“First things first,” Mia said, sitting down at the foot of Jenna’s bed. “Your cast is way too white. Don’t you know white is out this season?” She flashed a rainbow of markers at the girls. “Leave it to us.” She tapped the cast gently. “We’ll make it so fabulous, we’ll start a new fad. Castwear—for the truly trendy.”
“I’m going to give Dr. Steve an update, and then I’ll be back in a few,” Andie said to Jenna. “I’m leaving you in good hands.”
After she left, the girls crowded enthusiastically around Jenna’s bed, picking colors for their artwork, and Jenna tried her best to put on a happy face. All the girls—even Chelsea (shocker!)—made a big show of signing her cast and rallying around her. But although Jenna appreciated their efforts, she still couldn’t believe her bad luck.
Half an hour and ten permanent markers later, even Jenna had to admit that her cast looked more like a masterpiece than boring plaster. Alyssa had written a poem titled “Owed to a Groundhog” down the right side of the cast; Nat and Tori had painted soccer balls, basketballs, and bunk cheers all over the rest of it; and all had signed their names and written encouraging messages.
“It looks great,” Jenna said. “Thanks, guys.”
Just then, Andie stuck her head around the bunk door. “I’m back, and I brought a few more reinforcements.”
Adam walked in the door with Alex, Grace, and Brynn.
“All right,” Brynn said. “Let’s see the war wound.”
Jenna pointed to her brightly colored cast.
Adam sat down on the edge of her bed. “Sorry about your leg, Boo,” he said, ruffling her hair. “What a bummer.”
“Tell me about it,” Jenna grumbled. “And don’t call me Boo.”
“Right,” Adam said. “Sorry.”
Alex hugged her, then sat back to inspect her cast. “That’s impressive,” she said, looking for a place to sign it. “Too bad there’s not a Color War competition for cast crafts.”
“No kidding,” Jenna said. “With my crutches, I think the only thing I’ll be able to compete in is Scrabble. And I hate Scrabble.”
“Yeah,” Chelsea said. “And you stink at it, too.”
Alex rolled her eyes at Chelsea’s remark, but only Jenna saw it. It made her smile.
“Color War’s not that big of a deal anyway, is it?” Tori said. “I mean, what’s so special about it?”
“What’s so special?” Jenna cried, throwing up her hands. “It’s only the biggest event of the entire summer!” This was Tori’s first year at camp, so Jenna couldn’t exactly blame her for not understanding Color War. But she needed to get filled in ASAP! “The whole camp gets involved in Color War, and everyone—even people in the same bunk—gets divided into the Red and Blue teams. There’s a huge rally and balloons and fireworks, and one year one of the counselors even swung through the trees with red and blue torches,” Jenna rambled, talking a mile a minute. “Then, the war’s on. Every year the competitions are a little different. There’re division events for separate ages and group events where everyone gets involved, and there’re cheers and pranks and—”
“Whoa,” Andie interrupted, laughing at Jenna. “Don’t forget to breathe.”
Jenna giggled and gulped in air. “Sorry . . . I love Color War.”
“Sounds . . . active,” Tori said, actually looking a little frightened by the idea of spoiling one of her perfectly matched outfits. Only Tori and Nat would worry about something like that.
“It totally is!” Alex said, echoing Jenna’s enthusiasm. She loved Color War more than anything, too. “There’s soccer, basketball, swimming, croquet, tug of war, and Scrabble.”
“Alex was the Scrabble champion last year,” Adam said, shooting Alex a grin.
Alex’s cheeks looked like two round strawberries for a few seconds, and she smiled shyly back at Adam. “And, um, then there’s blob tag,” she continued, “and one year we even had sumo pudding wrestling.”
“It sounds really messy,” Tori said. “But okay, I guess.”
“It’s more than okay,” Jenna said. “It’s fantastic! One of the best parts of camp.”
Last year, she and Alex had been on the winning Blue team. They’d had so much fun together, even after Alex had to sit out during the soccer match because her blood sugar got too low. Color War was one of the best memories she had of every summer. But now what did she have to look forward to?
She sighed. “I’m not going to be able to compete at all this year.”
“Don’t say that,” Karen said. “We’ll figure something out.”
“Yeah,” Nat agreed. “Nobody sits on the sidelines during Color War, cast or no cast.”
“I know you’re not really into drama that much, but maybe you could play a part in Into the Woods, too,” Grace said hopefully. “Just to give it a try. You might like it.”
“There’s a part with crutches?” Jenna asked doubtfully.
“You could be a tree,” Grace offered, twirling one of her flame-colored curls around her finger thoughtfully.
“A tree,” Jenna repeated, deadpan. “Great. Nope, you’re the actress, not me. I’d make a lousy tree. I wouldn’t be able to remember all the lines.” She tried to stifle a huge yawn, but it broke loose, and Andie picked up on it right away.
“Okay, it’s way past curfew for all of you,” Andie said with mock scolding in her voice. “Let our patient get some rest now.”
“No,” Jenna started to protest, but then she yawned again against her will, and Alex, Adam, Brynn, and Grace waved good-bye while the other girls scattered around the room to get ready for bed. Jenna gladly let Andie help her slip into her pajamas, and, with a sigh of relief, she crawled into bed. But trying to sleep on her side, like she normally did, wasn’t too comfortable with the heavy cast on her leg. After a few minutes trying to get settled, she flopped onto her back and stared at the slats in the top bunk above her, listening to everyone else’s deep, peaceful breathing. She didn’t know how long she lay there before drifting off to sleep, but when she finally did, she dreamt that she was sitting alone in her bunk, totally forgotten, as everyone else had a blast during Color War.
chapter FOUR
Jenna opened her eyes to see the sun shining in from the bunk’s window the next morning, and she grinned. Another perfect day for soccer! She sat up in bed, feeling her adrenaline pumping already, and threw back her covers. And that’s when the truth came crashing down on her, in the form of her new anvil-like cast. She remembered everything now—the groundhog hole, the emergency room, and the no-more-soccer doctor’s orders. She frowned and gave her pillow a punch for good measure.
Then she weighed her options. She’d have to deal with her broken leg just like any good athlete would, that was all. Plenty of people in the world got around on crutches or in wheelchairs every day of their lives. She only had to endure it for six weeks.
She carefully swung her legs over the side of her bed and eased herself onto her crutches. So far, so good. But she was the first one up, so she’d have to be quiet. Feeling like she’d grown two extra limbs overnight that she didn’t know how to use, she cautiously took a few awkward lunges with her crutches, which got her a whopping two feet away from her bed. Another two feet, and another, and she’d almost made it halfway to the bathroom when Mia woke up and mass chaos broke loose in the bunk.
“Jenna!” Mia gasped. “Let me help you!”
Nat, Karen, and Alyssa all leaped out of bed in record time and were at Jenna’s side like three pajama-clad musketeers, ready to rescue her.
“Take it easy,” Karen said, putting her hand on Jenna’s shoulder to steady her.
“I can walk to the bathroom, guys,” Jenna said with a laugh. “Really. I’m not a total invalid.”
The three girls took tentative steps back to let Jenna pass them, but they stayed within arm’s reach, just in case.
When Jenna had safely made it to the bathroom door, she turned around and grinned. “If I’m not back in ten mi
nutes, organize a search party,” she teased.
She made it out in under three, instead, and took a little bow when she reappeared at the bathroom door.
“See?” she said. “I think I’m getting the hang of this. No problem.”
Fifteen minutes later, and “no problem” had turned into “big problem.” Jenna was half in, half out of the shower, trying to hang onto the slick tile wall while balancing her cast out behind her to keep it from getting wet. It had all been going so well . . . until she dropped her bar of soap on the floor. Now, she had shampoo in her eyes, she’d somehow managed to kick the bar of soap under the stall door with her one good foot (oh, the irony), and her towel had just fallen into a huge puddle on the floor.
She hopped out of the shower on her good foot, retrieved the now-drenched towel, wrapped it around herself, and stuck her head out of the stall.
“Hey, guys?” she called out. “Um, I think I might need a little help.”
Nat was the first one on the scene, and she took one look at Jenna and burst out laughing.
“Hey!” Jenna protested. “Don’t you know it’s not nice to make fun of the shower-challenged?”
“I’m sorry,” Nat said between more bursts of laughter. “It’s just that you look like . . . like . . .”
“A drowned rat,” Chelsea said, coming up behind her.
Andie walked in next, and after surveying the damage said, “Okay, we need a plan.”
She and Mia went into action, and the next thing Jenna knew, she had a plastic garbage bag rubber banded around her cast, and she was showering in her bathing suit with Alyssa in the stall with her, helping her keep her cast out of the water.
Jenna sighed as Alyssa handed her the shampoo. Was there no end to this humiliation? Andie had already declared that Jenna would be the first one in the shower every morning, now that she needed the extra time. As it was, she and Alyssa were going to be late for breakfast this morning. But Andie said tomorrow would be easier, because Alyssa would be her shower buddy every day and help her get dressed afterward. Of course, Jenna was glad that she hadn’t gotten stuck with Chelsea as her helper, but that was beside the point. Lugging a mammoth cast around wasn’t going to be quite as simple as she’d originally thought.
“Are you done?” Alyssa asked, holding out Jenna’s towel.
“Definitely,” Jenna said with a sigh. She was done with this whole day already, and it was only eight o’clock in the morning.
Jenna and Alyssa finally made it to the mess hall just as everyone else was finishing up their breakfasts, and Jenna dropped gratefully into her chair, since her crutches were already starting to make her arms ache.
Alex, Sarah, Grace, and Brynn all waved to her from their table.
“How’s the leg this morning?” Alex asked.
“Last time I checked, it was still broken,” Jenna answered with a short laugh. “But it’s not hurting as much in the cast anymore.”
Alex gave her an understanding smile. She’d been on crutches for a soccer injury during the school year. “Hang in there.”
“I’ll get you some food, Jenna,” Karen offered, standing up to follow Alyssa to the food line. As soon as they left, Andie sat down in the chair next to Jenna’s.
“I know you picked sports as one of your final electives,” Andie said to her. “But since you’re not going to be able to play, I thought it might be good for you to pick an alternative. There were two extra spots in ceramics still open this morning. Would you be into giving that a try?”
Jenna’s heart dropped, and she sighed. “But I don’t know anything about pottery.”
“You’ll learn,” Andie offered. “When I was a camper, I loved ceramics so much, I took it three years in a row. I still use the funky plates I made.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do outside instead?” Jenna asked. There had to be something she could do in the sunshine. It was bad enough to be stuck in this cast, but she didn’t want to get stuck indoors all day, too.
“Well,” Andie said, thinking, “your other elective was boating, but I’m worried that you might get your cast wet, so I think that’s out, too. With all the other outdoor electives, you’d have to be able to get around on foot, which isn’t going to work for you right now. I thought you might like taking art instead of boating.”
“I guess I could do that,” Jenna said reluctantly. At least she could sit outside and draw, even though her art skills had always been pretty pathetic.
“And then the ceramics instead of sports?” Andie tried again, but when Jenna didn’t answer, she put her arm around her shoulder. “I know this is tough for you, but you’ve got to take it easy until your leg heals.”
Nat jumped in with some encouraging words, too. “You could make some awesome jewelry in ceramics!” she said. “I saw this great article in Teen Fashion yesterday about DIY beading. It has instructions and everything. I was going to give it a try when I got back to New York, but I’ll rip it out for you so that you can bring it to class with you. You can make some really fab stuff.”
Jenna smiled at Nat’s enthusiasm. Nat loved anything and everything having to do with fashion. “Well, if you say it’s fab,” she said, “I have to believe you.”
“Trust her,” Tori said. “I’m the expert on shoes, but she’s the expert on accessorizing. She knows what she’s talking about.”
Jenna looked at all three of their expectant faces, waiting for her to make up her mind.
“All right,” she said, trying to sound excited but failing miserably. “Ceramics it is.”
Andie hugged her. “Great! You’ll make some cool stuff, I’m sure.”
Nat nodded in agreement. “When you become a rich and famous jewelry designer, I get dibs on a free pair of earrings.”
“You might want to wait until you see how I do,” Jenna said. “My jewelry may be too ugly to wear.”
“Hey, ugly can be glamorous,” Tori said. “It’s all in the eyes of the wearer.”
“You know,” Andie said to Jenna, “we need some more people on the planning committee for the end-of-camp banquet, too. Do you want to be on the committee? You always have fun ideas, and staying busy would help take your mind off your leg.”
“I do love the final banquet,” Jenna said. In her mind, it was second only to Color War. And if she couldn’t participate in Color War, at least she might be able to make the final banquet the best ever. “Okay,” she said. “Sign me up.”
“Great!” Andie said. “This is going to be terrific.”
“Terrific,” Jenna repeated. Yeah, right. More like boring. But she’d have to live with banquet planning, art, and ceramics. Molding clay wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as kicking soccer goals, but—she had to face it—what other options were there for her and her plaster disaster of a leg? None.
Her mood didn’t improve when, after lunch, she had to sit on the shore watching everyone else live it up during free swim. What good had it done her to learn how to dive last summer when now she wouldn’t even be able to go in the water anymore? She shifted on the blanket Andie had set up for her, wiped her hand across her forehead, and tried to scoot back farther into the shade of the pine trees.
“Hold still, Jenna!” Tori scolded. “How can I buff your toenails if you keep squirming?”
“Sorry,” Jenna said. “I’m just roasting. It must be a hundred degrees out today.” She looked longingly out at the lake. Just yesterday she’d been doing cannonballs off the pier, relishing in the cool water. But today she was stuck baking in the heat, watching everyone else swim. “I bet that water feels amazing.”
“I wouldn’t touch that water with a ten-foot pole, even with this heat wave,” Nat said, glancing up from her mini-spa kit. She never went in the water during free swim—the lake algae creeped her out too much.
But Tori’s hair was still wet from the last dip she’d taken into the lake. “The water’s not that great,” Tori said, but she looked guilty as soon as the words left her mouth.
>
“It’s okay,” Jenna said. “You don’t have to lie about it. You should go get in again. I’m fine, really.”
“And leave without finishing your pedicure?” Tori balked. “That would be a violation of at least three big rules of pampering.” She had willingly given up some of her swim time to give Jenna a manicure and pedicure with Nat.
“Now,” Nat said, holding up three bottles of nail polish. “What’ll it be? Pink Pout, Fab Fuchsia, or Sahara Sunshine?”
“Since I feel like I’m in a desert already,” Jenna said, “let’s go with Sahara Sunshine.”
As Nat brushed on the first coat of polish, Jenna gazed out at the water. She could see Alex poised on the diving platform, while Sarah, Brynn, Valerie, Chelsea, and Karen all watched, spellbound. Alex shot into the air in an impressive backward somersault, and as she hit the water, everyone burst into loud applause. Even Nat and Tori put the spa session on hold for a minute to clap.
“That was incredible!” Sarah yelled in the water, sending a splash Alex’s direction. “When did you learn how to do that?”
Alex shrugged. “I’ve never done it before,” she said. “I just wanted to give it a try.”
“No way!” Karen said with admiration.
Alex just grinned, and then she waved toward Jenna. “Hey, Jenna. Did you see that?”
Jenna forced herself to smile and nod. “Show-off!” she called out playfully, but then she realized that she felt there was a small grain of truth hidden in those words. Alex was looking every bit Miss Star Athlete, but she hadn’t gotten out of the water once to come talk to Jenna and see how she was feeling. Even though Jenna knew that Alex had as much right to have fun as everybody else, she’d sort of expected her to be the one to give up swimming to hang out with her. It probably wasn’t fair of her to get mad at Alex for not being able to read her mind. But still, they’d been friends for so long. Shouldn’t Alex at least offer to sit with her for a while?
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