On this last weekend of July, while holidays are beginning for most of us, they may have ended earlier than expected for these five teenagers. Indeed, when they woke up last morning at their tennis summer camp, they found themselves being told off by policemen for stealing a neighboring farmer’s boat. The farm security footage had caught pictures of them pulling the boat out of the lake and along the path to disappear with it into the wood. They’re right now out of trouble, though covered of mud, and going to explain us what happened.

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« It was late in the evening. We had a long day of tennis tournament and we were all exhausted. Not enough to stop us from wandering around the meadows next to the camp and enjoy the sundown though. We were tired of watching the cows graze and we decided to go and explore the woods. There was a first lake at the edge, with nothing but water inside it. Then, further into the wood, we found a second lake, dry this time. It was just a large hollow of mud, and by the shore, there was a little boat. We all had the same idea at once : taking the boat to the first lake to have a little cruise on it. That seemed very funny. Thus, we tried to pull the boat out of the lake and up onto the shore, but it was a little heavy as there were some big metal objects inside it. They were rusty and we thought them useless, so we had fun throwing them as far as possible in the dry lake, laughing to the big splashes when they fell into the mud. Then, we pulled the boat up onto the shore and through the woods. We had to go through all kinds of obstacles, from brambles to trunks, and even an electrical fence, when we got back to the meadows where the first lake was. It had been really exhausting but we were proud of us. We succeeded in getting the boat onto the lake, but when we tried to climb in, it swung dangerously and we didn’t dare to leave the shore. Anyway it was very late in the evening and we decided to go back to the camp and maybe try again on the next day. But this morning, things haven’t gone the way we thought. The boat’s owner, a neighboring farmer, called the police when he saw the security footage, and policemen quickly found us. They didn’t bother us very much, just told us off and let the farmer making us getting everything back to normal, but we were still very frightened. So we had to pull the boat all the way to the lake and even go into the mud to bring back the metal objects we found inside. It didn’t seem at first sight, but the lake is a real swamp. We were up to our hips in mud, and we even thought we wouldn’t be able to reach the middle of the lake without drowning into this kind of quicksand. But now we are all right, the farmer had let us go without anything even if he is still a little bit angry, and our tennis coach even told us he wouldn’t tell our parents if we don’t do such stupid things again.