So yesterday, some stuff happened. Most of it was none of your business. However, we’re going to let you in a little piece of our beeswax. We, the Ninja Gang, rafted the river–you know the river that runs through that decent-sized city in North America where we live.
The killer bumblebee.
We traveled aboard the N.G.S. Lancelot, escorting Viceroy T. away from potential kidnappers. The captain of the ship was Raven, fiirst mate was Zepher, and Hugo was a stow-away who joined us half-way through the voyage when his own ship became to crowded. Thomas was a pirate who attempted to commandeer the Lancelot. Y’know, I think he was mostly after our snacks.
Yep. That’s about what it looked like, floating down the river.
First mistake: bringing all the towels with us on the raft. We thought they’d be okay. We didn’t expect they’d get wet. Or well, maybe we did. I don’t know what we were thinking. Maybe we weren’t thinking at all. Anyway, the towels were the wettest thing in the raft by the time we were through.
Second mistake: Going right. Everyone else was going left, so we though we’d have a better adventure if we went right. We just got slowed down by shallow water and stuck against the side of an island.
Third mistake: Some people in the group (most of them not members of the ninja gang) decided to bring electronics–cells phones, cameras, and an ipad–who knows what that was for. None of them stayed dry.
Other things that went wrong:
1) Getting stuck in the middle of a large rapid when our raft got caught on a rock. That was an adventure. No, actually, it was just a pain.
2) Hijacked by river pirates. They attempted to board but there really wasn’t enough room between the five people already on the four-person raft, and all the wet towels taking up the back of the boat. They settled for clinging to the back while we did all the rowing.
3) The biggest and best adventure was entirely the fault of a bee. At least, almost entirely. Zepher’s afraid of bees, you see. Earlier in the day she’d sworn if a bee came near the boat, she would jump into the river. And Zepher’s big on keeping her promises… We were drifting near the rocky bank of the river, and trying to paddle our way back into the middle. The bee took this opportune moment to zoom in above Zepher’s head and land on Raven’s shoe. Zepher dropped her paddle and leaped into the water with all the gusto of a wildebeest being chased by a lion. As she swam alongside the boat, asking where the bee had gone, the boat, now steered solely by Raven, drifted against the bank, just as it neared a tree protruding from the edge and hanging low over the water with many stickery branches that could easily have skewered any one of us. The pirates nearby, being marginally helpful for once, began shouting a warning: “The tree! The tree! Watch out for that treeeeeee!” But it was too late. The current caught us. Zepher flailed about, scrambling with all her might to get back into the Lancelot. “Beam me up! Beam me up!” she yelled frantically. Raven tried. She really did. But the equipment malfunctioned. Just in time, Zepher nimbly flipped herself over the edge of the raft, along with a bucket load of river water that was clinging to her. “Duck! Everybody down!” Raven yelled, as they slid beneath the tree, the branches whacking the tops of their heads. However, they managed to emerge relatively unscathed–only some minor scratches–and hooted a walloping hurrah at having survived. The pirates even clapped at the daring rescue. Well, survival. Is it really rescuing someone if it’s their own darn fault in the first place?
That’s what happened to us. It was bad, man.
The Ninja Gang then proceeded to have a nine-o-clock dinner at Mongolian Grill, the patron restaurant of the Ninja Gang. As usual, the discussion turned to light sabers, weapons of choice, and whether “control over physics” was a legitimate superpower. The Ninja Gang is firmly of the opinion that it would fall in the category of “Mary-Sue,” and would be very lame.
~Raven (with input from Zepher)
The Ninja Gang 