“Color War breakout’s today!” was all I heard from the moment I woke up, until that fateful moment in the amphitheater. For weeks we had been discussing all the possible days for breakouts, and it was finally narrowed down to one: today. We knew the date, the time, the colors, the captains…everything except the team names and what would happen at breakout…

Right before lunch, we all went down to the amphitheater for a seemingly pointless sing along- they actually thought we didn’t know! Of course, we didn’t fail to notice the decorations that were “coincidently” set up on the athletic field. My best friends, Hannah, Toby, Erica, and I walked slowly down the hill to the place that would determine our fate for the next three days.

Of course, after singing with Silvi-O (one of our directors), Rob and Andrew (our guitar players), and Meg (our song leader) for an hour, we heard shouts of “A HORSE JUST RAN BEHIND THAT TREE!!!” and out came a knight in shining armor, riding a gigantic horse! We followed him and watched a jousting tournament, during which we learned that our teams were Adam and Eve vs. Esther and Mordachi. Then they announced which teams we were on. I was with Hannah, Toby, and Erica, as well as some other people who we were friends with, like Hannah2, Megan, Adam, and Danni.

The next day, Hannah, Toby, Erica, and I signed up to dance in our team’s entrance- a big color war tradition in which the teams tell a story through interpretive dancing. We figured that we would be working on it for the rest of the two days, since it was worth so many points, so we didn’t sign up for anything else. Well, we were wrong. We ended up with a day and a half of nothing to do, which meant that the Color War Captains would make us sing cheers all day. Megan, Adam, Hannah 2, and Danni hadn’t signed up for anything either, so we decided the best thing to do was to hang out in the tiny “forest” behind our bunk and eat wild blueberries. It was very easy to get there- there were paths throughout the entire girl’s division. We all went, sat on rocks by the lake, and munched on blueberries for a while. Then, we realized that we had a problem- we couldn’t get out the normal and undetectable way through our division, because we had boys with us. So, we began our long journey home.

Megan elected herself leader and said she figured if we walked really far we would, hopefully, end up by the ropes course which was located in the middle of the woods. We hiked for ten minutes, when we came to a spot with a gorgeous view of the lake. Megan wanted to stop and enjoy the view, but we were all grumpy and scratched up, and we just wanted to get out of there. Little did we know our decision to not enjoy nature’s beauty would make a huge difference.

Luckily for us, we didn’t get lost and we made it to the ropes course. Unluckily for us, right as we walked out our Color War Team Captains walked by, and saw us because of the bright colors we were wearing. If we had waited just five minutes they would have been gone, and we wouldn’t have been caught. Although we technically were not doing anything wrong, since we weren’t skipping any activities -we weren’t signed up for any- and we were in the ropes course, an area that was not off limits, they got very angry and yelled at us for letting our team down. Then they told us that if they caught us skipping again, they would tell our counselors that we weren’t participating in Color War. We apologized and ran off to lunch before they could memorize our faces.

After washing off our legs to prevent poison ivy, we all sat down and laughed. “I think we’ve all learned a very valuable lesson!” I giggled. “Listen to Megan, and always stop to enjoy nature! If we had stopped for five minutes…”

The rest of Color War was great. We made up a dance, danced in the entrance -and won! - participated in activities, such as a giant relay race and a basketball game -we won again! - and painted ourselves red and blue. We had our rebellious moment and it was great, but now it was time to win!

We lost Color War in the end (although we should have won-Hannah swears it was rigged), but it didn’t really make a difference. We had our friends, and memories that we would cherish-and laugh at- forever.