“You guys,” she called, scampering after them, for once not giving even the slightest consideration to what the running must be doing to her pedicure, “wait for me!”
chapter SIX
Sarah was famished.
Okay, so this wasn’t exactly her first summer at Walla Walla, but somehow her body never got used to how demanding all of the outdoor activities at this place were. It always came as a huge surprise when she made her way to the mess hall and realized, with a disbelieving start, that her stomach was growling loudly enough for her parents to hear her back home.
Too bad there was only camp food to quiet it.
Maybe that’s why they run us so ragged here, she mused. So that we’re too tired and hungry to complain about how awful the food is.
It was a theory.
She felt an elbow in her ribs and turned to see her tentmate, Hailey, a tall stringbean of a girl with glossy black hair and an explosion of freckles, looking impatient. “I know whatever is waiting for us in there is probably not worth getting all pushy about, but can you . . . push a little?” She meant through the throngs of waiting campers. “I’m gonna pass out if I don’t get something to eat ASAP.”
“Me too,” Sarah agreed. “But keep in mind that it might be ‘sloppy joe surprise’ today.” As if any normal person would be interested in a surprise like that.
“Surprise!” Hailey said, waving her fingers like a jazz dancer. She spread her hands out and waggled all of her fingers. “It’s totally inedible.” The two girls laughed, and Hailey linked an arm through Sarah’s. “I don’t even care. I’m going to eat whatever they put out. Including the cutlery.”
“Good thing you’ve got an extra spoon stashed back in the bunk,” Sarah said as the doors to the mess hall opened and the campers began to trickle in.
She was referring to the fact that this morning, just before the nature walk, Hailey had “killed” her target: Jordan. She’d found his spoon in—ugh—his laundry bag.
Sarah shuddered. “But you can’t eat with that thing until it’s been boiled, sanitized, disinfected, and then boiled again. It was in his laundry. Like, hanging out with his dirty socks and stuff.”
Hailey giggled as the girls found seats at their table and waited for their counselor, Tara, to get their food. “I wasn’t planning on eating with it. It’s more of a trophy. And anyway, that’s the whole point of Assassin,” she reminded Sarah. “You get to just be a big, fat spy, and no one can give you any trouble about it. You can root through people’s dirty laundry.”
Sarah shook her head. “I don’t think you’re supposed to take that expression literally, Hals.” She poured herself a glass of bug juice and gulped it down eagerly. “Besides, did you learn anything all that interesting about Jordan in the process, anyway? Any embarrassing love letters from Brynn?”
“No such luck. Only that his mom wrote his name on the inside collar of all of his T-shirts,” Hailey admitted. “Which is kind of boring. But a little cute. I love the idea of his mom putting labels in his shirts and helping him pack up his trunk.”
“Extremely cute,” Sarah agreed.
As she reached for Hailey’s glass to pour some juice for her friend, Avery swung by their table. Even though they’d just spent over an hour traipsing through the woods, sweating and dodging low branches and stuff, Avery didn’t have a hair out of place. Frankly, Sarah doubted if Avery had ever had a bad hair day in her life. It really wasn’t fair at all.
“Hey girls, how’s it going?” she asked, grinning and leaning in toward her friends. “Good work with Jordan, Hailey. Someone had to kick the game off right.”
“Jordan has his name written in all of his T-shirts,” Sarah offered, wishing she had a better scoop for Avery. Avery generally liked a good scoop. A boy with name labels in his clothes was not gossip.
“That’s the best you can do?” Avery widened her eyes and her smile at both of the girls. “Please. This game is rife for digging up dirt. I, for one, cannot wait to get the deets on all of the Lakeview girls.” She let her eyes wander to the table where the Oak tent ate, surveying them all hungrily.
Was it Sarah’s imagination, or did Avery’s eyes linger on Natalie for just a beat longer than on the others? And if so, what did that mean?
Was Natalie Avery’s target?
Sarah suddenly felt her insides run cold.
If Natalie was Avery’s target, then Avery would be practically stalking Natalie until she captured the girl’s spoon. This meant that she’d be combing through the Oak tent with every ounce of energy that she had.
And Avery could be extremely energetic when she wanted to be.
This was a disaster.
The last thing that Sarah needed was for Avery to go through all of Natalie’s stuff and find out . . .
Well, and find out. Find out all of the things that Sarah hadn’t told her.
No. No way. That wasn’t going to work. And what was more, Sarah wasn’t going to let it happen. She was going to have to watch Avery extra carefully going forward, to stick to her like glue and monitor all of Avery’s attempts to uncover Natalie’s—and therefore, Sarah’s—secrets.
This meant that she was going to be mighty busy.
Sarah was still deep in thought, assessing the possibility of damage control and wondering just how crazy she might wind up looking—to Avery or to any of her other friends, for that matter—when Tara deposited a steaming platter of what appeared to be overcooked spaghetti with watery marinara sauce on the table in front of her. She barely blinked when Hailey reached past her for the serving tongs.
“Wait—did you want some?” Hailey asked. “You totally just took a trip to space-out-ville. Helloo, Sarah? Yoo-hoo?” She waved a hand in front of Sarah’s face.
“What? Oh—no, thanks,” Sarah said, snapping out of her reverie all at once. “You go ahead.”
“Good, ’cause like I said, I’m starving, and there’s only so much they can do to ruin pasta.”
“True,” Sarah said with resignation. “But I’ll pass, anyway. I think I just lost my appetite.”
“Thank goodness for cookouts!” Natalie exclaimed as she, Jenna, and the rest of the Oak tent made their way down to the waterfront for an evening bonfire and barbeque. “I thought I was going to starve to death after those sad little noodles we had at lunchtime.”
“Lunch was grossness, but I saw you scarfing down some gummy bears during quiet hour,” Jenna pointed out.
“Fair enough. But there’s always room for barbeque! I think I’m going to have a hamburger and a hot dog.”
“Go wild, Natalie. You only live once,” Jenna deadpanned.
“What, you’re not excited about the camp-fire?” Sloan asked, coming up behind the girls and shimmying her way between them.
“It’s not that,” Jenna explained. “I’m just worried about all of us being away from our tents for so long. There’s way too much potential for some major Assassin recon.”
“Recon,” Nat giggled. She loved how her friend was being all super-commando about the game. “Aye, aye, captain.”
“I’m not a pirate,” Jenna said, shooting Natalie a withering look. “I’m an assassin. You are, too.”
Natalie raised an eyebrow.
“It’s just . . . okay, so I’m taking the game a little more seriously than some people are,” Jenna conceded. “So what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing is wrong with that whatsoever,” Natalie said reassuringly. “As long as you don’t need me painting my face in camo colors and getting all into it with you and stuff. I’m more of a ‘support you from the sidelines’ kind of gal. Like, I’ll look for my target and hide from whomever has me as a target. But there won’t be any recon involved. You can’t make me.” She folded her arms across her chest in a “so there” gesture.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jenna replied. “Though I seriously can’t believe that you’re the same person who organized a raid the other night. All on your very own.”
“That was different,” Natalie pointed out. “There were boys involved.”
At that, Jenna had to laugh. Of course things were different for boy-crazy Natalie when there were boys involved. Meanwhile, Sloan was scouring the beach to see which of their friends had already arrived. “There’s Jordan,” she said. “I guess he doesn’t have to worry about guarding his domain now that he’s been killed.”
“Good,” Natalie said, “because everyone else is being so spazzy that the more people who are bowed out, the better. Have you noticed how Joanna has been walking around with eyes the size of satellite dishes these days?”
“I guess because the whole game was Avery’s idea, she’d be totally humiliated if she were one of the first people out of the game. So she’s got her guard up.” Jenna almost looked sympathetic, Natalie noted. It was hard not to feel at least a little bit bad for Joanna. Being Avery’s mini-me couldn’t be that much fun.
Then again, it was also hard to be sympathetic to someone whose best friend’s life mission was to make you miserable.
Suddenly the girls heard shouting, followed by two boys crashing through the bushes and down to where the firepit had been set up. Natalie recognized them as Neal and Justin, two of Jordan and Reed’s tentmates. Neal appeared to be chasing Justin. Over his head, Neal waved a small silver spoon in triumph.
“Why is Justin running away? Once Neal has the spoon it’s over, right?” Natalie asked Jenna. “Am I getting the rules wrong? What is all of this . . . running?” Hadn’t they all had enough with the stamina and exertion and sweat for the afternoon? Heck—for the whole summer? Couldn’t a person just toast a marshmallow and call it a day? Summer was supposed to be a time for relaxing, for Pete’s sake.
Jenna shook her head. “You’re not wrong, but my guess is that Neal is just going for dramatic effect. Boys.”
“And the counselors don’t care? Even though we got in trouble for sneaking out for a raid?” Natalie seethed at the injustice of it all. She was still bitter about being forced to wash dishes. Dishes were her very least favorite chore.
“We are not Miss Perfect Princess Avery,” Jenna said. “Avery couldn’t violate the honor code if she tried. Besides, technically, Assassin does go against the honor code, but the thing is that the counselors and the rest of the staff turn a blind eye as long as we’re not too obvious about it.” At Natalie’s questioning look, she said simply, “I’ve been doing some asking around.”
“They’re wrestling,” Natalie said, pointing to where Neal and Justin had practically tied themselves in a knot on the ground. “How is that not obvious?” She could hear the grunting over the din of the rest of the campers, and the boys were kicking up huge clumps of dust and sand as they rolled all over the ground.
“Boys,” Jenna said again. “If anyone asked, they’d just deny that it had anything to do with Assassin.”
“Boys,” Sloan echoed. “Ugh.”
“Really,” Natalie said. “Speaking of . . .” she let her voice trail off and she squinted to see if she could make out Reed among any of the other hyper little y-chromosome types. Nope. He wasn’t there yet.
“Looking for your Prince Charming?” Sloan teased.
“Maybe,” Natalie said, smiling softly. Okay, so she got a little giddy at the thought of Reed. There were worse things.
“You can’t fool me, I’m psychic,” Sloan reminded her. “Right now your aura is so pink it’s practically a Strawberry Shortcake movie. You’re in lllluuuuuveee.”
Natalie arched an eyebrow. “Like. I’m in like. And it doesn’t matter, because if he isn’t here yet, then you guys are stuck with me, and I say, enough boy talk—bring on the hot dogs!”
The girls didn’t need any more prompting than that. They proceeded to stuff themselves silly with cookout food. Anika and Josie joined them, along with Avery and Joanna (most likely at Josie’s suggestion, Nat suspected, but still). For a moment it almost felt to Natalie like the entire bunk was getting along and they’d fallen into a nice Walla Walla groove, Outdoor CORE or no.
The sound of hooting and hollering farther from the shoreline and toward the path down to the waterfront pulled Natalie’s attention away from her tentmates and toward Dr. Steve. Ever-present clipboard in hand, he made his way to the head of the beach where the lifeguard shack stood, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Are you all having a good time tonight?” he called.
Thunderous cheering greeted him. Natalie’s mouth was still full, so she had to settle for kicking her feet against the sand. It wasn’t actually noisy, but it was still satisfying, anyway.
“Great,” Dr. Steve went on. “Because I’ve got some news that you’re going to love! This Friday will mark the start of our annual Outdoor Adventure Weekend!”
Next to Natalie, Avery put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. The sound pierced Natalie’s eardrums. Clearly Avery thought this was very good news indeed.
For her part, Natalie was a tad suspicious. “Outdoor Adventure Weekend” sounded suspiciously like three days of nature walks. Maybe worse.
As if to confirm her worst fears, Dr. Steve raised his hand to quiet the crowd. “Some of you are familiar with Outdoor Adventure Weekend, but for those of you who aren’t, just know that it is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a camp-wide event, though the divisions go through the different legs of the weekend separately and in slightly separate locations. This is meant to foster teamwork and camaraderie among your peers. Your division will be starting with a day-long hike, followed by a two-day overnight. We’ll spend one day fishing and one day boating.”
From across the circle where their tent had settled down, Natalie could see Jenna doing a happy dance in her seat. Avery, of course, only smiled more and more widely, until it looked like she was possibly going to swallow her own face whole. Joanna seemed pleased, and Anika no doubt was already anticipating spearing dinner from the river with her own bare hands or something equally pioneerlike.
For her part, Natalie wanted to throw up. And she doubted it was from the three hot dogs she’d eaten. Outdoor Adventure Weekend sounded dirty, tiring, and totally scary. She was really starting to wonder if she was truly cut out for Camp Walla Walla.
I could still get out of it, she thought to herself. Mom would be annoyed at me for bailing after begging so hard to come to camp, but she’d pull me out if she thought I was miserable. And Dad would just be excited to think that I was going back to acting classes.
Her stomach hitched uneasily.
It would only take one phone call . . .
She looked up and happened to catch Jenna’s eye. Jenna flashed a quick thumbs-up, which Natalie knew was Jenna’s way of reassuring Nat that no matter what, they’d get through the weekend together.
Natalie knew that going home wasn’t an option. Not when all of her girls were here and counting on her.
Her stomach flipped again. This time, though, it was for a different reason. It wasn’t that she was having second thoughts about the weekend—far from it, every thought she had screamed to avoid it at all costs—but rather, that she knew no matter what, her Lakeview girls had her back. She wouldn’t be going through this weekend alone.
Yes, she was probably going to suffer, and her allergies were definitely going to take a serious hit, and the soles of her feet were not going to be improved by hiking one bit.
But she’d be suffering alongside her bestest friends.
Which was kind of the same thing as fun, wasn’t it?
One of the best things about an Outdoor Adventure Weekend, Priya decided, was that it kept all of the counselors busy at a late-night staff meeting, leaving the girls of the Oak tent on their own after lights-out.
Well, all of the girls except one.
“Where is Chelsea?” she asked nobody in particular.
“No idea,” Sloan replied, barely looking up from the book she was reading. “And the Magic 8 Ball is way too far away for me to check.”
“Thanks anyway,” P
riya said, laughing. “I can probably just wait and see. What are you reading, anyway?”
“It’s a book of astrology quizzes,” Sloan said. “And there’s also numerology.”
“Wait—is that, like, where all the numbers of your birthday get added up to tell you your fortune?” Priya thought she had seen that on a website somewhere or something once.
“Sort of,” Sloan said. “But to be honest, it’s kinda boring quizzing myself. Wanna take one?”
“As long as we can do it without turning on the main lights of the tent,” Priya said. “I do not want to get in trouble for being up past lights-out.”
From her bunk, Natalie snorted. “Please. What are they going to do? Ground us from the Outdoor Adventure Weekend? I wish!”
“No, Nat—for you, they’d have a special punishment. Like, they’d make you do the boating portion in a canoe—all by yourself!” Priya said, giggling.
Natalie sighed. “Ugh, you’re probably right. I am so doomed to become one with nature this summer.” She flopped backward onto her bed, causing the springs to creak dramatically.
“Looks like!” Sloan chirped. “But in the meantime—quizzes!” She flicked her pink flashlight at each of the girls individually. “Who’s in?”
Priya nodded happily, then watched eagerly as Natalie, Jenna, and Brynn bobbed their heads in assent. Finally, Sloan’s flashlight beam lingered on Avery’s pretty face. She was applying lip gloss. When she finished, she ran her fingers through her hair.
“Ick, quizzes,” she said, her voice dripping with scorn. “How fun. Except not.”
She popped out of her bed, revealing that she’d never changed out of her tank top and cutoff shorts from the cookout. “I’m going for a walk.” She almost sounded as though she were daring the girls to stop her. Not that anyone would, even if taking a walk alone after lights-out was way outside of the rules of the honor code. Clearly, Avery lived above the honor code. She strode out the door abruptly without so much as a look at the other girls.
Reunion #21 Page 8