"Alright children! Into the boats!" Brenda instructed. The students and her had met that morning near the Thames, and had paddled down it. They had a picnic, learned some songs, climbed some trees out in the country, ran over The Sound of Music(the children had gotten really good at it), and played some ball. But now it was time to return to school, so they piled into their boats. "Remember people with paddles! Follow me and if you can’t paddle anymore, tell me! We’ll be taking a break at some point."

And so they began to paddle, left stroke, right stroke, left stroke, right stroke, and so on. That was until, of course, they saw two highschool students that were St. Marys graduates. Jenny Watson and Madeleine Joyal were walking along the river bend when they spotted a large flock of boats and canoes. They realized that it was indeed the St. Marys intermediates.

"Hi!" They shouted and ran towards the boats on the bank.

"Oh! Hello!" The kids shouted.

"Alright children! Here’s our pit stop! Pull over." Brenda was as excited to see fellow Amabileians as the other kids were to stop and get out of their boats. When they finally pulled over, many of them jumped out to talk to the two highschoolers. After making sure that all the boats were tied tight, Brenda joined them.

"Hello Jenny, Madeleine. How are you?" She asked.

"Alright Mrs. Zadorsky. How are you?" They replied.

"Fine, fine thanks to this bunch. Have you two done your practicing?"

Jenny and Madeleine looked at each other, turned to Brenda and nodded slowly. Brenda looked at them as though she knew they were lying. They lowered their eyes and shook their heads "no". Brenda always had a way to make others tell the truth. The group of children around them laughed.

To change the subject, Madeleine asked "What are you guys doing out? Did Mrs. Fraumeni approve of this? How on earth did you manage it?"

"Well, we felt like an outing, so we went on an outing." David said simply.

"Yeah!" Nick agreed. "And Mrs. Fraumeni isn’t here, so she doesn’t know about it."

"Umhmm. And to manage it, we rented boats and left!" Shannah finished.

"But how did you get the teachers to allow you to get out of doing your studies?" Jenny asked bewildered.

"That would be my doing." Brenda admitted. "You see, many of the teachers had workshops to do, or wanted some time off, so I said I would take the intermediates, and they could take care of the juniors."

"Even Miss. Gosso?"

"Well, she was kinda annoyed with the Grade 7's and 8's because they put more salt in her coke, so she was kinda hard to convince." By this time most of the children had gathered around to hear the story. "But," Brenda continued "after some threatening she gave up."

"What did you do?" whispered everyone in anticipation.

Brenda smiled sheepishly. "I threatened to destroy her math books, and steel her coke . . . I even ripped up her text book to show that I really meant it. . ." Everyone cheered and laughed. No teacher or student had ever done such a thing. Especially not for a bunch of children. "Ok children ok! Quiet down! Sometimes drastic measures are to be taken!" Brenda winked.

"Ha Ha!" Madeleine laughed. "Well, good for you Mrs Z!" Brenda smiled proudly.

"Yeah, good for you." Jenny agreed. "But now we have to go. . .we have to practice."

"Yes of course. We have to continue our way down the river as well. I’ll see you on Tuesday." And with that, they waved and parted. "Alright children! Into the boats! Time for the next part of out journey! Come on!" So they boarded their boats, unaware of the trouble that lay ahead. . .