“You know we probably won’t find any flags around the cabins, right?” I ask instead. “This is way too central and easy to ambush.”
Val smiles. “I know. But the little kids don’t, and it’s easier to keep an eye on them in a wide open space.” There’s some shrieking from the direction of Cottonwood Lodge, and I spot the youngest two girls chasing each other around and around it. They look so ridiculously tiny to me. It seems impossible that Mackenzie and I were ever that small.
“It’s really nice of you to help me,” Val says. “But if you want to go search for real, it’s totally fine. I can handle these guys, and it seems like a shame to waste a great strategic mind like yours.”
“Maybe in a little while,” I say. “I actually wanted to talk to you about something first, though.”
“Sure, what’s up?”
I take a deep breath and plan my words carefully. I don’t want to sound like I’m accusing her of anything when really I want to protect her and the Willows. “I saw you with Stuart earlier at the softball game,” I start.
She smiles. “We totally kicked their butts, huh?”
“Yeah, but . . . I saw you two talking, and you looked, like, really friendly with him. And he’s supposed to be The Enemy.”
“I mean, technically all the other teams are the enemy, but Color Wars is just for fun, right? It’s not like I’m going to have a serious fight with Stu over a softball game.”
Stu? This is exactly what I was afraid of. He’s already gotten in her head, and it’s up to me to save her before it’s too late. “Yeah, I know,” I say. “But I was actually talking about the prank war.”
Val shrugs. “Neither of us is really in prank war mode right now. We’ve got too much other stuff to deal with. We can pick that up again on Monday.”
I can’t believe she’s brushing off the prank war like it’s something we can take a break from. How does she not understand how critical this is? She’s the one who told us it was an important, time-honored tradition.
“I’m always in prank war mode,” I say. “And we completely humiliated Stuart yesterday with the Sea Witch thing. I’m sure he’s not taking a break because of Color Wars. He and the Wolverines are probably plotting new ways to take us down right this very second!”
“I think they’re probably focusing on capture the flag right this very second,” Val says. “Don’t worry about it, okay? I promise we’ll think of new ways to take them down, too, right after Color Wars is over. Oh, by the way, Lexi asked me if we could print out some of Roo’s Sea Witch photos in Doobie’s office and send them to Tomás. I think he’s going to love them, don’t you?”
Val clearly doesn’t understand what I’m getting at, so it looks like I’m going to have to be blunt, even if it hurts her. “It’s just . . . here’s the thing. I know it might seem like Stuart is your friend, but he’s not. You might think he’s acting friendly and nice because he likes you, but he doesn’t really. He’s trying to get you to drop your guard and tell him stuff he can use against us. I know because I did the exact same thing to Josh, and that’s how I got the information we needed for the Sea Witch prank. We all have to be careful who we talk to.”
I expect Val to look surprised or maybe a little wounded, but her expression softens, almost like she feels sorry for me. “I don’t really think this is the same thing, Iz.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. I’m trying to protect you.”
She puts an arm around my shoulders. “That’s really sweet, but you don’t have to worry about this, okay? It’s not your job to take care of me. It’s my job to take care of you.”
“We can take care of each other,” I say. “That’s what friends do.”
“And I’m so glad to have you on my side,” she says. “God knows I wouldn’t want to go up against you. You make a formidable opponent.”
Her words send a rush of happiness through me, and I snake my arm around her waist and give her a squeeze in return. But in the back of my mind, underneath where all the joy is bubbling and fizzing around, I can’t help feeling as if I haven’t really gotten through to her at all.
CHAPTER 20
The most important part of Color Wars is the steeplechase, which starts in the early afternoon on Sunday and lasts for hours. It’s a race with thirty different parts, and figuring out which team members are going to do which elements requires some serious strategic planning. Our team’s in second place after capture the flag last night and our water polo game against the Purple Team this morning, and if we win the steeplechase, we’ll pull ahead of the Yellow Team and take the all-camp title. It’s a lot of pressure, and I think Lexi and Amira are feeling the full weight of their cocaptain responsibilities, because they lean on me to help them make decisions more than usual. But I don’t mind, and by the time we’ve locked down the final schedule, we’re all superexcited. Lexi gives our team a rousing pep talk, and then Amira leads the Blue Team cheer, which leaves us all so pumped up I think we might explode.
I’m doing the very first leg of the race—kayaking across the lake—and the entire camp gathers at the dock to see us off. Just when I think this whole thing couldn’t get any more exciting, I see that Josh is kayaking for the Red Team; that ought to give me that extra burst of speed I need to come in first. He catches my eye as I’m securing the bright blue Active Racer sweatband around my head and raises one eyebrow at me. I respond by doing that thing Stuart did to Val on our first day—pointing two fingers at my eyes and then at him like I’m watching you—and he half smiles and looks away. I wonder if what I said to Val last night was really true. Is he always thinking about ways to take me down? Or is it possible for rivals to be friends?
But I can’t think about that now. I need to focus. I put on my sunglasses, partially because the water is bright but mostly so I’ll look cooler and more intimidating to the other racers.
The six of us climb into our kayaks, and Val gets ready to push me off. “Make us proud, Iz,” she says into my ear, and I promise I will. As Doobie climbs up on the dock and raises her official whistle to her lips, I grip my paddle, concentrate on the white flags on the opposite shore, and tell myself I can do this. My entire team is behind me on the dock, waving our banner and screaming my name, and it makes me smile. I love being a crucial part of something so important.
The whistle blast shrieks through the air, and we’re off.
I fumble a little right at the beginning, and a girl from the Green Team pulls to the front of the pack. Josh starts out in front of me too, but once we get into deeper water, I find my rhythm and push ahead of him. It’s easier to concentrate once I can’t see him, and I focus hard on closing the gap between Green Team girl and me. The sun is warm on my shoulders, the breeze plays with my hair, and even though I’m nervous, it feels great to push my muscles to the limit. About two-thirds of the way across I finally pass the Green Team girl, and I hear her make a frustrated sound. A hundred more yards . . . now fifty . . . now twenty . . . and then I’m coasting up onto the opposite bank, and my teammate, a boy named Baxter, is grabbing my hand and helping me out of the boat. I whip the Active Racer sweatband off and slip it around the bike helmet he’s wearing, and he hops onto a mountain bike and takes off. “Thanks!” he calls as he heads toward the trail that will take him back around the lake and up to the tennis courts.
“Go Blue!” I shout after him, and then I collapse with my hands on my knees and try to get my breath back. My arms are burning, and I know I’ll barely be able to lift them tomorrow, but it’s totally worth it. I’m only sad the rest of my team isn’t here to congratulate me.
And then I look up and notice that Mackenzie’s standing ten feet away with another mountain bike, waiting for Josh to hand her the Red Team’s Active Racer sweatband. It’s exactly the right event for her; she’s superfast on a bike.
I give her an awkward nod and say, “Hey,” because it seems weird not to acknowledge her at all.
“Hey,” she says ba
ck.
The Green Team girl’s kayak pulls up to the shore, and her teammate snatches her sweatband and tears off on her bike without exchanging a single word. Kayak girl comes up next to me and starts massaging her biceps. “Oh my god, my arms hurt so much,” she says.
“Mine too,” I tell her.
“You’re Izzy, right?” she says, and I nod. “I’m Christina. You dressed up like the Sea Witch the other night, right?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“That was so funny. My entire cabin was laughing about it all night.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’m glad you guys liked it. It was really fun.”
I sneak a look at Mackenzie, wondering if she’s annoyed that everyone in camp is freaking out over the prank I thought up without her. But she’s not paying attention to me, because Josh’s kayak has pulled up on shore, and she’s running over to get the Red Team’s sweatband.
I suddenly don’t want to deal with either of them, so I turn to Christina and say, “Come on, let’s go watch the rest of the race.” We take off running down the path before Josh is fully out of his boat, and I try not to watch Mackenzie as she speeds by me on her bike and rounds the corner.
By the time we get to the tennis courts, panting and sweaty, the Green and Blue teams are both in giant circles, holding hands and passing hula hoops over their bodies one at a time as quickly as they can. Val is in the middle, jumping up and down and cheering, and when she sees me, she smiles and gives me a huge thumbs-up. “Seven more people!” she shouts. “Four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . you did it, guys! Okay, everyone let Lexi through! Robbie, you’re on deck to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the mess hall, and then Rachel and Destiny are up for the three-legged race!”
Lexi puts on the sweatband, grabs a tennis racket, and sprints onto the nearest court. There’s a bucket of tennis balls ready and waiting, and she starts serving them to a waiting counselor one after the other. I had no idea she could even play tennis, but she’s got a seriously powerful arm.
Amira comes up and tackle-hugs me. “I heard you came in first with the kayaks! Nice!”
“Thanks,” I say as Lexi hits another ball across the court. “Man, she’s really good at this.”
Amira looks at me, surprised. “Well, yeah. She goes to tennis camp every summer before this.”
“Oh,” I say, and I realize for the first time that I know basically nothing about Lexi. I’ve always just thought of her as part of the Roo-and-Ava package deal.
“Are you ready for the fire building?” I ask. Amira’s doing the last, most important leg of the race, which one of the two captains always takes. If I were her, I think I’d be freaking out right now.
“Yeah, I think so,” she says. “Nervous, though. I wish I could’ve practiced last night, but my counselor wouldn’t give me any matches.”
Lexi whacks her final ball across the court and then thrusts the Active Racer sweatband into the hands of tiny Robbie, who’s waiting right behind her. “Good job,” I tell her when she jogs over, cheeks bright pink with exertion.
“Thanks. Come on, let’s go cheer Robbie on while he stuffs his face.” She beams at me, and when she takes off running, I follow her. I’ve never seen her look so confident; being captain totally agrees with her. I can see why the counselors chose her instead of Roo.
Robbie eats the two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches faster than I would’ve imagined was possible; I’m pretty sure he swallows them whole, like a snake. Rachel and Destiny trip and fall during the three-legged race, which costs us some time, but only the Green Team manages to pass us. Then we dash off to the ropes course, where the object is to pass five team members through shoulder-high sections of the giant rope spiderweb without touching any of the ropes. That takes a while, since everyone’s so hyper that it’s hard for them to go slow and steady. The Green and Red teams are here, too, and everyone’s screaming their team cheers at once, so the woods are total chaos. But Lexi and Val coach our team through the exercise, their voices calm and soothing. I try to keep Mackenzie out of my sight line; every time I spot her, I have memories of holding hands with her and screaming for our team during Sweetwater Olympics. It’s a lot easier to have fun when I can pretend she’s not here.
The race goes on for hours. A girl named Tricia roller skates to the infirmary, where she retrieves a sugar cube. She hands it over to Josh’s cabinmate Beans, who dashes to the horse barn, feeds it to one of the horses, and then rides him around the ring three times while belting out the Foxtail anthem. Megan from Poplar has to carry a raw egg on a spoon all the way from the horse barn to the dock, and when she drops it most of the way there, she has to go all the way back to the beginning and start again. She cries through the entire second round, especially when the Red Team passes us, but we’re able to make up the time during the Mermaid Swim; Anna-Marie from Oak has no trouble swimming out to the raft and back with her feet tied together. One of our youngest girls does twenty cartwheels across the main field, pukes in the bushes, and then does twenty more in the other direction. There’s crab walking and pogo-sticking and croquet-ball hitting, and there’s even a part where Kim from Magnolia has to peel ten ears of corn and ten bananas.
By the time we get to the final event, our team is in second place behind Green, and I’ve been cheering and singing for so long that I basically have no voice left. But I don’t let that stop me, and my entire team screams for all we’re worth as we run up the hill to where the captains will build their fires. There are six little pulley systems rigged up on a flat stretch of ground. At each station a rope runs through two low hooks above the tiny pit where the fire will go, then extends about six feet in the air, where it loops over a third hook. Rubber duckies painted each of the team colors hang from the ends of the ropes and dangle over buckets of water. The winner of the steeplechase will be the one who burns through their rope first and causes their duckie to splash down into the water.
Amira kneels by her box of supplies, a fierce look of concentration on her face. The Green Team’s captain, Kaitlyn, is already working on building a teepee out of small sticks, and Amira starts doing the same thing. “She can do this, right?” I shout to Lexi over the screaming. I only sort of know how to build a fire, so I can’t really tell if she’s doing it right.
Lexi nods. “She’s a Girl Scout,” she shouts back. “She does this all the time. I think. That’s what Girl Scouts do, right? Besides selling cookies?”
Amira adds a few crumpled balls of newspaper to her pyramid, and then she grabs a match from her box. It takes her about five tries to light it, and when it blows out immediately, she fumbles for another one with shaking hands. “Go, Amira!” I scream. “You’ve got this!”
A cheer goes up from the Green Team, and to my dismay, I see that Kaitlyn’s pyramid is burning bright. A bunch of the little kids on our team are already crying, too overwhelmed to keep it together, and Lexi turns around and leads them in another round of Blue Team cheers.
And then, there it is: a tiny flicker of flame. “It’s lit!” I scream, and our whole team goes crazy. At the exact same time, Kaitlyn’s fire goes out, and she shouts a word I’m positive she’s not allowed to say. I don’t know how Amira’s keeping it together with all this hysteria around her, but she looks totally calm and focused now. She crouches low and blows gently onto the tiny flames, and they start to grow. Very carefully, she starts adding larger sticks to her pyramid, and soon she’s got a steady blaze going. When the fire climbs up one of the bigger sticks and touches the rope for the first time, Lexi grabs my hand and squeezes so hard it hurts, and we jump up and down and scream together.
Kaitlyn manages to ignite her twigs again, and the Green Team starts shrieking. My ears will probably be ringing for days. I keep my eyes locked on Amira’s fire as it blackens the white cotton rope and starts to eat away at the fibers, as if my laser stare will make it burn faster. I pray for a well-timed gust of wind to slow Kaitlyn down; it would be so terrible to get thi
s close to victory and have it snatched away.
And then it happens. Amira’s rope snaps, and her bright blue rubber duckie splashes down into the water. We’ve won the steeplechase. We’ve won all of Color Wars.
Amira springs to her feet, pumps her fists in the air, and lets out a victory scream, and we all pile on top of her, shrieking and hugging and jumping around. I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited in my entire life, including the time my dad got us a kitten for Christmas.
I squeeze Lexi’s shoulders on one side and Val’s waist on the other, and as I feel them squeeze me back, I realize my cheeks are wet. I’ve become one of Josh’s crazy girls who cries at Color Wars, and I don’t even care.
CHAPTER 21
We gather back around the campfire for the Color Wars closing ceremony as the sun begins to set. The sky over the lake is a gorgeous wash of pink and orange with the occasional golden-edged cloud, and it’s so beautiful it’s hard to force my eyes back down to what’s happening at ground level. The cicadas whir in the trees, singing us a victory song. It’s like nature’s trying to congratulate us on our win.
To kick things off, we all stand, put our hands over our hearts, and sing the Foxtail anthem. The Red Team goes up to the front first to receive their bronze medals, which are strung on red ribbons, and Mackenzie spends the whole medal presentation giggling with one of the twins from Poplar. I have to work hard to push down the annoyance that bubbles up in my chest. When the Green Team goes up to receive their silver medals, I almost feel bad for them; Kaitlyn’s eyes are so puffy and red that I’m pretty sure she hasn’t stopped crying since Amira beat her at fire building.
But it’s hard to feel too bad, because then it’s our turn.
We make our way up to the front, and I plant myself in the middle of the group between Lexi and Amira. Doobie brings out the box of gold medals, strung on satiny blue ribbons, and Val helps her hang one around each of our necks. I’m right in the center, so I’m not sure whether I’ll get Val or Doobie, but Val gets to me first, and I feel like it might be on purpose.
Willows vs. Wolverines Page 16