Lyza stepped out into the heat, the car engine puttering as her brother killed it. She adjusted the brim of her hat, making sure it was on straight. Beneath her feet were the whitest stones she had ever seen, and they reflected the afternoon sunlight with such a glare it started to make her eyes hurt.
There were many trees around them, but they were sparse enough that one could see through them just a little, enough to make out some buildings and far away pavilions. Their branches were still sprouting leaves, Spring still stirring from its slumber in mid March.
There were other cars parked in the white-as-sun rock parking lot. They were situated to the side of a large building. Beside the building was an advertisement board:
Welcome to Camp Connalake! Admissions Center
Those were the only words; the rest of the board had pictures of camp activities and people having an oh-so-fun time. The rabbit siblings passed the sign and headed into the admissions center.
The inside was rather open, with several glassless windows cut out into the wall. It was a small cabin-like area, cement-slab floor and flat-wood slatted walls. It was decorated to suite the theme of Connalake. On one wall were a few pelts, inside of glassed frames: a fox, a coyote, a wolf, a raccoon and a bear. On the back wall, away from the counter, were different patches and displays of barbed-wire and fish-inkings.
In the ceiling, a rickety wooden fan spun with a procession, emitting a low buzz. It seemed to serve little purpose other than to gently stir the air. Bugs were freely swooping in and flying hither thither, buzzing and pestering anyone they could.
"G'day, hakana help ya?" Greeted a female koala as soon as they entered the door. She smacked a newspaper against the side of the desk she was situated at.
Lyza flinched at the noise.
"Hi," Kval greeted, stepping up to the counter and leaning on it with his arm, "we'd like to get a campsite for a few days?"
"Roi't, we got good pickin' since i'st'll earl'ay," she said, her accent a little on the thicker side. She tapped at a map that was on the counter top. The little rabbit kit stood on her tiptoes, her nose pressing against the edge of the counter. "Hoppup 'eer, garr'l, dan't be shoi," the koala said, and patted the countertop.
With a glance at her brother, and his response a nod, she huffed as she clambered up the counter, her brother helping. Sitting on the counter, she watched as the koala, her nametag reading Becky, pointed out several spots.
"Kay, s'ya got the soits ahl noice'n'neatch in li'l clustahs see?" She pointed to several of them. Each campsite was a circle of several tent locations and a pavilion. "Some ahr big, some ahr smoll," she continued. "You in a boy scaht troop?"
"It's just us two," Kval said, motioning to his sister.
"Ah, no prob. Lessee here," she traced her finger. "Kay, got it. We have smoll fam'l camps. They each next tah biguns, so iss sorta proivate, but ya may getta troop campin' out nearboi. S'no problem though, they're alwois good folk, an' ya can alwois ask to move if it's t'inconvenoint."
Lyza looked at the map again, having a bit of a hard time understanding Becky.
"Can you recommend a campsite for us?"
Becky smiled. "Shoa, shoa, this one right 'eh," she pointed to one that was in the middle of the map. "This's the best, boi fah. S'got threy medical centahs, closes' one is about ah ten minute wolk awoi. Not too fah from the mess, an' the troop camp'n nearboi, if you don't moind, is one that mah boi's in, an' they're nice folk, won' bother ya atahl. Moit even invite ya fah ma'sh-mellahs."
"That sounds just fine to me," Kval said. "What do you think Lyz?"
"...I guess so?" She said with a shrug.
"Trust me garr'l, issa noice place. Naow, shaowahs ahr onna schedyahl, so down't go when it ain't ya turhn or ya moit hafta deal with ah bunch-ah durt-smellin' teenaygahs. You'll need't repoht t'the medical centah roit awoi, we have tah get ah littal physical, nothin' big." Becky reached for some forms. "You'll tayk these, but before ya go, i'ss'l be thir'eh-foive dollahs for the admiss'n feh."
"All right," Kval said, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. "Just forty bucks? How many nights does that cover?"
"S'long as ya want. 'Till we close thahtes." She said with a wink.
"Well, that's fine then," Kval said, dropping two Jacksons. "We can take our car there right?"
"Shoa, shoa. Jus' don't droive ova' twenty. Less it's up a hill," she smiled, "Have ah good toim," she waved as they exited the building.
The drive took about ten minutes, the car slowly rolling and crunching over rocks, shrubs, bumps and bobbles. The trees became less and less until Lyza could see the open field. The uneven land was covered with grass, far as the eye could see. Several stones rose up, not terribly tall but definitely noticeable even off into the distance. The trees in the field were sort of far apart, but they had large branches that were already covered in leaves and birds.
She caught a glimpse of the lake, for which the camp was named. Rather, it was only a small cove, for the lake proper was on the other side of the camp ground, across the rising hills that led to the hilltop campsites.
There were several buildings, such that the entire field looked like it had several neighborhoods about it, the entire thing a loosely spread village. Some buildings were open-roofed, cement-slab-floored pavilions, while others had walls colored dingy brown or gray. There were even some large Tipis that were white as candle-flames in the sunlight, lined up to look like shark teeth planted into the earth.
The open valley returned to the secluded wood as they turned toward their camp area. The medical center was a red-painted building with a white roof, and atop the roof was what looked like a fish-hook with a light on it.
"What's that for?" Lyza asked as the car was turned off.
"It's probably so you can find the building at night," her brother replied.
Unlike the admissions center, the medical center was fully air-conditioned. It also looked and smelled new and clean, with light-blue walls and dark red carpeting. It looked like they had just walked into a real doctors office.
"Hello," greeted a young mink at the counter, "welcome to Medical Center 'C', have you spoken with the admissions center?"
"Sure did," Kval said, stepping up to the counter, setting the papers he had received for the mink to see.
"Good, just have a seat and fill out these forms. Have you had a physical in the last year?"
"I didn't think to bring one," the rabbit replied.
"That's okay, we can take care of it. May I take a look at your driver's license, please?" With a bit of annoyance the rabbit took it out and she glanced at the date of birth. "Thank you Mr...ah..."
"Just call me Kev," he said, retrieving his license.
"Right. As I said we'll have to take a physical, but don't worry we have girl-doctors," she said, more to the little girl standing just visible by her guardian's side. "If she wants you to, you can sit in. We have blindfolds and all that jazz."
"Thanks," Kev replied, taking the forms and leading his sister to the seats with a sigh of annoyance. "Hate these things," he grumbled, staring at the blue piece of paper.
"What is it?" Lyza asked all a'curious.
"It's a medical form. They practically make you fill these out to just get a drink of water," he whispered, and started writing. "This'll take me a bit. Why don't you look at the pamphlets over there?" He pointed to the stand next to the mink's counter. On it were several tri-fold pamphlets for people to read while they waited.
Lyza hopped off the seat and grabbed a few. She rifled through them, looking at the pictures and reading the big yellow-on-blue-green words. There was actually a lot of stuff to do, and some things did jump out at her. She definitely saw more here than she did on the flier they got in the mail.
She glanced up at her brother, who was feverishly writing on those colored pieces of paper, the top of the clipboard bobbing up and down. Stuffing the pamphlets back in, she hopped back up on her seat and peeked at the paper. "What is all that?" She asked.
"They want lots of information," he explained; "medicines you're taking, if you have any disabilities, medical conditions, previous injuries, stuff like that."
"Oh," she said, kicking her feet. "You mean like how we both hurt our hands?"
The pen stopped for a second. "Um...yeah, I guess," he replied, a little distantly.
After quite a while he was finally done. Lyza was incredibly bored, but she kept her complaints. When she said she wanted to go, she wasn't expecting the first day to be all cooped up in strange buildings, but her brother seemed glad and she didn't want to ruin his excitement.
At last, their names were called.
Lyza felt what others must feel like when they first enter her home. They were taken through a series of hallways and turns and when they finally reached their destination she wasn't sure if they were even facing the same direction as the horizon.
The doctor's room had no windows. The walls were a barely-visible peach and there were various pictures of anatomy just like in every other doctor's office. Lyza looked at the eyeball. Why did doctors always put all that gross stuff up on the walls for people to see? Not everyone liked looking at all that red, like her for instance.
Emmy on the other hand would probably actually go up and start reading the poster. She was always into that stuff, looking at the pictures of the muscles and skeletons of animals in the National Geographic magazines in the school's library.
"Why do they call that the waiting room out there when you spend more time waiting in here?" Kval asked.
"I dunno," Lyza replied.
"So, did you see anything you'd like to do?"
She thought for a second. "Well, some of the arts and crafts stuff looks fun. They also have metalworking but that looks kinda dangerous..."
"That's your call. I'm not gonna be like mom and dad and say no."
"Hm...I saw some water stuff but...it looks tough. You have to use your arms and row, and plus I don't really wanna go in all that lake water it looks dirty and gross."
"You don't have to," her brother said. "But just cuz something looks hard doesn't mean you shouldn't consider it," he advised. "Actually, if you want to impress your friends, getting good at something that looks hard would really work for you, especially if it's not actually that hard."
She smiled. "What about you? What do you wanna do?"
He shrugged. "I wanna do what you wanna do. This is your campout."
"But..."
The door knocked, and then the doctor invited herself in. "Hello, I'm Dr. Watkins," she introduced herself rather hurriedly. The older rabbit stood up to shake her hand. "I'm Kev, and this is my sister, Lyza."
"Kev, Liza—Lisa—ugh, I'm so bad at names," the cheetah bit her lip.
"It's lits-ee-ya," the girl said, "Like 'let's see ya'."
"I bet. I mean—" She fumbled. "Ah, let's see...ya...er, okay!" She looked at the folder in her hand, "So, who's going first?"
"What are we doing?" Lyza asked.
"Oh," the doctor smiled. "We have to do a physical—it's a fancy way of saying we just want to check and make sure you're healthy. We do a few tests and then you're done. It won't hurt or anything, I promise."
"I'll go first," Kev volunteered.
"All right, good," the doctor said, with a bit of relief, "So...you don't have any conditions, no asthma, diabetes...you're allergic to sulfa drugs?"
He nodded.
"Okay. Just to make sure; any history of alcohol, drug abuse, anything like that?"
"Nope."
Lyza bit her lip. The question was thrown out almost too fast for her to catch, and the lie from her brother was thrown out even faster.
"Okay, well then, lift up your shirt a bit and we'll start with the breathing..."
Accents are very tricky to convey in writing. I prefer the phonetic approach, which means trying to change the writing itself to help enforce an accent, rather than just say by the narrative that a character has an accent. Obviously, this also applies to non-accent words and characters, like Ritzer, to also emphasize a laziness or impediment in talking.
It's not something I've ever seen in a professional work, and probably for good reason, but I personally prefer it. Especially with how the internet is nowadays, where words are phonetically modified to convey cuteness or stupidity.
tl;dr Language fun
Accents are very tricky to convey in writing. I prefer the phonetic approach, which means trying to
It is! It's nice to have something like that to enhance the character and make them easily recognizable. Even with characters like Lyza, it adds to her personality.
I've seen it once as I recall in the Redwall book series by the late Brian Jacques. Makes it more fun to read out loud too
Edit: and whoops, meant that to be a reply not a new post lol
It is! It's nice to have something like that to enhance the character and make them easily recogniz
