“What do you think the creek is going to look like?” John wondered, as he looked up at the towering redwood trees.

“Probably like the ones at Hidden Villa,” I guessed.
“What does that look like?”
I shrugged. “I guess mossy, with an old bridge or something like that.”
I thought again. What did I think the creek would look like? If it looked anything like the other things at science camp, then it would probably have been touched by humanity. So I guessed a wooden bridge would probably wouldn’t be too far out, but it probably wouldn’t have  moss everywhere, like the creek at Hidden Villa. I shook the thought out of my head. All I really cared about was finding a creature, like John found the millipede, and the creek gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. After John found the clown millipede yesterday, I wanted to find an animal that was hard to find, but until now I hadn’t gotten an opportunity. Science camp was only five days long, with two of them being half days, so I had only today and one more half day to find one.
“What do you want to do at the creek?” John asked as he kept walking,
“I dunno, maybe look for a salamander?”
“Sure, I don’t really care anyway.”
I felt a rush of relief. I could finally find a salamander and, since I was with John, I was twice as likely to find one.
Someone stumbled. “Wow, that was like the third person to nearly trip so far and almost no one had actually touched the ground. It seems like the nature group was really lucky today, not to hit the ground, they were unlucky for nearly tripping.” John noted.
I didn’t know what to say. John and I had been friends for about four years at the time so I didn’t want to make him feel bad, but when he was staring at the redwood trees someone tripped and hit the ground.
Before I could say anything, Yarrow said, “If you have to use the bathroom do over there,” as she pointed up a hill. At this point of the trail there was a hill to our right, and a six foot tall bush. I assumed there was a bathroom or something up there.
“ I bet someone has gotten lost in there before.” I told John.
“Why?” he replied.
“I don’t know… it just seems likely.” it sort-of did. The bush was taller than anyone in the group of people I was was hiking with, so if someone got scared and ran away they wouldn’t be able to find their way back, and it would be hard for anyone to find them. Anyway to our right there was a hill with trees about 10 feet apart.
First the girls got to use the bathroom. “How long are they going to take?” John complained. “ I really have to go, and it seems like they aren’t going to be finished anytime soon.”
“ That’s probably because they haven’t gotten all the way up the hill yet,” I replied. “ Why don’t we talk about something to get the bathroom off your mind.” I had to go too, but not as badly.

  Soon after, Yarrow explained, “ I’ll repeat this for the girls when they come back, but know that we have to be back before 2:00, so we should leave the creek at around 1:15.”
That was a problem. Now I only had an hour to find a salamander. “I don’t think anyone will find a salamander in just over one hour,” I groaned, just loud enough for John to hear, but not quite loud enough for anyone else to.
“I think some people might, but yeah it's not likely.” he responded.
We spotted the girls coming down the hill. “Ok, now boys get ready it will soon be your turn.”
Since both John and I had to go, we decided to count the banana slugs on the way up. “I saw three banana slugs!” I bragged, and pointed to the three I had spotted.
“ I only found two, and one of them you already found,” John stated, and he pointed to the two he found. While still going down the hill, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye, something that looked like a broken hose.
Then it moved. And again. It slithered out from the leaves that were above it, revealing its shape. “Woah it’s a snake!” I exclaimed as it slithered towards me.
“ Yeah. It is.” John whispered, slowly walking back. After I backed up a safe distance from the snake, following John’s lead, I yelled, “ Yarow! Yarrow look, a snake! Yarrow!” but she didn’t hear.
Then,  right before I ran ahead and gave up on showing Yarrow the snake, John tried to see if he would get Yarrow’s attention. “YARROW!” he yelled at the top of his lungs and Yarrow turned. “ LOOK IT IS A SNAKE, KYLE FOUND IT.”
“ Back up!” Yarrow exclaimed as she sprinted towards us. I thought we were already a safe distance, but not wanting to get in trouble I backed up further.
“ There it is,” I said while while pointing to us just as Yarrow made it to us.
Yarrow seemed to be relieved. “Thankfully, it’s not a dangerous snake.”
“What type of snake is it?” questioned a voice from the crowd already forming around the snake.
“Well, it is a baby garter snake, and it isn’t a danger to any of you. The two lines on its back…” Yarrow explained as I felt the pride of finally finding something, that something being a snake, and the rest of the group listened with excitement. When Yarrow finished she said, “Nice find, Kyle, but we have to go to the creek, so we will have to hope it’s here on the way back.”
“Wait, what did you want to do at the creek again?” John questioned.
I thought about it. I realized that after already finding something, the baby garter snake, I didn’t need to find a salamander. So , I responded ,“Let’s see when we get there, but I don’t think there is any point in looking for a salamander. It’s not likely we will find one.” And it’s a good thing I said that, because only one person was able to find a salamander, which was still more than the amount of people Yarrow said found a salamander at this time of year. I spent a majority of the time drawing a baby garter snake with the colored rocks from the creek, and the rest playing around.