River Rafting
In the small town of Ogden, Kansas, there was a river that some of the teenagers would swim in and camp at. However the river had another purpose. It also hosted the town’s annual rafting contest that took place every year during the summer. Last year the champions were Scott, Doug, John, and Shane. The group of Nick, Kody, Austen, and Andrew took second place and were determined to win this year.

“We have to beat them good this year,” said Nick as they were walking along the sandy banks of the river.

“We will,” replied Kody, “as long as what happened last year doesn’t happen again,” he said as they all recalled last year’s disastrous events. Last year when their group entered the contest after they got done building their raft and were already starting down the river, in front of Scott and his group and were sure they were going to win, disaster struck. The raft was falling apart from the weight of the four boys and they were forced to abandon it and be disqualified from the contest for leaving their raft.

Now they were swimming across to the other side of the river so they could get out and go home.

“We just need to make the raft better this year,” said Andrew as they reached the other side of the river. They went on to discuss the contest until they all had to split up and go home

The next day they were all hanging out at the park and decided to go to the store. They walked up to the store and started picking out a couple sodas or energy drinks, whatever they wanted to buy. When they were done they purchased their items and began walking outside. They walked out the door and into their entire rival group of Scott, Doug, Shane, and John.

“Hey losers,” Scott said “ready to lose again this year just like last year?”

“Yea right” Nick retorted his face already getting red and his blood boiling “you guys got lucky last time, this year we’re going to stomp you.”

“Yea okay, last year you couldn’t even build a raft and this year you expect to be able to beat the champions?” Snorted Scott.

“Champions?” inquired Kody “last year you got lucky retards.”

“Oh hey Kody how are you and your girlfriend doing?” Doug said quizzically, “I heard you two broke up and I thought maybe I would try to get with her.”

“No we didn’t break up,” Kody said clenching his fists and his voice rising “and if you say one more thing about her I’ll beat the hell out of you.”

“Yea right Kody you won’t do sh--“ And Kody stopped him with a swift strong strike to the jaw and Doug fell over Kody jumped on top of him and punched him in the face two more times before Nick, Andrew, and Austen pulled him off of Doug. They knew that there were cameras and if the lady inside the store called the cops they would be in a world of trouble.

Doug got up and stumbled backwards a little into the rest of his group, he looked as if he just got off of a merry go round spun by superman. “I’ll get you later Kody.” Doug muttered.

“Then do something about it Doug you little f****t!” Boomed Kody.

Scott and his group started walking away talking trash as they proceeded down the road.

“We’ll get them later Kody,” remarked Andrew, and they started to walk back towards the park. It was late and the contest was the next day so they all went home and went to sleep. They met up early the next day and went to the river and messed around a little before the contest started.

The rules of the contest were that the competitors had to first gather logs, build a raft that all 4 team members could float on, and then raft to the next town, the first team to reach the town would win the contest. The competitors could not interfere with other team’s member or rafts.

When everyone was there and ready to start the announcer relayed the rules to the teams. Everyone got ready and stood on the rock docks ready to jump in and swim to the other side where the better logs were. “On your mark get ready, set, GO!” and everyone dived into the relentless flow of the freezing river and started kicking and paddling to thrash through the water. Nick, Andrew, Kody, and Austen all reached the other side first but Scott and his group wasn’t far behind. They immediately began running and gathering logs and placed them on the warm yellow sand by the river bank, one person, Austen stayed behind and began to assemble the raft, laying logs across each other, gradually making the raft big enough to lug all four boys to the next town. The other three people ran around together at first to get some of the bigger logs back to the raft builder faster and then split up once they had sufficient logs for the bottom part of the raft and required smaller logs to lay transversely across them.

They worked rapidly and soon the raft was big enough to carry them all. They delicately pushed it out into the unyielding current that would fuel their drive to the other town and to victory, and climbed onto the raft. They were far ahead of Scott and his group and knew they were going to win and started to yell remarks to Scott and his group who were all still building their raft.

They reached the town with no problems and were delighted with their success in beating Scott and his group so badly who didn’t arrive until 10 minutes later only to be yelled at by Nick, Kody, Austen, and Andrew about their sad attempt at trying to beat them again.

Afterwards they all hung out at the river just swimming and messing around until it started getting dark and began walking back towards Ogden, talking about the contest the whole long walk back. When they finally reached Ogden it was dark and extremely late so they all went home and fell asleep thinking of their triumph.