They would never see it coming. No class would sneak off for their senior trip during the festive and lucrative Independence Day celebration. Yet that was exactly our plan, at least the first part of it. There were layers to our sneakiness. We would indeed skip out on Independence Day, but then we’d also pass the whole thing off as what was known as a fake senior sneak. Once everyone was convinced it wasn’t the real thing and that we were just spending the night somewhere nearby, we’d get on a plane and be gone for real. It was, in the language of Dune, “a feint within a feint within a feint.”
At our missionary kid school in Melanesia, the senior sneak was a proud annual tradition. Eleventh graders would work hard all year long hosting skate nights, cafe and restaurant nights, selling frozen burger patties, and doing other fundraisers in order to afford one secret and epic senior trip. Since we were living in Melanesia, the options were either to leave our school in the highlands to fly to one of the tropical coastal cities or even to take a trip to Australia. My class opted to stay in-country and go to a beautiful area none of us had ever been to, one famous not only for its peaceful and beautiful beaches but also for a historic WWII naval battle that took place nearby.
We planned to sneak during our school’s Independence Day festival because that was the one day no one would ever suspect. During the festival, each class set up booths and games to raise money for their class projects – picture fundraising activities like grease poles, dunking booths, and fake wedding booths where you could pay to have two very embarrassed classmates “married.” I remember one year cracking up as two mortified students were ceremoniously dressed up in ridiculous costumes and my older brother (the “reverend” that year) pronounced them man and wife, followed by a mournful tune on his trombone.
Anyway, the assumption would be that we’d need to work on Independence Day in order to raise more funds for our class trip. But we must have done a good job in our junior year’s work because these funds weren’t necessary for us to pull off a combined fake sneak and real sneak in one.
Our parade float was the first thing that gave any clue of our intentions that morning. Our float vehicle was a pickup truck. But instead of members of our class riding it in float-themed costumes, the truck bed had a bunch of life-sized cardboard cutouts waving out at the crowd. Each cardboard stand-in was wearing one of our class shirts and had the face of someone from our class glued onto it, grinning mischievously. On the sides and the back of the truck were large signs that read simply, “We Snuck!”
Layer one. The crowd saw the float going around and chuckled. “Clever! But surely they wouldn’t sneak, today of all days.” Slowly, the crowd realized that there were no twelfth graders anywhere. “Did they actually sneak?” By that time we, along with our class advisors, had been smuggled out of the base in big vans, heads down and giggling, trying to make sure that no one who just happened to be on the wrong side of the base that morning would spot our getaway.
Layer two. Once we escaped unnoticed, our destination was the one nice hotel in the nearby provincial capital town, named after the national bird. We would spend the day at “The Bird,” swimming at the pool and enjoying burgers and milkshakes. Meanwhile, our co-conspirators back at the base would spread the word that the seniors had been spotted at the hotel, clearly enjoying an overnight fake sneak. Everyone would laugh and assume that we would be back on base the next morning. But we had packed our bags for an entire week.
Layer three. The next morning, rather than drive back to the base, we drove to the airport and boarded a small Dash 8 plane to make our way to the nation’s capital city. We’d spend a day and a night there. While there, we visited a gold refinery, toured the one TV station in the whole country, and had dinner at a posh seaside restaurant. I remember ordering a massive mud crab for dinner, just for kicks. Its bright red color matched my gaudy red button-up and red lens sunglasses. Alas, the things we do when we are seventeen.
Layer four. The next morning we boarded another small plane to travel to our final destination. I was class president and I was thoroughly pleased at how well we had tricked everyone. Surely, how we snuck would long be spoken of in our school lore. The plans had gone off without a hitch and I for one didn’t think that there were any surprises left.
We were all settled into our seats but the plane seemed to be waiting for one last passenger. Someone stepped onto the plane. It was another American high school kid. That’s strange, I thought to myself. He looked oddly familiar. Suddenly I jumped up, realizing who it was. He came down the aisle, beaming, and we gave one another a huge bear hug – and then we cried a little.
It was one of my best friends. His family had left unexpectedly during our junior year, his dad suddenly caught in ministry-ending scandal. When they had left we’d all wept together at the airport, not thinking we’d see each other for years to come. It was terrible. Another close friend was unexpectedly gone, our friendship cut off by some of the hardest of circumstances.
Somehow, our class advisors had managed to be even sneakier than we were. They had arranged for him to come all the way from the States to join us for our senior trip. Now he would get to be with us during the trip we’d worked so hard for together.
It was one of the best surprises of my life.
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Photos are from Unsplash.com
Entrusted to the Dirt 