Ranquility Falls
Tranquility Falls glittered like fine sugar in the distance as Brayden and his father pulled up to the trailhead. Brayden opened the car door and recoiled at the sharp scent of pine. His juice pouch gurgled and went flat as he slurped the last of its contents.

Brayden could not muster his usual enthusiasm for their annual father-son camping trip. The day before, Brayden’s parents had broken the news to him that he would be spending the remainder of his vacation studying algebra in summer school. Six weeks of finding the value of x. No skateboarding with his friends or swimming at the community pool. Brayden chewed on his straw, the empty juice pouch hovering in front of his face. He hoisted his backpack and slung its straps over his shoulders.

“Leave your trash in the car or we’ll just have to carry it back—pack it in, pack it out,” yelled his father, already twenty yards up the trail. The car chirped as his father locked it too quickly for Brayden to do as he was asked. “Let’s go, Slowpoke! First night festivities await!” Brayden groaned, stuffed the juice pouch into his back pocket, and followed his father up the trail.

Six miles from the trailhead, they began to set up camp in the forest along the Tranquility River. It had been a long, tiresome hike, and Brayden now struggled to set up his new tent until his patience was spent. When his father tried to help, Brayden snapped. “I don’t need your help! Just because I don’t get algebra—it doesn’t mean I’m stupid!” Brayden hurled his tent poles onto the heap of twisted nylon and stormed off toward the river.

Upriver, Brayden sat on his favorite boulder and watched the sun sink beneath the trees. The juice pouch in his back pocket crinkled. He grabbed the pouch and threw it at the water as hard as he could. He sighed and turned to head back to the camp.

By the time Brayden returned to the camp, it was pitch black, save for the light of the campfire that had guided him back. Brayden was silent as he ate his dinner and endured his father’s cheesiest tradition, the Proprietary and Confidential first night campfire story.

“Native Americans say that Bear was king of this land once,” his father began in a hushed voice, “as his father had been king before him. He had a great temper; he slept in the open and was proud, vain, and greedy. He left a trail of waste and wreckage everywhere he went as a warning to all who crossed his path. One day Coyote dared to approach him and said, ‘Bear, I will have pups soon, and it breaks my heart to think they will have to live as I do, in the wake of your thoughtlessness!’ Bear roared with rage and tossed Coyote aside by her ears, but as he did this, he saw behind her a river flowing not with water, but with his own thoughtless waste. Ashamed, Bear dug a den and stayed in it for five months, eating mostly berries, plants, and fish when he emerged. Forever onward to this day, the bears eat this way, and all stay in their dens for five months a year in observance of their former king’s great realization: the land is not ours to own, but rather just to borrow.”

The next morning, Brayden went to the river to splash cold water on his face. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a silver flash in the water: his empty juice pouch was stuck in some low-hanging branches. His father’s story echoed in his mind and made him think about his own thoughtlessness. He grabbed the juice pouch and slowly walked back to the camp.

When he arrived at the camp, he saw his father picking up the trash from breakfast. “I’m sorry, Dad. I made a mistake,” Brayden sighed. “I’ve just been ... mad” His father gave him a look of understanding and patted him affectionately on the back.

That evening before dinner, as Brayden walked to his boulder, a blur of rust-colored movement caught his eye. He turned and saw a coyote directly opposite him on the other side of the river. The beautiful animal stared at Brayden for a brief moment. Then she inclined her head toward him and seemed to nod, before turning away and disappearing into the purple twilight.

Question 1
What is the MAIN theme of “Tranquility Falls”? Use details from the story to explain its development over the course of the text.