Many assume that when the children are asleep, the adults are finally given the chance to breathe. That is partly true because today at the daycare the two teachers are busy brainstorming.

“The term break is coming up in two weeks time. Do you think we should have an activity for the girls?” Luna asked her colleague who is busy making egg & mayo sandwiches for the girls.

“What do you have in mind?” Victoria asked after tasting the egg & mayo spread.

“How about fishing? My dad and I used to-“

“Yah! Do you want another drowning incident?” Victoria hit Luna’s forehead with a wooden spatula.

“Ouch! Hey! No hitting!” Luna started rubbing the area that was hit. Then she had an idea. “How about a play date?”

“Do you think any of the parents would allow all 9 hyper active girls who have short attention span to trash their house?”

Victoria threatened to hit Luna again and the latter cowered into a corner. There was silence for the new few minutes.

“OH MY GOD! WE CAN HAVE A CAMP!! Like a summer camp but only for 2 days and 1 night.”

“Out in the woods?”

“No.”

“Beach?”

“No.”

“Park?”

“No.”

“Your house?”

“What?? No! Here! At the daycare!”

“Well that sounds like a pretty good idea. Let’s start discussing,”

They were about to start discussing when a hungry shikshin had appeared at the entrance of the kitchen with her blanket.

“Teacher, Sooyoungie hungry.” The little one pleaded and as though on cue, her tummy made a cute growling noise.

*

The two teachers have been diligently meeting up after school hours and even sacrificing their weekends to meet and plan for the much-anticipated trip. They had not informed any of the girls, as they had wanted it to be a surprise for them.

They had quite a number of activities prepared. They planned to have a treasure hunt where the girls will have to find their favourite toys hidden everywhere in the park nearby (the same park where Yuri got bitten by a spider), a water game that involved tossing a water balloon using a blanket and the best part, a campfire with pizza.

Luna and Victoria had decided that they would have the camp on Thursday and the girls would be back in the comfort of their homes by Friday evening. They had gotten the approval from the principal and consent from all 9 parents. The teachers even made an effort to check on weather updates for the coming week to see if they could have any outdoor activities.

According to the weather forecast, it was going to be sunny and dry the whole month.

*

It was a Friday and that means they were a week away from camp day. The girls had just finished their tea break and were about to start playing again when Luna clapped her hands to get the attention of the girls. “Girls, gather around.”

They quickly gathered in front of Luna and Victoria and sat down.

“As you may all know, term break is coming up next week.” Luna started, trying very hard to not show any sign of excitement.

“YAY!!!” The girls cheered. Taeyeon who was munching on her gummy worms threw them into the air as though they were confetti and the two shikshins quickly picked the gummy worms that had landed on the floor.

“YOONA! SOOYOUNG! PUT THOSE DOWN!” Victoria’s yelling caused the two shikshins to be frozen in their spot. The gummy worms were barely inches away from their large, awaiting mouths.

Sooyoung grumbled while Yoona whined.

“Well, as I was saying, next week is term break. Soooooo Teacher Victoria and I had planned a 2 day 1 night camp for you girls!”

Cheers erupted from the small crowd. Everyone was excited and it was chaotic considering how it was the first time the girls had ever been to a camp without their parents.

“We have prepared quite a few activities for you guys, I mean girls.” Victoria proudly announced.

Jessica raised her hand, for the first time in forever.

“Yes Jessica?” Luna asked.

“Are we gonna stay in the woods? There are bears in the woods.” Victoria burst out laughing while Luna could only facepalm herself.

“Omo! Bears? In the woods?” A curious Hyoyeon asked.

“Yeah! I saw it on Nat Geo!” Jessica proudly answered.

Sunny who was amazed at her friend’s TV channel (and not knowledge btw) asked, “Woah! Princess, you have Nat Geo?”

“Yup yup. Mommy and daddy said it’s better than cartoons.”

“NOTHING IS BETTER THAN CARTOONS!” An enraged Seohyun yelled out.

“Seohyun-ah, you only read books.” Yuri stated a fact.

“No! I like Keroro!” The maknae retorted.

“I like Totoro!” The eye-smiling princess innocently said yelled.

Jessica not wanting to lose started arguing. “Nat Geo is better!”

“Keroro!”

“Totoro!”

“Gummy bears?”

“COOKIES!!!!!”

The teachers were so surprised at the maknae’s sudden outburst that they couldn’t stop the on-going argument.

*

Finally it was a Wednesday. One more day to the much anticipated camp. The girls have been very excited about it that they kept talking about the camp the entire week. The weather for the past few days have been perfect; sunny but not too hot for the girls to spend outdoors.

The teachers have been doing some last minute preparations. Victoria was printing out the clues for the treasure hunt and Luna had just gotten back from hiding the toys in the park.

“I really hope the weather would be good tomorrow.” Luna voiced out her concern.

Victoria, the ever-caring colleague tried to calm her colleague down. “Don’t worry. I just checked the weather forecast. It’s gonna be sunny.”

*

“Yeah. So much for it being sunny.” Luna snickered.

The girls and the teachers have been stuck in the daycare for nearly three hours. It had been raining heavily since morning. The girls were disappointed but they still had some hope that they would be able to play outdoors. Victoria thanked the Heavens because she had remembered to bring her laptop and external hard drived that had a few kid friendly movies. So the girls were now watching Frozen.

“I checked the news. There’s gonna be a pretty bad thunderstorm for the next few days.”

“NEXT FEW DAYS??” Luna shrieked.

“Yeaaaah.”

“WHAT HAPPENED TO ‘It’s gonna be sunny.’”

“Luna, you know how the weather is unpredictable.” Victoria tried to calm her frantic colleague.

Luna took a deep breath and let it out.

“We don’t have any wet weather programmes.”

“I’ll think of something. You go out and collect those toys before the girls figure out they are missing.” Victoria pushed an umbrella to Luna.

‘What an ever-caring colleague.’ Luna thought.

*

“You got all the toys?” Victoria asked the half drenched Luna.

“Yeah. Well not all. Some of Yuri’s favourite Lego bricks are missing.” Luna placed the bucket filled with toys on the floor near the sink.

“Nevermind. Anyway, the girls are asleep. I’ve thought of some activities.”

Luna hummed while she cleaned the toys. Knowing her colleague was listening, Victoria continued.

“We can have a talent competition. After teatime, we’ll give them a few hours to prepare anything they want. They can work individually, in pairs or groups. Then they can have their bath and dinner. After dinner, we’ll have the talent competition.”

“We can award them with the prizes we prepared for the treasure hunt.” Luna suggested and Victoria nodded her head with a smile.

“So what’s after that?”

“Since we can’t have a campfire outside, let’s bring the campfire inside.”

“Seriously? How?”

“Well remember those lamps we bought? We have those mini candles too. We could use those.”

“And the smores?”

“I’ll make them from the kitchen.”

“And what are we gonna do during the so called campfire?”

“Sing campfire songs, duh! We can read them bedtime stories too.”

“Vic, you’re a genius.”

*

As planned, after teatime, the teachers briefed the girls about the talent competition. The girls were excited upon hearing that there will be a prize for the most talented act. They had all agreed that no one wanted to do a solo act. Thus, they formed teams.

The teams were:

They weren’t in their usual clique (except for TaeNySic, believe me, the teachers tried to coax them to form a team with the others but they were too stubborn). Thus, new and whacky ideas were formed. The teachers were honestly more excited than the girls because of the new (and unexpected) formation of teams.

The girls were given 2 hours to prepare for the mini-concert.

*

Victoria had transformed into an MC for tonight. She had a spatula in her hand and pretended it was a mic.

“Alright girls. We’re gathered here today to witness the amazing talents of you 9 beautiful princesses.”

The girls were clapping like seals at a zoo.

“Ok. Teacher Luna and I are going to judge you girls. The best team will win the best prize ever! Alright, let’s start. Can each team send someone so we can play the rock-paper-scissors game to determine the order?”

Taeyeon, Yuri and Seohyun represented each team. After an intense battle of rock-paper-scissors, the order was determined. TaeNySic would go first, followed by SeoYoonSun and lastly, SooHyoYul.

Since TaeNySic had to go first, they were feeling a little nervous but their friends and teachers were cheering loudly for them.

“Are you girls ready?” Victoria asked and seeing how all three cutely gave their thumbs up, Victoria quickly pressed the play button on her laptop.

TaeNySic had chosen to do a dance cover of Orange Caramel’s Catallena. Taeyeon was Raina, Tiffany was Lizzy and Jessica was Nana. A few seconds after the song started (and of them shaking their butts cutely to the audience), Taeyeon was the first to yell, followed by Tiffany and lastly Jessica.

Jessica’s was barely a yell. It sounded more like a groan