"I can't guess of anything, but I sure can't wait to find out." With a grinning face, Alpha answered.
Margret curled her lips upwards, as they both walked faster to catch up with the rest of the group.
...
Hiking in the forest for almost an hour and pulling a one nighter, exhaustion was beginning to kick in and a few kids looked like zombies trekking on a waste land.
*Splash! Splash*
Everyone's attention was drawn by ripples of a river flowing quite a distance away.
"Here that? It sounds like a river."
"Yeah, that's definitely a river."
Murmurs pervaded the atmosphere as the group picked up it's pace towards it, forgetting their exhaustion.
Approaching the river, the kids began dashing forward, after all the exhaustion that was being multiplied by the noon heat, a cold bath was all they could think about.
Mrs Taiyo was in a similar predicament, even though not jogging like the kids, her face said it all. Despite the fact that she had little doubts of whether the river would be of natural colour, it still couldn't overshadow her excitement, three days of exhaustion and no bath, was a too tall of an order.
Advancing towards a clearing that was covered with bushes, the ripples of the running water against rocks, magnified.
Alpha and Margret jogged behind the group, not saying a word to each other, but their grinning faces said all that was to be said.
Past the clearing was a river about four meters wide, it's flow was slow, maybe because of it's shallowness or perhaps it was just deep enough for anyone not to notice, but that was highly unlikely considering how clearly you could see the sand under it.
"Wow it's so wide."
"I wanna dive in."
"Me too."
"Don't be reckless."
The boys had already started striping, and were about to dive in when Mrs Taiyo's caution sounded, stopping on their tracks they all gazed at their teacher who stood slightly ahead of the clearing.
After the incidence, where she lost one of the kids, believing that it was due to her carelessness, she didn't want anything like that to ever happen again.
Strolling past the group of kids that lingered at its bank, she peered into the river and a second later took off her black now red covered with brown shoes after which, she walked in.
Just as expected, the river wasn't that deep, being two inches lower than her knees, it was just a bit cold which was refreshing.
After that she made a walk towards the centre and back, she gave the kids a glance, indicating that it was completely safe.
Although filled with rocks of various sizes around it, from where they had exited the clearing, it appeared almost as if someone had deliberately created this place for the sole purpose of swimming
in it.
Not paying any attention to it's environment though, the boys that had already stripped leaving only their inner wear begun diving in, one by one.
Seeing this, Mrs Taiyo cleared her throat as she announced.
"Every group will have about an hour to themselves, seeing that the boys have already begun, they're be the first. We will have to give them some privacy."
Some of the boys didn't care much about decency, the girls however couldn't afford their carefree nature. Before their teacher's suggestion they were a little confused about what to do, but when she said that, their faces brightened and none of them complained about it.
"See you after two hours." Margret said, as she smiled at Alpha, before going back.
One by one the girls begun going back through the clearing and in a minute only Mrs Taiyo was left.
"Before the hour is up, make sure you wash the clothes, or try to." And with that she too went back.
"Finally, freedom." Liam shouted as he stripped everything and dove in.
Everyone who was yet to, did the same, including Alpha who's never been shy if among fellow boys.
The water was cold, but the noon sun was hotter.
...
Without a proper bathing kit, they couldn't clean up thoroughly, but nonetheless they did due with what they had, without paying mind to their hair.
Playing with the water like small kids_they were, the minutes ticked by, and after about thirty minutes they started to get bored and one by one they got out.
After getting out, they didn't have the luxury of drying up, as they went straight to scrubbing their clothes on the stones above stream.
They did so for about ten minutes, after which they placed them on the bigger stones to dry.
"That felt great." Tony said looking at the group of boys sitting on the small rocks around the bank.
"Yeah, the greatest I've felt in a while."
"Now I feel refreshed."
"How long do you think it's gonna take before we stumble upon another river?" Liam asked, staring as if trying to make out who was before him.
"Probably never, and where are your glasses?" Dan answered plainly.
"What makes you think that?" another boy asked.
"Maybe it's because we're almost at the edge of the forest." Cutting in, Alpha answered.
"I wish."
"Yeah."
Their conversation went on until their teacher's voice sounded, indicating that their time was up.
Wearing their shorts and blouses, leaving only the jackets that were yet to dry , they all approached the clearing and after about ten minutes the girls came through, looking tired and gloomy as if someone had just disturbed their sleep.
Following that all the boys went back in the forest, far from the clearing and sat at different places_more like laid down, and quickly fell asleep.
....
The girls took a little longer than the boys.
When they were done, Mrs Taiyo was the last one to go in, and with no intentions of swimming only bathing, she took a little over thirty minutes.
It was almost evening when their jackets dried off, after waking them up, they ambled across the river using the stones across it. And continued their march towards the unknown.
The evening was approaching and soon the night was gonna fall, what horrors will awaken, only the moons could tell.