Anna went to the front door where her parents met her. They were still wearing what they wore to bed and had coffees in hand.
“Oh, good! You’re wearing the blue dress we picked out for your first day at camp!” said Anna’s mother, clearly pleased to see the dress on her daughter.
Her father was more straightforward. “Ready for camp?”
Anna smiled. “Yeah, I think I’ve got everything I need.”
Anna’s mother looked around. “Where’s Mark? I thought he came over early this morning to see you off.”
“Yeah, he did,” she replied while giving her purse a subtle pat. “…but he already left. We said our goodbyes and he didn’t want to get in the way of me saying goodbye to the best parents in the world.”
Her parents smiled. “Did he actually call us that?” asked her father.
“I’m paraphrasing, but yeah.”
“I always liked that boy, but I’m glad you’ll have some time away from him this summer,” commented Anna’s mother. “Okay, I know you’ve got to catch the bus, but please call at least once a week and let us know if there’s any trouble and we’ll drive out right away and get you.”
Anna rolled her eyes. “Moooom! I’ve been going to this place since I was a little camper myself. I’ll be fine.” She could tell her mother was going to miss her. “…but I promise to call.” She kissed them both on the cheek and headed out the door with her luggage. “Love you!”
They stood in the front door and waved. “Love you too!” they shouted after her.
“Love you too!” Mark said in a muffled shout from her purse.
Anna laughed. “Hush!” She looked down at her purse where her boyfriend-now-hamster was hiding. “But I do love you too.”
They arrived at the end of her street with five minutes to spare before the bus was scheduled to pick them up. At the scheduled time, Anna spotted the bus cresting the hill down the road. It pulled up at the corner and the driver opened the door. “Bus to camp?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Anna confirmed, stepping forward with her luggage.
The driver got stepped out of the bus and took her luggage. He was followed by someone Anna recognized — Heather Wilson, the camp’s coordinator. As she stepped out of the bus, she waved at Anna. “Hi Anna. Great to see you here. You’re going to be my right hand girl this year!"
"Hi, Mrs. Wilson. I’m looking forward to it."
“Now that you're a leader, call me Heather. Here, I have a badge for you.” From her handbag, she produced a plastic name badge and handed it to Anna which read "Anna King - Lead Assistant".
Anna proceeded to put it on on her breast similar to where Heather was wearing her badge. Anna hadn’t expected to be a lead this year and was caught off-guard by the unexpected promotion.
“As the leading girl, you will be staying in the dormitory with the younger girls. Now, it says here that we’re also supposed to pick up a 'Jennifer McKenzie’ at this stop…”
“Oh, yeah.” Anna explained, “Jennifer had a family emergency come up at the last minute. She asked me to tell you that she’s still looking forward to being a counselor, but she will be getting her own ride and arriving tonight.”
“I see. Okay, well, since she’s inexperienced, we’re planning to have Jennifer work with the older girls. She’ll be staying in their dormitory when she arrives. I do wish she would be able to be at orientation with the others, but we’re short a few counselors so I’ll take who I can get. I’m sure the two of us can get her up-to-speed after she arrives.”
“Sorry, but I didn’t know I was going to be the Lead Assistant,” she said looking down at her name badge. “I would rather stay with Jennifer. It’s her first time and she only agreed to come because I promised we could bunk together.”
“Sorry Anna, Crystal was going to be leading girl but she pulled out only yesterday. You are the only other girl I would trust with this position. However, I'll see what I can do. Maybe I can shuffle some of the other girls around. But for the moment Jennifer will have to bunk in the other dorm.”
The bus driver finished putting Anna’s luggage in the bus and closed the side panel. He started climbing up the steps and looked back at Anna and Heather. “Whenever you’re ready, ma’am.”
Anna climbed up the steps and stood at the front of the bus as her eyes adjusted to the light. The bus could probably seat around 80 people, but there were only about 15 on board. She didn’t recognize anyone and decided to sit near the back of the left side of the bus next to a window. The aisle seat was empty and she hoped that it would remain that way. Heather took her seat in the first row.
The bus made a few more stops in town before heading to the Interstate highway and Heather greeted the new passengers at every stop. Fortunately for Anna, the seat next to her remained unoccupied after the last passenger had boarded, but there were people in the seats in front of her, behind her, and across the aisle. Most of the campers seemed occupied with books, magazines, or conversations among themselves, so she took the opportunity to open her purse to see Mark.
Mark used a tiny paw to shield his eyes from the light. “Finally! It smells like perfume in here.”
“Looks like the bus is done picking up people,” she said softly to avoid being overheard. In her purse next to Mark, she noticed her AirPods. “Oh, hold on. I have an idea!”
Anna took her AirPods and put them in her ears.
Mark looked at her quizzically. “Who are you calling?”
Anna smiled back. “You! Now I can talk to you and nobody will think I’m weird for talking to myself.” She reached into her purse and gently scooped up Mark and placed him on her left shoulder. “Stay under my hair and nobody behind me will see you. Now you can speak directly into my ear and nobody else should be able to hear you. If anyone does, they’ll assume it’s coming from my AirPods.”
Mark attempted to speak like a tiny radio announcer. “You’re listening to the Hamster Today podcast, the only podcast made by a hamster for the sole listening pleasure of his human girlfriend, Anna King.”
Anna laughed. A girl across the aisle glanced over for a moment and went back to her book.
“How long until we get there?” asked Mark.
“It’s about a four hour ride, but they’ll pull off for a rest stop around the halfway point.”
“Cool.” Mark sat on Anna’s shoulder and tried to get comfortable. “I heard someone say that ‘Jennifer’ would have to stay in a separate dorm from you. That wasn’t part of this deal.”
“I know, that was Heather, the camp coordinator. I’m as frustrated as you by that news, but Heather said she’d try to fix it. Hopefully after ‘Jennifer’ arrives, she can protest as well. They’re short on counselors, so she might give in if she thinks she’d lose another one. We’ve got that on our side.”
“True, okay. I think I can put some pressure on her and threaten to leave if that would help.” Trying not to worry about it, Mark decided to change the subject. “So this ‘Medallion of Zoro’… Where’d you get it?”
“It’s the Medallion of Zulo. I’m not entirely sure of its history or who Zulo is, but it was given to me by my grandmother shortly before she passed. She told me to keep it a secret from everyone, including my parents. She warned me that if others knew about it, there would be plenty of people who would want to steal it. If it was stolen during a change, I’d never be able to change back. Worse yet, if someone untrustworthy knew about it, they might literally kill to get ahold of it. The only reason she told me not to tell my parents is because she knew they’d worry about me having it. For good reason.”
“So why did you tell me?”
Anna reached up and gently ran a finger down Mark’s fuzzy back. “My grandmother suggested I share it with one other person to get the most out of it, but she insisted it had to be someone I could trust. You’ve proven to me that you’re the most trustworthy person I’ve ever met. You’re honest, kind, and noble…almost to a fault. I’ve seen you do things like complain to a waitress that she made a mistake on the bill in your favor. I genuinely feel like I could trust you with my life. To a certain extent, I have. Also, I felt this shared secret might bring us closer.” She paused for a moment. “I’m sorry if that’s a lot to lay on you all at once.”
Mark took it all in. “Wow… I’m not sure what to say. Honestly, that means a lot. So have you used the medallion before?”
“Yeah,” admitted Anna. “I’ve never changed to another person or an animal. I was cautious and only did small changes because I worried if I changed to like a hamster, I might not be able to change back without someone else’s help. So the most I’ve done is using it to change my body size a little. When the medallion is touched to something that has never been worn before, your body reshapes to fit it perfectly. I used it to take a few inches off my waist.”
“So when you told me you had joined a gym…”
Anna laughed. “It was actually the medallion. Cheaper and faster than a gym membership!”
“That’s amazing! When this is all over, would you mind if I did a few changes to my body?” asked Mark.
“Absolutely! You’re in on the secret, so you’re welcome to use the medallion too. I mean what I said. I trust you. I just hope you can trust me now. You have my word that I don’t intend to leave you stuck as a hamster.”
“I don’t really have a choice, but yeah, I do trust you. You’ve never let me down. It’s why I love you and why I went along with this insane plan in the first place.”
“We make a great pair,” commented Anna.
“Two girls, but one’s a hamster. Yes, the perfect couple.” They laughed.
Anna noticed a commotion near the front of the bus. Word got back to their row that a little girl, Alice, had thrown up. “Aww, poor kid,” remarked Anna. “Probably separation anxiety. Happens to a lot of the little ones their first year.”
Mark made a disgusted sound. “I’m glad we weren’t sitting up there.”
The driver pulled over and produced some sanitizing wipes and paper towels to clean up the mess. He had clearly experienced this situation before. Heather helped clean up and they were on the road again after a couple minutes.
“I should probably give you the rundown on this camp,” suggested Anna. She pulled out a pad of paper and a pen and sketched a map. She showed the hamster on her shoulder the road leading in, where the dormitories are, the canteen where they would eat, the camp hospital, the location of the lake, and locations for various sports and other activities.
As Anna continued giving Mark details on the camp, Heather stood up at the front of the bus and got everyone’s attention. “Hello campers! I know some of you are headed to camp for the first time and might be nervous or felling a bit of anxiety.” She looked down at Alice before continuing. “Well, that’s normal. Even us counselors all went to camp for the first time once. You know what I think would be fun? Let’s do a sing-along!” Heather looked back at Anna. “Anna, you’ve got a great singing voice. Would you like to start us off?”
“Uh…” Anna turned and tried to secretly remove Mark from her shoulder. She placed him on her seat next to her purse and stood up. “Sure, uh, let’s see… Okay, who knows ‘Boom Chicka Boom’? It’s easy! All you have to do is repeat after me. Here we go, I’ll start… I said a boom chicka boom!”
Most of the bus repeated, “I said a boom chicka boom!”
“I said a boom chicka boom!”
More kids repeated, “I said a boom chicka boom!”
“I said a boom chicka rocka chicka rocka chicka boom!”
By this point, the whole bus joined in with the response, “I said a boom chicka rocka chicka rocka chicka boom!”
Anna continued the song and got the rest of the bus joining in. She thought she even saw the bus driver in the mirror mouthing the words in response. When the song was finished, everyone applauded and Anna sat down again. Heather lead the singing for the next song and then got some of the older campers to lead after that.
Mark and Anna couldn’t talk much while the bus was singing, so he sat quietly in her lap and enjoyed being petted. She opened up a bag and offered him Cheerios while she had some carrot sticks and celery for her own snack.
Before they knew it, they arrived at the rest stop. Anna scooped up Mark and put him back in her purse. Heather helped the kids off the bus and instructed them to stay close. When Anna stepped off, Heather asked her to lead a group of them to the restroom. Anna was asked to count how many went in and stay there until everyone had finished and was accounted for. When they had all finished, they returned to Heather and Anna finally got a chance to use the restroom herself. By the time she finished, the coffee Heather had bought her was cold.
On the way out to the bus, Anna stepped to the side of the entrance onto some mulch near shrubs and flowers. Making sure nobody was looking, she placed Mark on the ground. "If you need to pee, now’s the time!"
Mark looked up at Anna, “Oh thank god! You have no idea how hard it’s been to not pee in your purse!” He scurried behind a couple tulips.
Anna stood watch. She thought to herself how she was “just stretching my legs and breathing the air. Nothing suspicious to see. Definitely not letting my hamster boyfriend pee on a flower.” When Mark was done, he ran over to her foot and poked it.
Anna bent down to pick him up just as Heather came out the door. “Hey, Anna, what are you doing?”
Anna quickly palmed Mark and held him a over her purse and let him jump in. “Oh, uh, I was just looking at that flower. I like tulips.”
“Yeah, it’s nice,” Heather commented, seemingly uninterested. “We should make sure everyone’s back on the bus now.”
“Okay, on my way.” Anna walked quickly toward the bus and climbed on board. She counted the passengers and confirmed with Heather that everyone was accounted for. The bus headed off toward camp.