The boys sit around the bonfire in the whispering woods, watching the blaze with one empty chair—Raymond’s chair.

“I’m back and I have my story,” he said, holding his piece of fire wood. His forehead had a wound that bled.

Taking a place in his seat: “I walked out into the woods and bushes and threw my piece of firewood as far as I could into some brush. ‘Stories are dumb and so is this ritual,’ I said.

“I passed from the woods and into a meadow, and that’s when the firewood flew out of the sky and gave me this wound,” he said pointing to the spot on his forehead. “I turned around and searched for one of you and that’s when it hit me… again. In the same spot, from the ground. And this time the firewood spoke. ‘Why didn’t you tell a story and put me in the fire?’ And that’s when I said it again. ‘This is dumb. I don’t have a story to tell, I can’t read. I don’t have an imagination.’ That’s when I realized I spoke to a piece of firewood and said, ‘I must’ve hit my head harder than I thought.’

The firewood called out, ‘You hear that! He thinks he needs to read to tell a story!’ Another voice sounded from above, ‘You could make me one of characters in your story.’ And that’s when I figured I’d better get back here and tell a story, at least anything! The moon wanted to be a knight in shining armor, and I’m not sure I could make that work, but at least I could tell you all how I got this bump.”

One of the other boys around the fire said, “That’s the best you got Raymond? That was stupid.”

Raymond said, “I thought so, but you can’t make up the truth.” He threw his piece of firewood into the bonfire and it crackled into a giant puff of smoke from the orange tips of the fire. The smoke formed a face that winked at the boys as it flew into the star laden sky.

Raymond decided this was the last time he’d come on a camp out. Too much magic.