“At least now I understand how a person could drown in a few inches of water,” I said sheepishly. As a pain shot up my arm, I was surprised to find myself thinking about the substitute teacher who broke her arm. “This would feel a lot worse if I was 70 years old,” I said out loud.

Layla looked at me, baffled. “For sure,” she said, having no idea what I was talking about. “But before we turn 70, we better head back to camp. Give me the map would you?”

I pulled what was left of the map out of my shirt pocket. It was wet and a little muddy. As soon as we tried to open it, it started to shred. It was totally unusable. In that exact moment, I wasn’t too worried. I assumed it would be pretty easy to find our way back to the meadow by following one of the streams. But Layla’s face told a different story. She was furious. She knew we were in trouble. There were so many streams coming down the mountain from different directions that we actually didn’t know which would lead to the meadow. Plus, the sky was getting lighter and there was some dappled light coming through the trees. It was uphill all the way back and we were definitely going to be late for breakfast roll call even if we found the right path. To top it all off, it started to rain.