[69—Troop 420]

Troop 421 was scattered out of all over this valley, split into squads, split into teams.

My team was camped in a saddle between two hills.  We'd left the Lunchbox behind in favor of six-man hexagonal dome tents, one per team.  They were space age, with ripstop nylon and fiberglass poles.  It was light, only twenty-four pounds, just six pounds split four ways.

And it was dry.

We had been learning; there was a smoky green-brush fire downhill both ways, to keep the bugs at bay, and a dry fire under a poncho, using the neck hole for a chimney.

We used ponchos and tarps as we could, mostly scavenged from the motorpool or other places they were not likely to be missed. 

None of us could pass up a good length of rope, or even stout cord on a bet anymore.  It was just too useful. 

But we had fashioned our home out of contraband tarpulins and natural woodland materials.  Admittedly, it moved every day, but it was ours.

Chibani had even thought to bring our Peace Flag, and a collapsible pole.  Don't ask me where he found them.

It was breakfast time, and my runners were just coming back from Troop HQ.  We were not soloing yet and had to stay within three miles of the main camp.  We'd get to bivouac by team as soon as one of us qualified in navigation, a class that didn't come until about week nine.

Chantré slipped out of the woods as silent as a panther, and shoved a round of cheese and four eggs under my nose.

They were kinda small, tetchy things, but I didn't look any closer.  Cheese and scrambled eggs would go well on leftover corn mush, sliced and fried.

Last week I'd been afraid to eat Guinea fowl eggs.

But this time, I was ready.

I couldn't think of a way to do milk out here, other than bring a goat.  But coffee and sugar were as near and dear to me as dry socks.  I kept all of that in a plastic bag inside a rubber-lined duffel.

I hung mine under a waterproof tarp, which I always carried with me when we left camp, as well as two ponchos, two cord hammocks, a hatchet, my machete, plus two canteens, fire and first aid kits, and whatever rations I could swipe from the mess hall.

I made sure my people were just as ready and we each carried a little bit more so that we could share some comforts of civilization.

I decided it was worth risking my Grip, and just a few tapes, because it was so damned useful.  My sister had made me a padded satchel for it, for travel, and it turned out to be very good at keeping the elements out. 

We found that fit nicely into a standard issue medical satchel, with a rubber lining sewn in.  Another satchel with four motorcycle batteries and a speaker amplifier we bought at the Tandy store in Cieba provided us with power and a PA system.

Now if only we could figure out how to make ice.

It is amazing how fast people can adapt to new things.  Not just environments, but people and institutions.  The Odd-squad was a team now, me, Chibani, Chantré, and Keyla, and we seemed to get along, at least in the field.  We'd been getting out in it nearly every day now. 

I'd seen a training schedule that called from hiking weeks 3-4 but we started at the end of week two.  I'd never walked so much in my life.

The last time I was back in, the doctor looked us all over; he said I'd grown a half inch and gained seven pounds since Offutt.

I let Chibini cook, because he was the best at it and didn't seem to mind. 

I gave him the eggs and cheese and he gave us back tiny cheese omelets with wild onions and spring potatoes, along with a slice of fried porridge with cheese and a mug of sweet hot coffee.

"You are a Godsend," I told him and he smiled like a puppy dog.

I turned on some Steppenwolf and we all sat down to eat.

"Do you think it's gonna rain," I asked the team.

"It's Puerto Rico," Keyla said, trilling her R's like a compasina, "It always rains here."

"Good point.  Is it gonna rain on us, in the next four hours?"

She wolfed down her food like a wolf, and pulled a cigaratte from her pack.

"How much marching we doing today, do you think?"

"I don't know Keyla," I was talking with my mouth full.  I didn't eat like her.  Apparently all people who have fast food experience can eat infinitely fast. 

"Maybe ten miles.  I think the Lieutenant wants to take us over that ridge."  I pointed to another saddle, even higher than we were.  It looked very distant.

She lit up her cigarette.

"Maybe I can help relieve the tedium, if you know what I mean."

She reached her fist out to Chantré and they bumped them, doing some kind of funky handshake.

There was that smell again, the one like alfalfa.

"Excellent," I told her, "we can use anything that relieves the monotony."

She passed the cigarette to Chibini, who took a bit drag and grinned.

"She'll work, innit?"

He passed it to me.

"No thanks, you know I don't smoke."

Chantré plucked it adeptly from Chibani's sausage fingers and drew on it for a long second.  The cherry glowed and turned to ash. 

She passed it to the right and let some of the smoke out.  She closed her eyes and coughed a bit.

I realized it wasn't an ordinary pickle.

***

We were all high, I admit it.  But I swear I never took a drag, of the first one.

Sitting under the canvas rooftop was like being in a smoke lodge.  You didn't have to inhale to get messed up.

I have no idea if it was any good or not, but every little thing seemed to be hilarious to me. 

I'd never been around pot heads before, at least not to the best of my knowledge.  I've known people to do some pretty stupid things at parties—maybe they were stoned.

Within ten minutes, the joint had burnt down to a roach and we we're all too wasted to move.  At least I was.

Chibini was crashed, leaning against a tree, watching the girls snuggle out of the corner of his eye.  He had a grin that wouldn't quit.

Chantré was kicked back too, Keyla's head in her lap.  Her shirt was unbuttoned and her undershirt pulled out.  Keyla was kissing her tummy.

I tried to look away, but my eye followed Keyla's hand, roaming up to Chantré's chest. 

She was wearing the wrong Troop pin.  Instead of a blue anodized-aluminum 421, she had a green 420.

"What's with the numbers," I asked them, pointing to her left breast.

"What's with the Twenty Questions," Keyla asked, looking up at me.  She was not amused.

"Your Troop badge, it says 420.  Did you find someone from that Troop and trade?"

"No," Chantré said distractedly.  Keyla was pinching a nipple and trying to undo her pants.  "There is no Troop 420."

"Why?  There's a 419."

"Because," she answered over deep breaths, "the Peace Corps is run by prudes who insist on ruining anything fun."

"I don't understand."

Keyla stopped and sat up. 

"Girlfriend, there is no end of things you don't understand.  Where are you from, Oz?"

"That's not fair," Chantré chided her, "she's been pretty open minded."

"Has she," Keyla withdrew her hand from Chantré's nipple.  "So you like Orphan Annie here cock-blocking us?"

"She's just curious."

"Then let her read a fuckin' dictionary and let us get laid."

"I'm sorry," I apologized to both of them.  "I just wanted to know why there is no 420."

"We just had 420," Keyla said and glared at me.  "Maybe we should just break camp and get on the trail."

"What do you mean, 'just had 420'?"

"She means," Chibini supplied from the sidelines, "that we just got high.  It's police code, 420 means marijuana bust.  Don't you know anything?"

"I guess not."  I was feeling a bit the outcast now, the uncool one who can't do anything right.

"I'm sorry, guys.  Chibani, sit up before you fall over and roll down the hill."

"I'm fine," he said and collapsed into a heap.

"Let's have some more of this," Keyla said, pulling out another joint.

She lit it and passed it to me.

If I didn't take it, I'd forever by the annoying little sister.  If I did...what was the worst that could happen?

I hit it and passed it on.

Five minutes later, we were back to where we started, the girls playing kissy-face in the broad daylight, Chibani watching them with a goofy grin on his face, and me, sitting against a sapling, stoned out of my gourd and contemplating the meaning of string.

It didn't take long for it to progress beyond just kissing.  Keyla had Chantré's shirt off and her hand down her unbuttoned pants and before I knew it, Chibani was coming alive.

"Can I watch." he asked the girls

"You are watching," Chantré pointed out.  Keyla took off her own shirt and sat on Chantré's lap.  They reminded me of Mary Jane and the Red-head, what was her name?

But he was all excited.  "Can I just sit over here and do what comes naturally?"

"Only if it involves touching yourself and not me.  You touch me with that thing, I'll show you something you never saw before."

"What is that," he asked, a smile on his face.

"The roots."

That changed his tune.

"I'm gonna just sit here and watch."

"Good idea," Keyla said and pressed her chest into Chantré's face.

She was still wearing her bra, the kind that fastens in the front.  Chantré rubbed her face in the proffered cleavage and—it must have been with her lips because her hands were gripping Keyla's buttocks—unhooked it.

The brassiere fell away and Chantré started sucking on Keyla's nipples.

Chibani nearly choked, stiffling a whimper.  I looked over to see he'd undone his pants and was holding his erect manhood. 

I'd never seen one before.  He was uncircumcised and fairly big—at least he looked so to me.  I watched him stroke it until Keyla moaned again.

She was leaning back on her arms, and Chantré was kissing her way down her tummy.  She moved back until she was resting on her elbows.

Chantré shinnied out from under her and took of Keyla's pants.

They were amazing to watch, Keyla so pale and Chantré so dark as to look like a bronze statue. 

Chantré stopped at Keyla's pubis and looked up at me.  She smiled and raised an eyebrow.

I'm pretty sure I blushed vermillion and shook my head.

She moved down a bit at pressed her lips into Keyla's pubic hair.

Keyla moaned, and Chibani sang out in ecstasy.  I didn't dare look.

"Hey Dani," Chantré asked from her new vantage point.  "Do you know why lesbians never use drag as disguise?"

"No," I said automatically, lost in the moment and unsure why it was relevant.

"Because, we all know what each other look like with mustaches."

It took me a second to see it.  From my viewpoint, Keyla's pubic hair gave Chantré the perfect handlebar mustache.