Just Like Me

by Nancy Cavanaugh

  “Yeah, well, I know I’m better than you!” Vanessa said.

  “Stop fighting!” Avery said. “We’re going to get in trouble.”

  “We gotta get back to the game!” Becca yelled.

  “Why, so you can run out of your lane forty-nine more times and get penalized again?” Vanessa said, turning on Becca.

  “I told you she thinks she’s better than everyone!” Gina said.

  “Well, how hard is it to stay in your lane?” Vanessa exclaimed in exasperation.

  “Yeah,” Meredith agreed.

  That was the first time I realized that Meredith never really had a thought of her own.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Becca yelled.

  Then Vanessa, Becca, and Gina all started talking and yelling at each other at once, and the ref blew her whistle.

  “White Oak!” she exclaimed. “Your team is benched for poor sportsmanship. You forfeit the game.”

  “What?!” Vanessa wailed.

  “You heard me!” the ref continued. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouths shut and walk back to your cabin without another word. No free time this afternoon. Instead you’re on silent cabin until dinner. Is that clear?”

  None of us said anything.

  “Is that clear?”

  “Yes,” we all said together.

  We turned and walked back to the cabin without saying another word.

  • • •

  Back at the cabin, the room felt loud even though we weren’t allowed to talk. The anger from the lane soccer game had followed us to the cabin and just hung in the air. We heard Tori come in, and then we saw her standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. She hadn’t been at the soccer game, but we could tell she’d already talked to the counselor who had sent us back to the cabin.

  Tori didn’t look anything like on the first day of camp when we’d met her in front of the mess hall. No more sweet smile—just thin, tight lips. Even though this was church camp, she probably hated us. She went into her little counselor room and sat at her desk with her back toward us.

  We all flopped down on our beds. I was sweaty and sticky from the soccer game and wished Gina and I were walking down to the lake to jump in the deep end instead of lying here in this hot, stuffy cabin. Why did Vanessa have to be such a jerk? Gina could be cannonball splashing DD Jr., and we could be doing tricks on that slide right now.

  I looked over at Avery and Becca, who were both fanning themselves with their Chinese fans. A fan like that would feel pretty good right now. I reached down into my cubby to get my washcloth so that I could at least wipe some of the sweat off my forehead, and that’s when I realized that Gina and I had never switched our stuff back. My things were still lying at the foot of her bed, and her stuff was still in my cubby.

  I jumped down from my bunk and started taking Gina’s stuff out of my cubby and handing it to her. She got up to put it away and then handed me my stuff. I took my time organizing my shampoo, conditioner, lotion, bug spray, sunscreen, Band-Aids, and toothpaste. I wasn’t really sure what to do about the whole toothbrush thing.

  The last thing Gina handed me was my Bible, and as I slid it into the cubby alongside everything else, I realized that the yarn I’d tied to the zipper was gone. The yarn from my baby blanket.

  I started to panic. I didn’t really know why. It was only a piece of yarn. The story I had been telling myself wasn’t really true. I knew that. But even so, the missing yarn somehow did matter.

  Where was it? I hurried over to Gina’s cubby and looked inside to see if the yarn was there.

  “It’s gone!” I yelled.

  Everyone froze because we weren’t supposed to be talking.

  “What’s gone?” Gina whispered.

  “The yarn from my Bible!” I yelled. “It’s gone!”

  “What yarn?” Avery asked, sounding concerned.

  My hands started to sweat as I kept moving the bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and suntan lotion around, looking and hoping I’d just missed it, and that it was still there somewhere.

  “What’s the big deal about a piece of yarn?” Vanessa asked, looking bored.

  Then Gina walked across the room to where Vanessa was lying on her bed, propped up on her elbow.

  “It’s your fault!” Gina yelled. “You’re the one who messed with our stuff!”

  “Girls!” Tori came in from her counselor room. “You are not supposed to be talking, and you certainly aren’t supposed to be arguing and yelling after what just happened out on the soccer field.”

  “You switched our stuff and now something’s missing,” Gina said, ignoring Tori’s warning. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  My head throbbed. I had been pretending that the blanket was from my birth mom for so long that losing it while I was here at camp made me feel almost homesick.

  “It was a joke,” Vanessa said. “You can’t take a joke?”

  “What’s going on, girls?” Tori asked. “Someone explain this to me.”

  I crossed to the other side of the cabin and stood right next to Vanessa’s bunk.

  Instead of that homesick feeling making me want to cry, it turned to anger and gave me the courage to yell at Vanessa, “You’re the joke!”

  “Ooooooh, quiet little Julia’s turning out to be not so quiet,” Vanessa chided.

  I felt my ears get hot and turn red with embarrassment and anger at my outburst.

  “That’s enough!” Tori scolded. “All of you!”

  “Julia, don’t worry. We’ll find it,” Gina said, putting her hand on my shoulder.

  “Well, if it’s only a piece of yarn, can’t you just get another one?” Becca yelled.

  This time I spoke quietly because my courage had transformed into a lump in my throat and was now turning to tears. “It’s not just a piece of yarn,” I said.

  “Whatever,” Vanessa said.

  “Don’t you even care that it’s your fault?” Gina asked, turning to Vanessa.

  “Don’t you even care that it’s your fault we lost that soccer game?” Vanessa yelled.

  Then everyone started talking and yelling at once. None of us even realized that Tori had left. We only realized she was gone when the camp bullhorn blew inside our cabin. The noise was so loud that it felt like it had blasted inside my head.

  While my hot, red ears were still ringing with that sound, Sarge Marge from the mess hall took each of us by the shoulders, lined us up by the door in a straight line—one behind the other—and marched us down to the mess hall.

  We weren’t sure what was happening, but we knew it couldn’t be good.

  Dear Ms. Marcia,

  What do you think of your handpicked cabin now?

  Camp Little Big Woods is not turning out as I expected.

  It’s turning out much, much worse.

  Julia

  17

  “Will you guys just shut up?” Avery yelled. “Becca and I’ve been coming to Camp Little Big Woods for four years, and we’ve never had to work in the dish room. If you guys would all just stop fighting, maybe we wouldn’t be scrubbing pots and pans for Sarge Marge while everyone else is out at the sunset hike.”

  “Oh who cares about a sunset hike,” Vanessa said. “It sounds stupid anyway. Besides, it’s all your Chinese sister’s fault. We wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for her stupid missing scrap of yarn.”

  I squeezed the Brillo pad I had in my hand. I wished it were Vanessa’s head. I was so sick of her.

  “The sunset hike is not stupid. Especially not tonight. It’s the summer solstice. The sunset will be remarkable,” Avery said. “Although, technically, it will not necessarily be any different than any other sunset. But, technically, every sunset is a one-of-a-kind experience. Somewhat like a snowflake is a one-of-a-kind—”r />
  “Technically, Avery,” Vanessa interrupted, “you’re driving me and everyone else crazy in a one-of-a-kind kind of way!”

  “Forget the sunset hike. I really wanted to win those first-place T-shirts!” Becca yelled.

  “T-shirts? You can kiss those T-shirts good-bye. We never had a chance,” Vanessa said. “This team stinks.” Then she looked at Gina and said, “Well, certain people do.”

  I squeezed the Brillo pad even harder.

  I really wished I could hold Vanessa’s head under the soapy water just long enough so that she’d have to taste soap. At least Meredith was smart enough to keep her mouth shut for a change, but I knew she was thinking the same thing as Vanessa. She always was. It’s the only thing she was capable of.

  After Sarge Marge had marched us down to the mess hall from our cabin, following the big fight, she’d put each of us at a different table. We sat there not talking, not doing anything until it was dinnertime.

  At dinner, she made each of us sit and eat with a different cabin. Some of the girls from the other cabins knew we were in big trouble, so they whispered and giggled to each other about us. Now that dinner was over, it was our job to wash all the dishes in the dish room before we headed back up the hill to our cabin for lights-out.

  It felt like we were in the worst trouble that any campers in the history of Camp Little Big Woods had ever been in.

  “I really didn’t know it was possible to be so clumsy in so many ways,” Vanessa said, looking at Gina.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t know it was possible to be so mean and such a sore loser,” Gina said.

  “C’mon, you guys,” Avery said, sounding exasperated. “Let’s just get these dishes done so we can get out of here.”

  “Do you see all these dishes?” Vanessa asked. “We’re never going to get out of here!”

  Dirty pots, pans, cookie sheets, and serving trays covered every inch of the industrial-sized kitchen counters. It did look like we’d never finish.

  “Just be quiet and wash something, would you?” Gina snapped.

  So we all grabbed something and scrubbed, and the dish room was quiet for a few minutes except for the clanking of the pots and pans against the metal sinks and the sloshing of the water as we washed.

  I rubbed the Brillo pad against the cookie sheet I was holding underwater in the sink. The harder I scrubbed, the madder I got, and the madder I got, the harder I scrubbed. I scrubbed so hard that the water got away from me. It sloshed out of the sink and splashed Vanessa’s T-shirt and got her wet.

  “You little…” she said as she pulled her arm back, getting ready to throw a sponge at me.

  “Don’t you dare!” I warned.

  My tone of voice surprised me. Yesterday I would never have stood up to Vanessa like this, but now that she’d messed with something that was important to me, I wasn’t going to stand around so quietly anymore.

  “Or what?” Vanessa taunted.

  I grabbed the spray nozzle on the faucet and pointed it at her.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” she said.

  But then, I squeezed the trigger.

  As the water sprayed out, straight toward Vanessa’s face, I screamed. And the chaos began.

  I sprayed. Vanessa threw her sponge, and then she splashed soapy sink water right in my face. Meredith dumped a tub of rinse water down my back while Vanessa tried to pry the spray nozzle out of my hands. But I wouldn’t let go. Water sprayed everywhere as we fought over it. The dish room was turning into a water park.

  Becca grabbed another spray nozzle from the other sink and moved it back and forth like she was waving a sparkler on the Fourth of July.

  Vanessa turned around to see why she was getting so wet, and Becca sprayed her right in the face, so Vanessa lunged at Becca and fought to get that nozzle away from her.

  I dropped my spray nozzle, scooped up some water with an empty pitcher, and dumped it down the back of Vanessa’s T-shirt. She and Becca continued their struggle, while Meredith grabbed the spray nozzle I had dropped and sprayed it straight at me.

  Avery and Gina joined the fight too. They ripped off sheets of paper towel, dunked them in water, squished them into tight balls, and threw them at Vanessa and Meredith. So while we splashed, sprayed, and screamed, Vanessa and Meredith dashed, ducked, and dodged.

  I was so mad about everything. Everyone was, and we fought like our lives depended on it.

  But then Vanessa tried to dodge one of Gina’s soggy snowballs, and she slipped on the soapy sponge she’d thrown at me. She went flying all the way across the room on her butt, knocking over an entire shelf of plastic mugs. And the only thing louder than all those mugs clattering to the floor was the explosion of our laughter.

  Our fight continued. But now we laughed. We giggled. We squealed. We slipped and slid on the slippery wet floor while we splashed and soaked each other from head to toe. Our laughter energized us more than our anger had, and I didn’t know which was more fun—drenching someone else or getting drenched myself. Water, soapsuds, and paper towel snowballs were everywhere.

  “Let’s tell DDDJ we have a new event for the camp competition,” Gina said. “Bobsled butt sliding!”

  We all roared. All except Vanessa. She scrunched up some nearby paper towels and nailed Gina right in the stomach. But even though she acted mad, we knew she thought her slip-and-slide move was beyond hilarious. The only thing funnier was the big wet spot on her butt.

  “You should talk, Gina,” Vanessa taunted. “You couldn’t hit the bull’s-eye on a target if it was as big as a barn.”

  Gina reached down and picked up the paper towel snowball Vanessa had just thrown at her. It was floating at her feet. She squeezed out the water, pulled her arm back, and let it fly straight for Vanessa’s head. Vanessa ducked in plenty of time, but the snowball hit someone else.

  “What! Is! Going! On?!” Sarge Marge bellowed as she wiped the wet paper towel off her cheek.

  It had somehow managed to stick there, and then it fell to the floor with a splash.

  Sarge Marge looked around the dish room in silence. As she surveyed the damage in those quiet seconds that followed the water park mania, all we could hear was drip, plip, drip, plip as water dripped from every surface of the dish room—including all of us—onto the floor, which now looked like the shallow end of a swimming pool.

  It was as if all of our anger and frustration really had been a fire, and we had found a way to put it out. Now we were standing in the aftermath.

  Sarge Marge said in a very calm but stern, matter-of-fact way, “You ladies have ventured into a land far beyond trouble. In fact, you’re so far beyond trouble that you can’t even see trouble anymore.”

  None of us had any idea what that meant, so we just stood there dripping, panting, and staring at her.

  “Find a way to wipe it up, dry it up, and clean it up. I don’t care how you do it, and I don’t care how long it takes you.”

  She put her hands on her hips and continued. “Once you’re finished, find me in the bulldog chair, and I’ll tell you what your real punishment is.”

  She turned on her heels in her usual military fashion and walked out of the dish room and the mess hall, letting the screen door bang behind her.

  We all stood like melting statues as the water continued to drip off every part of us. No one talked. No one moved. No one even breathed until Gina said, “Did you see how that paper towel actually stuck to her face? That was hysterical! What a rumper bumper!”

  And all of us burst out laughing. And we…could…not…stop.

  “Did you see the look on her face?” Meredith asked.

  “And what was that ominous warning that we’re beyond the land of trouble? What was she talking about?” Vanessa added.

  “She’s beyond the land of crazy!” Becca yelled.

  “Technically, I think
the term is ‘insane’!” Avery exclaimed.

  I laughed so hard that I finally had to sit on the floor and lean against the cupboard, holding my stomach. There was so much water on the floor that I felt like I was sitting in the shallow end of Lake Little Big Woods. When I looked up and saw our whole cabin laughing together, I realized it was the first time this had happened. The first time we actually were all having fun. Together. Too bad it had to be when we were in the biggest trouble of our lives!

  • • •

  Having a water fight and cleaning up after one are two totally different things, and one is a lot more fun than the other. There weren’t enough dish towels to wipe up the water. That was for sure! And Gina and Avery had used up most of the paper towels as “snowballs.” But “technically,” as Avery said, even if the Bounty guy from the TV commercial had been there to help us with his unlimited supply of superabsorbent paper towels, there still wouldn’t have been enough to clean up the mess we’d made.

  We ended up opening the back door of the dish room and using cookie sheets sort of as squeegees to push the water out the door. It was actually Avery’s idea. She explained scientifically why this would be the best way to get the water out, something about displacing the water instead of trying to dry it with foreign materials. We were thankful for Avery’s idea, but we didn’t really need to know the scientific reason behind why it worked. The only downside was that we had to bend over the whole time while we were scraping the cookie sheets along the floor.

  Since we were all bent over, Gina cackled, sounding like the Wicked Witch of the West, “This’ll teach you, my pretties.”

  We all laughed a little, but things weren’t as funny as they had been earlier because we were all getting tired.

  “Technically, this is quite a bit of stress on our lower backs,” Avery said, standing up and stretching. “It could lead to possible permanent chronic injuries for all of us.”

  We all stopped, stood up, and stared at Avery.

  “Avery, the only thing that’s going to have permanent chronic damage is all of our ears from having to listen to you act like you’re a walking, talking version of Wikipedia,” Vanessa said.