06 2 Aug

     "Not that hard," Dad said, over Arlo Guthrie.  Protests had been in
vain.  So had concerted begging and pleading.  So had a minor attempted
bribe.  Dad was an asshole and in control of the stereo.
     He continued, "Just going through the inventory checklist and
making sure nobody liberated anything."  Me and Brian protested
vehemently since we were the ones who usually got accused of
'liberating' things, but Dad motioned us to silence.  "And as a
reminder, anyone who wants to take home a souvenir, or finds a piece of
gear that is particularly to their liking, let me know, and we'll buy it
for you, later.  We NEED this stuff in these packs when we're out
hiking.  We will also be doing another inventory the day we come back."
     I involuntarily groaned, because doing inventory and repair when we
got back was usually the worst torture of all.

***
19:38 2 Aug

     All four of our compasses, me Amy Mike and Dan's, still glowed in
the dark without any help, I could tell when my eyes adjusted a bit to
the closet.  "Okay, open- Oh, ha ha ha, open the bloody door already."

***
19:40 2 Aug

     "Right, goggles?"  I looked and found mine, and looked up and all
three had theirs in their hands too.  "Defogger," was next, and I took
the bottle and dribbled some in mine and handed the bottle to Amy.
     The checklist had a lot of items, but they each went relatively
fast if you knew what you were doing.

***
20:18 2 Aug

     "Morphine?" repeated Tim, like he couldn't believe it.
     "And, Brian, what happens if anyone uses it for fun?" Dad said.
     Brian sighed, then recited, "My sibs get to play with you for long
enough to show you why you shouldn't have used up the morphine."
     I caught Tim's eye and flicked a knife in and out of its sheath to
show him what 'play' would mean in practice.  I think he got the hint,
from the way his eyes got huge.

***
21:01 2 Aug

     The problem with having done this many times before AND having two
new people coming along, was that Dad had to go through everything
slowly, twice, with them, whereas those of us who had done this before
zipped through the checklists and loadouts much quicker, including the
optional items and personal stuff like my drugs or my 'special project'
or Amy's books or Mike's idea too, and then we were left with nothing to
do, but a sense we should hang around.  Besides, I still had a couple of
things I had to do and couldn't do until the kids left.  So we were
bored.
     Which is why Mike and Dan and Amy and I were dorking around with
the climbing stuff and the pulleys mounted in the garage, finding where
our center of gravity was when we were loaded without packs.  This
involved two pulleys and rope out of a pack (mine, just to keep things
simple) and a climbing harness, and two of us hauling on a rope to lift
a third as the fourth made calculations and shifted weights around.
     Then, of course, once you had a balance point for face-up, you had
to do one for face-down.
     Like I think I mentioned, we were bored.

***
21:27 2 Aug

     Mike swung at me with his pugil stick, and I twisted a bit and took
it on the pack.  "Sucker," I sneered, and lunged at his face, dodging
which pushed him off balance, and then I feinted at him twice and then
hit him in the crotch, which bounced off the athletic cup but knocked
him on his ass.  My next stab hit him in the face, which meant he was a
dead gook.
     He flopped to the side and sighed.  "I hate you," he said.
     "But WE love YOU," Amy said, and before I could raise my own stick
and block, she'd jabbed at my head and connected hard enough that the
blow and my reaction made ME fall over.
     "Don't love me again," I sighed, "it gives me a headache."
     "Loser," Amy taunted.
     I swiped at her knees from one side as Mike twisted and slammed her
in the tits with his stick, and then she was on the ground with the two
of us except she was making sort of I'd-scream-if-I-could-breathe
noises.
     "Who's a loser?" Mike asked rhetorically.

***
22:46 2 Aug

     I looked up from my vivisection of a perfectly innocent Computer
Shopper at the sounds of leave-taking, and it was indeed the kids
leaving, to get a couple of hours of nightmare-ridden sleep in between
their worried tossing and turning, before-
     "Man, I gotta go to bed soon," I told myself as I shook my head.
"I'm starting to wig out."
     "Starting?" Mike asked.  "'NIGHT GUYS!" he yelled as he waved.
     "Shut up, Mike," I suggested.

***
23:09 2 Aug

     I checked and made sure I had a snapper in the chamber before
recocking and reholstering the pistol.  I turned around twice and jumped
up and down, to settle things, and then tried a 'steady' draw, not
finding any snags or hangups, and aimed and fired at the wall.
     Click.
     I checked again, and then recocked and reholstered the pistol,
before I jumped up and down a couple of times and then dropped to the
floor.  That didn't hurt too bad, with the pads on.  I rolled to the
left, clearing my right hand, and pulled the pistol and rolled back and
aimed it at the wall and pulled the trigger.
     Click.
     This part wasn't exciting either.  But, it did have to wait until
Brian's friends left.

***
23:24 2 Aug

     "G'night Dad," I said, and hugged him.
     "'Night kid," he said as he hugged me back, and then he let go and
spun and dropped down and drew and fired at the wall of his office.
Click.
     "Don't just stay up and shoot the office wall all night," I told
him, just to be mildly annoying, and he chuckled as he stood back up.

***
23:38 2 Aug

     "I can't believe you actually want to do this," Susan said as she
brushed her hair at me.  "For an entire week."
     I spat and admitted, "It's kind of fun, sometimes.  You sure you
don't want to go?  I could stay home if you really wanted to go."  It
wasn't that fun.
     "I'll go in December in New York, remember?" she reminded me as I
began rinsing my teeth.  "And I really do want to stay at the station as
long as I can, so I'll look good."  She was really pushing this intern
thing.  "Productive, eager, good employee material, you know?"
     I nodded before I started flossing.

***
23:50 2 Aug

     I made one last check, and everything was right where it was
supposed to be; piled up like a fireman's gear so I could plop down on a
seat and get into it as soon as I changed underwear.  Nice and tidy.
     I snuggled against Amy, like I was going to be doing a lot of at
night.  Luckily, I liked it.  Even more luckily, she still liked me.

***
05:44 3 Aug

     "Well, hell," I said, finding that I was already awake.  "Hey, Amy,
wake up."
     "Nggh?"
     "Come on, wake up..."
     "Whyyyyyy?" she whined.
     "I have an id-" I started, but someone else had been faster with
the same idea - I guess it was a tradition - because the fire alarms
went off, which scared Amy completely instantly awake, and the intercom
babbled in its urgent computerized voice, "FIRE DRILL FIRE DRILL!"
     I fell into the clothes I'd worn last night, made sure Amy was
dressed, grabbed my mask, made sure Amy had hers, put the dummy filters
(marked in red; no need to use a real one for an announced drill) in
both, helped Amy put her mask on, put my mask on, and then I tested the
doorknob.  No one had tried heating it with a butane micro-torch this
time, like Dad and me had done on occasion, so we opened the door and
went down the hall and down the stairs.  Susan was waiting outside,
waving us on - not a smart thing for her to be doing, since it was
usually the first one out that had set it off - while Mom and Brian were
glaring at her from inside their own masks.  That made me certain who'd
pulled the alarm, as if I needed to guess.  Mike and Dan and Dad
followed us out in about ten seconds.  We all made our way to the front
curb, then Dad dropped his stuff and raced back into the house to turn
off the alarms, hopefully before the neighbors complained.
     "Susan Bridget Tucker, I am going to kill you," Mom mumbled as she
pulled the mask off her face.
     "Good morning to you too, Mom!" Susan smiled.
     "What?" Dan complained, not awake yet either.

***
06:04 3 Aug

     I was rubbing Mom's shoulders when Brian came back down.  "Shower's
open," he said, and we traded places.

***
06:09 3 Aug

     "Tuck, why are you shaving your legs?" Amy asked.
     "'Cause we're going camping, which means no showers for a week,
which means I want to get as much hair off as possible so it won't
bother me later on."  Short leg hair, I'd found, bothered me a lot more
than long leg hair had, back when I had some.  At least when it was on
me.  But to get from 'none' to 'long', it HAD to go through 'short' ...
     Amy considered this.
     "Want the razor when I'm done?" I asked, and she nodded.

***
06:17 3 Aug

     You just wanted to stay in the hot water forever, since it was the
last hot water we'd get to shower in for a long time, but it had started
to cool down, so I sighed and tapped Amy on the shoulder.  "I think we
need to get going," I sighed again.
     She sighed back, and turned off the water.

***
06:21 3 Aug

     It was almost ritualistic, the way we got dressed; on the other
hand, there was a lot of stuff to do, and a particular order that worked
well.  Underwear and T shirt or tank top, athletic cup just in case, put
the harness on but don't buckle it down yet.  Normally I'd attach a clip
to the sleeve of my T shirt to keep the PTT/Morse wire under control at
this point, but this time I dropped the bundle through the sleeve of an
elbow pad and slid that on and adjusted it.  Then the ring PTT switch on
the finger, then the throat mike that looked like a black choker, and
the earphones.  I put on the other elbow pad at this point so I wouldn't
forget it.  Sock set next, then pull the pants out of the sealed bag and
try not to choke on the odor of tick repellent they'd been dipped in
before storage, add the belt Brian had made during his 'Love Me Knot'
phase, and then load up the pants with half a ton of gear....

***
06:24 3 Aug

     "You look MAHvelous," I quoted Billy Crystal to Amy.
     "AbsoLUTEly ab fab, deah," Amy gestured flamboyantly back, grinning
broadly and holding her new beret on with one hand.
     What we actually looked like was a bunch of guerrilla bandits,
ready for a hard day of looting tourists or popping off mortars and
RPG's at government airbases.  But we did look like PROSPEROUS bandits,
which was the positive side of it.

***
06:26 3 Aug

     "And you just shower together?" Dan complained.
     "Dan, shut up, have some more coffee," I suggested.
     "I wan' food," he mumbled, irritatedly.  I didn't know how he could
think about eating with the permethrin smell we were all emitting, but
that's apparently what was on his mind.

***
06:34 3 Aug

     "Tell me again how I got designated cook?" I complained as I dumped
another load of eggs onto another plate.
     "You cook too good!" Dad announced.
     "'Well'," Mom corrected, "he cooks too WELL."
     "Thanks a lot!" I called, just to remind them of who they were
talking about.
     "Stop yakkin' and get back to work!" Brian called back.
     Mike and Dan called, "YEAH!" in agreement.
     "Traitorous bastards," I mumbled way under my breath as I cracked
eggs for a minute, then turned to the cheese grater.  "I am NOT cleaning
up after this," I announced, just in case.

***
06:55 3 Aug

     Doctor Treble was waving at us from the shotgun seat as her husband
drove up in their big Suburban-thing.  My watch beeped right after he
stopped his engine.
     "You gonna turn that off?" Amy asked as I did so.

***
06:58 3 Aug

     Amazingly, a car pulled up and disgorged the two kids Brian was
bringing along, just in time.  As opposed to, say, two hours late, which
is why Mike and Dan had slept over last night.  I guess telling them
we'd leave without them had worked.  Before we actually left, I mean.

***
07:01 3 Aug

     "Two, three pounds," I told Amy as I stepped off the scales and Doc
Treble wrote carefully.  "Something like that."
     "Jeez," Amy commented, sounding impressed.  "I could stand to lose
that!"
     "Tuck loses weight, I stay about even," Mike said.  "It kinda
varies."
     "He eats like a pig, though," I explained, dodging Mike's hand,
"and he has to carry more food because of it."
     As Amy got on the scale, Mike and I looked.  "Amy," Mike said
before I could, "you do NOT need to lose weight."
     "You're fine," agreed the Doc.
     "Just a couple," Amy debated.

***
07:05 3 Aug

     Dad finished with the last of the individual mug shots, then
motioned us all into a group photo pose.  We waited while Dad set it up
then rushed over.  Flash!
     "Oooh," I moaned as I went blind again.  I'd just started being
able to see again after my 'personal' shots.  "I hate that."  Flash!
went the second shot.
     By the time I could see again, Dad had unloaded the camera and
handed the film to Mom.  So, now, someone had a record of what we'd
looked like BEFORE we lost the football scrimmage against the bears.

***
07:08 3 Aug

     "Fingerprints?" Dave asked, like we were kidding.
     "So we can identify which arm is yours if we get caught in a
rockslide and ripped to pieces," I told him, and smiled, then I grabbed
his right hand and inked his index finger, then rolled it over the right
spot on the DD-1833.
     "Or mugged by bears," Mike added as he started on Tim.
     "How come you don't have to do it?" he complained as I repeatedly
grabbed and inked and rolled.
     "Because I live here, so he's already got fingerprints on me and
Mike and Amy," I told him.
     "It's sorta like living in the Big House," Mike said solemnly, like
he had any clue at all outside books.
     "Or a P.O.W. camp," Amy sighed.
     "Or Hell," Dad mentioned, coming up.  "A lot like Hell."

***
10:02 3 Aug

     Amy nudged me awake, and I looked around to find we were pulling
into the park.
     And my bladder nudged me to remind me that it was time to go to the
bathroom again.  "Oooh, hurry," I moaned.

***
10:19 3 Aug

     Prepositioning the cars for when we got back was a pain, but not as
much of a pain as it would be hiking an extra five or ten miles, one way
or another.  Dad and Mike and Dana were finally coming back, though,
which meant we might as well start getting loaded up.

***
10:28 3 Aug

     "Ready?" Dad asked as we finished stretching, and I finished the
last of my soda - my last soda - and pitched the can into the trash
barrel before I stood back up.
     There were motions all around me, of people - our people - getting
ready to go off into the woods and leave most of civilization behind.
We smelled of DEET and sweat already, the first day's worth that hadn't
started to rot yet.
     This would be a good time for a picture, I realized, instants
before I remembered I had a camera and a mission to use it, so I leaned
my staff against my shoulder and dug the camera out.

***
11:00 3 Aug

     Dad, ahead of us, stopped and held up his open hand, and I stopped
and did the same thing.  My group stopped with hardly any sound, slowly
lowering towards the ground, and we waited to find out what was up.
     Over the radio came the short explanation, "First gear and boot
check, over."
     I stood all the way back up and moved back and forth in my
'sneaks', but they were okay, without hot spots or anything yet, and
jumping up and down almost silently said that nothing was loose yet.  So
I carefully squatted down near Amy, flipping the med-pack on my butt out
of the way, and waited.  "You okay?" I confirmed quietly.
     "Yeah," she said eventually, like she wasn't quite sure.
     "Amy, don't mess with it," I reminded her, "we got all week."
     She sighed, then nodded.  I stood up again and went behind her and
pulled the tarp out and spread it on the ground, as she unlatched and
unloaded her pack from her hips and shoulders, setting it on the tarp
just as I got it spread out, sat herself down, and started pulling a
boot off.  I looked behind us, and Mike had already done the same thing
and was cutting up some skin for his foot.
     I transmitted, "Two-two, two-three, with boot check, over," then
started drinking.  Just walking in the summer air sucked water out of
you, not even counting the eighty pounds or so of gear I was carrying.

***
11:04 3 Aug

     "Done?" I asked Amy and Mike, and they both nodded.  I pressed the
transmit switch and said, "Team two ready, over."
     "Team one ready, team three ready, over," Dad said, and he stood up
and lifted both hands.
     "Off we goooo, into the wild brrrown yon-der," Mike chanted softly,
which made us chuckle.

***
13:09 3 Aug

     It was starting to get really hot, even though we were going pretty
slow and easy, and I was just about to ask Dad what he thought about
taking the afternoon break now, when he announced over the radio that
we'd be taking the afternoon break now.
     "Wahoo," Amy said.
     "We're having lunch too," Dad reminded me, and I sighed.
     "Food!" Mike and Dan agreed in chorus.
     "You guys," Amy commented, with the 'are pigs' completely
understood by all parties, judging by the way Mike and seconds later Dan
pushed their noses up.

***
13:15 3 Aug

     We had five burners total, with ten people, and this particular
meal we were going to use them all since one of the things we had to eat
and get rid of was a bunch of fresh, ice-packed, wasn't-going-to-keep
stuff.  A big multi-ingredient salad plus dressing and croutons, a fresh
veggie stew, green beans and potatoes, and Jim's traditional fried pork
chops were gonna fill us up until about eight o'clock, if not later.  If
it hadn't been for the pork chops, we could have done with two stoves,
but Jim or Dana did wicked things to them, marinade and spices and
things, and the smell had a tendency to make everyone crazy with
food-lust, and so the faster we could cook them, the better.
     Mike and Dan, Dad and Jim, and Brian and his bud Dave, took off as
perimeter guard teams, and to get away from the insane-making smell of
pork chops.  I, being slotted into a cook's position, had to stay and
avoid drooling on everyone else's food.

***
15:08 3 Aug

     I had a mug of the last bit of the veggie stew, which I took away
with me for my bit at guard, as the rest of them cleaned up.  Heh.  That
was the nice thing about being a cook; no cleanup except for personal
mess gear.  And Dana was supervising, too, meaning it wasn't me.
     The terrible thing about being a cook, I remembered as I walked,
was that while everyone else was bustling around after a good dinner, or
passing out, you often had to go out and sit in one place and stay awake
after eating like we just had.  Urgh.
     But at least I didn't have to clean up.
     I tapped Amy on the shoulder, and waved a plug at her, so we could
set up the two-node intercom system if she wanted to talk with me.  She
nodded and gave me a look like 'Well DUH!', and so I plugged one end
into her radio and set her TX switch to ICOM, and unrolled the wire as I
walked out to a decent spot for my LP, which included sunlight for the
solar cells, and plugged the other end of the wire into my radio and
switched that.  "Amy?"
     "Hi!" she chirped.  "Are you having fun?"
     "It's okay so far," I said cautiously.
     "You're having fun," she decided.

***
16:03 3 Aug

     "Hey," Amy commented, "Mike's here, I think he's trading spots with
me!  I can take a nap!"
     "Cool!"  She'd been drooping.  "See ya later."
     "Love you," she said, and the click told me she'd disconnected
without waiting for an answer.
     I waited.  There were some things moving and making noise, but none
of them seemed human, at least not in my sectors.  I could vaguely hear
something behind me, but that was probably Mike or Amy, and they were
paying attention in that direction anyway.  Supposedly.
     Click.  "Did she say what I think I heard her say?" Mike said into
my earphones.
     I sighed.  "Mike, she's just weird that way."
     "Tuck-"
     "She's said she loves you too, you know," I reminded him.
     "Don't remind me," he sighed.

***
17:01 3 Aug

     "Hey, OP's," Dad said over the radio, "come back and get ready,
we're gonna move out in about half."  An hour, he didn't need to add.
"Over."
     "Three in," Brian said.
     "Two in," I transmitted, and popped out the intercom wire.  I
reeled it up as I came back to Mike, who was standing and already, or
still, packed.  He handed me the other end of the intercom wire, and I
finished coiling it up and handed it to him and knelt down so he could
put the bundle in my pack.  He helped me back up when he was finished,
we set our TX switches to PTT, checking each other, and then we headed
back to the laager.

***
17:04 3 Aug

     Doc Treble had this delirious smile on her face when she wasn't
talking, and I finally had to find out why.  I removed my pack by the
cleaning area and set it down next to hers.  "Why are you smiling like
that?" I asked her as I bent down to scrub out my mug.
     "Because," she breathed.  "No phones, no nurses, no patients, no
relatives, no faxes, no pages, no nothing.  Just me and Jim.  And you
guys."
     She looked sort of like she was having a slow orgasm, so I guessed
she really needed the time away from the office.  "Glad you're liking
it.  How was lunch?"
     She hugged me in reply.  She REALLY needed the time away from the
office, I realized.

***
17:27 3 Aug

     I hoisted up my pack and swung into it before I lost strength.  As
I buckled and tightened the hip strap, I looked around for Mike, and
Dan, and Amy.  They were all apparently waiting for me, so I motioned to
the trail and us, and they all nodded.  I keyed the transmitter and
said, "Two, moving, out."
     "Roger," Dad said.  "Teams one and three, five behind," he guessed.
I bet it would take longer, but whatever.  "Six clear."
     I caught up with Mike, who signed <O-V-E-R-W-A-T-C-H> to me, and I
nodded, then pointed at myself and held up one finger, for 'first'.  He
nodded back, and I gathered Amy in and we started off.

***
18:38 3 Aug

     I didn't know if it was just because it was Sunday, or what, but
besides us there was no evidence of humans on the trail at all.  It was
kind of weird that way.
     But nice.

***
20:21 3 Aug

     "DEEEET," went the radio.  Then it started tweeping in Morse code,
and it turned out to be Dad telling me to go look for a campsite.  That
meant, in particular, an area off in the woods that wasn't observable
from the trail or roads, since we weren't supposed to make our own
sites but we were going to.
     I motioned to my team to close in, and they all did, facing
outward as we lowered ourselves to the ground.  I tapped back at Dad,
'Hot bunk Q' and he replied 'No'.  *Great!*  I hated hot-bunking in
sleeping bags.  No, I hated hot bunking.  I whispered what we had to do,
and me and Amy arranged ourselves around the path as Dan and Mike went
to look for a good place.

***
20:38 3 Aug

     'Found spot,' Mike tapped, and then he gave a grid reference.  Dad
bent over, shined a red LED on his map to find the reference, then got
up, motioned to the two kids to go with him into the woods, and off they
went.
     The rest of us sat around and listened to the quiet, I guess.  At
least, that's what I was doing, and no one was talking.

***
20:45 3 Aug

     "DEEEET," went the radio, and I looked back, and saw Dad coming
back through the trees.  'Good site and no nettles,' Dad tapped, and so
we got up.  He also tapped out 'Tuck can you get water Q,' which made me
want to cry, since I was going to have to go get it and hike it back.
Water, after a day of hiking, weighed only slightly less than the same
volume of steel or lead, I'd come to realize.  Not quite as heavy as
osmium, but close.
     'Yes,' I tapped out with a slight whimper.
     "What?" Amy asked.
     "You and me get water," I sighed.
     "Oh no," she sighed back.

***
21:02 3 Aug

     The hard part was getting back up after attaching ten liters of
water to my pack harness, in addition to the four liters I'd filled my
canteens with, but since I was relatively balanced fore-and-aft now, it
was a little easier.  A LITTLE.  Amy was already panting at the thought
of having to walk back, which was not something I wanted to hear; it
made me feel more tired myself.

***
21:39 3 Aug

     We had the big water bags 'cooking' with iodine tabs for cleanup
and the morning, Amy was setting up tents, Dad was teaching Brian's
friends how to read a military map grid, and the rest of us were either
cooking or out on guard.  It was a little more important, this time,
since we were in a non-permitted spot; the guards could probably give us
enough warning for the humans to escape, at least, and maybe even avoid
detection entirely.  Not that it was that important, here and now, but
it was good practice.  As were the tarps tied off to shield the light
the stoves made.  On the other hand, if we were really serious, I
wouldn't have traded my boots and socks for bare feet in sandals, or
taken my pack off, and we wouldn't have been cooking like this either.
     Tonight's menu was brown fried rice, with wok-broiled shrimp and
beef tips and some stuff like water chestnuts and the rest of the green
beans, all remaining vegetables in Stone Stew, along with another (and
the last) large salad, Amy's pre-made gyoza to fry up in the wok, and
the eggs I'd brought along with some other goodies to make egg-drop
soup.  Though it was definitely not authentic to use olive oil like we
were doing...
     I had to chuckle, and wonder about what Travis would think of this
Oriental food, out here.  *Did he ever eat like this in scouting?*
     "What?" Dana wanted to know.
     "Nothing!" I giggled.  But thinking of Travis reminded me of
yesterday, which prompted me to ask, "Dana?"
     "YWhats'at?"
     "You helped pick out my therapist, right?"
     She looked at me.  "Yeah, we have a few patients in common and they
seem to like her a lot, say she's good.  Why?"
     "I was wondering... what are the limits on confidentiality for
her?"
     She thought about it for a moment.  "Legally speaking, she can tell
only your parents, since you're still a minor, or the authorities if she
thinks you or someone else is endangered by your actions.  Practically
speaking, though, she's not going to talk to your parents about anything
you want confidential; that was one of the reasons I urged Bill and
Sarah to get a therapist for you, and her in particular, instead of
talking to you themselves, because I thought there's probably stuff
you'd feel more comfortable talking to someone else about.  Not to
mention that a trained therapist probably knows how to deal better with
psychological problems than anyone else, and she works with teens and
children almost exclusively.  Plus, they aren't emotionally as involved
either, so discussions can take place on a more rational level than
might be the case with family.  You know how parents get," she smiled
wryly.  "Why?"
     "Uh.  About stuff I feel more comfortable talking to someone else
about," I told her.
     "See?" she said with a grin.  "I'd ask 'Why did you ask me that?'
but I don't think you want to tell me that either.  So, how is she
working out?"
     "Okay, I guess...  Do you talk to her?  About me, I mean?"
     "I gave her the results from the tests and exams that I've gotten;
remember signing the release for that?"  I nodded.  "And she suggested
you take an antidepressant, which I prescribed.  That's still working
out?" she asked, and I nodded again.  "Other than that, she and I don't
talk about you either, especially not in the context of your therapy,
for the same reasons."  She paid some attention to the food for a bit,
then looked back at me.  "Does that answer your questions?"
     "Yeah... thanks," I said.
     "I'd guess that you're asking me this," she speculated, "because
you either told her something recently or are going to tell her
something.  It's fine if you don't tell me, but I hope you are going to
take advantage of her; that's the reason you're seeing her."
     "That's what she told me," I sighed.
     "See?"
     "Yes, Doctor," I groaned, and she chuckled.

***
22:09 3 Aug

     "Egg drop soup?" Mike asked incredulously.  "I thought you were
kidding."
     "Nope!" I grinned.  "And pot stickers!  Who wants some?"
     It would have been simpler to ask if anyone didn't.

***
22:12 3 Aug

     As the egg drop soup and dumplings disappeared into various
digestive systems and me and Dana went back to cook some more, Tim
asked, "So how come we don't put guards out when we eat?"
     I looked at Dad, as did the rest of the under-thirty contingent.  I
was hoping he hadn't forgotten to do this and had just been reminded.
Dad explained, "Because this IS supposed to be fun, and making everyone
eat in shifts isn't that fun, though we've done it before."  It wasn't
fun at all, actually; even though us Tuckerspawn tended to chew on each
other a lot (or bite, or claw, or beat with sticks), not sitting around
yakking during lunch or supper completely sucked.
     Of course, when you were cook, you had to sometimes eat the first
half of your meal while continuing to cook the other half, like Dana and
I were doing semi-frantically.

***
22:47 3 Aug

     Fried rice was rapidly disappearing down people's gullets, and I
was happily doing the same thing with my own full plate and mug.
Walking around with two hundred pounds on my back had a stimulating
effect on my appetite, I'd noticed.
     "Man this is GOOD!" Dave commented incredulously with a half-full
mouth.
     "Of course it is," I replied, trying to sound mildly insulted.  "I,
me and Dana cooked it."
     "I ORDERED the LAMB," Brian sneered, and quickly too.  There were low
chuckles around the circle at that.
     "Well, I guess you have to talk to the manager," I shot back at
him, just about as quick.  "Maybe you can get a refund."  I got a couple
of chuckles too.

***
23:39 3 Aug

     "Eugene and Amy went and got water for tonight and tomorrow
morning, and that's a lot of water," Dad mentioned.  It was a lot of
water; about four hundred pounds of it.  "They also did all the cleanup
from dinner.  Does anyone have any problems if they don't pull guard
duty tonight?"
     The general consensus was a whiny 'no', which is in large part why
I'd volunteered me and Amy to go get water and to do cleanup, in the
hopes that I, and Amy, could sleep through the first night, which I for
one needed.
     Before Brian could, Mike said, "Me and Dan'll take last shift."  We
usually let Dana and Jim take the first shift, which meant that Dad and
Brian were hosed, relatively speaking.
     "Man!" Brian complained.  "Scum weasel."
     "Weasels never get sucked into jet engines, oh soaring foreign
object," Mike said back.

***
23:55 3 Aug

     After a trip to the latrine area for tooth brushing as well as the
obvious reason, an in-the-tent mutual tick check, and a quick change of
underwear for me, Amy and I were zipping our sleeping bags together and
giggling, because, except for Dana and Jim, I had the best sleeping
partner in the whole party, and so did she.  Or at least we were used to
sleeping with each other, which becomes important when sleeping in a
'two-man' tent.  That's because 'two-man' actually means 'two lovers' or
'two brothers', Mike and I had figured out, and so it was important to
have someone you didn't mind cuddling with, because you were inevitably
going to end up cuddling.  Brian was difficult, and Mike was okay, I
guess, but Amy was a lot nicer.  *I am so glad I have her-*
     Even if the idiot bitch was going to pull out a tiny light and a
book out of her pack and start READING.
     I sighed, rolled over, pushed against her, and tried to go to
sleep.

***
23:58 3 Aug

     "Oh, God," Amy moaned, which vaguely disturbed me awake, sort of.
"G'night Tuck," Amy said, and turned out the little LED light, put the
book in her pack someplace, and curled against me.
     Now I was confused.  "Whss?" I asked.
     "Too tired," she sighed into my ear.
     "Mmmm," I smiled, and wriggled a little against her to let her know
she was appreciated, before I fell off the cliff of consciousness again.

***
06:02 4 Aug

     "Tuck?" came a gentle male voice from outside my tent.  "Amy?"
     I pulled my face out of Amy's breasts and looked outside to find
Dan, squatting by my tent.  "Uh?"
     "Six o'clock," he said quietly.  "Time to get up."
     "Uhhhhhh," I sighed, and nodded, and dove back into the tent to
wake up Amy and get started on getting dressed.  No, first was some
acetaminophen, because I was going to be in pain.  No, I was already in
pain, though mostly my upper arms from where I was lifting my pack.

***
06:05 4 Aug

     "Mmm, fresh undies," Amy grinned as she slipped into her own fresh
undies.
     "And so much nicer than those old crunchy things you wear most of
the time at home, aren't-" but I didn't get to finish because she
started hitting me then, and it's impossible to dodge in a tent.

***
06:11 4 Aug

     We made it out to find that it was rather cold (for August) and
that everyone seemed to still be here and moving around, all of which
were good things.
     Since I had my harness on, and since I had a camera inside it, and
since I was supposed to take pictures, I took a few.
     "Room service?" Brian said as he came out of his tent, like he was
sure it was around here somewhere.  I chuckled as Amy pulled me along to
the latrine area.

***
06:20 4 Aug

     A mug of not-too-hot honeyed tea and a mess of oatmeal were just
what I wanted this morning, I decided.  Which was a good thing, since
that's what I had to eat.  Heh.
     "Don't forget the laundry," Amy reminded me, and so I shook the
laundry ziplock a few more times to agitate it.
     The key to having fresh undies every day on a week long trip, was
to do the laundry a lot.

***
06:57 4 Aug

     I finished repacking our tent about the time that the last of the
wastewater was tossed off into the latrine area, which meant we were
just about ready to stretch, inspect, and go.

***
07:14 4 Aug

     "Good enough," Dad said about the campsite, that no longer
contained any evidence of our spending the night except some flattened
patches plus some wastes deposited into the composting layers and out of
sight.  "Group one and three, saddle up," he said.
     "Two, up," I said to my guys, and we were already loaded, so we
climbed to our feet and got ready to go.
     "Black underwear, Tuck?" Mike asked, and I almost looked down to
see if I'd forgotten to wear my pants, before I realized I'd pinned most
of yesterday's underthings on the 'clothesline' on my pack to let them
dry out after washing them.  Besides, if I had actually forgotten my
pants, the lack of weight lower down would have caused me to flip over.
     "Makes him look sexy," Amy purred, and the two guys made disgusted
noises.

***
11:38 4 Aug

     The radio tweeped at us.  Dad again, saying, 'Find a good noon
laager'.
     The nice thing about going hiking our way, during the summer at
least, was that while we sometimes didn't get enough sleep at night, we
often had an afternoon break which was almost as good.

***
12:07 4 Aug

     "We'll stay here until four, then move out again and keep going
until about eight tonight," Dad explained.  "Don't bother setting up the
tents; the tarps will do.  Any problems with that?"  There weren't any.
"Okay, then, cooks to lunch, water party come with me, guards out."
     As planned, we were now out of neat fresh stuff, so it was back to
the dehydrated monstrosities and suchlike.  Luckily, we'd been doing
this for a long time, so we had a relatively large selection of recipes
that worked well.

***
12:37 4 Aug

     "I'll do all the cleanup too, if I can take a two hour nap," I
bargained.
     "Me too," Amy suggested.
     "Both of us," I amended.
     Brian mused, "Ya know, I bet if you hadn't spent all Friday night
out partying and getting stoned and drunk-"
     "YOU can't prove anything, rodent," I shot.
     "-then you wouldn't be so tired now, would you?" Brian smiled.
     "Yeah," grinned Amy, "but you wouldn't BELIEVE how many cute guys I
can catch using Tuck here as bait!"
     Everyone, including me, turned to stare incredulously at her.
     She lasted about five seconds before she burst into frantic giggles
and hid behind me.
     "You're sick," Brian announced.

***
13:41 4 Aug

     A full belly, my tarp on the ground, fresh DEET on clothes, packs
(staked for stabilization) sitting in full sunlight with the solar cells
charging batteries, Amy's tarp tied off to the packs as a partial
sunshade, hiking staves holding the other end of the tarp up, sleeping
pad rolled out, and I was in heaven.
     Amy came up and unrolled her pad next to me a minute later, and
then we were both truly gone.

***
14:12 4 Aug

     "Tuck?" Mike annoyed me.
     "Uhhh?" I whined.
     "Mumble blah blah camera mumble," Mike said.  I waded through his
bizarre incoherent ranting until I reached a word I understood, then dug
through my front-pack until I found the camera in its ziplock, and
handed it to him.
     "Thanks!" he said, and left.  So did I.

***
15:47 4 Aug

     "Tuck?  Amy?  It's time to leave," someone said, and we both sat
up and groaned.
     "Ugh, muh," Amy said, indicating she needed to use the latrine area
first.  That sounded good to me, and we were always supposed to take our
partner anyway, so we got up and went to the latrine area.

***
15:54 4 Aug

     "Rain coming in later today," Dad warned us, which generated a
bunch of groans as responses.  "Maybe thunderstorms."  More groans.

***
16:02 4 Aug

     I hoisted my pack up and buckled what needed buckling, and then I
was ready.  Amy was finished a few seconds later, and then it was time
to go.
     "Two, take backtrail," Dad said out loud, and he started moving out
with Brian and the other kids.  Dana smiled at me and things in general
as we waited for two minutes, then she and Jim started walking, holding
hands.  That'd last about thirty seconds, I guessed; it was too hard to
do that and hike at the same time.

***
16:06 4 Aug

     "Hey, Mike, where's my camera?" I asked as he came up to me.
     "Oh yeah," he said, and dug through his front pack until he found
it and pulled it out and handed it to me.
     "What did you want to immortalize?" I asked as I checked the
picture counter.  Four left, I saw-  "WHAT?" I gasped, because I thought
I'd misheard him when I wasn't listening.
     "You and Amy sleeping together," he repeated.  I hadn't
misunderstood.  "Tooooooooo cute," he sighed.  "Were you two puppies in
the same litter in a previous life or something?"
     "FUCK you," I retorted.
     "Hah, no," he said firmly.
     "_I_ want reprints of that one, if it comes out," Amy mentioned.
     "Oh, I took several shots," Mike grinned.  "It'll come out."
     "I'm doooooooooomed," I moaned.
     "Oh, shut up, Tuck," Dan said, grinning.

***
18:22 4 Aug

     I switched to command channel, keyed the radio, and said, "Hey, uh,
Six, it's starting to look cloudy, didja notice?"
     "Two," Dad said back, "didja notice the baro is dropping?  Over."
     Of course not, you stupid ass, I don't have a barometer, I didn't
say.  He wouldn't pay for one for me.  "Roger that," I did say, adding,
"Two halting for gear check, out."
     "-Ix clear," Dad cut himself off.
     "Hey, get ready for rain," I mentioned to my team, and we spent a
couple of minutes putting dried laundry away and checking each other for
open pockets and closing up sleeping bag carriers and readying ponchos
and pack skirts and stuff like that.

***
18:27 4 Aug

     The wind, if you got to the top of a ridge or other non-sheltered
place, was starting to get somewhat aggressive too.  "Six, this is Two,
perhaps we ought to biv at one of the hard campsites tonight?  Over?"
     "Not a bad idea, Two," Dad agreed.  "Over."
     "Two out."

***
18:37 4 Aug

     "It's coming," Dad said over the radio, from ahead.
     "Rain's coming," I told my group, and we all sighed, and I traded
out my sunglasses for tanker goggles while I had a minute.
     That was about all the time I had, too, before the wind blew an
extra-special long gust and then it started to really rain.
     "Pack cover," Mike demanded after about half a second, and so we
had to stop and get in a circle and trade off getting ponchos and rain
pants out of someone else's pack and having someone else hand us ours.
Then we folded up the solar arrays, put those away, took the shelves
down, and got the rainskirts out of the packs and put them on the packs,
to shed the water the poncho missed.  You could get to hating rain just
for this part.
     On the other hand, the rain also meant that I could un-hook the wok
from where I'd been carrying it on the outside of Amy's pack, attach the
suspension system, cover, and bungees that I'd sewn together Saturday to
the covering bag, and then put it over my head like a Chinese coolie
hat.  Said bungees then hooked into my pack straps, just like I'd
planned.
     "You dork!" Mike complained, which combined with his sour look told
me that he wished he'd thought of it first.  The sniggers from the rest
of the guys told me they knew it too.  "Shut up," Mike said disgustedly
to all of us.
     "Let me take a picture," Amy grinned, and so I handed her my camera
and grinned like I meant it, because I meant it.

***
19:22 4 Aug

     "Camp Two, ya gotta love it," I said as I was formally the last in
to camp.  At least we'd all gotten water just before we turned off the
trail, which meant I wasn't carrying enough for half of us.  As opposed
to, I guess, getting water from the sky, at least tonight.
     They'd already set up a tarp over two stoves and were cooking, so I
went over to see what else we could do.  My wok-hat, meanwhile, was
doing a dandy job of keeping the rain off my face, which was still
pissing Mike off, since we only had the one wok, and there was no quick
way to improvise the suspension system I had either.  The only problem
was, I couldn't really look up, but it wasn't like we had to watch for
aircraft in this muck anyway.

***
20:18 4 Aug

     As we were sitting down to eat the Great Starch - instant stuffing,
instant potatoes and gravy powder, and quick rice - one of the kids
commented to the general population, "Man this hiking is HARD!"  Maybe
he was expecting sympathy or something.
     There might have been comments made after that, but I was laughing
too hard to hear them.  I did manage to eject, "Man it's not even
FREEZING!" but I didn't hear any responses to that either.

***
21:57 4 Aug

     I took a last swing around the perimeter, about a hundred meters
out, and I could barely hear anything - it was easier for me to follow
the smell of food back to the camp - and we were completely invisible.
And, better, no one else was around us, either.

***
01:48 5 Aug

     "Tuck?"
     I ignored the demon calling me in favor of-
     "Amy?  Tuck?"
     It was using Mike's voice, but I wouldn't fall for such a lame-
     "You little round-eyed fishbelly slacking geek, get your ass up,"
Mike demanded quietly.
     "Muhhhh?" I complained as I unzipped things and looked outside.  It
sounded like it was still raining.
     "Quarter ta two, still raining steadily," Mike informed us as he
knelt on the vestibule.  "Time for bed, I think," he yawned at me.
     "Mike, you jerk," I sighed.  "Couldn't you have forgotten about
waking us up?"  Amy moaned and tried to pull me back into the sleeping
bag.  And I really wanted to go.
     "Ooooh, gee sorry,"  Mike said sarcastically before he patted me on
the head.  "It's not too bad, really.  Just wet.  And if you hurry, I'll
help ya go to the latrine."
     That was not to be missed, so I pummeled Amy awake and got dressed.

***
03:18 5 Aug

     The only thing worse than guard duty in the rain, was guard duty in
the rain where something bad happened.
     Luckily, nothing bad had happened, and Amy and I kept making rounds
to make sure that nothing bad would happen, if we could help it.

***
04:02 5 Aug

     I'd given him as long as I could, but it was finally time to go and
wake the old bastard up.  "William Tucker?  We're from the FBI, and we'd
like to discuss the relation between some computer programs of yours and
your bank accounts.  You have the right to-"
     "Eugene," he started, and proceeded to say some vile and untrue
things about me as he got out of his sleeping bag, got dressed, and
crawled out of his tent, crouching in the vestibule as he struggled into
a poncho.
     When he finished, I said, "You kiss my mother with that mouth?"
     Dad and Brian chuckled before Brian started getting dressed, now
that Dad wasn't in his way.
     "It's four in the morning," I told them, "it's still raining and
expected, via National Weather Service," weather broadcast for this
area, I didn't need to say, "to continue at least until tomorrow night."
Dad groaned softly.  "Otherwise, all clear, no movement, no unusual
noises.  No thunder either."
     "Good," Brian said as Dad nodded absently.
     "So get up so I can go back to sleep," I suggested.

***


"Take me down slow and easy,
Rock me 'til I'm down to the bone." - Whitesnake


Distribution:
No part of this work may be distributed as an original work by another
person or group.
Permission is given to redistribute this by electronic means, as long as
the entirety of the work (from the BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE header to
the END PGP SIGNATURE footer) is distributed, and credit is given to the
original author, me.  And no fee may be charged.
Archiving is permitted provided no fee is charged for access.

All rights reserved.


+ ==[--------   Ellen Hayes   @>--,--'---      ellen@barkingduck.net +
PGP DH/DSS keyfing: 33D4 156A AE39 53E2 0313  6714 2878 56A8 61B0 9CDC
+ http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes -=[1990]=- vicki .sig virus 11.4 +


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQCVAwUBPEqQY3YDebnvyV1VAQFMugP/S9YIEI6nyOHi/137MR9h3K7Stu1xE0Xk
fuWCpUB6iWqUxpX8UdlYrrPtQkP0x7bsjajSQ1FyQ8KTnrMOaJj5HVtj4LnfpfDG
JE+EaRD5LVu6V8lFmjZqI+Tnk1bn0b+EuiwZeXUDJAwRoFsVoaz+jgHvmiob61WK
zIaitf/Zce8=
=r34o
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
