Charcoal Wars
Charcoal wars was a game that took place at family camp, our school’s family camping trip. During charcoal wars, the middle school students teamed up against the much larger group of elementary students. The goal was to get as much charcoal as possible, and to get more than the other team. We would all search the campgrounds for large pieces of charcoal, and store them in bases. Then, we would find the bases of the other team, and ‘raid them. The raids were always lots of fun. We would rush into the base and loot the charcoal. But sometimes, after a raid, we would get back to base and realize that our charcoal had been stolen while we were away. This year, as usual, we were led by Simon, a friend of mine, who always participated quite a bit in charcoal wars.
“Is everyone ready?” Simon asked, on the first raid of the year. It was me, Simon, and a few others.
“Yup,” I said. “Let’s go!”
Simon led us into the base and we rushed around, looking for charcoal. The base was a small campsite. The entrance was a driveway, of sorts, with a large car in it. To the left was the tent, and to the right was a tree. The tree was the most likely place for charcoal to be hidden, because of the roots making hollows in the dirt. For a brief few moments, there was a frenzy of motion. But soon, the motion stopped.
“I think we have to admit defeat.” It was true. There was no charcoal in the tree, nor the rest of the base. This happened sometimes, that the elementary students prepared for us coming and left, or maybe it had never been a base at all.
“Let me just radio back and tell the others,” I said. This was an important part of charcoal wars. Everyone always had a walkie-talkie, and teams would secretly choose channels to communicate without anyone else knowing. “This is Ben. The raid failed. There was no charcoal at the base,” I said. But instead of a response from the radio, a shrill note rang out.
“AAH! What was that?” someone yelled.
“I think it was a feedback loop,” I said. “You know, when the sound gets picked up from one radio and played back through it? It makes that annoying sound.” But then, all of a sudden, an idea came to me. “Can you give me the radio, please?” I asked. I took the radio. I set it to the correct channel. Then, holding both radios together, I pressed speak on one. Another loud note blasted out of the radios. I held it for a second, then took it off. “Did you get that?” I radioed to the others on our team.
“Yeah, if you mean the loud screaming noise that just came through. What was that?” came the response.
“That was a feedback loop,” I said. “And also a weapon against the elementary school.”
“What do you mean?” asked Simon. “A weapon? Unless you want to play that in their ears to scare them away, I can’t see how that would be a weapon. It would be more annoying for us playing it, after all. It’s not even all that loud!”
“Here’s the thing,” I replied. “We know that they have a channel, just like we do. Using this, we can fill their channel with loud screeching. They won’t be able to say a thing!”
“Ohhhh!” said Simon. “That’s a great idea!”
And that was the birth of ‘screeing’, the art of making a radio channel unusable. The rest of the day was filled with more raids, some successful, others not. It was all great fun, and then came dinner, an event always filled with laughter and fun. Dinner was like a ceasefire, where charcoal wars came to a pause and everyone joined together for an amazing meal. But soon, dinner was over, and charcoal wars began again. I was ready to try out screeing, as well as my next idea- being a spy.
I gathered Simon and a couple of other friends together with me, and explained my plan: “First,” I said, “I will find their channel. Then, pretending to be one of them, I will say that I have a great idea and that I need to talk to their leader. I will ask them who that is, under the pretense that I have a cool idea and want to propose it to them.” “Then,” I continued, “I will go to their other channel. This makes sure that I don’t talk to the same person again. I will pretend to be the leader of their team, and tell them to drop their charcoal in the fire pit and leave. I will say that I’m preparing to hide their charcoal and that I can’t tell them where I am putting it. As soon as they leave it, we come and steal it.
“But do you think it will work?” asked Simon.
“I don’t know, but there’s no reason not to try,” I responded. “Here goes!” I turned on the walkie-talkie, found the other team’s channel, and began speaking. “Hello, who is leading you guys? I want to talk to the person in charge.”
“Who are you?” came the reply.
“I’m new this year. I’m in Level 3, and I have an idea, but I need to talk to the person in charge,” I said.
“Well, that would be Adam.”
“Okay, thanks. I will go and find him later. Bye!” I said, and put the radio down. “Okay, we know who is in charge. Now I just have to pretend to be them. I picked up the walkie-talkie, and switched to the other channel that we knew the other team used. “This makes sure I don’t talk to the person I just talked to,” I told Simon. “Here we go.” I picked up the radio. “Hello, this is Adam,” I said.
“Adam? What is it?” the person on the other end of the line said.
“I have just learned something important. The Middle School has just learned the location of our charcoal. We need to hide it someplace safer, and quick.”
“Okaaaaaay, where might that be?” came the reply.
“I can’t tell you, because you might be a spy. I have figured out the perfect place, but I need to put it there secretly, without anyone knowing where that is. Here is what I want you to do. I need you to take your charcoal and put it in the fire pit, then leave. Once you are gone, I will take the charcoal and hide it. Only I will know where it is, and the Middle School will never find it. But hurry. Every moment we waste, the Middle School might steal our charcoal!” I said.
“Okay. Will do. Bye!” and the person on the other end hung up.
“Great!” I said. “Now, all we have to do is go down to the fire pit and steal the charcoal.” So we went. We hurried down to the charcoal pit. On the way, we ‘screed’ their radio channels, so they wouldn’t be able to communicate, and realize that I was not, in fact, Adam. Finally, we reached the pit. There was no charcoal there, so we hid in some bushes to the side.
“Look! There they are!” whispered Simon.
“I see them!” I replied. “Shhh!” We waited until they left, then waited a bit more, then burst out of the bushes and ran to the fire pit. And sure enough, a large pile of charcoal lay in the ashes of the fire pit. We grabbed huge handfuls of the charcoal and ran laughing all the way back to the campsite.
Charcoal wars was far from over, but it was leaning towards the middle school’s victory. I still participated for the rest of family camp, but I had had my big triumph and that was enough for me. This family camp would go down in family camp history as the day the lower school was tricked into giving us their charcoal, and in my memory as the day I made my own contribution to family camp, instead of following along in my friends’ footsteps.
Dedicated to:
Our Fearless Leader, John
