Second Time's the Charm #7

by Melissa J Morgan

  “Natalie!”

  Natalie looked up to see Simon sprinting toward her. Her heart leaped at the same time as it plummeted into her stomach. Was that even possible, biologically speaking?

  “I’ve been looking all over for you!” he called, jogging over and breaking into stride with the girls. “You, like, just snuck out of dinner.”

  Perfect timing, Simon, Natalie thought. The last thing she wanted to do was to ask him—however politely—to go away. But, really, he couldn’t have come by at a more inopportune moment. You need to talk to Alyssa, Natalie reminded herself firmly. Don’t let yourself be distracted by the cuteness of his . . . everything. “Yeah, Alyssa and I were ducking out for some . . . QT,” she managed tactfully. “Quality time. Girl time,” she emphasized.

  “Oh, hey, I get it,” Simon said, so apologetic that Natalie felt instantly guilty. “No worries. I’ll catch up with you at evening activity.” He gestured to where two freckle-faced boys were hanging back, looking bored. “I think Ben and Gabe are ready to give up on me, anyway. They think I’m way too hooked on you.” He blushed.

  “I’m okay with that,” Natalie said, thrilled beyond measure that he was being so easygoing about this.

  “You know what?” Alyssa cut in.

  Natalie’s thrill began to shrink down from the size of a hot-air balloon to a teeny-tiny, shriveled raisin. “What?” she asked dully, having a pretty good idea of what.

  “You guys talk. I don’t mind. I’ll go . . . find Tori, I guess,” Alyssa said. “I promised I would do her left hand with ‘passion pink’ before evening activity, since she’s a lefty.”

  “Are you sure?” Simon asked, looking very pleased with this turn of events. “I mean, who cares what Ben and Gabe think?”

  “Right. I’m totally sure. It’s not a big deal,” she said. She looked at Natalie. “I promise.” She turned and ran off without another look back.

  Maybe it’s not a big deal to Alyssa, Nat thought wildly. Maybe.

  But she had a feeling that, at this point, she was fooling herself more than anything else.

  chapter HIGHT

  Dear Hannah,

  Have I mentioned how much I love Saturdays at camp? Sleeping in, brunch, swim, and then we’re free to do whatever we want as a bunk until dinner time. Bliss. It’s like the one time during the whole week that no one’s pressuring you to be a big-time sports star or make lanyard key chains or identify poison oak or whatever. (Which, by the way, I am getting very good at. The lanyard stitching, I mean. I’m a little unclear as to what, exactly, a lanyard is, or whose great idea it was to tie it in a million different funky knots, but whatever. You will be pleasantly surprised at the array of lanyard-related gifts I have created for you in my time in the arts and crafts shack.)

  Meanwhile , you will also be glad to hear that things are very good with Simon. We’ve been taking the newspaper elective together for free choice and we have been interviewing each other as part of our first assignment. So I have a great excuse for being a nosy McNoserson and asking him all sorts of personal questions. Good times. Don’t worry—I haven’t gotten too inappropriate. Yet.

  My bunk is great. All the return campers are finally getting used to being split up, and I have to say, it’s nice to branch out and meet new people. Remember last summer, when my mother told me she wanted me to broaden my horizons? Who knew she’d turn out to be right? Crazy!

  Well, our counselor, Andie, is very cool, though she’s a huge jock, which is a tad annoying at times. I mean, her energy level is sort of scary. But I guess that’s a good thing in a camp counselor. And Mia, our CIT, is great as long as you’re not intimidated by the tall, thin, gorgeous type (which I am, but what can you do?).

  I love the girls in my bunk—you already know all about the ones from last summer, and Lauren, Anna, and Perry are great. Anna is hysterically funny and scary-good at jacks, and Lauren can French- braid hair perfectly. I know, I know—you’re impressed. And Tori—well, we have a lot in common. That’s a good thing. I think.

  Anyway, speaking of the girls, I think they’ve got something planned for the afternoon, like a little party. Rumor has it that Jenna’s dad sent up a crazy care package. The divorce thing may have been hard on Jenna emotionally, but seriously? She’s making out like a bandit! You should see the stash of junk food she’s got hidden under her bed. We’re just lucky that she shares with her bunkmates so nicely . . . Probably one of the benefits of coming from a huge family.

  I’m gonna run just in case I’m right about the whole party thing. Wouldn’t want to be late! Hope you’re having a fab summer. Don’t miss me too much!

  XOXO,

  Nat

  Natalie pushed aside the letter she had written to Hannah and sighed heavily. She knew she had managed to sound upbeat and cheerful in her note. Of course, she had left out the fact that she and Alyssa were in the middle of some awkward not-fight, and that Tori and Simon were somehow involved. She didn’t want to say anything to Hannah just yet. Acknowledging the situation out loud would only make it more . . . real . . . and for the most part, Alyssa and Natalie were tiptoeing around each other, pretending everything was a-okay. Which it so wasn’t. For her part, Nat was sort of miserable about the whole thing—but she had no idea what to do about it.

  “Okay, so fifty-two percent of readers think that Tara Reid looked better in this dress, while forty-eight percent think that Paris Hilton rocked it harder. I’d say that’s a really close call,” Tori said, smiling and holding up a trashy magazine for reference. “Let’s have a little 4A poll.”

  “Paris Hilton is gross,” Chelsea said, barely looking up from the book she was reading on her bed.

  “I agree,” Karen said quietly. She did still have a habit of occasionally agreeing with Chelsea; old habits died hard, after all.

  “I can’t vote with the pictures so far away,” Jessie complained, jumping off of her bed and scampering across the floor of the bunk to where Tori, Alyssa, and Jenna sat, Indian-style, on the floor. Jenna was munching away contentedly on cherry licorice twists.

  “Paris Hilton is icky,” Tori agreed. “I saw her at the Oscars last year and let’s just say that she gets a lot of help in her paparazzi shots.” She leaned in as if revealing a secret. “Airbrush,” she stage-whispered.

  Tori’s been to the Oscars? Natalie thought. No way. No fair. She bit at a fingernail, gnawing furiously. Nat normally didn’t think of herself as the jealous type, but for some reason, when it came to Tori, all bets were off.

  “You were at the Oscars?” Perry shrieked, echoing Natalie’s thoughts.

  “Yeah, my dad takes me every year,” Tori said. “Well, almost every year. He can usually get tickets from one client or another.”

  “So what?” Chelsea snapped. “I’m sure Princess Natalie has gone to the Oscars dozens of times.”

  “Oooh, have you, Nat?” Tori asked eagerly. “Don’t you love all the fancy stuff they put in the bathroom? I get seriously overexcited about, you know, lip balm and stuff like that.”

  “I, ah, haven’t ever been to the Oscars,” Natalie had to admit reluctantly. Most frustrating, more frustrating even than the jealousy, was how genuine Tori sounded—she honestly wanted to chat about the thrill of attending the Oscars. Not rub it in Natalie’s face or anything. Ugh. “Just the Golden Globes, once, when I was, like, five. I barely remember it. I’m not sure if they had any lip balm in the bathrooms. Those were my pre-balm days.” She was trying to joke, but she didn’t feel very joke-y on the inside.

  “Oh, well . . .” Tori trailed off, obviously not really sure what to say. Clearly she felt desperately sorry for non-Hollywood Natalie, whose movie-star father’s connections were somewhat . . . limited. “Well, I mean, you’re not missing anything. Just a lot of stars with double-sided tape on their boobs.”

  “Right,” Natalie said. Stars with taped-up boobs sounded pretty fun, actually.

  “Nat!” Tori called, startling her and pulling her out of her little in
ternal pity party. “If you keep biting your nails you’re going to wreck them.”

  “What? Oh,” Nat replied, looking down at where she was indeed chewing furiously on the nail of her index finger. Gross. Natalie didn’t bite her nails. What was going on?

  How gracious of Tori to have my back, Natalie thought, a tad bitterly. She held out her hands, examined the damage, then silently turned back to her letter.

  Saturday didn’t turn out the way Natalie had planned, at all. Simon had come by after the whole Oscar debacle, and he and Natalie hung out on the porch for a while. It was nice—Nat always loved to spend time with him—but she had really wanted to hang with Alyssa at least for a little bit, to try to get things back to normal between them. She thought maybe they could catch up during free swim, but Alyssa had gone swimming with Tori, which was happening more and more lately. “It’s really hot out,” she explained.

  During dinner, Lauren cornered Natalie for advice about a guy she was crushing on, and Nat could hardly turn her back on a friend in need. Evening activity was rained out. Indoor dodgeball. Highly conducive to a big-time heart-to-heart. Not.

  Nat lay in her bed, tossing and turning, mentally running through the events of the day again and again. The flimsy mattress wasn’t exactly the height of luxury, but tonight it was her thoughts keeping her awake more than any issue of comfort. Half the reason that she had come to camp was so that she could hang with Alyssa. She had to get things back on track between them. And Tori was . . . well, Tori was getting in the way.

  Natalie felt horribly guilty to be as irked by Tori as she was. The girl was friendly, open, and outgoing, and other than her tiny faux pas on day one, when she’d ogled Simon, she certainly wasn’t trying to offer Natalie any competition (and really, who could blame her for checking him out? He was way too cute!). But as similar as she and Tori were, it was kind of hard not to compare.

  Natalie fumed silently, recalling how she had offered up her best YMs for lights-out, assuming that, as usual, her bunkmates would want to hear the trauma-rama column, and then their horoscopes. It was practically tradition, at this point—at least among the former 3C-ers! But just as everyone was settling in and warming to the evening ritual, Tori chimed in. “Wait,” she said, perky as ever. “Why don’t we do something different?” She pulled out a magazine of her own. “They’ve got numerology in here,” she said. “It’s like astrology, but with numbers. Kind of cool, you know?”

  And just like that, all of Natalie’s bunkmates jumped on the numerology bandwagon, murmuring excitedly about how “awesome” it was to try something new. Like “new” was such a big deal. Whatever.

  Mia and Andie had gone out after lights-out to a staff meeting at the rec hall. It was just down the path, halfway between the cluster of bunks and the mess hall. So it wasn’t a big deal for them to leave the girls alone for an hour or so. “Just as long as you behave,” Andie had warned as they headed off, the flimsy door banging shut behind them.

  Natalie was contemplating taking out her flashlight and reading a little bit of the romance novel that Josie had sent. Would anyone notice? Chelsea might tell on her. Then again, with Chelsea, you never knew. She might be cool about it if it meant that she herself got away with staying up past lights-out. Natalie was weighing the pros and cons when suddenly—

  “RAID!!!”

  “WOO-HOO!”

  “4C RULES!”

  “You guys never saw it coming, did you?”

  Stunned, Natalie sat up in bed so quickly that she banged her head against the top bunk. “What the—” she asked no one in particular. “Ow,” she added as an afterthought.

  In a flash, the lights were on and the campers of bunk 4C were weaving in and out of the bunk beds. They were cheering as quiet-loudly as they could and tossing toilet paper and confetti. They’d painted their faces in faux-camouflage, and the effect was startling. Alex and Brynn, in particular, looked very . . . intense.

  “What are you guys doing here?” Natalie asked, finally wide awake and ripped from her stupor.

  “We have to hand it to you, Bloom,” Brynn said, shooting Jenna a knowing look. “That was pretty awesome, putting fake flies in our scrambled eggs.” She made a face. “Gross, but awesome.”

  “We told you we’d get you back,” Val put in.

  “We figured we owed you one,” Sarah chimed in.

  “Yeah, we owed you one,” Candace said. Candace had a habit of repeating what other people said.

  “That’s so stupid,” Chelsea spat. “I mean, really. If you owe us one, why don’t you prank us back? Not come by with”—she gestured toward the bags of what everyone knew were goodies in Sarah’s and Tiernan’s arms—“food and stuff. When someone pranks you, you don’t throw them a party.” She wrinkled her nose. Even with her nose wrinkled and nasty words coming out of her mouth, Chelsea was pretty. It really wasn’t fair.

  “That’s exactly what I said,” Gaby chimed in, looking sullen.

  It was funny, Nat thought, to see the two camp bullies side by side. They were so similar and they didn’t even realize it. But she couldn’t dwell, she knew, when Jenna was reaching into her trunk and pulling out the mother lode of chocolate, chips, and pretzels.

  “Listen, guys,” Jenna protested, “I had nothing to do with that prank. But as long as you’re here . . .” She rustled a package of potato chips noisily.

  “Well, they surprised us, that’s for sure,” Natalie said, sliding out of her bed and making her way to the food without further delay. “And that’s what counts. Let’s eat!”

  “Is there food for Alex?” Alyssa asked.

  “Covered,” Alex said, brandishing a small bag of what the girls knew was sugar-free gummy candy.

  The two bunks settled into their impromptu party, laughing, talking, and teasing one another. Natalie was definitely impressed that her friends from 4C had managed to pull this off and keep it a total surprise until the last minute.

  “Yeah, we had to wait, like, forever until Sophie went out. It’s her night off, so even after Becky had gone to the staff meeting, she was hanging around and getting ready for some date or something,” Grace said. She rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, don’t play it so cool, Gracie,” Natalie said, laughing. “You know if you had a date with Devon, you might spend a few extra minutes gettin’ pretty!”

  Grace blushed to the tips of her earlobes, and the girls cackled. Devon had been Grace’s partner in drama the summer before, and the two had totally crushed on each other. They weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend the way that Nat and Simon were, but there was something there. Definitely.

  “You should talk, Natalie,” Grace said, smiling. “I hear you and Simon are in looooove.” She made a kissy face and loud, smacking sounds.

  “Come on—” Natalie said, starting to protest.

  “—They completely are,” Alyssa said, cutting in. “They’re together 24/7.”

  The way she said it, it didn’t sound like a harmless throwaway comment. Nat paused, wondering how to respond. Alyssa wasn’t ever nasty, and certainly not on purpose. Maybe she was being too sensitive. Maybe.

  But Nat just didn’t think so.

  “Girls! What is going on in here?”

  The girls looked up in unison to find Mia and Andie bearing down at them. Their tone was stern and their arms were crossed over their chests, but their eyes were twinkling.

  “Uh . . . it’s a raid,” Jenna offered. “And, for once, it’s totally not my fault.”

  Everyone had to laugh at that, even the counselors.

  “But I’m guessing that is your food,” Andie said, pointing accusingly at the stash lying on the floor.

  Jenna nodded. “Guilty as charged.” She shook her head. “We had guests, I had to offer food. It’s just good manners.”

  Andie gave an exasperated smile, but she looked amused. “Right, Bloom. Manners.” She clapped her hands authoritatively. “You’ve got ten minutes to clean this up and return to your beds—that goes f
or the 4As and the 4Cs. I have a feeling Becky’s on to you by now. If you can get this place back into the shape it was in before I left, and get out of here, we’ll go easy on you.”

  Andie was being seriously cool. After all, they could have gotten in a lot of trouble for being up after lights-out. The girls sprung into action, relieved to be escaping punishment. The stomachaches they would have in the morning would definitely be punishment enough.

  It wasn’t until later, just before she finally drifted off to sleep for real, that Natalie’s mind wandered back to the comment Alyssa had made. Was she spending too much time with Simon? Was that what was bothering Alyssa? It seemed like Alyssa was spending just as much time with Tori as Nat was with Simon. Would they be able to get their friendship back on track before it was too late?

  chapter NINE

  Like Saturday, Sunday at camp was a day of rest, where the schedule was relaxed and the girls could spend some time just chilling out, easing back into the week. Natalie had a feeling that the weekend vibe was as much for the counselors as it was for the campers, but she’d take it, no complaints! Any morning where she got to sleep late (if nine could really be considered late) was a fabulous, fun-filled morning for Natalie.

  On Sundays, Dr. Steve skipped flag-raising and let the campers go straight to breakfast. It was his idea of “dispensing with the formalities,” as though he never realized that nothing about camp was all that formal, anyway. No one minded taking a leisurely brunch, though. Of course, nothing that was served in the mess hall was exactly gourmet, but the cooks made an effort to do something special for Sunday breakfast: pancakes, French toast, and sometimes, when the campers were particularly lucky, something that didn’t require any actual cooking at all (and therefore, couldn’t be spoiled).

  “Doughnuts! Awesome!” Jenna shrieked, seeing a buffet table set up along the far wall of the mess hall on this particular Sunday. “Out of the way, girls, I’m getting me a jelly!” She darted forward in a flash, her curly brown ponytail bobbing blurrily in her wake.