Twelve (The Winnie Years)

by Lauren Myracle

  “You know what I mean,” Amanda said.

  “Not really,” I said.

  Amanda shrugged. “You’re different here at camp. I don’t know why, but you are.”

  So she had noticed. I had wondered.

  “I don’t know why, either,” I said. “I guess it is sort of weird.”

  “Good weird, though.” She shook out the last three HOT TAMALES and gave one to me and popped the other two into her mouth. “Are you glad you came?”

  “I am completely and totally glad I came,” I said. “Are you?”

  “That I came, or that you did?” she asked.

  I kicked her with my good foot.

  “Both,” she said. “I’m glad of both.”

  On the last day of camp—or rather the last full day, since the next day our parents would come pick us up—I stood up to the cheers of my cabin as I was proclaimed Miss Hummingbird. Amanda clapped loudest of all. I walked with Miss Chickadee and Miss Peregrine to the front of the lodge, where we picked up the trays of sloppy joes for our tables. Some might have said it was unfair that the most popular girls in each cabin were the ones who had to serve lunch, but I didn’t mind. I liked being the server.

  I didn’t want a sloppy joe, so I made myself a Camp Winding Gap Special instead. Peanut butter always stood on the table, as well as white bread, for those who didn’t want the day’s entrée. There were also lemon wedges and sugar for the iced tea. To make a Camp Winding Gap Special, you spread peanut butter on a piece of bread, then sprinkled on a spoonful of sugar, then squeezed a lemon over the whole thing. Mmm-mmm.

  “My very last Camp Winding Gap Special,” I intoned, holding my bread aloft.

  “You could make one at home,” Madison pointed out. “Do you have lemon juice? Just tell your mom to buy some.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same,” I said.

  “She’s right,” Jaden said. Sloppy-joe sauce dotted the corner of her lips. “Last year I made one with one of my school friends, and it wasn’t the same. It just tasted . . . wrong.”

  “When camp is over, it’s over,” Jessica said. “The end.”

  “But that’s so sad!” Madison said.

  “That’s life,” said Jessica.

  I’d learned during a late-night gab session that Jessica had had leukemia when she was a kid, so I guess she knew what was life and what wasn’t. I admired her for it. Madison, on the other hand, seemed a little spoiled. During that same late-night session, Madison had complained that the one thing she didn’t like about camp was having to make up her own bed. Amanda and I had shared a look.

  Madison pushed away her sloppy joe. “In that case, I’m having my last Camp Winding Gap Special, too.”

  “Me, too,” said Jaden, reaching for the bread.

  “All hail the Camp Winding Gap Special!” I said.

  “Will you write me?” Madison said out of nowhere, beseeching me with her eyes.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “After we leave,” she said. “Will you write me? Promise?”

  “Sure,” I said easily. If that was the price I had to pay for being Miss Hummingbird, then bring it on. I even had my own stationery, which my grandmom had given me and which had wildflowers printed across the pages.

  But at the same time, I felt it was my responsibility to cut Madison off before her teariness grew into something bigger. Plus, she was unexpectedly reminding me of Dinah, whom I hadn’t thought about the whole time I was here. I remembered Dinah’s expression when I told her I was going to Camp Winding Gap. It was the same mix of neediness and abandonment that I now saw in Madison. But I hadn’t abandoned Dinah, any more than I’d be abandoning Madison when I drove off with Mom and Dad tomorrow. We were big girls. Like Jessica said, that’s life.

  “We should go skinny-dipping,” I announced. Immediately, the mood at the table changed.

  “Omigosh, we should,” Jessica said.

  “I’ve never been skinny-dipping,” Jaden said. “Have you?”

  “No, and that’s why we should,” I said.

  Amanda giggled. “I don’t think I’m a skinny-dipping kind of girl.”

  “You can be if you want to be!” I argued. Suddenly this was important. “You can be whoever you want!”

  Madison fooled with her Camp Winding Gap Special, drawing a line in the lemony sugar crystals. I could tell she wanted to do it.

  “Where would we go?” she asked.

  “To the lake, past where we put the canoes in,” I said. “That hidden spot by the trees.” I stood up, knowing we had to go now before anyone chickened out. “Come on!”

  The five of us giggled as we left the lodge, trying to act casual.

  “Where are you girls going?” Amy asked from the counselors’ table.

  “Um . . . to check on our arts-and-crafts projects,” I improvised.

  “Be back in time for your afternoon activity!” she called. “And don’t forget—we’re doing barges tonight!”

  “What does she mean, ‘barges’?” I asked Jaden, since this was her third summer. We fast-walked down toward the lake, leading the rest of the pack.

  “Those little boats we made out of tree bark,” she said. “Remember? We’re going to melt candles onto them and float them down the river. It’s so pretty.”

  “Oh,” I said. We got to the lake and squelched our way to the tucked-away niche beyond the dock. It wasn’t perfectly blocked off from the camp, but pretty much so. The others clumped around us. Amanda was slightly out of breath. She raised her eyebrows, like are you really going to go through with this?

  “Well . . .” I said. My heart pounded. “Here goes nothing! ” I pulled off my shirt and bra and stepped out of my shorts and undies. Quick quick quick, because I was aware of everyone staring. I splashed into the lake—cold! cold!— and then I was doing it, skinny-dipping, with water swirling all about.

  “Come on in!” I called. Adrenaline surged through me. “It’s awesome, I swear!”

  Jessica hesitated, then peeled off her clothes and plunged in. Then Jaden, and then Madison, although she kept her underwear on until she was submerged, and only when she was fully covered did she toss them onto the bank. She forgot, apparently, that eventually she’d have to get out.

  “Amanda!” I cried. “Come on!”

  “I can’t!” she cried. “I’m too much of a wimp!”

  “No, you’re not,” I said. I got stern, to the delight of the others. “Get in right this second, or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!”

  Amanda took her shirt off, then her shorts. Her undies matched her bra. Both had pink flowers.

  “Can’t I just get in like this?” she asked.

  “Noooo!” we said.

  She gnawed on her thumbnail, her other arm wrapped around her ribs. Then she turned sideways and slipped off her undies. Last of all came her bra, and I saw that I’d been wrong about her not needing one. Crossing both arms over her chest, she ran squealing into the water.

  “Yes!” I said when she reached the rest of us. I slapped her a slippery high five.

  A stick-snapping sound came from the bank, and Amy emerged from the trees. “What in the world is going on here?” she demanded.

  Everyone shrieked. It was like at a slumber party, where someone’s dad says “Boo” right at the scary part of a movie.

  “It’s Amy!” Madison cried unnecessarily. “Hide!”

  “Where, you dork?” Jessica said. Although even she ducked down to her chin in the water. We all did.

  “Whose idea was this?” Amy said. She zeroed in on me. “Let me guess. Winnie?”

  I straightened my spine, but kept my chest submerged. “I cannot tell a lie,” I said. “It was . . . Amanda!”

  “What?!” Amanda screeched.

  Jessica and Jaden cracked up. Madison snorted out a snot bubble.

  “Um, just kidding?” I said. I grinned hopefully.

  Amy stayed mean for only a second. “Well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” s
he said, pulling off her rugby. Everyone shrieked again. Her breasts really were ginormous.

  She stripped off the rest of her clothes and splashed into the lake, and for once I didn’t make jokes about things I shouldn’t have, like the bruise above her nipple that looked like a bite mark. I could have said plenty about that. I could have made everybody laugh. But I didn’t need to. It was enough, just swimming naked in the water.

  That night, I sniffled along with the others as we set our bark boats afloat in the river. First I’d had my last Camp Winding Gap Special, then my last (and first) skinny-dip in the pond, and now this, the last time I might ever sail a bark boat down Horse Pasture River. It felt familiar, this parade of melancholy “lasts,” and I didn’t know why. But then I realized. It was like graduation, with its similar string of good-byes.

  So much sadness, last month leaving sixth grade and now leaving camp. But this time, while it was true that I was losing something, I’d also gotten something back: Amanda. I wouldn’t say it out loud. I didn’t need to. Still, it was a gift that had dropped down from the sky. We both needed a reminder of how great we were, that’s all.

  Anyway, this was a happy sort of sadness, a sadness to sink into and enjoy. The candles on our boats flickered as they set off on their journeys, and our voices filled the air with wistful song. “Silently flows the river to the sea, and the barges, too, go silently. Barges, I would like to go with you, I would like to sail the ocean blue. ”

  August

  THE COOL THING ABOUT AMANDA, as opposed two Dinah, was that Amanda didn’t always let me be the leader. With Dinah, I was the one who’d say what we would do, and then we’d do it, and it would be fun, because I was a genius with such things. And I liked how Dinah would giggle and make me feel brilliant, like the time we attached a fishing line to a tangerine and flushed it down the toilet, then tugged it back out again. Now that was high entertainment. And gross. But mainly high entertainment.

  Amanda, on the other hand, shot my ideas down when she thought they were stupid. Then she’d suggest ideas of her own, which was how we started hanging out at the trampoline. It was originally Amanda and Gail Grayson’s secret place, but Gail was at equestrian camp and therefore out of the picture. Anyway, it wasn’t as if I barged in without permission. Amanda led me to the trampoline herself, hidden in the woods behind the Graysons’ condominium complex. She knew I’d appreciate it, and I did. A secret trampoline, rusty and abandoned, with one big hole in the corner that you had to stay away from. But other than that, absolutely perfect.

  “How did you find this place?” I asked, timing my words to match my bounces. I loved how free I felt, like an astronaut springing across the moon.

  Amanda bounced across from me, going up when I went down and down when I went up. That way we got maximum jumpability.

  “Gail and I were just out exploring one day,” Amanda said. “We don’t know why it’s here, or who left it. And I’m sure my mom would think it’s dangerous, so don’t say anything.”

  I rolled my eyes. Like I’d be that stupid.

  “Too bad Gail can’t be here with us, huh?” I said. I didn’t mean it, but I wanted to try out the possibility of being generous. Or maybe I was hoping for more. Maybe I wanted Amanda to look puzzled and say, Who? Or if not that, at least, Nah, it’s better with just us.

  Instead Amanda said, “Oh, I know. I miss her so much. First I was at camp, and now she is. Is that totally unfair or what?”

  “Totally,” I mumbled. I bounced high, then dropped to my knees, then back to my feet. “Try that,” I said.

  “Easy,” Amanda said, copying me without a struggle. “Try this.” She dropped to her knees, then bounced and landed on her butt, then bounced back to standing. I tried, but my bounce wasn’t high enough to get back off my butt.

  “Just as I suspected,” Amanda said.

  “Oh, please. You’ve practiced way more.”

  Amanda showed off, doing a knee-drop followed by a flip. She grinned.

  I grinned back. I didn’t care that she was better than me. I was just happy to be hanging out with her. Would Dinah be able to do a knee-drop-flip? I don’t think so. And maybe it wasn’t nice to think that way, because as Mom said, you couldn’t compare apples and oranges. And maybe I liked both. Maybe I was an applange. Or an orpple. Or maybe— okay, fine—the two didn’t really mix.

  Whatever. Bouncing on the trampoline I felt weightless, just the way I liked it.

  “Mom, can I ride bikes with Amanda?” I asked the next day.

  “Winnie, you’ve played with Amanda every single day this week,” Mom said. “Not that I have anything against Amanda. You know I love Amanda. But don’t you think you should spend some time with Dinah?”

  I groaned, taking issue with everything Mom said. First of all, Amanda and I did not “play.” We hung out. And second of all, why bring Dinah into it? That only complicated things.

  “Why don’t you invite her to join you two?” Mom said. “Amanda’s a sweet girl. I’m sure she would understand.”

  I groaned louder. The fact that she’d have to understand said it all.

  “Mom, Amanda invited me, not Dinah,” I said. “We’re biking to the—” I stopped myself. I almost said, “trampoline, ” but changed it at the last second. “Drugstore. We’re going to look at lip gloss.”

  “Since when have you started caring about lip gloss?” Mom said.

  “We start seventh grade in less than two weeks,” I reminded her. “Seventh graders wear lip gloss, okay?”

  “Okay,” Mom said, amused. “But Dinah’s starting seventh grade, too. Doesn’t she need lip gloss?”

  “She already has some,” I said. “She has tons.”

  Mom came over to me in the kitchen. She ran her hand through my hair. “Listen, bug. I just don’t want you to get hurt, all right?”

  I looked at her like she was nuts. What was she talking about?

  “You and Amanda, spending so much time together. I’m worried she might let you down again.”

  I blushed, although I wasn’t sure why. “That was last year. We’re older now.”

  “I know,” Mom said. “And I also know that I’ve got to let you make your own mistakes.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just . . . oh, I don’t know. Just call Dinah, will you?”

  “I called her yesterday,” I said.

  “You called during her dance lesson. Call her when you know she’s going to be there.”

  What, she was a mind reader now?

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Great,” Mom said. She handed me the phone.

  “And then can I meet Amanda?”

  “Yes, then you can meet Amanda,” Mom said.

  I punched in Dinah’s number. I heard four rings, and then the answering machine picked up. Dinah’s voice in the message sounded super young.

  “Hi, Dinah,” I said after the beep. “It’s me. Winnie. Um, call me, okay? Bye!”

  I pressed the OFF button.

  “She wasn’t there, and it’s not my fault,” I told Mom.

  “Oh, Winnie,” she said. She cupped my face with her hands, and I made myself hold still for it. “You know . . . Dinah may not always be there for you when you come back.”

  I pulled away. I’d let her be motherly for that?

  “Duh, because she’s at her piano lesson,” I said. I saw Mom’s frown and quickly added, “Probably. And afterward, she usually goes out to eat with her dad. So?”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

  I sighed. “Can I just go now? Please?”

  “Go,” Mom said. “Have fun. Just remember to be careful.”

  Sitting cross-legged on the trampoline, far from the jagged hole, Amanda and I chomped on Mike and Ike’s and traded seventh-grade horror stories. The girl who got her period in the middle of math (wearing a yellow dress!); the girl who showed up with a pair of underwear stuck by static cling to the back of her pants (her mother’s underwear at
that); the girl who was forcibly held down while two other girls shaved her eyebrows off.

  “Why?” I said.

  “Who knows?” Amanda said. “But it’s true. It happened to the daughter of one of my mom’s friends. The mean girls told her she should wax because her eyebrows were hairy, but she didn’t. So they invited her to a slumber party, and she was all excited because she thought, ‘Oh good, I’m finally in their group.’ And then they held her down and shaved her eyebrows off.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said. I passed the Mike and Ike’s to Amanda and drew my knees to my chest. Stories like these made me want to stay in elementary school forever. Seriously. And Mom was worried about me being with Amanda? She was crazy.

  “What’d she do?” I asked. “The shaved-eyebrow girl.”

  “I don’t know. Probably switched schools—I would.”

  “But then you wouldn’t be with me anymore,” I said.

  “If I was eyebrowless, I wouldn’t want to be with anyone, ” she said.

  “Still,” I said. I worked at a bit of candy with my tongue. “Anyway, that would never happen. And the reason it’ll never happen is because we will be together. Right? I would never let anyone shave your eyebrows off.”

  “Thanks,” Amanda said. “But my eyebrows aren’t the slightest bit bushy. My mom says that’s lucky, because I’ll never have to pluck.”

  “You’ve talked about plucking your eyebrows?” I said.

  She looked at me, like you haven’t?

  It caught me off guard, this feeling of being one step behind even with someone I’d known all my life.

  “I wish Gail would get back from camp already,” Amanda said wistfully.

  My heart twinged. I was the one who’d made a point of bringing her Mike and Ike’s, not missing-in-action Gail.

  “What, I’m not good enough?” I joked.

  She snorted. “Right, you’re not good enough. You’re just a replacement until she comes home.” She flopped back on the trampoline. “Come on . . . don’t you miss Dinah?”

  “Why would I miss Dinah? She’s not out of town.”

  “Oh,” Amanda said. It was obvious she was surprised.

  “I just called her this very day,” I said, feeling as if I had to go on.