During one of our summer weeks off from school, Anita and I took her brother (Sam[14]) and cousins (Brian[14], Karen[16], and Lily[13]) on a camping trip out in Maine for a week (as a suggestion from her parents). Her brother had joined the boy scouts and wanted to test out his "skills".
For the first two days, we tried doing the whole tent setup to get the whole camping under the stars effect, but the heat and the mosquitoes didn't make it very pleasant for the girls. So, we ended up renting a cabin instead (equipped with a TV, fridge, kitchen and all the great things from modern living).
On our third day, we dressed in our nature gear (all of us wore T-shirts and socks and sneakers, except Anita, Brian, Lily, and I were wearing shorts while Sam wore blue jeans and Karen wore black leggings), put on our bug repellent, and did a nature hike. The kids were able to get in a bunch of pictures of birds and unique-looking plants with their digital cameras and were able to keep themselves interested the entire time. Anita and I were able to enjoy the peacefulness of the woods and just being able to get away from all the noise in the city.
Of course, being city kids, we started to get tired and Karen and Lily started to complain about their feet hurting, so we headed back to the cabin. Once there, we kicked off our shoes and socks and sat ourselves down in the living room, where the girls began to massage their feet.
"Whew! That was quite a walk," Anita remarked.
"Yeah...maybe it wasn't such a good idea to use my new sneakers," Lily said.
"Someone told me that you're not supposed to break in new shoes for long hikes," Sam replied.
"Oh...looks like our cousin's gotten smarter," Karen said, patting Sam on his head.
"Hey, are you guys hungry? I'm gonna start making dinner," Anita said, getting up off the couch and heading into the kitchen.
"Ok," we all said in unison.
"Well, I'm going to go shower," Brian said, smelling himself. "I stink."
"Hey, that's a good idea," Karen said. "I'm going first, though."
"But I called it first," Brian complained.
"Yeah, but I'm older," Karen replied, turning to head upstairs.
"Oh yeah?" Brian said, grabbing her arm. "Sam, help me out here."
"Hey! Cut it out," Karen said playfully as her brother and cousin wrestled with her.
"Lily, go get the rope from upstairs," Brian instructed.
"Where?" Lily asked.
"They should be next to the tents," Sam suggested.
"Okay," Lily said and headed upstairs.
Eventually, the boys were able to take down Karen to the ground and pin her arms behind her back, with Brian mounted on top of Karen holding her right wrist in his left hand and holding her left wrist crossed over it with his right hand. This gave Karen less leverage to pull her hands away. Sam then grabbed one of the ropes that Lily had brought from upstairs and began to tie Karen's wrists together. He wrapped the rope numerous times around them tightly before tucking the end in between the coils and tying the knot off.
"Now, hold her feet together," Sam instructed Brian.
"Lily, I'm your sister, we're supposed to stick together," Karen pleaded, but Lily just shrugged her shoulders.
After some effort (Brian had to sit himself on top of Karen's legs to hold them in place as she tried to keep her legs apart), Sam began to tie her ankles together. While this was happening, I noticed Lily start to sneak away upstairs. Once Karen's feet were tied, the boys began to notice this too.
"Where'd Lily go?" Sam asked.
"I think she went upstairs," I answered. "To shower I guess?"
"Grr, this is all your fault," Brian said, lightly kicking his sister in her side.
"Only cause you're so selfish," Karen replied, turning over onto her back and kicking Brian back.
"Hey, I know, let's add some more ropes while I wait for Lily to finish," Brian suggested to Sam.
"You know-" I started to say.
"K.C.! Can you help me out over here in the kitchen?" Anita yelled out.
"Okay, coming," I said and headed over into the kitchen, where I ended up cutting some vegetables and preparing other ingredients. When I came back into the living room, I saw that the boys had added some additional ropes to tie Karen's upper body and some ropes tied around her knees. Furthermore, they had hogtied her wrists to her ankles and had cleave gagged her with a head bandana.
"Do you want me to untie you?" I asked.
"Mmph-hhmph," she replied, looking up and nodding with her head.
As I started to work on the knots that the boys had tied, however, I heard Sam coming down the stairs.
"Hey, hands off, that took us a really long time to do," he said.
"Well, what are you going to do?" I asked.
"Uhh, I dunno, I'll tie you up too," he replied.
"You have no rope," I said.
"Umm...fine. If I untie Karen, then I can tie you up instead," he answered. He then helped Karen up off her stomach onto her knees and untied the rope that was around her upper body.
"Okay, hands behind your back," he said eagerly to me.
"Aren't you going to finish untying your cousin first?" I asked.
"Yeah, yeah, but you first," he said, pulling my hands behind me, to which I offered no resistance. He crossed my wrists together and I felt him wrap the long length of rope all sorts of ways around them: horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. Once he got towards the end, I felt him tuck the end of the rope in between the coils and tie the knot off. He then untied the rope that was around Karen's knees and I began to see where he was going with this.
"You're just removing all the extra ropes and using them on me, aren't you?" I said.
"Yup," he said. "Now sit down."
I could've objected and simply walked away from all this, but I figured, why not let him have his fun? Dinner wouldn't be ready for another twenty minutes anyways. The only person I felt sorry for was Karen, who was still trussed up pretty well even with the extra ropes removed. So, I sat down on the floor next to Karen and let Sam tie my ankles together.
"You're lucky we ran out of rope," Sam said, once he finished. "Otherwise, we would've hogtied you too."
"Gee, aren't I lucky?" I replied, sarcastically. "Wait, I thought we had more than this though."
"We used them on Lily," Sam quickly answered. "I'm gonna go check on them. See ya in a bit." He then went on upstairs, leaving Karen and I stuck in our bonds.