Chapter 2 of Norma's Handmade Banana Bar

Camping with Andre - June 15

Scavenger Hunt!
What ten items do you send the kids to search for in the nearby woods?
Andre is with them - I mean, what could go wrong! Right?

The management at Camp Wuck-a-Muck called me again. I guess I'm forgiven for the last episode, or they're desperate. I think it's the latter.

They want me to organize a scavenger hunt for the monsters campers. I reluctantly agree. I have bills to pay. And management of the camp states they can't find anyone to work.

So off I go. Andre tags along. Actually, I don't want to leave him alone in my home. I need to pay my insurance first, since it's past due.

A scavenger hunt sounds like fun. I made some charts for the kids. Then I split them into teams. Team one goes with me. Team two goes with Andre. Andre has strict instructions to behave. No monkey business this time.

First team back and with the most items, wins. I gave everyone small baggies and brown paper lunch sacks to hold the treasures. The dinner bell is the signal the hunt is over with the camp cook in charge of the timer.

These are the items to be found:
animal bone , bee
pine cone , worm
grass , bird
water , flower
rock , ant

My team finds a pine cone, easy. Grass, easy. flower, easy. Water? What was I thinking? But someone was smart and filled a baggie. Rock, easy. Now we are on the hunt for a bone, a bee, a bird, an ant. A bee stung Angela so we got the bee, but then she had to get out her epi-pen, so we all ran back to camp to call 911 and call our hunt done.

Andre stood by the camp kitchen door, with his team. A bedraggled bunch they were, bloodied, dirty, clothes torn.

"What the heck, Andre? What happened to you all?"

"Awkehrp! Then "a;weljr! HELK!" Andre screeched, then jumped onto a chair, threw the kid's sacks down on the floor.

"I think he wants to tell you we found all the stuff on the list, but it wasn't easy," said one of the campers.

"What happened?"

"Well, there was this bee, who stung the monkey. Then the monkey jumped in the river. We all jumped in to save him, since he didn't seem to know how to swim..."

Another boy picked up the story, "And then when we got him out we laid on the grass for a bit until the ants started to bite, then some birds came swooping down and biting us, but I think they were really hunting ants. So we started throwing rocks at the birds until one hit the monkey in the head..."

"We tried to find some flowers to stop the bleeding, because my mom does medicinal healing and I know which flowers are good, but the flowers made him sneeze and when he sneezed, pine cones fell on him. I told him to lay still, but he kept jumping around and screaming at me and throwing the flowers and pine cones at us." This little gal sounded a bit bossy.

The last little urchin person says, "And then the monkey grabbed a bone that was laying on the ground and stabbed the ground lots of times, until he saw a worm come up. And then the monkey ate the worm. GROSS! Then the monkey started throwing dirt at all of us and we told him to stop it! And then we all ran back here."

All the kids shook their heads 'yes' when I asked if their stories were true. I had to believe them. You just can't make up that stuff.


W/C 594