And then Donnie walked away so that he could measure and record the amount of water in the other teams’ buckets to see which team had won.
“Good one, Vanessa,” Becca said. “Now thanks to you, we have negative points.”
“Yeah, like any of this is my fault,” Vanessa muttered.
“All right, White Oak,” Tori said cheerfully, ignoring the fact that her “bad girl” cabin had just gotten in trouble with the camp director on the first day of camp. “Let’s head down to the fire pit for the bonfire. Maybe some s’mores will sweeten you girls up.”
As we followed Tori down the path, Gina whispered to me, “It’s going to take a lot more than chocolate and marshmallows to make Vanessa sweet.”
• • •
At the fire pit, which was back in the woods behind the mess hall, we roasted marshmallow after marshmallow, squishing each one between graham crackers and chocolate squares. I took huge bites of the sugary, chocolaty, marshmallowy goodness until my stomach couldn’t hold one more drop of melted marshmallow. It tasted like the best food I’d ever eaten. I was almost glad we’d had that awful clove-seasoned ham for dinner because if dinner had been edible, I would have eaten more of it and not had as much room for all those s’mores.
“That game was a disaster!” Becca said to me while licking chocolate off her fingers. “I don’t think we could have fallen more times if we tried.”
“I don’t think so either,” I said, rubbing my still damp jeans and hoping the fire would dry them out a little.
“The best was when Julia was walking forward,” Avery said laughing, “and Becca was walking backward. You practically flattened Julia like a pancake when you fell on her that one time.”
“I couldn’t help it!” Becca said. “She was going too slow.”
“You were going way too fast!” I said. “And your entire cup of water landed right on my shoe that time.”
I looked down at my soaking-wet green-and-white-striped gym shoe, thinking I should take it off, put it on the end of one of the marshmallow sticks, and hold it over the fire to dry it.
“Yeah, well, it seemed like you were spilling water on me on purpose,” Becca said, punching me in the arm with her sticky fist.
“I was not!” I said, rubbing my arm.
Just then Gina burst out laughing, and Avery, Becca, and I stopped and stared at her, wondering what she was laughing so hard about.
Finally Gina caught her breath. Pointing at Vanessa and Meredith, who sat on a log bench off to the side of the bonfire, she said, “Nothing was funnier than when those two numbskulls ran into that tree. I only wish I’d had my phone to record that graceful moment on video.”
So far Vanessa and Meredith hadn’t found anything funny about our recent loss, and when they heard Gina laughing about their collision with the tree, they glared at her. But Avery, Becca, Gina, and I had so much sugar pumping through our veins that we didn’t really care that Vanessa was mad, and we all laughed even harder.
The girls from the other cabins relived all their mishaps too, filling the smoky night air with excited chatter and contagious laughter.
“All right, ladies,” Donnie announced. “Let’s all find a seat around the fire.”
Avery, Becca, Gina, and I headed to a bench on the opposite side of the circle from Vanessa and Meredith. Tori noticed and probably wished she’d been assigned to Red Maple or Silver Birch or any of the other cabins where all the girls were sitting together and getting along as if they were already the best of friends.
I sat down on the end of the bench next to Gina and looked up at the dark sky spotted with stars. The heat from the fire made my face hot, and the coolness from the woods surrounding us pressed against my backside. I shivered a little, wishing my jeans weren’t still so wet. I stared into the fire. My eyes felt heavy. Had it only been that morning that we’d been in the church parking lot, waiting for the camp bus?
“Now we’re really going to have some fun,” Donnie said. “’Cause it’s time to sing!”
From the other end of the bench, Avery leaned over Becca’s lap toward Gina and me and said, “You guys are gonna love this!”
And she was right! For the next forty-five minutes, Donnie taught us new lyrics to songs we’d all heard on the oldies radio station.
The songs were super corny but really funny, and when Donnie moonwalked while holding his open Bible and sang, “Read it. Just read it…” to the tune of Michael Jackson’s song “Beat It,” we all laughed like crazy. But we laughed even harder when he moonwalked a few steps too far, ran into a log bench, and practically did a backward somersault. His Bible went one way, and he went another.
By the time we walked back to the cabin, I didn’t know if my stomach hurt more from laughing so hard or from eating too many s’mores.
Dear Ms. Marcia,
I know what you’re probably thinking. It’s only the first night at camp and already I’m laughing and having a good time with Avery and Becca, but don’t get too excited. It doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t mean we’re “bonding,” and it doesn’t mean that I’m having such a great time that tomorrow I’m going to have this big, deep conversation about our connection as Chinese sisters. It just means I’m doing what my mom always tells me to do: “Make the most of a bad situation, and try to have fun anyway.”
Julia
PS I doubt that I would be having this much fun at Summer Palace Chinese Culture Camp, so I think Camp Little Big Woods was the better choice.
PPS The only bad part of the bonfire was that Avery brought along a Chinese fan and waved it in her face the whole time we sang. It kept the bugs away, but it bugged me more than my itchy mosquito bites.
9
“Vanessa!” Becca wailed. “Get! Out! Of the shower!”
“I’ll get out when I feel like it!”
We were trying to get ready for morning flag raising, but it sounded like everyone had gotten up on the wrong side of their bunk.
“Gina, you’re such a klutz!” Meredith said. “Do you know how expensive that powder is? Now it’s almost gone!”
“I can’t help that someone spilled lotion on the floor,” Gina said, trying to wipe the lotion and powder off the seat of her jean shorts as she stood up next to the bathroom sink.
“Just because there’s lotion on the floor doesn’t mean you have to try to slide through it,” Meredith said.
“I wanted to see how far I could go,” Gina answered. “How did I know it would end in a rumper bumper?”
“What’s a rumper bumper?” Meredith asked Gina.
“You know…” Gina said. “A fender bender is a minor car accident. A rumper bumper is a minor people accident.”
“You’re even weirder than Vanessa said you were,” Meredith said with a sigh.
Gina smiled, threw her shoulders back, and walked out of the bathroom, as if being called weird was her goal all along.
“Julia,” Avery said, trying to make her top bunk while she knelt on it, “you, Becca, and I are going to have to find time today to talk about some of that Ms. Marcia stuff.”
I pretended to concentrate on straightening my cubby and didn’t answer her. I didn’t have any intention of finding time to do that.
“And I don’t know if you saw it yet,” Avery continued, “but Ms. Marcia wants us to write a letter to our moms about a bunch of stuff.” She jumped down from her bunk. “I was thinking the three of us should mail the letters on the same day. That way our moms will get them at the same time.”
I had seen Ms. Marcia’s instructions for the mom letter, but I was thinking that would be one of the things I’d skip.
Thankfully Tori saved me from having to explain myself to Avery.
“Flag raising in five, girls!” Tori yelled from inside her counselor room. “Hustle it up!”
“Five minutes?�
� Vanessa said, coming out of the bathroom with her wet hair in a towel.
“Well, if you wouldn’t have taken a twenty-minute shower!” Becca yelled. “Now I don’t even have time to take one, thanks to you!”
“Just hurry up, everyone,” Avery said, running a brush through her hair.
About fifteen minutes later, Sarge Marge from the mess hall and all the campers attending Camp Little Big Woods, except Vanessa and Meredith, lined up at the flagpole.
Avery stood next to me waving her Chinese fan in front of her face. She had offered me a fan back at the cabin, but I didn’t want to stand around camp waving a Chinese fan no matter how hot it was.
Becca stood on the other side of Avery. Gina was on the other side of me, and Tori stood next to her. Once Vanessa and Meredith finally came strolling down the hill and got in line, Gina threw her shoulders back and saluted Sarge Marge as if we were in the army.
Sarge Marge, who was dressed in camouflage shorts and an army-green T-shirt, saluted Gina back, and then Gina said in a deep voice, “Sorry, ma’am. White Oak is missing our peace this morning!”
Avery, Becca, and I laughed, and I even saw Tori smile.
But Vanessa muttered, “Oh brother.”
Thankfully Vanessa didn’t say it loud enough for anyone else to hear, or we may have lost more points. She and Meredith being late had already cost us two. If we kept this up, we were going to have to win every competition from now on just to dig ourselves out of the deep hole we were burying ourselves in.
Once the flag waved at the top of the flagpole, the song “We Are Family” played as we all headed inside the mess hall for breakfast.
After our chocolate-chip pancakes and pork sausage, which, as Avery predicted, were supergood compared to last night’s dinner, Donnie blasted the sound system, put on a blond wig, danced around with a briefcase, and lip-synched the song “9 to 5,” while all of us laughed. Thankfully he didn’t trip over anything this time.
Then he began to announce the morning activities for each cabin.
“Your job today, campers, is to have fun! And here’s what’s on the agenda for everyone! Red Maple, you’re off to the north woods for a survival activity.”
Chairs scraped on the mess hall floor as the girls in Red Maple stood up to head outside.
“Silver Birch, you’ll be canoeing this morning,” Donnie continued.
“Awesome!” “Cool!” some of the Silver Birch girls said as they hurried out the door with their cabinmates.
“White Oak, you’re headed to the arts-and-crafts room,” Donnie said.
“That figures,” Vanessa muttered, loud enough for Tori to hear her. I wondered if we’d lose our next point. But Tori must’ve been in a good mood. Maybe from the chocolate-chip pancakes. Or maybe from Gina’s goofy salute earlier. Thankfully, she only raised an eyebrow to Vanessa but didn’t take away any points.
“Lame-o,” Meredith whispered to Vanessa, agreeing with her. But by that time, Tori had left the table and was talking to Sarge Marge in the doorway of the dish room.
I didn’t care what Vanessa and Meredith thought. The arts-and-crafts room would be great! It wouldn’t be my park district class with Madison, but it would be much better than another team competition where Vanessa screamed at everyone. That had to be a good thing.
Do people ever treat you differently because you’re Asian?
Dear Ms. Marcia,
Most of the time, like when I’m with my best friend, Madison, I don’t even think about being from China, so being Chinese is no big deal.
But when I’m with Avery and Becca, I have a hard time forgetting that we’re Chinese because sometimes people do treat us differently—like this morning when we were standing by the dish room after clearing our breakfast trays. A girl from another cabin asked, “Do you guys usually eat Chinese food for breakfast?”
That question is about as dumb as asking an Italian person if they eat spaghetti for breakfast.
The thing is, she probably wouldn’t have asked us that if Avery and Becca hadn’t been standing there waving Chinese fans in their faces. (And yeah, Becca has a fan now too because Avery brought an extra one with her this morning in the side pocket of her cargo shorts.)
Being with Avery and Becca means people pay more attention to the fact that we’re Asian, and when people pay attention to it, they sometimes treat us as if being Asian means we’re different.
Julia
PS There was also the time in third grade when we were studying the Pilgrims, and Brandon Stalwert asked, “Were there any Chinese people on the Mayflower?” And even though Brandon moved away at the end of that school year and most kids probably forgot all about him, I’ll always remember his question. That’s why this year during our heritage project, when Samantha Collins kept bragging about her mom’s relatives being linked to some of the first Pilgrims, I thought about how my third-grade teacher had answered Brandon’s question. “Of course there were no Asians on the Mayflower. The ship came from England.”
People like Brandon and Samantha were the reason I had decided that besides my Asian heritage, I would borrow Mom and Dad’s Irish and Italian heritage too.
10
The arts-and-crafts room was in the basement of the mess hall, and it looked a lot like the park district craft room—wooden tables and metal folding chairs covered with different-colored drips of paint, wooden shelves with plastic bins full of glue, scissors, paint, and other supplies, and a big, ugly paint-and-plaster-splattered sink in the corner.
On the long tables at the front of the room lay six envelopes. Each with one of our names on it.
“I’m Jen,” said the counselor who was waiting for us when we got there. “Find your name and take a seat where your envelope is, and we’ll get started.”
Gina’s and my envelopes were at the same table, so we sat next to each other.
“Why don’t you all open your envelopes and see what’s inside?” Jen asked.
We all did and were surprised to see photos of ourselves.
“Ahhhh,” Vanessa said. “Look at how cute these are!”
“Here’s me getting my first soccer trophy!” Becca said, holding up a picture of herself with a trophy bigger than she was.
“Look at this one!” Meredith said, showing us a photo of herself wearing shorts, snow boots, and a cowboy hat. It looked like she was about three.
“How about me pushing this doll stroller with our dog, Toodles, in it,” Avery said, smiling.
We all kept shuffling through our photos, reliving fun memories from when we were younger and showing off pictures of our past accomplishments.
But then Vanessa changed the mood in the room. “I can’t believe it,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound at all like her usual bossy one. She stared at a photo she held in her hand. “It’s my tenth birthday. Of me with my dad. When we spent the whole day together.”
She didn’t sound like Vanessa anymore, and her quietness made us all quiet. We looked at her while she stared at the photo. She seemed both happy and sad to see it.
“Check me out—getting MVP in a soccer tournament when I was only six!” Becca yelled, interrupting whatever touching moment Vanessa was having.
While Becca described in detail each goal she had scored to get that beloved MVP award, I kept watching Vanessa. As she continued to look at the photo, her happy-sad feeling seemed to harden into hurt.
“Look, Becca!” Avery said, pulling my attention away from Vanessa. “Here’s you, me, and Julia at the Chinese New Year Parade. Look at the adorable Chinese outfits we have on,” she said, holding up the photo so I could see it. “I loved wearing those clothes. I wish they still fit me.”
I hated those clothes and was glad they didn’t still fit me.
Those Chinese costumes always itched and smelled funny, and the collars always felt like they were ch
oking me.
“You guys look so Chinese in that photo,” Vanessa said, peering across the aisle to look at the photo as Avery held it up.
“Of course we look Chinese!” Becca said. “We are!”
“I know, but you just look more Chinese in that picture,” Vanessa said.
“She’s right,” Meredith said. “You do.”
Maybe I had been wrong about the arts-and-crafts room. Maybe it would’ve been better to be out in the field playing some game while Vanessa yelled at us instead of in here listening to everyone talk about how “Chinese” Avery, Becca, and I looked.
“These photos will give us lots of things to talk about for our Ms. Marcia article,” Avery said.
“What article?” Vanessa asked.
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
The last thing I needed was for Vanessa to know about the whole Ms. Marcia thing.
Thankfully, everyone went back to admiring their own photos—oohing and aahing over all the cute ones. And no one asked any more questions about the Ms. Marcia project.
Then Gina asked Jen, “How did you get these pictures?” And that’s when I realized Gina hadn’t held up any of her photos for us to see.
“We wanted every camper to make a life collage, so when you registered for camp, we asked your parents to send some photos.”
I looked at Gina’s pile of pictures and noticed how small it was. From what I could see, most of the photos she had were really recent ones. I wondered why her mom hadn’t included lots of baby pictures like all the other moms had.
“Are you ready to see what your collage could look like?” Jen asked.
We all looked up, and Jen flipped over a poster that had been lying facedown on the front table. She hung it on the wall. It was her life collage, which she’d made as an example. I had to admit that it looked pretty cool! Her photos were glued all around the poster board. She’d written something by each one. And she’d added a lot of cool doodles and fun decorations.
I looked down at my photos and started getting ideas right away about how I wanted to arrange my collage. I separated my pictures into piles. There were holiday photos, school photos, and lots of pictures of family vacations. A trip with my dad to Starved Rock. A day at the zoo for Mom and me. The three of us ice skating downtown at Christmastime. But then I saw a photo I didn’t want to see.
Just Like Me Page 4