“I see some things haven’t changed,” she said wryly. Natalie had never really been one for “roughing it.”
“Hey!” Nat protested. “I love your hair. I also love my velour track suits. Leave my packing skills out of it.” She grinned. “Seriously, though. What’s the story here?” She glanced around at the chaos of the bus stop: piles of bags, backpacks, and trunks; older girls squealing and hugging as they reunited; younger first-timers looking nervous and watery-eyed as their parents patted them on the shoulders and directed them toward the bus. Nat and Jenna had agreed to be bus buddies for the ride from the North Jersey metro park up to Camp Walla Walla, and for her part, Jenna was gladder than ever that they had. She wasn’t shy by nature, and she was way excited to check out Walla Walla and its extensive sports program, but Camp Lakeview had been . . . home. Theirs. And even though she and Nat would be meeting a group of friends at camp, well, now? Now they’d be the newbies.
She wasn’t used to being a newbie.
“Uh, I think we have to put our luggage over in that pile—” she gestured limply at some chaos happening off in a far and dusty corner—“and then you have to tell some person with a clipboard that you’re here. I already did that.”
Natalie nodded. “Right. What is it with camps and clipboards? Remember how Dr. Steve used to wear one around his neck? Okay,” Natalie said, breaking into Jenna’s thoughts. “You’re making a face. Clearly I’ve upset you with my fond memories of Dr. Steve’s dorkier moments.”
Jenna smiled weakly. “No, it’s not that,” she insisted. “I guess . . . it just kind of hit me. About camp. Like, how we’re going somewhere new.”
“Yeah, I kind of thought that was the idea when you e-mailed the bunk and said, ‘Hey, what if we all go somewhere new?’ ” Nat’s eyes twinkled so Jenna knew that she was teasing.
“You’re funny,” Jenna replied. “But, yeah. I’m just a little more freaked than I expected to be at the whole change of scenery thing. What if—I don’t know? What if the girls at Walla Walla don’t like to do Seventeen magazine quizzes before lights-out? What if the kayaks are moldy? What if they play soccer in some weird new way, like with croquet mallets or something—”
“Okay, you need to calm down, stat,” Natalie said, grabbing Jenna’s wrists and swinging enthusiastically. “Have you forgotten one very important fact?” Jenna eyed Natalie doubtfully.
“We’re us!” Nat chirped, enthusiastic as ever. “The Lakeview girls! We rock and we always have one another’s backs! This is going to be our best summer ever. For reals.”
Jenna was quiet.
“Plus, you look fantastic, so this is the perfect time for a new beginning. And never mind that they obviously don’t play soccer with croquet mallets since the mallets would totally snap in half with the awesome power of your Sporty Spice strength.”
Jenna had to laugh at that.
“Better,” Nat said. “Smiling is better. Now, should I assume that you have already scoped out the bus and saved us the best seats, exactly two-thirds of the way back?”
Jenna nodded. “That was the first thing I did. Well, second. After the part with the clipboard.”
“Fabs,” Natalie said. “I’ll go check in and drop off my luggage. Then we can go brush up on our magazine quizzing. I came prepared.” She tipped open the lip of her shoulder bag to reveal a dizzying array of colorful pages. Then her expression turned more serious.
“I mean it, Jenna,” she said, her brown eyes sparkling. “Forget about being new. Not only are we going to have an amazing time, but I’d even bet you my favorite purple glitter nail polish that it’s only a matter of time before the Lakeview girls rule Camp Walla Walla. Swearsies.”
Jenna giggled again. It was hard to argue with Natalie when she was being all defiant and stuff. And if she was willing to put her purple glitter nail polish on the line, she was definitely not joking around.
So instead of arguing, Jenna just decided to cross her fingers and hope like heck that her friend was right. As far as plans went, it was solid enough. She scampered after Natalie, who was heading up the stairs and onto the bus. “Wait—” she called. “Do you have Twist in there?”
Brynn was bouncing off the walls. She’d been the first to arrive at Camp Walla Walla, and, after staking claim to the only single bunk in the Oak tent (all of the tents at Walla Walla were named after trees. Also, they were tents, not bunks or cabins. So that was . . . new), she had spent about three hours pretending to flip through a paperback romance while waiting for her friends from Lakeview to finally show up.
They were taking forever. Which was, on the one hand, okay, since Brynn needed the time to prepare a little pep talk for Natalie, who was definitely going to freak out when she saw the tents. For Natalie, “roughing it” usually meant eating her sushi on a paper plate.
On the other hand, she was bursting with excitement to see her friends again. Where were they?
She glanced at her waterproof sports watch for what felt like the zillionth time, relieved to see that the big hand was creeping toward the three at long last. Jenna and Natalie’s bus was supposed to be getting in at three, and Brynn was ready to give them the grand tour. Chelsea was already in the Oak tent, furiously unpacking, but Priya and Sloan weren’t due in until closer to dinnertime, which was still eons away. The girls had all requested to be in one another’s bunk, which meant that with four of them still missing in action, the room felt cavernous and—she had to face it—slightly depressing. Chelsea’s ruffly bedspread wasn’t doing much to perk up the no-frills waterproof canvas of the tent walls.
Finally, when she could bear it no longer, Brynn burst up from her bunk, her shock of short hair bouncing on her shoulders. She smiled at her counselor, Jocelyn “call me Josie,” and nodded her head toward the doorway. “I think my friends should be here any minute,” she explained. “I’m going to go meet them. Is that okay?”
Josie nodded. “Today is just for settling in. We don’t have anything scheduled until dinner tonight, so you’re good.”
“Awesome,” Brynn said. She turned to Chelsea, who was arranging her shoes in a neat row underneath her bed. “Do you want to come meet Jenna and Natalie with me?”
Chelsea looked puzzled. “Why would I do that?”
Brynn shook her head. No matter what, Chelsea would always be Chelsea. Back at Lakeview, she’d been pretty prickly, but as the girls got to know her, they realized that her stoniness was actually just a whole defense thing; her father had been really sick, and Chelsea was trying to be strong by cutting herself off from everyone else. Now that they’d gotten closer to her, they’d started to see a softer side of Chelsea. (And, thank goodness, her father was doing much better these days, too.)
But that didn’t mean that she didn’t still have her moments.
Brynn smiled. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just tell them you’re waiting for them back at the tent.”
She waved good-bye, dashed out of the tent, and hopped off the low wooden porch and onto the ground, kicking up a small cloud of dust in the process. She couldn’t believe it! Natalie and Jenna were going to be here any minute!
Another summer at camp—albeit a new camp—had officially begun!
“Omigosh—you’re here!”
Natalie winced and glanced up to see perky Brynn practically bounding down the hill toward where she and Jenna had just disembarked the bus. Camp Walla Walla may have been new territory, but Brynn was still Brynn. Screech and all.
Nat smiled. She wouldn’t have had it any other way. “We made it,” she said, stretching her slender arms overhead and trying to shake some of the bus funk off her skin. “Barely. We finished our last Vanessa Hudgens or Ashley Tisdale quiz about fifty miles back and I almost died of boredom.”
“Luckily she had me to revive her.” Jenna slung an amiable arm around her friend. “Only instead of CPR, I force-fed her gummy bears until her tongue turned rainbow-colored.”
“Tell me about it,” Bryn
n replied. “Believe me, you guys don’t know boredom. I’ve been, like, watching Chelsea make her bed up for at least the last seventeen years or so. She brought a lot of little pillows.” Her eyes went round and solemn. “A lot.”
Natalie giggled. “Good. Maybe she’ll share. Do you want to show us the bunk, then? Um—I mean the tent.” As she spoke the word, Natalie felt her heart do a little backflip into her stomach. Jenna had warned the girls via e-mail that in addition to a sportier daily regiment, Walla Walla boasted tents rather than bunks. Natalie’s inner jury was still out on the subject of tents. They sure weren’t in Kansas— make that Lakeview—anymore. Good thing they’d all requested to be in a tent together. Strength in numbers and all that.
Brynn’s look turned slightly more serious. Yikes. Natalie knew that meant the tents were probably . . . tenty. Egad. But after a moment, Brynn rallied, forcing a bright smile on her face. “Yup, and I’m going to give you the grand tour, too! I scoped this whole place out already,” Brynn said proudly.
“You really have been here for a while, huh?” Jenna asked dryly. Brynn just rolled her eyes.
“Oh—but . . .” Brynn’s eyes flickered briefly over Natalie’s three oversized bags. “Are those . . . all yours?”
“Um, yeah,” Nat said, suddenly suspicious. “Why?” She put her hands on her hips. “At least I didn’t bring pillows. You said Chelsea brought pillows.” Her cheeks were turning as pink as her trunks.
“Oh, uh . . . it’s just that . . . well, we’re responsible for getting our stuff to the tent,” Brynn explained. “By ourselves,” she added.
Natalie felt her features cloud over.
By ourselves, she thought. To the tent. Of course. Awesome.
Still, though, the last thing she wanted to do was to complain on her very first day of camp. She’d started her first summer at Lakeview feeling pretty cynical about the whole experience, and had sworn to herself that she’d be positive about Walla Walla, no matter what.
Even if that means hauling three bags that are bigger than I am to my bunk without any help, she realized.
Well, she reasoned, that was the good thing about coming to camp with her friends. She wasn’t, in fact, without any help. The silver lining made her smile for a moment.
She looked up at Brynn and Jenna, muster ing up some cheer. “That’ll teach me to listen to my mother about learning to pack light, huh?” she quipped.
Jenna clapped a reassuring hand on Natalie’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Nat,” she assured her, “you’ve got us. Just consider us your own personal pack mules. That’s what friends are for.”
Nat’s smile spread wider across her face. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
As the girls grunted and groaned their way along toward the Oak tent, Jenna eagerly took in every landmark they passed. True to her word, Brynn was all too happy to provide a running commentary on the landscape that, until they’d managed to unload all of their baggage and head off on a proper tour, would have to suffice.
“So, this is Lower Camp,” Brynn said, huffing and puffing a bit as she hitched one of Natalie’s bags higher up on her shoulder, “where all of the tents are. Then just past our tent there’s a footbridge, and past the bridge is the mess hall.”
“And our tent is where?” Natalie asked, her voice small and labored. “Not that I’m complaining. Just . . . curious.” She coughed and gritted her teeth, pulling at her trunk as its wheels caught on a pebble in the dirt path.
“We’re the last tent,” Brynn said brightly.
Natalie only shook her head, causing Jenna to burst out laughing.
“Sorry, sorry,” Jenna insisted, seeing the look of exasperation on her friend’s face. “It’s just . . . of course we’re the last tent.”
“You would think that was funny,” Natalie grumbled. “Especially since you probably only want to know where the soccer field is.”
And the tennis courts, and the ropes course, and the basketball court, and the waterfront . . . Jenna thought. Out loud she said simply, “Natalie, you read my mind.”
“The waterfront is down the slope from the mess hall,” Brynn said. “Down the slope is Walla Walla speak for the bottom of the hill. If you use that expression people will think you’re fancy. Or at least an old pro. That’s what Josie—our counselor, Josie—told me. She wanted to make sure that we Lakeview girls knew all of the lingo. And then all the sports fields and stuff are up the slope from the waterfront, also known as—”
“—let me guess: Upper Camp?” Natalie chimed in.
“You’re getting the hang of it,” Brynn said, grinning.
“Yay me.” Natalie shifted the weight of her trunk into one hand so that she could swipe at the beads of sweat collecting on her forehead with the other. She took a deep breath and continued forward.
Sensing (and maybe even sharing) her exhaustion, the girls shuffled along in silence for a few moments until finally, blissfully, Brynn stopped in her tracks.
“Ladies and . . . well, ladies,” she announced grandly, “may I present to you: the Oak tent!” She broke out into a quick jazz square, fingers twitching.
“Please, you’re making me tired just looking at you,” Natalie protested. She stepped up the rickety stairs and inside. Jenna and Brynn followed close on her heels.
Stepping forward, Jenna careened into Natalie, who had stopped short once she stepped into the tent.
“Ow,” Jenna said, reeling back slightly.
“It’s . . . a tent,” Natalie murmured to no one in particular.
“It’s the Oak tent,” Chelsea agreed, looking cheerful enough from amidst a mound of throw pillows on her bunk. “Hi, Nat.” To Jenna she said, “Your hair is straight,” and after a thoughtful beat, “I like it.”
“Thanks, Chelsea,” Jenna said. Her eyes darted around the room. “It is a tent,” she agreed. She thought it was pretty cool, herself. “Oh my gosh, it’s all great outdoorsy and stuff.”
“Yeah, um, at least there will be lots of fresh air and stuff,” Natalie said. Jenna could hear a quiver in her friend’s voice. “Which I know for a fact because I can feel it blowing through the canvas walls.”
Uh-oh, Nat’s about to have a total freak-out, Jenna realized. She thought back to Nat’s first day at Lakeview, when she had spotted a spider in the bathroom of their bunk and screamed like she’d seen a ghost.
If Nat had been that spazzy about a harmless little spider in the bathroom, what was she going to do, Jenna wondered, when she discovered that the Oak tent didn’t even have a bathroom? The girls would use a communal outhouse with sinks and outdoor showers that stood behind the tents. Jenna had a sneaking suspicion that Nat had skimmed over that portion of the website.
Yeah, Jenna could just imagine how that was going to go over.
She decided to put off the inevitable for as long as she could. “Where are we all sleeping?” she asked, surveying the room brightly.
Chelsea stood, leaving a pile of pillows in her wake. “This is my bed,” she explained, gesturing to her bottom bunk. “And Natalie, I thought you could be on top, ’cause I know you like the top bunk.”
Nat nodded numbly.
“I’m here.” Brynn indicated a single bunk to the left of the front door of the tent. “Sorry,” she said to Jenna. “It was the only single.”
Jenna shrugged. She preferred a bunk bed, anyway. She had her own single back at home. “So can I take this bottom bunk?” She pointed to the bed next to Nat and Chelsea’s.
“Yup, we thought you could take that, and then Sloan wants a top bunk, so she could be on top of yours—you can save it for her,” Brynn explained, “and then Priya would take the bottom bunk there.” She indicated the last set of bunk beds in the room. “That other bunk is Josie’s. Our counselor. The C.I.T., Anika, is on top.”
Jenna nodded, taking in the room. “So who’s going to be on top of Priya?” she wondered aloud.
“No idea,” Chelsea said.
As if on cue, the door to t
he tent swung open and in walked a girl that Jenna had never seen before. Everything about her was long, lean, and straight. She was tall, with tanned, slender limbs and straight blond hair that she wore tucked behind a tortoiseshell headband. Her eyes were green and matched the shade of her polo T-shirt exactly. She regarded the girls coolly.
“I’m Avery,” she said.
She didn’t ask them their names.
Jenna was thrown by Avery’s aloof exterior, but decided the best thing to do was just to be friendly. “Hi,” she said, smiling widely. “I’m Jenna. And this is Natalie, and Brynn, and Chelsea.” She pointed at each of her friends in succession. “We all came from—”
“Camp Lakeview,” Avery said, cutting Jenna off. “I know.”
She said it in a tone of voice that suggested to Jenna that Avery knew all sorts of things. “Right. So, um, you’re a Walla Walla girl?” Jenna asked, forging forward.
Avery didn’t bother to reply to Jenna’s question. “It looks like there was some kind of mix-up in the office,” she said, quickly walking the perimeter of the room. “I’m the only Walla Walla girl in this tent.” She said this accusingly, as though Jenna and her friends had orchestrated the situation themselves, on purpose. “Also,” she said, stopping her pacing right in front of Brynn. “You took my bed.”
Brynn’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Your bed? But . . . you weren’t here. And there wasn’t, like, any luggage on the bed or anything. Josie said it was first-come, first-served.” She sounded a little doubtful, but Jenna could tell her friend wasn’t going to back down. Brynn was psyched about the single bunk she’d scored, and she wasn’t about to give it up without a good reason. And why should she have to?
“It’s the bed I take every year, in whatever tent I’m in. I had that bed when I was in the Redwood tent, I had it when I was in the Pine tent, and I had it when I was in the Sequoia tent. So I just assumed . . .” Avery’s voice trailed off as her eyes narrowed. “You couldn’t know, being . . . new and all.” She somehow managed to make “new” sound like a scathing insult.
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