Lakeview Scout Lakeview Scout Camp
A stranger wakes on a bus full of scouts and is swept into a summer of knot-tying, campfire smoke, and borrowed socks.
Slice of LifeYouthCampingHaremSchool Life
by
OVCS_⑥
OVCS_⑥The engine’s hum is the first thing you notice, a low drone beneath your cheek. Then the scratch of wool against your skin—a scout‑jacket draped over your head. You push it aside. A dozen faces stare back, all girls, all in olive‑green shirts and yellow neckerchiefs. You don’t recognize a single one. The bus rocks on a gravel road. Pine trees blur past the windows. A girl with flyaway red hair leans across the aisle, her eyes wide. “You’re not luggage,” she says, as if announcing a miracle. Another, with a textbook open on her lap, doesn’t look up from her equations. A third frowns and turns to the window. Coach Briggs—a man with a whistle around his neck—twists in the driver’s seat. “Who are you?” he calls over the engine. He scratches his head, sighs. “Can’t stop now. You’re with us.” And just like that, you’re headed to Lakeview, where the cabins perch above the water and the store sells bug spray and sour candies. A summer you didn’t plan begins.
Choose an opening
The jacket smells of pine needles and cheap detergent. It slips from your face as you stir, the coarse wool scratching your cheek. Light floods in—bright, dusty, summer light—and with it comes the steady thrum of a diesel engine. You’re slumped against a bus window. Your neck aches. Outside, a blur of fir trees and granite outcrops races past.
You push yourself upright. The seat vinyl creaks.
And then you see them: rows of girls, all in identical uniforms—olive‑green shirts buttoned to the throat, yellow neckerchiefs knotted at the collar. Their eyes are on you. A backpack tumbles into the aisle. Someone drops a water bottle. For three seconds, there is only the growl of the engine and the smell of hot asphalt.
Then a girl with wildfire red hair leaps up from the seat across the aisle. She braces herself against the headrest, her freckled face alight.
“You’re not luggage!”
she announces, as if solving a mystery.
“I thought you were just a pile of coats! What’s your name? Where did you even come from?”
Her words come in a breathless rush. The girl beside her—pale, with ash‑blonde hair cut in a severe bob—doesn’t open her eyes. She has a physics workbook open on her lap, her finger tracing a line of text.
“Sasha,”
she murmurs,
“you’re shouting. Wake me when we arrive.”
Further back, a girl with chestnut hair lowers her paperback an inch, her gaze cool and assessing over the top of the cracked spine. She holds the book between her ring and middle finger, a small, precise habit.
Another girl, with wire‑frame glasses and dark hair pulled into a tight bun, continues to fill a workbook with neat equations, her pencil moving without pause. She taps the eraser twice against the paper, a metronome of concentration.
Near the window, a girl with auburn curls frowns and turns her face pointedly toward the passing trees, her arms crossed so tightly the fabric of her sleeves strains.
“I’m Sasha Novak,”
the redhead says, leaning so far into the aisle her ponytail brushes the seatback.
“That’s Nadia Petrova, the sleeping beauty. The one with the book is Madison Weaver Weaver Weaver. The math genius is Courtney Evans Evans Evans. The one pretending the view is fascinating is Kayla Pruitt Pruitt Pruitt.”
She points with her chin, a rapid inventory.
“And up front, that’s Coach Briggs. We’re all scouts. Lakeview Scout Lakeview Scout Camp. Where are you supposed to be?”
The chatter rises—whispers, giggles, the rustle of uniform fabric. At the very front of the bus, a man in a faded baseball cap twists in the driver’s seat. His whistle swings from his neck. He spots you, and his eyebrows climb.
“Hold on,”
he calls over the engine noise.
“Who are you? Are you supposed to be on this bus?”
He scratches the back of his sun‑reddened neck, looking genuinely perplexed. He glances at the road ahead, a winding mountain pass with no shoulder, then back at you. The bus does not slow.
“Alright,”
he says, resignation flattening his voice.
“Can’t stop now. You’re with us for the ride. Everyone, settle down.”
Sasha grins, triumphant. Nadia sighs without opening her eyes. Madison Weaver turns a page. Courtney Evans’s pencil keeps moving. Kayla Pruitt’s frown deepens.
And you are left holding the scratchy wool jacket, surrounded by strangers in scout uniforms, headed somewhere called Lakeview.
You look down at the jacket in your hands. It’s too small, meant for a narrower frame. The nametape has been ripped off, leaving a pale rectangle of less‑faded wool.
“So?”
Sasha prompts, still leaning. Her green eyes are unblinking.
“A name would be nice.”
From the seat behind Nadia, a new voice cuts in, measured and precise.
“Perhaps they’re disoriented.”
You turn. A girl with long black hair in a neat braid watches you. Her brown eyes are sharp, missing nothing. She holds a field guide to local flora closed over a pocket notebook, her thumb rubbing the edge of the cover.
“Vivian Reed,”
she says, by way of introduction.
“This is the 10:15 charter from the regional scouting council depot. There was no check‑in list. A procedural oversight.”
“A stowaway!”
Sasha says, delighted.
“An administrative error,”
Vivian corrects, her tone leaving no room for argument.
The bus takes a sharp curve. You grab the seatback. Outside, the trees thin, and the land opens up to reveal a vast, glittering lake cupped by mountains. Along the near shore, a dozen small wooden cabins perch on stilts, their green roofs weathered to silver at the edges. A large athletic field of bleached grass, a mess hall with a screened porch, a smaller building with a hand‑painted sign that reads STORE.
Gravel crunches under the tires as the bus lurches to a halt. The engine dies with a shudder, leaving a silence so complete you can hear the buzz of flies against the windows.
Coach Briggs stands, turning to face the packed bus.
“Listen up!”
His voice is a practiced boom that doesn’t need the engine’s cover.
“You have ten minutes. Grab your gear and claim a cabin. They’re single occupancy—first to the door gets the key. Assemble on the athletic field at ten‑fifteen sharp. Anyone late loses Lakeview Scout Camp‑store privileges for today.”
He points a thick finger toward the wooden building.
“Store’s over there. No running.”
The bus doors hiss open. A wave of heat and the scent of warm pine resin washes in, along with the damp, mineral smell of lake water.
Chaos, contained and orderly, erupts.
Sasha is already in the aisle, her red hair escaping its ponytail as she hoists an oversized duffel bag.
“Come on!”
she calls, not to anyone in particular.
Nadia rises slowly, shouldering a backpack that looks suspiciously light. She blinks against the sunlight.
“If I get a cabin with a west‑facing window, the afternoon sun will ruin my concentration,”
she monotones to no one.
Madison Weaver Weaver Weaver slides her paperback into her own bag and steps into the aisle with quiet purpose, her eyes already scanning the path toward the cabins.
Courtney Evans Evans Evans closes her workbook with a snap, tucks it under her arm, and moves with robotic efficiency, her glasses reflecting the bright rectangle of the open door.
Kayla Pruitt Pruitt Pruitt is the last to rise, her expression suggesting the entire endeavor is beneath her. She adjusts the knot of her neckerchief with a sharp, irritated tug.
You step down onto the gravel road. The sun is high, the sky a cloudless bowl of pale blue. The gravel is sharp under your thin soles. To your left, the athletic field stretches out, its grass bleached pale green. To your right, the path winds down toward the cabins, each with a small porch and a number painted on the door in fading white.
Sasha is already halfway down the path, duffel bag bouncing against her leg.
“Cabin seven looks lucky!”
she shouts back.
Nadia trudges behind her, squinting.
“Seven is prime. Unlucky.”
Madison Weaver veers toward a cabin partially hidden by a thicket of ferns, a slight smile touching her lips.
Courtney Evans marches toward cabin three, key already extracted from her pocket.
Kayla Pruitt picks a cabin farthest from the others, her back a statement.
Vivian steps off the bus last, beside you. She doesn’t rush. She observes the exodus, then turns her sharp gaze on you.
“You have no gear.”
It isn’t a question.
Coach Briggs watches from the bus steps, arms crossed.
“Ten minutes,”
he repeats, though mostly to himself. He looks at you, at Vivian, at the empty bus.
“You two. Figure it out.”
He turns to climb back into the driver’s seat, leaving you standing on the gravel, the borrowed scout jacket still over your arm, the reality settling in like a stone in your gut: you have no bag, no plan, and ten minutes to find a place to sleep in a Lakeview Scout Camp full of strangers who now know you don’t belong.
The lake glitters, indifferent. A dragonfly skims the water’s surface. From cabin seven, Sasha’s victorious whoop echoes across the shore.
Vivian shifts her field guide to her other hand. She looks at the jacket you hold, at your empty hands, at the line of cabins where doors are already clicking shut. Her pause is long enough that the dragonfly completes its circuit.
“The store sells basic bedding,”
she says finally, her voice low and practical.
“A sleeping bag, a mat. You’ll need to purchase them before the ten‑fifteen assembly, or you’ll be in violation of the shelter requirement for the first night.”
She starts walking, not toward the cabins, but toward the wooden store building. After three steps, she stops and looks back over her shoulder, her braid a dark line against her olive shirt.
“Are you coming?”
The screen door of the store slams behind Sasha, who emerges with two bottles of soda clutched in one hand. She grins at you and Vivian, holds one bottle aloft in a toast, and jogs back toward the cabins.
You stand on the gravel, the sun heating the wool of the jacket in your hands. Vivian waits, her posture perfectly straight, one foot on the first step of the store porch. The clock is ticking down, minute by minute, in the silent, sun‑drenched clearing.
In the distance, Coach Briggs’s whistle blows once, sharp and impatient.
Vivian’s expression doesn’t change.
“Well?”
5/43
Lakeview Scout Lakeview Scout Camp
Lakeview Scout Lakeview Scout Camp
A stranger wakes on a bus full of scouts and is swept into a summer of knot-tying, campfire smoke, and borrowed socks.
Slice of LifeYouthCampingHaremSchool Life
byOVCS_⑥
OVCS_⑥The engine’s hum is the first thing you notice, a low drone beneath your cheek. Then the scratch of wool against your skin—a scout‑jacket draped over your head. You push it aside. A dozen faces stare back, all girls, all in olive‑green shirts and yellow neckerchiefs. You don’t recognize a single one. The bus rocks on a gravel road. Pine trees blur past the windows. A girl with flyaway red hair leans across the aisle, her eyes wide. “You’re not luggage,” she says, as if announcing a miracle. Another, with a textbook open on her lap, doesn’t look up from her equations. A third frowns and turns to the window. Coach Briggs—a man with a whistle around his neck—twists in the driver’s seat. “Who are you?” he calls over the engine. He scratches his head, sighs. “Can’t stop now. You’re with us.” And just like that, you’re headed to Lakeview, where the cabins perch above the water and the store sells bug spray and sour candies. A summer you didn’t plan begins.
Choose an opening
The jacket smells of pine needles and cheap detergent. It slips from your face as you stir, the coarse wool scratching your cheek. Light floods in—bright, dusty, summer light—and with it comes the steady thrum of a diesel engine. You’re slumped against a bus window. Your neck aches. Outside, a blur of fir trees and granite outcrops races past.
You push yourself upright. The seat vinyl creaks.
And then you see them: rows of girls, all in identical uniforms—olive‑green shirts buttoned to the throat, yellow neckerchiefs knotted at the collar. Their eyes are on you. A backpack tumbles into the aisle. Someone drops a water bottle. For three seconds, there is only the growl of the engine and the smell of hot asphalt.
Then a girl with wildfire red hair leaps up from the seat across the aisle. She braces herself against the headrest, her freckled face alight.
“You’re not luggage!”
she announces, as if solving a mystery.
“I thought you were just a pile of coats! What’s your name? Where did you even come from?”
Her words come in a breathless rush. The girl beside her—pale, with ash‑blonde hair cut in a severe bob—doesn’t open her eyes. She has a physics workbook open on her lap, her finger tracing a line of text.
“Sasha,”
she murmurs,
“you’re shouting. Wake me when we arrive.”
Further back, a girl with chestnut hair lowers her paperback an inch, her gaze cool and assessing over the top of the cracked spine. She holds the book between her ring and middle finger, a small, precise habit.
Another girl, with wire‑frame glasses and dark hair pulled into a tight bun, continues to fill a workbook with neat equations, her pencil moving without pause. She taps the eraser twice against the paper, a metronome of concentration.
Near the window, a girl with auburn curls frowns and turns her face pointedly toward the passing trees, her arms crossed so tightly the fabric of her sleeves strains.
“I’m Sasha Novak,”
the redhead says, leaning so far into the aisle her ponytail brushes the seatback.
“That’s Nadia Petrova, the sleeping beauty. The one with the book is Madison Weaver Weaver Weaver. The math genius is Courtney Evans Evans Evans. The one pretending the view is fascinating is Kayla Pruitt Pruitt Pruitt.”
She points with her chin, a rapid inventory.
“And up front, that’s Coach Briggs. We’re all scouts. Lakeview Scout Lakeview Scout Camp. Where are you supposed to be?”
The chatter rises—whispers, giggles, the rustle of uniform fabric. At the very front of the bus, a man in a faded baseball cap twists in the driver’s seat. His whistle swings from his neck. He spots you, and his eyebrows climb.
“Hold on,”
he calls over the engine noise.
“Who are you? Are you supposed to be on this bus?”
He scratches the back of his sun‑reddened neck, looking genuinely perplexed. He glances at the road ahead, a winding mountain pass with no shoulder, then back at you. The bus does not slow.
“Alright,”
he says, resignation flattening his voice.
“Can’t stop now. You’re with us for the ride. Everyone, settle down.”
Sasha grins, triumphant. Nadia sighs without opening her eyes. Madison Weaver turns a page. Courtney Evans’s pencil keeps moving. Kayla Pruitt’s frown deepens.
And you are left holding the scratchy wool jacket, surrounded by strangers in scout uniforms, headed somewhere called Lakeview.
You look down at the jacket in your hands. It’s too small, meant for a narrower frame. The nametape has been ripped off, leaving a pale rectangle of less‑faded wool.
“So?”
Sasha prompts, still leaning. Her green eyes are unblinking.
“A name would be nice.”
From the seat behind Nadia, a new voice cuts in, measured and precise.
“Perhaps they’re disoriented.”
You turn. A girl with long black hair in a neat braid watches you. Her brown eyes are sharp, missing nothing. She holds a field guide to local flora closed over a pocket notebook, her thumb rubbing the edge of the cover.
“Vivian Reed,”
she says, by way of introduction.
“This is the 10:15 charter from the regional scouting council depot. There was no check‑in list. A procedural oversight.”
“A stowaway!”
Sasha says, delighted.
“An administrative error,”
Vivian corrects, her tone leaving no room for argument.
The bus takes a sharp curve. You grab the seatback. Outside, the trees thin, and the land opens up to reveal a vast, glittering lake cupped by mountains. Along the near shore, a dozen small wooden cabins perch on stilts, their green roofs weathered to silver at the edges. A large athletic field of bleached grass, a mess hall with a screened porch, a smaller building with a hand‑painted sign that reads STORE.
Gravel crunches under the tires as the bus lurches to a halt. The engine dies with a shudder, leaving a silence so complete you can hear the buzz of flies against the windows.
Coach Briggs stands, turning to face the packed bus.
“Listen up!”
His voice is a practiced boom that doesn’t need the engine’s cover.
“You have ten minutes. Grab your gear and claim a cabin. They’re single occupancy—first to the door gets the key. Assemble on the athletic field at ten‑fifteen sharp. Anyone late loses Lakeview Scout Camp‑store privileges for today.”
He points a thick finger toward the wooden building.
“Store’s over there. No running.”
The bus doors hiss open. A wave of heat and the scent of warm pine resin washes in, along with the damp, mineral smell of lake water.
Chaos, contained and orderly, erupts.
Sasha is already in the aisle, her red hair escaping its ponytail as she hoists an oversized duffel bag.
“Come on!”
she calls, not to anyone in particular.
Nadia rises slowly, shouldering a backpack that looks suspiciously light. She blinks against the sunlight.
“If I get a cabin with a west‑facing window, the afternoon sun will ruin my concentration,”
she monotones to no one.
Madison Weaver Weaver Weaver slides her paperback into her own bag and steps into the aisle with quiet purpose, her eyes already scanning the path toward the cabins.
Courtney Evans Evans Evans closes her workbook with a snap, tucks it under her arm, and moves with robotic efficiency, her glasses reflecting the bright rectangle of the open door.
Kayla Pruitt Pruitt Pruitt is the last to rise, her expression suggesting the entire endeavor is beneath her. She adjusts the knot of her neckerchief with a sharp, irritated tug.
You step down onto the gravel road. The sun is high, the sky a cloudless bowl of pale blue. The gravel is sharp under your thin soles. To your left, the athletic field stretches out, its grass bleached pale green. To your right, the path winds down toward the cabins, each with a small porch and a number painted on the door in fading white.
Sasha is already halfway down the path, duffel bag bouncing against her leg.
“Cabin seven looks lucky!”
she shouts back.
Nadia trudges behind her, squinting.
“Seven is prime. Unlucky.”
Madison Weaver veers toward a cabin partially hidden by a thicket of ferns, a slight smile touching her lips.
Courtney Evans marches toward cabin three, key already extracted from her pocket.
Kayla Pruitt picks a cabin farthest from the others, her back a statement.
Vivian steps off the bus last, beside you. She doesn’t rush. She observes the exodus, then turns her sharp gaze on you.
“You have no gear.”
It isn’t a question.
Coach Briggs watches from the bus steps, arms crossed.
“Ten minutes,”
he repeats, though mostly to himself. He looks at you, at Vivian, at the empty bus.
“You two. Figure it out.”
He turns to climb back into the driver’s seat, leaving you standing on the gravel, the borrowed scout jacket still over your arm, the reality settling in like a stone in your gut: you have no bag, no plan, and ten minutes to find a place to sleep in a Lakeview Scout Camp full of strangers who now know you don’t belong.
The lake glitters, indifferent. A dragonfly skims the water’s surface. From cabin seven, Sasha’s victorious whoop echoes across the shore.
Vivian shifts her field guide to her other hand. She looks at the jacket you hold, at your empty hands, at the line of cabins where doors are already clicking shut. Her pause is long enough that the dragonfly completes its circuit.
“The store sells basic bedding,”
she says finally, her voice low and practical.
“A sleeping bag, a mat. You’ll need to purchase them before the ten‑fifteen assembly, or you’ll be in violation of the shelter requirement for the first night.”
She starts walking, not toward the cabins, but toward the wooden store building. After three steps, she stops and looks back over her shoulder, her braid a dark line against her olive shirt.
“Are you coming?”
The screen door of the store slams behind Sasha, who emerges with two bottles of soda clutched in one hand. She grins at you and Vivian, holds one bottle aloft in a toast, and jogs back toward the cabins.
You stand on the gravel, the sun heating the wool of the jacket in your hands. Vivian waits, her posture perfectly straight, one foot on the first step of the store porch. The clock is ticking down, minute by minute, in the silent, sun‑drenched clearing.
In the distance, Coach Briggs’s whistle blows once, sharp and impatient.
Vivian’s expression doesn’t change.
“Well?”