This is the fifth in the “Confessions From Boarding School” posts. Due to concerns surrounding privacy, certain names have been changed to protect the identities of the people involved. Like any regular school or any boarding school, there are those kids that are popular and those that are not. Often enough the popular kids form cliques. This post is about one such clique and what we did when we went camping; or more precisely when we spent one single night camping. As I mentioned in the previous post “Insane In The Staff Room”, we’d had a brief encounter with the D-of-E and the nutty old teacher that was in charge of it at our school; but that was not the end of it. Mrs. Eardirt would not let up in trying to get certain kids to rejoin after they walked out.
She also kept trying, in a less abrasive and aggressive way, to get Li, Matthew and myself to sign up for which we said the answer would always be ‘No’. Seemingly deafened to our repeated refusals to join the D-of-E, Mrs. Eardirt kept on at us to join. As the weekend approached, Mrs. Eardirt thought it would be a great idea to suggest that we try the D-of-E over the weekend, and that if we didn't like it we would not have to take part. We did not believe that for one moment and we told her that we did not want to try the D-of-E over the weekend as we'd been promised a trip to the beach at Weston-Super-Mare and at we did not want to miss it. We’d already planned out what we were going to do at the beach and did not want to miss it.
Still not getting the message, Mrs. Eardirt suggested that we give it a try just for one night; and if we didn't like it then we would not have to take part. It was then that Mr. Grent suggested a compromise; we spend one night doing the D-of-E, and if we still did not like it then he would take us back to school the following morning. After repeating her promise to stop pestering us to take part if we just tried it and so long as it was not on the weekend; we agreed. The following morning being Thursday, Mrs. Eardirt thought that would be the best time for us to experience "All the D-o-E had to offer"; we had a crash course on pitching a tent, cooking on a portable stove, cleaning and other such activities needed for the "expedition" as she called it.
Once we had changed into the appropriate clothing, which consisted of hiking boots, shorts and T-shirt and warm jumper, we were given our backpacks and a map. We then driven halfway to the campsite were told we had to use the map to find a way to the campsite by nightfall. We already were regretted agreeing to do this but it was the only way to get that silly old fool to stop pestering us. Despite the fact that none of us knew how to read a map, and the awful weather that plagued us when we starred, we made it to the campsite about 15 minutes later than we should have arrived. To the surprise of no one, Matthew and myself were told that we had a tent to ourselves while Li would be in a one-person tent on her own.
Despite some early troubles figuring out how to actually set a goddamn tent up, how do myself managed to get a tent up in a record time (ha-ha-ha) of 45 minutes while Li and the girls faired only slightly better getting the tent up in just under half an hour. After we have the tent set up, Mrs. Eardirt came along to the campsite to check on how we were all doing. I had to fight the urge to tell the old crone to "Cram the D-of-E up her desiccated arse" as I hated every single minute of it. When she asked what we thought of it so far and how much we were enjoying ourselves, we told her that in the morning Li, Matthew and myself will be returning to school when Mr. Grent came to see how we were doing; we were not enjoying this at all we could not wait to get back to school.
Now it would be a big fat dirty lie if I were to say that Mrs. Eardirt accepted our decision; we could tell that she was in both mixture of disappointment and anger. But the three of us just did not care, we had only agreed to take part in this one overnight camping trip to get her to shut up, leave us alone and never pester us about joining ever again. After moaning at us not wanting to continue, Mrs. Eardirt grudgingly accepted that the following morning we would be returning to school. After a disgusting evening meal of instant mash potatoes and hot-dogs, we set outside the tents chatting to each other for awhile; and as things we did with Li and myself when we would be alone, the topic of conversation turned to figuring out if we could spend the night together.
We chatted about it for a few minutes and soon realised that we couldn't spend the night together and aside from being not enough tents for the two of us to have one to ourselves, there was the obvious problem of the one-person tent that Li had been given. At this point, I wanted to give it up because I could not see a way for Li and myself to spend the night together; but I changed my mind when Matthew came up with a really killer idea. If Simon and Matthew shared a tent then Li and myself could spend the night together; A good idea that would work very nicely if we could get Simon to agree to it. Thankfully after Matthew explained things to Simon and he agreed to keep our secret, Simon agreed to share a tent with Matthew.
Aside from allowing Lee and myself to spend the night together, same as tent was right next to the one Li and myself would be sharing. I thanked Simon for agreeing to share with Matthew, he smiled and said he'd suspected me and Li 'Were at it' as he put it, for quite some time. He said he'd keep our secret as that what friends are for. Quick bit of trivia for you, Simon would indeed keep our secret as he would be expelled 3 weeks later for 'Improper & lewd conduct' with another boy at the school. Now, back to the camping; after Mrs. Eardirt had checked on us one final time, she went to the static caravan she had rented to keep an eye on us and went to bed. This was an added bonus for us as it gave us precious seconds to switch tents and go back to normal.
Once we were sure we would not be seen, Li and myself shared a passionate kiss then went into the tent and drew the zipper down. For the second time in less than a year, Li and myself were alone together. After taking a few moments, we were soon all over each other and down to just our underwear. We laid down and after a few minutes of kissing and groping, Li suggested that we "Get in bed" meaning get into the sleeping bag. Never having slept or even been inside in a sleeping bag before now, this was going to be interesting. We stripped out of our clothes as fast as we could and in no time we were in the sleeping bag together. Just like the last time Li and myself slept together, I was scared of getting caught and so was Li.
But just like last time, and fear we had of getting caught evaporated in both the heat of love and lust in equal measure. We kissed briefly then she wrapped her legs around me as we began to ‘make sweet illicit love’ as Li called it. As with the last time I made love to Li, it was absolutely fantastic; what I was doing was with the girl that I loved. When we both climaxed, we simply lay there for some minutes then I heard her softly snoring. In the few minutes I was laid next to Li before I fell asleep, I suddenly found myself thinking about what I did with Kara. This was not me thinking about it as in I wanted to do it again; far from it. Being laid next to the sleeping form of my girlfriend, I was wracked with guilt that I cheated on Li.
By some blind miracle of divine intervention, Kara had not mentioned or said anything to Li about our brief tryst in the bathroom. She had become slightly more bitchy towards Li and some of the other girls; I just put that down to Kara being a total bitch. I began to wonder if Kara being more bitchy to Li and some of the other girls was because of what I did with her. That by sleeping with Kara I’d somehow enabled her to become more cocky, arrogant and all-round more of a bitch. If that was the case then I knew I had to tread carefully around Kara. If I got to friendly with her or showed her any sings of friendship or interest in her, it could make her even worse; or she could tell Li about our bathroom encounter.
I knew that I had to keep my distance from her as much as I could; but not make it to obvious that was what I was doing. Not wanting to think about Kara any more, I cuddled up to Li and within a few moments, soon I was fast asleep too. In the morning, Matthew was able to tip us off before Mrs. Eardirt could catch us. Li hurriedly got dressed and returned to her own tent while Matthew got back into the tent with myself. For the next few minutes as I got dressed, I once again was gripped by my nerves. I was convinced that We’d be found out and would be expelled, thankfully I was proven wrong. Mrs. Eardirt never had any clue what Li and myself had done, though I did look nervous when I ‘got up’ a few minutes after she’d woke us up.
And much to her dismay, Li, Matthew and myself still said that we wanted to go back to school when Mr. Grent came to the campsite. She said she was disappointed in us and had hoped that we would, to use her exact words, would “See the error of our misguided choice and join the others”; we stuck to our guns. When Mr. Grent arrived at the campsite a half hour later, Mrs. Eardirt tried to get us to agree to a ‘compromise’ as she laughably called it. Her idea of a compromise was to have us agree to walk half-way back to school with the full packs on like we did when we arrived at the campsite. We refused, saying that we tried the D-of-E for one night, that we hated it and never wanted anything more to do with it ever again.
Knowing that she had promised to never pester us about this if we tried it, it was agreeable to see the annoyance in her eyes as we got into the minibus and drove away. On the drive back to school, I could not help feeling that Li and myself had pushed our luck with spending the previous night together. Though we had not got caught, we had come closer to being caught than the last time we slept together. When we got back to school, Li and myself talked about it and decided that unless we knew for certain that there was no risk of staff even coming anywhere near to possibly finding out about us, we’d have to put the kibosh on any further assignations. As we headed to our room to get changed, Mr. Grent asked me to hang back for a few moments.
He told me that he wanted to have a word with me in his office. 'This is it, he knows and I'm gonna get kicked out' was what was running through my head. I tried my best not to look like I was moments away from a massive coronary, which it felt like I was. As it turns out, my fears of Mr. Grent knowing that I’d slept with Li were unfounded. As it turns out, he wanted to tell me so I could tell Matthew and Li that the planned trip to the beach at Weston super-mare was having to be axed. He told me that the three school minibuses were all booked out for the weekend which is why the griped had been axed. I was relived and annoyed; annoyed at the beach trip having been cancelled and relieved that he hadn’t found out about Li and myself.
Before I left his office, he told me that he’d make it up to us at the first available opportunity. As I left his office, I had to control myself so I wouldn’t show just how relived I was that I hadn’t got caught sleeping with the girl I loved. And so my fellow pandas, there you have it, the story of my one and only encounter with camping and the horribly boring D-of-E rubbish.
