Descriptions of Pinterest photos:

Link 200 words: A striped jumper lies on wooden floor. It is slightly crumpled, especially around the sleeves, one of which is folded over the body of the jumper. The creases are mainly vertical: a contrast to the stripes, which are horizontal. The pattern is jagged in places, thick in others, and occasional small thin lines break it up with a strand of black and a lighter colour. The colours in the jacket include a green, which contrasts well with the orange and dark navy blue, as well as the red. There are also a few white strands, although they are not as noticeable, and a light blue strand. Altogether, the main colours of the jacket seemed to be orange and green, although the overall impression is probably that is multihued.

The kind of person who would wear this is someone who probably lives in a cold country — Britain in November? — and enjoys unique stripy sweaters. For myself, I would put it over light blue jeans — maybe straight-leg ones or flared ones; baggy ones are also an option — add black boots, and ta-da! New outfit! I think it would be warm although perhaps slightly itchy, but as it's a jumper it doesn't matter.

Link 200 words: A girl is smiling, eyebrows slightly raised in a forest setting, her black hair and off-black shirt contrasting cleanly with the bright green to her left. To her right, a path leads off past the bush behind her. Her hair is in a black Afro, which makes a nice circle shape for the middle of the picture. It reaches either side of her shoulders, which are twisted so that one is slightly in front and the other behind. Although you do not notice it immediately, her collarbones protrude quite a bit; I expect it may have been enhanced by Photoshop. Her necklace, which is a cross on a chain, hangs down to her neckline. She is pretty. An earring gleams just behind her cheekbone. Light falls on her hair, which I think is natural light from the image, and on her upper cheeks, nose and above her left eyebrow, which I think may have been enhanced by Photoshop. Her eyebrows have been professionally shaped and they suit the shape of her face. She looks like she is fairly well-off, because her hair is done nicely and her eyebrows have been shaped, both of which can be expensive. She looks nice.

Link 200 words: A white stone house, deep in the forest, is buried nearly entirely in trees. Ivy droops from its windows, and A bush is growing on its roof. It has clearly been long abandoned, shown by all the plant growth and the patchwork of mottled dirt on one side of the house, but because the trees are beautiful, one's overall impression is that the house is also beautiful. The chimney is still visible to one side, and so are five or six windows, but a bush is growing up the wall just underneath two and they will not be visible for much longer. The remnants of a garden or a path can be seen to the right of and behind the house: there are small red flowers and a lighter space with what could be a flowerbed in the centre. In front of the house, the gate has been overgrown by bushes. It would be hard to get open, so one would have to climb over it. Light shines through some of the trees surrounding it, but the house itself is mostly in the shade, covered by clinging trees. It is beautiful and mysterious, but also sad because it is ruined.

Link 200 words: A girl, resting her head in her hand on the side of her face, smiles dreamily at the camera: her eyes are unfocused, as if she's thinking of something else, and look moist, as if slightly filled with tears. Her ginger hair trails down the side of her face in wisps, protruding from her light blue fur hat. Her eyes are a light greyish blue which nearly match her cap and her sweater, which are both light blue. Her sweater, a clinging soft turtleneck, covers the palm of her hand. Wrinkles run down her arm and up to her shoulder. She is posed against a light blue background, so her orange-red hair stands out quite vividly. She has a peach-coloured blush, which might be the result of the sun, running across the tops of both checks and across her nose. Her lips are covered with pale red lipstick. Her eyebrows are thick, a light gingery-brown, and stand out against the pale skin of her forehead. She looks as if she came from somewhere cold in winter because of the cap and long sleeves, although if you think about it, a thin turtleneck is not always warm enough for cold winter.


Link 200 words: A girl is poised at a picnic table, unsmiling and looking sharply to her right, as if she has seen something. Her brown hair, catching the light, is swept to the right as if by the wind: it is tangled and looks short because most of it is behind her, although it could be much longer than it appears. She touches the left side of her face to a fist: visible on one of the fingers is a large black butterfly ring. Halfway down her forearm is the cuff of a velvet jacket. The jacket is pink, a soft rose pink, although the cuffs are a blue-grey made of a different material, and it is worn open. On the table facing the girl is a book: perhaps she has just stopped reading it to look at the noise. Food on a plate and a cup is also visible, but she does not seem to have been eating. Perhaps she is bored at the picnic, has been reading her book to distract herself, and now is staring in annoyance at someone who insists on interrupting her or is making a loud noise. She seems cool and very pretty but quite intimidating.

Link 200 words: A redhead screws up her face in laughter: her eyes are closed and freckles dot her cheeks as she smiles, revealing white teeth. Her hair is bright and done in two plaits, strands of which escape down the side of her face. The plaits, thick and heavy, lie across the shoulders of her green jacket. She's very pretty. She looks like Ginny Weasley: perhaps Ginny during the school holidays, dressed in Muggle attire and laughing at something one of her brothers has said? Ginny would definitely wear that jacket, I think. It's really nice and brings out the colour of her hair. Ginny was said in the books to have very bright red hair, which is the same as in the photo, and I think she was said to have freckles. I know Ron was, and such things tend to run in families. I headcanon Ginny with freckles, anyway. She's screwing her eyes shut as if on purpose — maybe Fred and George are setting off fireworks, and the bang surprised her and she closed her eyes? She looks fairly relaxed, though, so I don't know if that would be it. At any rate, she looks happy. The picture gives good vibes.

MC daily, 22nd Nov, 400+ words:

I used this lyric from Conan Gray's song Telepath: ‘Cause I got a feelin’ / You're comin' back just like you have in the past / Yeah, I got a feelin' / You'll be sendin' me trash you shoulda left in the drafts / Yeah, I got a feelin' / You'll see me moving on and hate that I'm gone /I can see it / You're comin' back, call me a telepath

and it turned into this: I have no feelings / This happens with food / if I have feelings /Can you send me another chicken? / if I have feelings / You see him moving and you hate me / he will see me / Come back and take me with you

I have no feelings as I stare down at my plate, completely emotionless. Broccoli lies limply across it, begging not to be eaten; mashed potatoes crumple pitifully before me. But I have no sympathy. My feelings are gone. This tends to happen with food: hunger overcomes necessity, and I shovel spoonfuls of my meal into my mouth, condemning the broccoli and potato to an acidic fate. It's really just as well: if I had reservations or sad feelings about eating vegetables, I might have to stop eating them and eat chicken instead. I'm a vegetarian, so I can't really afford to feel bad for eating vegetables.

Across the room, a waiter is looking at me as if I've done something weird, which I don't think I have. Maybe it was me wriggling around earlier (in my defence I was itchy and the seat was quite hard), but he looks like he hates me. Oh dear. Perhaps my table manners are bad, or he thought I was rude when I ordered, or…? I have no clue why he's glaring at me like that.

I decide to pick up my phone and look at it. Scrolling through a social media app, my feed filled with art, bright flower-filled pictures contrasting with darker, sword-bearing portraits, I begin to relax. After all, it doesn't really matter about a judgy, staring waiter. I find a good niche meme thread (the red is the best colour for a children's hospital one) and distract myself.

I'm so distracted that I barely realise when the waiter arrives, just a vague impression of clattering dishes. Then suddenly something feels different and I look up.

The waiter is looking at my phone over my shoulder.

No! He can't see all my cringe memes or the stupid comment I have in progress! I glare at him ferociously and yank the phone away, hoping he'll get the message: Do. Not. Look. At. My. Phone. Honestly, I would have thought a waiter would know better. I grab the bill and slam the money down on the table, stalking out.

However, the waiter follows me. “Come back and take me with you!” he says, half-laughing. I stare at him for nearly ten seconds, completely confused, before remembering that was one of the inside jokes between me and a friend that I was typing. Humiliated, I run out, vowing never to ever go back to that restaurant again.

MC daily, 23rd Nov, 500+ words:

Non-fiction, 100+ words: When I was nine, I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for the first time. It was an early edition — not the first, but it had the original cover art on the front, although the back cover had different art from the first edition — and it was lying on top of the spines of the books standing on the top shelf of a four-foot-tall wooden bookshelf in my aunt’s holiday cottage. I was immediately intrigued, and it is the earliest clear memory I have of really loving a book: I know I did beforehand, but I only remember that one with clarity.

Historical fiction, 100+ words: Getting up in the morning in winter is always unpleasant. The contrast between the warmth of my blankets and the icy air outside is biting. Usually, it is still dark or only just starting to lighten outside, so I cannot see anything outside the window. Getting dressed must be done quickly to avoid shivering, and I never manage to remember where I put an extra wool petticoat the day a cold snap occurs. I wish one could lie in bed later, or better yet, sleep the entirety of winter away like a hibernating animal from the woods. If only that were possible.

Thriller, 100+ words: If I had not been hiding in the cupboard that day, I would not have overheard the voices. I would be unknowing, happy. I would not be gripped with anxiety, wondering what is going happen, as I am now.

I was playing hide-and-seek with my brother and I chose the china cupboard, next to the kitchen, to hide. Then I overheard two men — I could not tell whom — talking.

“If we… dispose of… Lord Hilbury, then that still leaves the unpleasant matter of his secretary.”

“Don’t worry. Everything is sorted out. The murder will be perfect. No one will suspect us at all.”

Adventure, 100+ words: “This seems like a bit of a let-down,” said Alex glumly. She yanked her arms against the rope. “Do you know how to get out of these?” It was a rhetorical question, but it annoyed me enough to prompt me to mutter:

“No, sorry, or I wouldn’t just be sitting here. I’d be getting out of them.”

“Don’t be so grumpy,” Alex chided. “I have an idea, anyway. How about you try to set them on fire with your superpowers?”

“Stop calling them superpowers in that mocking tone. And you may be annoying, but I still don’t really want to burn your arms off.”

Fan-fi, 100+ words: Percy’s hand was aching from all the writing he had just finished. Neat, cramped ink lines covered two sheets of parchment. Another reply to Penelope.

He went over to where Hermes was dozing on his perch. “Can you take this to Penelope Clearwater, please?” Hermes gave him a look before he spread his wings and soared out the window; he was obviously unsurprised by the choice of recipient, seeing as Percy had already sent tens of letters to her.

Sometimes, Percy couldn’t believe he had a girlfriend. He was hardly charismatic, instead focused on his studies. He supposed that might be an attractive quality to Ravenclaws, although his family definitely disagreed.

entry for swc writing comp, 182 words. me writing poems two hours before the deadline is becoming a personal tradition xD

EDIT: IT WON BEST STYLE???? AAAAAAAHHHHH

chiaroscuro

dappled sunlight and shadow across your face:
mingled hell and heaven smiling.
guilty passion and sweet purity chase
each other, everlastingly beguiling.

(we are all told never to play with fire,
lest we draw down some ancient god's ire.
i never understood the lure of flame,
but now i'd burn my fingers so you'd say my name.)

backlit against the blazing sun,
you're laughing, and suddenly i know:
even if you'll never be the one,
i would still follow you wherever you go.

(we are all warned against the crashing sea,
but if you ever asked it of me
i would dive into currents tossing me away from shore
i would abandon land forevermore.)

you are interwoven with anger and sadness
as you lift your face up to the driving rain.
thinking about you is utter madness
and yet you'd be worth it, despite the pain.

(we are warned against loving those who blaze too bright
and those who smoulder darker than night.
if you are both and if i am none
who is the shadow and who is the sun?)

Daily, 24th Nov, 418 words:

I have the power to turn any solid object into a sword. It's almost never come in useful. It did the first time, but other than that? Not really.

The power first started when I was in primary school. We were meant to be doing a show-or-tell, and I, being one of the most boring children, hadn't had anything to take apart from my dad's fountain pen. Lacey, one of the annoying kids, snickered as I brought the case out. “A pen? Everyone has pens!” The rest of the class giggled (as seven-year-olds tend to do when someone makes an unfunny remark).

I glared daggers at her. “It's not just a pen,” I stated furiously. “Actually, it isn't really a pen at all. It's a sword.” I have no idea how I was prepared to back up that statement — it was kind of obviously a pen — but as I lifted the pen out of the case, the shimmering gold of its casing wasn't an overlay. The cap vanished, and the edges became flatter and slightly sharper as the pen end elongated into the tip of a blade and the other end merged into a hilt. “See?”

Lacey scowled. Not wanting to be proven wrong, she cast around for words. “That's still not a sword. That's a dagger.” This also got gales of laughter from the class, which subsided somewhat when I threw the dagger-pen at her. (She was unhurt, as it was still quite small and blunt around the edges and at seven I didn't really know how to throw a blade.)

Then, the power was cool. I didn't tell anyone — I knew they wouldn't believe me — but I had lots of fun turning all my old toothbrushes into daggers, then leaving them in the sink. It creeped my parents out each time.

However, it was really embarrassing when we had a school security incident and they decided to go through all our bags for weapons. Inside my bag, I had a large pair of scissors, which I was really nervous about. They were used for fabrics and arts and crafts, but the security guards who'd arrived had been her before and they were rumoured to be complete and utter jerks. So I was nervously holding onto them, preparing to give an explanation… and then I accidentally turned them into a knife. Quite a large one, nearly a foot long. That got my parents rung up and I was threatened with suspension, before they realised it was Ancient Greek and somehow everything was okay again.

Weekly:

Part One: A Little Inspiration

530 words on the “poisoned” cookie incident between sci-fi and real-fi

Anna was a cook. When the word cook comes to mind, people tend to think of either a man in a white hat in a large kitchen, or a plump woman in a cozy setting, stirring a saucepan. Anna fit into neither of these categories, being rather young, thin and bony, but then she was not quite the normal type of cook.

Anna was a poisoner.

She had got into the business when she had needed some extra money a couple of years back. In her small town, gang wars were rife: fighting over the various sources of magic was a main cause, along with territory and business wars. Plenty of people wanted each other to be put out of commission for a few weeks. (Plenty of others wanted people to die, but Anna had at least some scruples: she refused to actually kill anyone, although she was fine with making them miserably sick for a week or so. She thought that the people who were being poisoned deserved it.) Bakers were out of commission. Poisoners were in.

Various individuals that one wouldn’t usually expect to see at a bakery tended to appear, hands stuffed in pockets against the chill, after dark. Anna made sure not to look at their faces too closely. It was unwise to memorise identifying features: she ignored the scars, tattoos, or eyebrow shapes, blocked out the precise tone of voice or accent, pretended she didn’t notice whether or not they banged their head on the doorframe or struggled to read the labels on the loaves on the highest shelves. Instead, she used the code.

“What can I do for you this evening?”

“I’d like a different kind of sourdough from what you’ve got on the shelves, please.”

“I’ve got another variation stocked in the back. It can be a bit rough on the stomach if you’re prone to that sort of thing, though. Are you sure you want sourdough? Perhaps a cake, or just some flour?”

When they asked for a specific item, she knew that they wanted a doctored variety of it. She’d tell them, “We haven’t got it right now, but if you arrive very early tomorrow morning — would five do? — I’m sure I can have it ready for you then.”

Anna knew it was dangerous to get caught up in gang (or cabin, as they called them) wars. Realfi and Scifi hated each other and were bitter enemies and she’d had customers from both: luckily never at the same time, or she might have had a fight — and a Maincabin investigation — on her premises. She had connections to both gangs: one of her old friends led Scifi (and had got her into the business to start off with), and prior to her realisation that her friend led Scifi, she’d looked into joining Realfi. She hoped neither gang found out.

Her shop was luckily, however, in fairly neutral territory: not too much Maincabin patrolling that her extra trading had to stop, but enough to stop any fighting to break out. All in all, Anna thought as she added an emetic into a chocolate cupcake, she had it pretty well.

Part Two: Setting the Scene!

340 words, based on Horror Cabin's description.

When you first open your eyes, your face is lying against a cold, smooth wooden floor. Everything is black. A quiet tapping echoes from a few feet away to your left, pausing every now and then, speeding up and slowing down, increasing in intensity and then dying away before continuing. You have no idea what it could be: too loud for a computer keyboard and too regular for a musical instrument; it might be coming from a technical device but if so, the screen display has gone out.

Pulling yourself to your feet, you nearly skid over in the darkness but stop yourself just in time. It might just be your imagination, but the clacking seems to pause, restarting when you regain your footing. You halt, but it continues.

Unsure how you got here, or why you’re here, you wonder what to do. The last thing you remember was signing up for Scratch Writing Camp. How could you have got here? And how to get out? Should you approach the mysterious tapping noise? Panic starts to trickle down your spine. You wrap your arms around yourself tightly, trying to get a grip.

At least investigating the clacking noise might provide a light source. You move towards it and bang your hip into the edge of something: a table? The tapping seems to increase, speeding and speeding up, and then suddenly light floods the room. Silence drops down as the clacking stops.

Dazzled and blinded, seeing only white, you blink rapidly before trying to look around you. You are in a large room, polished wood covering every wall. There are no doors or windows that you can see: perhaps an escape room of some sort? You focus on the table, and as your vision returns, you realise that the clacking noise was coming from an enormous typewriter. The sheet of paper in the top has a message.

Welcome to SWC. You have been sorted into the Horror Cabin. If you follow the list of instructions below, They probably won’t get you.

Part Three: Your cabin

330 words added on

You finally reach the end of the path, and knock on a glass door. There's a yell, crash, and a girl with headphones around her neck runs toward you, kicking it open with a grin.

“I'm Robin, the director. Starla and Hop will greet you soon. Hurry, hurry! There's only a month.”

She ushers you down a hallway, and you enter a spacious room with random furniture scattered everywhere and walls painted all different colors.

“This is our main filming room! You'll be spending a lot of time here. Bunks are outside to the left, team rooms on the right. Welcome to the Realistic Fiction studio; I can't wait to work with you!” And with that, she heads out the door, frantically checking her watch.

You stand still, looking around the room. People are lolling over the furniture, reading or writing. Somebody perched on a bright pink pouffe has a huge leather-bound tome as wide as their legs balanced precariously across their lap; a girl slumped in a ragged deckchair has four empty coffee cups shoved underneath it and is wearily drinking another; someone else is sitting with their legs slung over the arm of an armchair, scribbling furiously in a notebook. A lot of campers are sleeping, curled on top of sofas with brightly coloured, cozy-looking woollen blankets tucked around them. Others are walking through the room, going in and out from the doors on the left and right, clutching paper and pens: one girl is running through and asking people something. She sprints up to you.

“Have you seen my pen?” she asks breathlessly. “It’s a fountain pen. Black with a gold stripe around the middle. I can’t find it and it’s my favourite thing to write with.” She has managed to say all of this in the space of about three seconds. “None of my fellow team members have seen it and I really want it back.”

You shake your head, slightly overwhelmed by how fast she’s talking. She gives you a quick grin and vanishes off to ask some of the other campers.

You wonder vaguely if you should be doing something, so walk over to where the announcement boards are propped against the wall. Crouching down to read them, there’s a welcome sign on a blackboard — campers have added doodles with pieces of stray chalk around it: someone seems to be very keen on drawing lenny faces — and a notice for today’s daily. You take one of the supplied paper sheets and are just about to take a pen when you realise it’s the black and gold fountain pen the girl earlier was asking about. Looking over to where she’s talking to one of the leaders, you wave it across at her.

Part Four: The Last Hurrah

1000+ words

“But the real question,” says Anna, spearing another marshmallow on the end of her cocktail stick, “is how you say SWC in your head.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, do you just pronounce it as Ess-Wuh-See? Or do you pronounce it as Ess-double-yoo-see? Or like I do, which is Swuh-see?” Anna grins, the firelight flickering on her face. “I think that says a lot about your personality… although what, I have no idea.”

Aria takes a slice of pizza and chews thoughtfully, considering this. “I’m not sure.”

“Like how I pronounce your username -seiun as hsee-yune in my head, even though I’m fairly sure that’s incorrect,” Anna adds. “I hardly pronounce anything correctly, which is why I feel much more confident talking to people on the internet.”

“Hmm. I think you’re probably fine with pronunciation?” Aria says, glancing at her friend. “I mean, you spell mostly everything correctly…”

“No, I’m not,” says Anna. She laughs. “I know how to spell everything, but pronouncing it? Genuinely no clue! English is such a stupid language that way.”

“Indeed.” Aria is not as talkative as usual; Anna suspects that she wants to ignore her rather distracting and continually speaking friend to focus on the pizza, which is indeed absolutely excellent. Her suspicions are confirmed when Aria says, “Isn’t the end-of-month bonfire feast nearly the best part of camp? This is amazing.”

Anna nods, picking up another chocolate cupcake. Her third. Oh well, she deserves it, even if she was asleep or inactive for both cabin war days and abandoned her cabinmates to fight by themselves. At least she did all the weeklies, even getting one in on an exam day while she was travelling on the motorway. It did rather exhaust her, especially the last one…

“What would you like to change about the camp next time?” inquires a leader that Anna doesn’t recognise by sight. “Have you got any suggestions? You can put them in the suggestions forum if you want…”

“Maybe less Scratch Writing Camp” (Anna makes sure to say Scratch Writing Camp instead of SWC, as it’s easier to pronounce) “fanfic? I mean, it’s very nice, of course,” she adds hurriedly. “It’s just I’ve got hardly any imagination, and I find it really difficult to write. For example, I’ve barely socialised with anyone in my cabin this year, and to be honest, everyone was pretty inactive. So trying to write about conversations or friends was really difficult.”

The leader nods their head. “That’s understandable.”

Anna smiles ruefully. “Sorry. I feel bad complaining about it. I suppose some of it was due to the fact that I had exams during the first half of the month, but I think a lot more people are inactive in November. I don’t know why, but maybe seasonal depression and the fact that it’s nearer the start of the school year have something to do with it. Not sure, really, but anyway, it does make it hard to write fics about interactions with other people when you’re in a less active cabin.”

The leader nods again. Anna wonders briefly if she’s upset them as they don’t say anything for a minute before they wander away.

“Oops,” she says, turning to Aria.

“It’s okay,” says Aria, who is staring at the fire. Anna watches it flicker on her hair and makes a mental note to do more lighting art studies. “I had a lot of my campers go inactive during the middle of it. I wish you’d been in my cabin.”

Both friends had really hoped Anna would make it into Aria’s cabin. Unfortunately she didn’t. It turned out well anyway — they both have a lot of memories from the Sci-Fi / Real-Fi “poisoned” cookie debacle — but they still wonder if it would have been more fun if they’d been in the same cabin. One of their mutual friends, Lia, was also there. Anna was with Lia at the last camp in July and misses being with her.

“So do I,” Anna agrees heartfeltly. “The leaders in my cabin were great, of course!” She smiles, catching Robin’s eye across the campfire before turning back to Aria. “But I don’t know if I really got to know anyone. I mean, I don’t think I did.” She shrugs, trying to think about it. “I think my exams stopped me from doing a lot of stuff I wanted to, like a few dailies. Then I lost motivation towards the last week of the month and had to do the weekly all in one day.”

Aria nods sympathetically. “I hate it when that happens.”

“I know,” Anna says. She picks up another cupcake and looks at it interrogatively. “Should I eat you or not?”

“Eat them,” says Aria. “Chocolate is greater than anything else on the planet, and we don’t tend to get these kinds of cupcakes in real life.”

“In real life?” Anna hesitates, staring at Aria. Now she realises that Aria’s face is blurred around the edges. It’s hard to make out a distinct feature: she probably wouldn’t be able to recognise Aria on the street. “What do you mean, real life?”

“Well, this isn’t real life, is it?” queries Aria. Even though Anna can’t see the exact shape of her features, she can still recognise the expression of concern. “You did realise that, didn’t you?”

Anna is trying to remember. It’s very hazy. “Is this a dream, or a hallucination?” The thought is oddly comforting, for some reason: nothing very terrible can happen in dreams, and if it starts to, she can always wake herself up.

“I think it’s a dream,” says Aria. She shrugs. “I’d take the cupcake anyway. Like I said, we’re probably not going to get stuff this good in real life for a while.”

“You have a point.” Anna shoves the cupcake into her mouth. Now she realises that that isn’t uncomfortable, as it would usually be. “I’ll miss seeing you.”

“I’ll miss you too.” Aria hugs Anna. “You’re waking up now, but it was nice to write with you.”

“Nice to write with you too.” Anna’s voice fades out, as do the images, gradually.

MC daily, 29th Nov, 600+ words:

Aria is busy scribbling down ideas for her cabin theme. “Sci-Fi is cool, but some people just don't like the aesthetic. Maybe more emotion-based characters? Devastation on earth and aliens saving people? What do you think?”

“Sounds great!” Banana is eating, unsurprisingly, a banana. “I might even do an AMV of that—”

“Wait, are you a leader?” one of the campers, who is busy stalking the leaders from the bushes, asks. All the leaders jump. This has been a problem before and it probably won't be the last time, but it's always a surprise to hear someone start talking when you expect that it's just the leaders and a couple close friends huddled together in the middle of the dark playing field.

“No,” says Banana cautiously. “I'm just chatting to Aria before all the other leaders arrive. What are you doing in the bushes?”

“Listening in on all the top secret plans before they're revealed,” says the camper gleefully.

“That's not really terribly helpful,” says Alba. She's holding a few lighted candles, which she sets down carefully on the grass before jogging away to grab her books.

“Why do you have your meetings in an empty field in the dead of night, anyway?” asks the eavesdropping camper.

“It was originally intended to stop people who weren't meant to be there from listening in.” Bakie laughs. “You can see for yourself how well that worked. Now, to be honest, we do it mostly for the aesthetic.”

“We do everything for the aesthetic,” agrees Polar.

“Which is why arson should be an integral part of SWC,” mutters Alba. She probably doesn't mean for the others to hear it, but unfortunately there's a gap in the other leaders' conversations at that point and everyone does. There are smothered giggles from some of the younger leaders: the more experienced ones let themselves laugh. Birdi, however, throws her head back in frustration.

“How did I not see you'd brought a candle? One last time: No. Arson. I can't manage the main cabin and put out fires all over camp at the same time—”

“It's very sad that some people here are so pyrophobic.” Alba shakes her head in mock disapproval. “Back in the old days, we used to finish cabin destruction by burning everything down.”

“That was before the Scratch Team noticed we existed,” points out Zura. “Back then, we could get away with nearly everything. But now we have so many campers—” she looks pointedly at the camper who's still visible, craning out of the bushes “—so many new ones, and we even have to be careful about how much we post in the forums.”

The camper, undeterred, asks, “Are the rumours true that we might get our own forum?” The excitement is plain on their face.

“None of us are really sure,” says Soki cautiously. “It'd certainly be a huge help.” She glances around to Bakie for help, but Bakie just shrugs, grinning.

“No clue either. Anyway, how about you and Banana go over there while we try to discuss what we're doing for some of the weeklies?”

“I want advance information,” the camper sighs, but their eyes widen as they recognise Banana. “Wait, you're bodi3? I love your animations—”

Banana grins. “Come on. Let's leave the leaders to discuss the weekly. I know where they keep their snacks, let's go and get a few—”

“Those are meant to be leaders only!” yells Zura, but she doesn't sound angry. Instead, she's laughing. “Oh well. I suppose it can't really be helped. At least we'll be able to discuss the weekly in peace now.”

There's another rustle from the bushes which quickly disperses that notion.