Free Write Summer Day Camp

 

Every Tuesday morning Rick and I go to our local boulangerie to free write over pastries and tea. Using either something or someone we see as a prompt we free write for ten minutes. If we don't see a human, we will randomly select a line from a book.

We put pen to paper and write whatever comes into our heads. We do not go back and correct or change. If we can't think of a word, we repeat the last one over and over until we get unstuck. 

It's a bit like priming a pump only no water to help us get started on our daily writing.

This week the prompt was two  young women with a group of kids that looked to be around nine. We both thought day camp and began to write.  

I loved Rick's. I felt mine served its purpose but other than that, I wasn't thrilled.

Rick's

He hated it when the teacher called him Guillaume. The other kids would make fun of him, mimicking shooting an arrow from a crossbow at his head. He preferred Will, which was his father's name as well.

But his father was traveling as usual somewhere in the States: New York, Los Angeles, Denver. He couldn't keep track. Will only knew he was rarely home in Geneva.

His mother had stuck him in this summer "camp" which was pretty much like school but hotter so she would be free to have lunch with her girl friends in the city, shop in the high-end boutiques, sipping espresso in a café, having a pedicure or a massage (or more maybe!)

The teachers weren't even teachers, just kid sitters paid to keep him and others busy with crafts and things to read and walks thru the village park and back.

One of these days on one of these walks, Will decided he would make a run for it. On the far side of the park, just up the road there was a bus stop. He knew the timetables. He could catch the 33 before anyone realized where he had gone.

The bus drivers rarely checked fares, and even if they did ask, he was just an 11 year old kid, they wouldn't arrest him, not the son of the head of a UN Agency.

D-L's

Denise didn't want to be here. but she needed the money.

So, here she was with six nine-year-olds working at Patty's summer camp. After a year of teaching algebra to high school students, she wanted to be with her friends in the South of France.

Her friends had rented a caravan in one of those luxurious mobile home parks With a pool, tennis court, horses, gourmet restaurants and snack bars, She couldn't have afforded even her share.

She glanced over her shoulder.

Yup. All six kids were with them.

 

Patty thought maybe she should invited Denise for a glass of wine after all the kids were picked up by their parents. 

If there was one kid left it would probably be Danny. Last week each of his parents forgot him. They claimed they thought it was the other one's job.

Poor Danny. Good thing Lisa took to him, not in a boyfriend and girlfriend kinda way. They both loved painting and shared a lot about it often ignoring the other activities.

Patty didn't mind. This was summer camp, not school. Today she would head them to the bus and the beach along Lake Geneva. She knew they all could swim.

Denise. She wished Denise took more interest in the Danny, Lisa, Anne, Jean, Paul and Julie. 

The day camp had been her idea to fill her summer days between the teaching year. Without she would so miss working with kids.