Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 17:12:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Fup Duck <fupduckmd@yahoo.com>
Subject: Under Pressure 19

DISCLAIMER: Let's see: 1.  If it's illegal - don't.  2.  If you can't
accept it - don't.  3.  If you're underage - don't.  That about covers it.

LOL, trouble in paradise?  Told you all earlier that John was going to
start to fade out of David's life.  Just remember, I said fade, not
disappear.  John will surface from time to time, especially as David's
Scouting career continues.

Just as an aside, the graveyard I described in Chapter 17 did exist at the
camp.  It was creepy, even in the daylight.  But that's what made it so
irresistible to us.  To spare some time in later chapters, the
'initiations' always occurred here on the first night of the trip.  And
they were all basically the same, except after the second one.  After one
of the boys 'told' his parents what was going on, we got a lecture from the
Scoutmaster, and he told us to quit 'terrorizing' the younger ones.  We
translated that to mean "no more stripping", but the initiations continued,
we just chose our 'victims' more wisely.  So, whenever I mention
initiations in later chapters, keep that in mind. :-)

Now I'll exit the stage and let you settle into the `old, comfortable shoe'
of David's life again.

Here is Chapter 19....

Fup

*****************************************************************************
FROM CHAPTER 18

Tired from the activities and drama of the day, both boys were soon asleep.

Across the way, another sleeping boy was dreaming as well.  Unlike David's
dreams, his were somewhat dark and full of revenge.  The morning would
definitely bring a new day.


UNDER PRESSURE 19 - School's Out For The Summer

Ever notice that time seems to drag when you're expecting something major
to happen?  You know it's going to, you just wish it would hurry up and get
here.  It was the beginning of June, and there was just a week left before
school was out.  The weather had turned warm, the grass was green, it was a
good time to be alive, except for one thing.

School.

Over lunch, Kelly, David, and their normal lunch table crowd were bemoaning
how it wasn't really fair to be trapped inside this last week.

"It's not like we do anything," complained Kelly, "the teachers just start
collecting books, and we don't do any work."

"Yeah," Jim - one of their regular lunch friends, chimed in, "they should
just let us out a week early.  It's sort of a waste."

The discussion continued until the bell rang announcing the next class.  He
had heard somewhere about this scientist named Pavlov, who had done some
experimenting with dogs.  He remembered the result was that after a while
of hearing a bell ring and then being fed, soon the dogs just started
salivating as soon as the bell rang.  He sort of grinned to himself, that
sort of described school, too.  The bell rang and kids changed classes,
whether any were salivating, well he didn't want to know.  He slipped into
his next class a few seconds before the late bell rang, settling in for
more boredom.  He wasn't disappointed.

The rest of the week passed the same mindless way.  But the excitement
started to build around Wednesday, and the faces he saw in the hall were
becoming more animated as the school year drew to a close.  Friday passed
even slower than the rest.  Fidgeting in his seat, watching the clock get
closer to 3:00 PM, the last few minutes dragged out to what seemed like
forever.  Then, the final bell.  The class erupted, everyone trying to get
out the door at the same time.  The teachers just stood to the side and
watched their charges head into their summer.

David and Kelly had planned on hanging out a lot together over the summer,
and their parents had even tentatively agreed to a camping trip the two
boys had planned at the ore pits.  It promised to be a good summer.  Kelly
and David had spent a little time together over the last few weeks, but
neither one felt it was enough.  Their friendship, always strong, seemed to
blossom even more since they had become 'more than friends.'  David's mom
and dad had started calling them 'peas in a pod', or just 'peas' for short.
Kelly's had adopted 'Yin and Yang.'  Yes, it was going to be a good summer.

The new house had progressed quickly.  The framing was up and the roof was
going to be finished soon.  In David's eyes, it was one of the coolest
things he ever saw.  He was always begging to go look and soon his
pestering led to the permission for him to ride his bike out to the site -
it was only 5 or 6 miles away - as long as he asked first.

A house being built seems to be a magnet for the neighbors.  It was on one
of his solitary trips to the house, sometime the next week, that he met one
of the neighbor boys.  His name was Bobby, he was 9 years old, and he
thought it was neat he was going to get someone to play with.

Bobby was a little chubby, and had his fair share of teasing, but he wasn't
shy introducing himself to his new 'friend."

"Hi!  I'm Bobby, and I live right there," he greeted David, grinning widely
and pointing to a house two away from David's.

"Uh, hi," answered David, smiling back at the boy. "I'm David."

"Is that your house?"

"Yep, sure is," David answered proudly, sitting astride his bike.

"We was wondering who was movin' in."

"Mom and Dad said that we'd probably move here in August."

"Neat!" Bobby enthused, "Well I got a treehouse and stuff, when you move in
maybe we could start a club."

Laughing at the boy's plans, David answered, "Well, we'll see.  We haven't
even got here yet."

"Ya wanna go see it?"

"Not right now, I've gotta head home soon, don't want to get in trouble."

"Ok," Bobby replied, his excitement not even slightly dimmed.

The two boys wandered around the house, being careful not to get in the way
of the men working, with Bobby filling him in on everything he wanted to
know about the neighborhood, and some things he didn't.

Through Bobby's chatting, he found out that there were a couple of kids on
the road, all of them a few years older of younger than David.  There was a
girl who was in the house right next door - between David's and Bobby's,
that was Lynn's age (which was a good thing, David thought), and Tony, who
was 10 lived on the other side.

"I thought you said you didn't have anyone to play with?  What about Tony
and Susan?"  he asked.

"Well Susan's a girl, all she wants to do is play house and Barbies, and
Tony's mean."

"Oh," David said, "mean, huh?"

"Yeah, he doesn't like me and teases me all the time 'cos I'm fat."

Looking at Bobby closer with that comment, David noticed that the boy
wasn't really fat, he was more husky than overweight.  In a few years,
David thought Bobby just might turn the tables on Tony.

He smiled at his new neighbor, and said, "Well, I gotta get going, if I'm
going to get home in time, it's uphill most of the way."  Then he slapped
his hand gently on Bobby's shoulder, "Thanks for talking, man."

Bobby grinned and then did something completely unexpected, he gave David a
quick hug. David was surprised at the boy's familiarity, especially since
they had known each other only a few minutes.  But Bobby smiled and said,
"My mom always says that you should show someone you like them with a hug."

"Oh, ok," laughed David, and gave Bobby a quick hug back, "you're a pretty
cool kid, see ya later."  With Bobby waving, David began to bike home.

When he got home, his parents reminded him that the coming weekend was his
and Kelly's planned camping trip.  Mentally slapping himself, the
excitement of the house had been the first thing in his mind lately, he
said, "Man, I must be getting old like you guys to forget something like
that."

He was startled when his father jumped out of the chair he was sitting in,
and stalked over to David, who was almost trembling - wondering what he had
done to set his dad off like this.  He hung his head, ready for the smack
he was sure he'd get, and his dad poked him in the chest with a finger.

"Just remember, boy, you'll never be as old as us."  Then he burst out
laughing.

Shocked at this reaction, he snapped his head up to look into his father's
laughing face, "Man, you scared me!"

"Yeah, almost gave you a heart attack, didn't I, old man?"

Giggling, David answered, "Glad I'm not as old as you, or I would have had
one for sure," then he sprinted back to his room, dodging his dad's
grasping hand.  Throwing himself on his bed, he smiled and thought maybe
his plan was really working.  His dad had never teased him like that.
Still smiling, he read for about half an hour before summoned to supper.
Over supper, he told his parents about his visit to the house and meeting
Bobby, and even told Lynn about Susan.  Lynn was extremely happy to know
that Susan liked Barbies and lived right next door.  She was soon making
plans for herself and Susan for what seemed to be the rest of their lives.
David's parents shook their heads, amused at their daughter's plans for a
completely unaware Susan.

David, now that the attention was on Susan, began to think about the coming
weekend.  It was going to be so cool.  A camping trip without anyone else,
no parents, no Scout Leaders, just the two of them.  The thought of what
they could do together alone was overridden by just the plain excitement of
the freedom they were being given.

Once again, Friday couldn't come soon enough.  David had packed his
backpack he bought for Scout hikes Thursday night after the meeting and was
just waiting for his sleeping bag to come out of the dryer so he could
fasten it to the bottom.  The Scout meeting had gone pretty well, over the
last weeks, since the last camping trip, David had slipped into his
leadership role well.  He and the younger patrol members had become a team,
backing each other up whenever needed, and just enjoying being friends.
The two friends of Matt's hadn't come back, so it was just the four of
them.  He and Neal had become quite friendly, and David wasn't complaining.
John basically ignored him, not in a real unfriendly way, but both boys
knew a line had been crossed, and probably couldn't be undone.  Scott had
been a little cool at first, but soon forgot about being upset, and started
having fun.  When David told Neal where he was going this weekend, the boy
had been almost as excited as David.

"Wow, that sounds cool.  I'd like to go sometime.  What are the ore pits?"
he asked in rapid fire sequence.  David filled him in on the basics and the
conversation moved to other topics.

Friday!  Finally!  David's mother dropped him off at Kelly's where he was
immediately attacked by his equally excited friend.  "I can't believe
they're letting us go."

"I know," David said, extricating himself from Kelly's limbs, "It's going
to be fun."

Ready to go, the boys were given last minute parental instructions, and
they were off.  They discussed where the best place would be to set up the
tent, deciding it would be best to do it away from the bottom of the pits,
since they were a little swampy in places.  Walking around, trying to find
the 'perfect' place, they saw a yellow ribbon wrapped around a tree trunk.
Looking closer, they saw another a little ways ahead of that one.  Their
curiosity got the better of them and they started to follow the marked
'trail.'  After almost a half mile, they came to a small clearing in the
woods a few hundred feet away from the last pit.  Seeing another ribbon -
this one with a piece of paper stuck underneath, they walked over to see
what it was.

"Thought you might need a good place.  I've camped here before and there
weren't that many mosquitoes.  Have fun guys.  Dale"

"Wow," Kelly exclaimed, "he's cool, but I didn't know he was THIS cool."

Soon the camp was set the way they wanted it.  The tent on one edge of the
clearing and their gear stored under plastic trash bags.  They broke into
the food they brought for supper, sandwiches, chips, and cherry "bug
juice."

"Too bad we can't have a fire, " sighed David, leaning back against a log,
munching on chips.

"Well, mom and dad didn't think it would be a good idea, didn't want us to
burn the woods down."

"Maybe they will after this time," David replied, staring longingly at an
old fire pit he assumed Dale had used.

"Yeah, maybe, I hope so."

Their supper finished, the boys balled up the empty bags and put them into
a Tupperwear container that Kelly's mom had put into his pack.  Then they
went exploring a little until it started getting dark.  Returning to the
campsite, they climbed into the tent, which was fairly large for the two of
them and unrolled their sleeping bags next to each other on one side of the
tent.

"We can put our clothes and stuff over there," Kelly motioned to the empty
space.

"Sounds good," answered David, removing his shoes and socks, not noticing
Kelly collapsing onto his back on his bag, eyes closed and mouth hanging
open.

"So, what..." David began, turning back around, then seeing Kelly lying
there, started to worry.  "Kel?.....Kel?.....KEL?!"

Knee walking over to Kelly, still lying there motionless, he reached a hand
down to shake him.  He squawked when Kelly opened his eyes and grabbed his
wrist.

"Told ya about those stinking feet," Kelly laughed.

"You idiot," David almost yelled, "I thought something was wrong."

"It was.....your feet," Kelly replied, "knocked me out."

"Don't scare me like that, I thought I was going to have to do CPR or
something."

"Well, YOU'RE the Boy Scout," Kelly giggled, settling down a little.

David tried, he really did.  He made a conscious effort to stay mad, but he
just couldn't do it.  His face began to break into a smile and he reached
around behind him, grabbing one of his discarded socks.  Keeping his
actions hidden, he said in a low and what he hoped was a sexy voice, "Close
your eyes, I have a surprise for you."

Kelly, unaware of David's Master Plan, smiled and closed his eyes, relaxing
onto the bag, opening his mouth a little, ready for the 'mouth-to-mouth'
part of CPR that he figured was coming.  Waving his other hand in front of
Kelly's face to make sure he wasn't cheating, he grinned and laid the sock
over Kelly's nose.

Opening his eyes in surprise, and slinging the dirty sock off his face, he
protested, "Argggh, what did you do that for?  Ewwwww."

"Paybacks," answered David, laughing at his friend's expression of disgust.

"You're lucky it didn't stink," griped Kelly.

"Ooooooh, NOW they don't stink."

"Well, my nose could've still been not working right after you took off
your shoes," Kelly answered, once again starting to smile.

"Uh huh, whatever you say.  Anyway, what are we gonna do now."

"Oh yeah!  I came up with a great plan..."

"Your first one," grinned David.

"Yeah, right, we know who the brains is here, don't we?"

David patted himself on the chest, "Yep, we do."

Snorting at his obviously misguided friend, Kelly began digging in his
pockets.  Finding what he was looking for, he turned and said, "Close your
eyes, got a surprise for you."

"No way."

"Aww, c'mon, I've still got my shoes on anyway, just close your eyes if you
wanna know what my plan is."

Reluctantly David closed his eyes, fearing the worst.  He heard Kelly
giggle and then say, "Hold out your hand."

Slowly, David extended his hand, and felt Kelly put a boxy item in his
palm, "Ok, open 'em."

As David opened his eyes and looked down, he started to smile.

Kelly was grinning as he said, "Yep, strip poker."

*****************************************************************************

Why is it that sometimes you need an 'excuse' to get what you both want?
LOL The strip poker (or blackjack) ruse, by now cliched, was one of the
better excuses to get naked...LOL

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or feedback.  Thanks!

email:  fupduckmd@yahoo.com
AIM and Yahoo: fupduckmd

Fup