"Mancala!" Liam calls as he drops his last bead into his tray. He looks at my side, where there are about half the amount of beads as his, chuckles and goes to count them. I put up my hand to stop him.
"Don't bother..." His mouth turns up at the corners, "...you won." I sigh
"Again." Liam reminds me while dropping the beads into their original trays.
"Again." I mimic him. Liam starts singing his tune he has infected all our brains with.
"Do do do do, chi chi, do do, chi chi, do do, MANCALA!" And repeats again. Beth, Liam's mum calls out to him, "Oh great, so now your waking us up to it." Our whole family can't stop singing that awful song. We have all played this stupid game against Liam, not one of us with a winning score... Yet. I'll get him, in time. Mum, across the camping spot calls out,
"Do you need some more Q-tol, Jamie?" That's when I stop and realise my fingernails are on my leg, scratching the huge red lump, with a tiny pin sized hole in the middle of it. "They were in my tent last night." I yell back.
"How would you and the mosquito's fit in your pimple of a tent!" She teases, and soon comes back with the pink life saving bottle of Q-tol. Mum calls mine the ' Pimple Tent' because it's so tiny. "Thanks" I say just as Liam makes his first move on the wooden board. Soothing the itchy, pain that these insect bites leave, I rub in the Q-tol. It has been so popular throughout the family camp. The first second we got here the mosquito's were all over us, and this pink stuff stops the bites eating us alive.
"Your turn" and he stops mum, "Can I have some?"
"Sure." Replies mum and goes back to her tent.
I glide my hand across the board leaving a trail of glass beads on the way and leave the last one on my tray.
"Good move." Liam tells me, I smile and take the extra turn my last won me. The river behind the bush crashes against the rock wall and carries on to the left.
"Do you want to go for a swim after? I ask and Liam takes a deep breath of that wonderful, 'fresh from the tree' air.
"Yep." Liam replies and taps his fingernails against the wooden board.
"Got him!" I yell as I slap another mosquito that was going for my arm.
The mildew on the grass has transferred from my jandals onto my feet. This makes my toes very cold, so I tell Liam, "Hold on, I'm just going to grab some socks." He lifts the board off of our laps while I get up, heading for my tent. I unzip my bag find my socks and crawl over to the other side of my tent, where my hidden stash of chocolates are. To my surprise they are not so secret. The morning sun, peaking over the trees behind me have found them! They are now not a solid but creeping across my tent floor! AAAAAAAH!
