Day 0 - Friday

HEATHER CAMPBELL sits in the with her back to the shore, staring out into the darkness of the campgrounds, only a few emergency lights on in the Jensen building, and one in Reverend Mark's office. She has a pretty face but wears an aloof expression at all times. It's hard to remember if anyone has seen her smile these past few days. A WET PLOP draws her back to the moment and she notices her marshmallow had melted enough to fall off her skewer and into the fire. Her face scrunches up in annoyance.

HEATHERIt's the 21st Century and we are still cooking marshmallow's over an open fire with pointy sticks. There has GOT to be a better way to do this. Someone pass me the crackers and chocolate, I don't need a stupid marshmallow.

BOBBY BROWN smirks at Heather's misfortune. His expression and attitude have been pure cockiness from the get-go.

BOBBYAnd yet it looks like you still haven't managed that simple technology.

As if in divine retribution, Bobby's marshmallow likewise droops down until gravity pulls it off the metal skewer and it lands in the fire with a similar plop and then a crackle. His face darkens in anger.

BOBBYSon of a bitch!

Heather recoils in surprise.

HEATHERLanguage! The kids are coming tomorrow! You better control your tongue better around them than you do around us.

Bobby scowls but doesn't respond.

DACEY WILLIAMS is sitting next to her friend, Kristin Weatherly, as she roasts her own marshmallow to perfection. She comes across as a city girl, but the pretty African American proves there is more than meets the eye as she deftly places the sizzling white glob between two graham crackers along with a piece of Hershey's chocolate. Her often unruly hair is tied back -- it's been a long day -- and she wears jeans and a faded, form-fitting tee that shows off her rather dramatic figure.

DACEY

"You two weren't in the boy scouts and girl scouts then," she says to Heather and Bobby with a broad smile -- the kind of smile that usually brought one to others' lips.

SUSAN DYNE is sitting off to the side, lustlessly holding a marshmallow on a stick into the flames. She just came back from the bathroom where she had a sip from the flask she's hiding under her loose shirt. The last couple of days were definitely more work than she signed up for but hopefully, now that setting up the camp is done and it's only going to be keeping eyes on some kids, it'll be less stressful.

SUSAN DYNE
"Heather is right, though. We should just pop these things in a microwave until they melt. Would be super easy. This is just bull...crap!"

Declan never much went in for s’mores. Suppose he missed the boat on them, not having eaten them as a young fella himself. A nice heel of bread and a scrape of jam was his thing, and there was none to be found at this hour. He flicked through a small pocket notebook he kept on him to log work done and work needed doing. The work needed doing section grew longer throughout the day. Too busy to say too much today, he logged what he thought hadn’t been done proper by the blow-in crew today, and would need his own special touch tomorrow. As the curse breaks across the fire, he looks up:

DECLAN FOGARTY
"A microwave, if you don’t mind!" he lets out a good natured guffaw."God help these kids if they get stuck out in the woods with Miss Dyne here. Nare a microwave out in the trees!" he chuckles again, and by now she knows that he’s just making some fun at the end of a busy day.

Patty Smith was playing with her marshmallow and had no intention of eating it. Her stomach was still a little off from the nips she took last night. Her bottle of Jameson was cleverly hidden in behind a false panel in her trunk. In fact, there was room for two bottles so she would have to ration herself. She decided to set the now white gooey mess on fire and watch the flames enlarge little by little.

She glanced over at her niece Susie and nodded. No doubt she too had been sneaking in some nips herself. She hated when she called her Susie so she did it just to needle her. She had to needle someone, didn't she?

The marshmallow popped, caught fire, and turned into instant charcoal. "That was fun. Anyone got another they don't want?"

Kristin held her marshmallow low, deliberately setting it aflame, only to blow it out and then consume the melted, blackened mass. She didn't bother with the crackers but did eat a piece of chocolate as an afterthought. She took a swig of her Coke Zero and readied another marshmallow on the skewer. The girl was pretty, but quite shy, and didn't speak much about herself. All that she had let slip thus far was that she had black belts in aikido and karate and that she and Dacey are friends ("Just friends," she was quick to clarify.)

While the others chat, Lucas has been quietly roasting his marshmallow without saying much. Actually he's been pretty quiet for the last fifteen minutes or so when he wrapped up his work for the day by heading off to some woods south of the zip-line to double check on some mushrooms and fern plants he intends to show the kids during part of their nature lessons.
He leaves his marshmallow in for only a brief length of time to soften, and then lowers it to the flame and lets it catch fire. As it sizzles, he turns it to blacken the entire skin of the treat and presses it between chocolate piece and crackers. He squishes it until the blackened skin starts to bubble out the sides and then sets the entire things aside on a rock, just close ebough to the fire to keep it warm.
This will taste even better in about a half hour.

Bobby looks at Dacey with a leering grin.

Bobby"I wasn't in the Boy Scouts, but I was IN a girl scout, if you know what I mean."

Heather certainly knew what he meant because her face flushes a deep red. But whether it was out of shock, embarrassment, or anger it was impossible to tell. Perhaps all three.

After a few awkward seconds of silence, and perhaps not a few dirty or outraged looks, it seems Bobby finally detects a shift in atmosphere and coughs awkwardly.

Bobby"So, uh, what brings you all here to Camp Jubilee?"

Lucas takes a minute to answer, processing something reasonable that doesn't make him sound line a complete nimrod. "Money, mostly. I figured it would be a fun way to make some money before school starts this fall, and I like teaching kids about nature an' shit. So win-win, I guess."

Patty isn't impressed with Bobby's dumb joke and already detests him. As to why she is at this camp, she isn't shy about saying why she is here. She is too old to give a damn about what other people think. "I'm working off a DUI otherwise I wouldn't be here but I'll make the most of it I suppose," she says as she sets fire to another marshmallow.

Jessica primly plucks the golden brown marshmallow off of her stick into a pair of crackers, her s'more apparently being the only one that wasn't burnt or ignored besides Dacey's. She answers the question, with a bit of an arrogant pitch.

"Reverend Lucas recommended the position to me. He must need some good help, since apparently only one other person here is competent enough to toast a marshmallow properly."

Lucas suddenly looks up as if surfacing out of a stupor. "What did you call me?"

Jessica pulls a face of disgust, as if the idea of mentioning her fellow counselor was abhorrent.

"Not you, you nimrod. Reverend Mark Lucas. The man who runs this camp?"

Williams makes and eats another perfect S'more as the counselors talk and continue to get to know one another. Declan seems harmless and helpful enough, there's the worn out DUI case who looks like she's already into her cups, and the blonde who wants the microwave shows all the makings of being a real piece of work. Kristin has her shyness on and the outdoorsy guy, Lucas, seems like he might be okay.

Dacey raises her eyebrows and writes off Bobby Brown as the douchebag that he is for his comment, though she can't help but respond with, "You better watch some young Christian girl doesn't hear you say that, Bobby. Report you to the Reverend and fast as that you're out on your ass."

And that's when Jessica evidences her stellar conversational skills, which the former med student just shrugs off with a shake of her head and a mild expression as she sets down her roasting stick.

"Well, there wasn't a question on roasting marshmallows on the application, right?"

A second later, she's answering Brown's icebreaker as well. "You know. Summer job. Needed some time away from the big city. Get some sunshine and fresh air, recharge a little."

Kristin shrugs when her turn comes to answer. "I'm looking into a teaching job, thought that this might give me some experience. Or change my mind."

Heather looks at Mark and instinctively tries to smooth any ruffled feathers. "It's ok, he prefers people call him 'Reverend Mark' and jokes that 'Reverend Lucas was his father's name'. He think being on a first name basis makes him more relatable to the congregation, and adding the title to the front gently reminds people of his position and keeps the kids respectful. Boundary setting and all that."
She looks at the others after they give their reasons and gives hers when there's a lull. "This is just a stop on my career path. Not that there's too much mobility in the church, especially for women, but I will take everything I can get. I teach Sunday school during the school year, and it was an easy move to volunteer to work at the camp now that school's out for the summer. Kids can get up to some bad stuff when they're unsupervised. Someone needs to make sure they stay on the right path, so might as well be me."