Lunch was fairly basic, just some bread rolls with a selection of cheeses and processed meat-substitutes. We ate outside on the verandah, and although some kids tried to sit in the open air, Mr Meredith shooed them into the shade. Aiden stayed inside to eat his green, snot-looking goo. He understands that it often grosses people out if they see him eating it. He’s considerate that way. When we’d finished, Mr Meredith called us to order.

‘Welcome to camp,’ he said. ‘You are going to have a wonderful time over the next five days, I guarantee it. Back in the day, many schools would have camps but now there’s only one school in the whole of Sydney that provides this service to its Year Eights. If you can’t work out which school this is, then I can’t help you and maybe you should give up any hope of getting a decent education.’

We laughed in a sort of dutiful way and Ms Anderson took over.

‘A few housekeeping rules,’ she said. ‘You know the toilets are in your dormitories and I shouldn’t have to tell you that boys are restricted to their area and girls are restricted to theirs. Anyone found breaking this rule will be sent home immediately. Each day we will be engaged in a separate activity. This afternoon we will be going for a short hike in the bush – about a kilometre and a half, that’s all – to a small lake where you can swim.’ There was a murmur of excitement and she held up her hand. ‘Bring your bathers when we assemble in about an hour. Mr Meredith and I will provide sunblock, hats and T-shirts for anyone who forgot to pack those items. You cannot swim until we give you permission that it is safe to do so. Anyone breaking this rule will be sent home immediately.’

There was quite a bit more. How we didn’t have any signals for tablets out here and that as a result we wouldn’t be travelling far from the camp, in case the weather turned nasty and we had to make it back to safety in a hurry. Most importantly, we had to follow all instructions by all adults during our stay at camp.

‘If anyone fails to do this …’ said Mr Meredith. ‘Well, you can guess the rest.’ He smiled and we smiled, though not with the same strength. I think we were all keen to get out of the building and into the fresh air. But we had to wait an hour. For our food to digest, said Mr Meredith. You can’t go swimming on a full stomach, said Ms Anderson. You can get cramps. I didn’t believe any of that. I’d swum plenty of times after lunch and it had never affected me. But there was nothing I could do. Even after the hour passed it took time to get going because we all had to be inspected by the teachers to make sure we had on sufficient sunblock and that our hats were big enough to keep the sun from our face, neck and shoulders. One girl tried wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt but she was made to change. Finally, we all trooped out into the early afternoon sunshine.