by Jayne Louise
‘God!’ Angel laughed. ‘I’ve never had this much excitement in one night!’
We all laughed a little at that. There was no risk. The ranger could not hear us. He could not see us where we were. If he came over to this side again to shine his headlights into all the dark corners, we could all be within the woods on the other side of Route 542 in ten seconds. Another adventure at Batsto was over, but this one, by far, had been our most exciting yet.
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We slipped out through the fence and into the road. There was no traffic. I trotted across the little bridge and peered into the historic area, where I saw the ranger’s SUV, still with headlights on, idling over by the caretaker cottage. So this was the caretaker, back to suspect us! I made a smug little smirk to myself. We’d outwitted him yet again. Thank you, fiscally nearsighted governor!
The others had gone across Route 542 and waited while I strolled back along the road to retrieve my bag. Upon the smooth blacktop of the county road, my bare feet were nearly silent. And there was not a single car within our hearing.
In the little clearing that the rangers use as a turnaround, Jem and Angel were playing with the ball, still with their packs on and batting it back and forth over an imaginary net. I shouldered up my pack and sidestepped them to lead the way back down the path towards the boat. The last leg of our hike was not hard. I wasn’t sleepy at all and it was nearly 3:00 AM. But by the time we got back to the boat, used the potty, and brushed our teeth for bed, some of us were getting cranky. Jules went right up front and curled up in her sleeping bag in the v-shaped bunk that has no cushion. Jem and Angel would share the dinette bunk, leaving me to my usual one. But I still wasn’t tired, and sat up for a while in the cockpit with the spray bottle of Off. Finally I was inspired to take one last look at the historic area for the night.
Alone, in just my sneakers and socks and bandanna headband, I walked all the way back out to Route 542. The white SUV appeared to be gone from where I had seen it idling. I turned and walked south on the shoulder of the road, over the creek bridge and in along the fence, hoping for a glimpse of whatever we had missed meeting tonight. I actually reached the clearing where the trees parted before any cars had gone by, and I nimbly vaulted over the fence and sauntered back into the historic area, towards the gift shop building.
I don’t what I expected to do or find, but I did have a yearning to leave a more permanent memento of our exciting and very relaxing two days at Batsto. Merely to be curious I opened the men’s-room door. There was the garbage bag Jules had left there. And there was one other thing the men’s room had that the ladies’ didn’t.
I got back to the boat with the sun just beginning to lighten the sky. Birds chirped, squirrels scurried about. The woods was alive again– it was a new day.
Jem, usually able to sleep through everything, was sitting up in the dinette bunk when I peeled back the screen and slid myself inside. ‘Where did you go?’ she whispered.
I smiled and slipped inside the soft cotton sleeping bag in my bunk. ‘I had to leave our thank-you note.’
‘Our what?’
I shook my head. ‘Just to say good-bye,’ I said, and zipped myself up.
With the half-used bar of hand soap from the men’s room, I had left a neatly-lettered message on the ladies’-room mirror. ‘Thank you, Gov. Corzine.
Love, G.O.D.’
(–which meant ‘Girls Of the Dove’.)
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About Jayne
Jayne Louise was born in December 1987 and lived most of her youth in the seacoast resort of Surf City, New Jersey. She was taught in piano, cello, violin and guitar from an early age and co-founded, with her two younger sisters, a pop-music trio in 2002. The teens toured during the next three summers, adding the girls’ cousin and two others before recording, in 2006, their first of three CDs of original faith-based and youth-oriented rock music.
Besides music and literature Jayne’s interests include swimming, surfing, sailing and naturism. She first published components of the collection, Jayne’s Nature, online via personal blog and profile sites, chronicling the innocent adventures she and her sisters shared whilst hiking and boating throughout the New Jersey Pinelands.
She currently works in artiste management for a public-relations agency based in Ocean County, New Jersey.
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More adventures are told
in the upcoming complete edition
of Jayne’s Nature,
from Surf City Source media group.
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