Ares cabin and Apollo cabin being less than twenty metres apart had its perks. One of those being the windows where, as eleven year olds without phones, there was only one great method of communicating at night.

Tin and string walkie talkies.

One long string between the two windows, tin cans connected at each end, which we used to talk most nights past curfew—and even as the years went by and the materials were replaced, we kept the damn device.

It was stupid, we knew that, and we might as well have invested in walkie talkies… but the nostalgia still managed to get the best of us despite our siblings despising it.

Now we’re sixteen, talking as stealthily as ever through the stupid tins as we plan how to sneak past the harpies. “Why don’t we just go down to the lake?” Reverberates into your side of the makeshift phone.