High Tide Camping

I gazed into the crackling driftwood campfire, listening to the sound of small waves gently brushing against the boat anchored onto the gravel beach, the call of an eagle soaring under the red midnight sky, and my family arguing about why the chihuahua kept insisting on investigating what was under the old abandoned barge that lay washed up against the bushes.
“Chrissy!” my mom called. “Chrissy! CHRISSY!”
Chrissy’s lightbulb-shaped head turned around so her dark protruding eyes faced us, frozen with the decision on whether to obey or not. Before a few seconds had gone by, she sprinted back to us like the lead horse on a track. I didn’t hear it, but I’m certain that the eagle was cursing us for cheating it out of a decent meal.
“Good girl,” said Erica who was carefully roasting a marshmallow, paying close attention to the speed of its rotation and its distance from the fire, making sure the sugar-composed golden brown delicacy wouldn’t explode into flames in response to the smallest miscalculation.
Luke and Taylor were jumping around the fire, quoting lines from cartoons as they flung around the burning ends of sticks, leaving trails of sparks in the air. I shut my eyes as a swarm of them floated by my face. I was sitting in the gravel, choking down some Spam that I had doused in ketchup in a desperate attempt to hide the taste.
My dad was sitting in his camping chair, with his tide book open, looking back and forth between the tents and the water that was slowly creeping its way up onto the gravel.
“What is it?” my mom asked.
“I’m a little concerned about the tents not being far up enough,” he said.
“Great,” I said jokingly, not even trying to conceal my mouthful of ketchup-soaked chunks of lips and anuses. “Just like that one time.” I was referring to the time just he and I were camping out on the Kvichak River on a caribou hunting trip and we woke up in the middle of the night with the water flooding our tent. We had to get out and move our tent up on the beach.
If his calculations were correct, the same would happen at about four in the morning this night eleven years later. This time there would be no place to move the tents, since they were up on the beach as far as possible. We would all have to share the floor of the boat we barely fit in when sitting up. He set his alarm for three o’clock just to be sure.
After brushing our teeth, Taylor, Luke, Erica, Chrissy, Erica and I were stuffed into our tent like a pack of six hotdogs in their package. My mom and dad shared their tent of about the same size on top of a blow-up mattress. We spent about an hour complaining about who farted and who was breathing on who before it withered down along with our consciousnesses.
I was lost in a dream about not sleeping inches away from my brother when my dad’s voice woke me and everyone else up. “Come on guys, get up. Water’s coming in.”
Chrissy began barking like she was under attack by a chef holding a meat cleaver in one hand and a packet of taco seasoning in the other. Everyone, including me, shushed her until something about my dad reminded her that he was someone she had seen just about every day of her life.
When my vision cleared, I saw that he was standing ankle deep in the water, holding the boat up to the fly of the tent. We scrambled to pick up our shoes, clothes, and sleeping bags and climbed into the boat one by one. By the time we all got in the boat, the water had gotten about a foot into the tent.
“Okay,” my mom said. “Comfy cozy time.”
Luke and Taylor had already crawled into the bow and fell asleep before anyone else even noticed. It didn’t take much longer for Chrissy to find them and nestle down in their body heat. The rest of us stared at the floor, soaking in the inevitable fate of us all somehow fitting on the floor together. After careful configuration, sacrifice, and willpower, we ended up with my dad sitting up by the bow next to my mom while Erica had me pressed up against the stern.
“Erica,” my mom said.
Erica replied with a groan.
“If you turn sideways, there will be more room,” she said.
“I am NOT facing Keith!” Erica exclaimed. “I won’t do it!”
“Come on, Erica,” she said. “We have to try to be as comfortable as possible.”
“Exactly,” Erica said. She had no choice though. If she didn’t turn towards me, curled up into a ball, hugging my knees, we would not fit. I was doing my best not to release a huge mass of flatulence. It was the least I could do now that we were now eight hot dogs stuffed into a pack meant for four.
“Good night, everyone,” my mom said.
“Mom,” I said.
“What?” she replied.
“Shut up.”
I knew the water was flooding the tents now, but I was so tired that I didn’t care and I think everyone else felt the same way. As I fell asleep, I decided that I would never document this experience in any way. Oh well.