“Remember last year?” Tori asked as she stood up and pushed in her chair. “We were all so, like, nuts about the social. Remember how we tried to get dates, and make the theme more romantic?”
Brynn snorted. “Right,” she said with a laugh. “Well, what can I say? We were boy crazy, I guess. I’m glad we’re more mellow now.”
“Yeah,” Alyssa agreed.
“Yeah,” Grace added. But as she looked around at her friends, she sounded a little unsure.
“So what do you think this show is like?” Alex asked as she and her bunkmates lounged in the soft grass near the campfire. The rest of the camp was engrossed in a counselor’s ghost story, but having recently lived through some real-life ghost stories, bunk 5A was uninterested.
“It’s cool,” replied Tori. “It’s like Survivor for kids, basically. My dad saw the pilot. One of his clients is the host.”
“How does it work?” Gaby asked.
Tori leaned back to look at the stars, speaking in a monotone. “Twelve campers. They pair up differently in every show, and they have to perform a challenge—something to do with surviving in the wilderness that requires teamwork. Each episode, one pair is sent home. Then, at the end, the last two have to defend themselves to the judges, and whoever does the best is the winner.” She pushed her long blond hair back from her face.
“Cool,” breathed Val. “It sounds interesting.”
“Do they have to build their own shelters?” asked Jenna.
Tori nodded. “Yeah. They get, like, basic supplies. Water. Some PowerBars. But everything else, they have to make.”
Jenna wrinkled her nose. “Even toilet paper?”
Tori laughed. “Yeah, even that.”
“Who gets to decide who goes home?” Chelsea asked. “The host?”
Tori shook her head. “No, there’s a team of judges. Psychiatrists and nature experts and stuff. They review all the footage and decide.”
“Do they go right home?” Chelsea asked.
Tori shook her head again. “No. I think they put them in a hotel nearby, then they bring them back for the last episode.”
Chelsea looked puzzled. “The people who get kicked off, they come back? Like, they’re competing again?”
Gaby scratched a mosquito bite on her ankle and bit her tongue to keep from saying something snarky. Chelsea never understands anything.
Tori seemed unbothered, though. “No, Chelse. They bring them back to be in the audience when the winner is announced. Once you’re out, you’re out.”
Chelsea still looked confused. “Why don’t they just send them home, then?” she asked. “If they’re not going to be able to win. I’d hate to lose and then just have to sit around doing nothing.”
Gaby was getting tired of all these questions. “Because that’s the way the show is!” she said. “If you have such a problem with how the game is played, become a TV producer and make your own show!”
Silence fell over the group. Gaby felt her heart sink as she noticed everyone staring at her, stunned. Uh-oh. I did it again.
“Jeez, Gaby,” Alyssa muttered disapprovingly. “Harsh much?”
“I’m just trying to understand the game,” Chelsea whined.
“It’s easy,” Gaby said, trying to make her voice gentler. “Twelve kids. They camp. They get voted out one by one, and then one wins. What’s so hard about that?”
“Actually,” Chelsea replied, sitting up with a big cat-that-ate-the-canary smile, “they get voted out two by two. In pairs. Until the very end, when one wins.” She smirked and then turned her back on Gaby. “But I wouldn’t have understood that if it weren’t for all the stupid questions.”
Gaby felt her face turning red. The other girls were laughing and smiling; once again, she’d made a fool of herself by trying to shut up Chelsea. She couldn’t take this anymore. Chelsea lied and whined and acted dumb, and still she managed to come out on top.
“I don’t need you to explain the stupid game to me,” Gaby hissed. “I understand the stupid game. I probably understand it better than you do!” With that, she turned her back on her bunk and tried to take deep breaths. Calm down, Gaby, she told herself. Every time you lose your temper, it all gets ten times worse.
Candace’s voice floated over from the circle. “What do you mean you understand it better than we do?” she asked timidly. “Do you have some kind of connection? Like Tori?”
Gaby’s breath caught. She’d never meant to imply that she had a connection to the show—of course she didn’t. Her dad was an accountant, not some big-time celebrity lawyer like Tori’s father. But her bunkmates didn’t know that. In fact, they didn’t know much of anything about her family.
Like Tori. She thought of the way everyone had fallen all over Tori, peppering her with questions and hanging on her answers. Nobody ever accused Tori of being mean or snarky. They all thought she was cool because her dad was so connected to Hollywood.
Gaby turned back around. “I’m . . . not supposed to talk about it,” she said finally.
Nat’s eyes widened. “You mean you do?” she asked. “Seriously? I thought you were just being a jerk.”
Jenna chuckled nervously. “I think what Nat’s trying to say is that we’re surprised.” She glanced over at Nat, who shrugged unapologetically. “Since you didn’t say anything before. I mean, what’s your connection?”
Gaby blinked. What was her connection? “I mean, I’m not supposed to talk about it. Like I said. You know what, just forget I said anything. I don’t want to get in trouble with the produc—with anybody.” Gaby smiled. It was a real smile; she couldn’t help it. The way she’d let her voice tremble a little, like she really was nervous? And name-checking the “producers,” a term Tori threw around all the time? Perfect save.
Everyone was looking at her with wide-eyed wonder again, like she’d just transformed from a hideous troll into Jake Gyllenhaal right before their eyes. “Seriously?” Val asked with a little smile. “You don’t want to get in trouble with the producers?”
Ten points. Gaby tried to look uncomfortable. “Let’s just change the subject.”
“Oh, no,” insisted Alex, waving her hand around. “Oh, no no no no no. You’re giving us details.”
“You can’t just leave us hanging,” Brynn agreed.
Gaby shook her head. “I can’t, really. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Now she was getting a little nervous. She didn’t have details—there were no details. How was she going to get out of this?
“Maybe you shouldn’t have said anything,” Priya said, “but you opened your big mouth, not us. I don’t think we should have to suffer. You have to tell us!”
Gaby didn’t say anything. She wondered if she looked as terrified as she felt. Probably not. She was good at hiding things.
“What about tomorrow?” Tori asked after a few seconds. “If you don’t want to ruin some surprise, why not wait till tomorrow night, after we’ve all seen the show? Then we’ll already have all our opinions formed and whatever. I mean, you can’t ruin the ending for us.” She yawned and sat up, circling her knees with her arms.
“Why can’t she ruin it?” Chelsea asked, still pouting.
Tori shrugged. “It’s live,” she said. “The series was all taped. But the finale is live. She can’t know who wins, because nobody’s won yet.”
Gaby felt a rush of relief at this new information. Live! So that meant they couldn’t expect her to know anything about what happens, because even if she were connected to the show, she couldn’t predict the future. Gaby, she thought to herself, this is the perfect plan. You’ll be the center of attention, and you can be just as surprised as everyone else!
“All right,” she agreed, trying to make a big show of looking hesitant. “I’ll tell you tomorrow, after the show. But you can’t tell anyone.”
“Awesome.” Jenna actually smiled at her. Gaby smiled back, and felt a happy glow settling over her. Awesome, she thought.
Now I just have to figure
out what my secret is.
chapter FOUR
“Hey, congrats on winning the scavenger hunt last night,” Grace heard Alyssa telling Spence as she walked into the newspaper room alone.
Grace wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about being back in newspaper. All through lunch, the conversation had been about Chelsea, and Cropsy, and what had happened while Grace was in summer school. Grace knew her bunkmates had had an intense time on the overnight, but couldn’t they see that the constant retellings only made her feel more left out? Besides that, she was still totally confused about what had happened at lunch yesterday. For some reason, it seemed like everyone was pushing her to admit that she liked Spence, when really, they’d only had one, admittedly nice, conversation.
Why? What was the big deal about her liking Spence, or not liking Spence? The obvious answer would be that her friends wanted her to have a boyfriend, but even that—Grace had a weird feeling about it. Something in the way Gaby, Priya, and Chelsea had responded seemed off. Grace couldn’t put her finger on it. And even if they were being totally sincere—what was the big deal about her getting a boyfriend? Did they think she was pathetic on her own or something? Was it because sending her off with some boy would be easier than trying to include her?
If dinner yesterday had never happened, Grace knew she would actually be looking forward to seeing Spence again—Spence was funny, and cute, and the work they’d done yesterday had been more fun than she’d expected. But since the conversation at dinner had happened, all she could think about was how her friends would react to her getting closer to Spence. And that made her not so excited about the Spence thing. In fact, it kind of made her want to avoid Spence altogether.
“Thanks,” Spence was saying, “but we just got lucky, basically. When Adam started wading into the lake to get that coin, I thought he was totally nuts. Who knew we’d have to get wet?”
“We didn’t even get that clue,” Alyssa admitted. “As soon as Nat realized she’d have to get her gauchos wet, she was like, forget it.”
Spence laughed. “Yeah, I guess the guys had a little bit of an advantage. We don’t mind getting wet, or slimy, or muddy.” He glanced up and saw Grace standing off to the side. “Hey, partner.”
Grace felt herself blushing. Great, she thought. I haven’t even figured out whether I like him, but thanks to my bunkmates, he’s going to see me blushing and think I do. “Hey,” she said, trying to sound unenthused.
“So,” Spence said, “I’d say maybe you guys can crash our ice cream party, but I think Adam would freak out. He was very, ‘we beat the girls!’ about it.”
“Not a problem,” Alyssa said.
“I’m lactose intolerant,” Candace added solemnly.
“Well all right, Debbie Downer,” Alyssa said with a little laugh. “Let’s go, we have a lot of work to do on our piece today. And I’m sure Spence and Grace are—busy.” Alyssa gave Grace a quick wink before walking away.
Great, Grace thought. I hope Spence didn’t see that.
But Spence had already turned back to his mountain of notes.
“Remember the amfog,” he read from one particularly messy one. He held it up to Grace. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Grace shook her head.
“Right.” He pushed his pile of notes away and gestured to some papers on a far table. “I think today, we should sort through these. They’re paintings and drawings from the arts and crafts classes. We need to pick two from each division to put in the paper—one from a girl, one from a boy.”
Grace nodded without looking at him. She kept her attention on the artwork. “Okay.”
Spence lifted up the first one. “Should we go through them together?”
Grace bit her lip. “Um, actually, maybe we should split them up and each go through half,” she said. She figured the less time they spent doing anything that might look like “canoodling,” the better.
Spence looked confused. “Then how will we pick the best ones?”
Grace shrugged. “We can each pick out our favorites, then we can look at those together.”
Spence looked at Grace for a moment without saying anything. She could tell he noticed that she was being less than friendly, and that he was wondering why. But she couldn’t tell him. No, it was better to just cool off a little bit, and once the rumors died down, she could be nice again. “Okay,” he said finally.
Grace brought her stack of artwork over to a table across the room, careful to avoid eye contact as much as possible. She spread out the paintings and drawings and separated them into girls’ and boys’ piles. It was harder than she expected to narrow it down to her few favorites, but finally she selected one for each grade level and gender: two watercolors, one of the lake and one of capture the flag; two pencil drawings, one of a cabin and one of a canoe on the beach; and two bold, colorful acrylic paintings, one of a sunset and one of—well, Grace wasn’t sure, actually. She only knew that she liked it.
“That one’s cool.” She suddenly heard Spence’s voice from behind her. “All color and shape. It kind of reminds me of this dude Kandinsky. They had a show at the Smithsonian a couple years ago.”
“Oh,” Grace said. “Well, m—” She cut herself off before she could reply. She was going to say, Well, maybe someday this kid will have a show in the Smithsonian. But she realized too late that she was supposed to be cool to Spence. Cool as in aloof and mysterious—and as in not having random conversations about the artistic talents of division-three boys.
“You were saying?” Spence asked, looking her right in the eye. Grace had to look away. Spence was going to be hard to lie to.
She shook her head. Then she lifted up her finalists. “These,” she said simply. She figured Spence would figure out that she meant, These are the ones I liked best. The fewer words actually spoken, the better.
“Ohhh-kay,” Spence muttered, picking up her choices with a funny look on his face. He carried them across the room, back to the table where he’d been working. “C’mon,” he called behind him when Grace didn’t immediately follow. She scampered after him.
“What’s your choice for division-three girl?” Spence asked. She pointed to the canoe drawing.
“All right,” Spence said, still looking suspicious. “You take a vow of silence or something?”
Grace shook her head, confused. “What’s that?”
Spence sighed. “Forget it. Just something monks do.” He pulled a painting from his pile, a watercolor of dandelions. “Here’s mine. Which do we like better?”
Grace looked at the two pieces of artwork for a few seconds, then pointed to the dandelion picture.
Spence glanced at her, shrugged, and then pointed to the canoe picture. “Well, I like that one better. Now what?”
Now I guess we have to talk to each other, Grace thought. But she wanted to avoid that as much as possible. She shrugged and looked away, over at Alyssa and Candace, who were hunched over a computer again. “I don’t care. You can use yours.”
Spence didn’t say anything for a minute. He didn’t even move or sigh; he just kind of stood there, looking at Grace. Grace closed her eyes and waited for the moment to pass. Don’t turn around, don’t turn around.
“Are you okay?” Spence asked. His voice was warm with concern.
Grace wanted so much to just tell him what was going on. To admit that she was feeling weird about missing the first two weeks of camp, and that she felt like her friends were leaving her out—maybe not on purpose, but still. But she knew if she did, they would end up talking and “canoodling,” just like yesterday. And she didn’t want to have another dinner conversation like the one last night. “Fine,” she said shortly.
“Okay,” Spence said with a sigh.
Picture by picture, they went through the rest of the artwork. When it came time to pick the division-five pictures, Spence said, “I have to get those from over there,” and pointed to a table across the way where a few pictures were still scattered.
/> “Okay,” Grace replied, nervously fingering a corner of a painting. She didn’t look as he walked over to the other table and fiddled with the artwork.
After a minute, Spence returned with his arms full of pictures. “Here we go.” He put down the pile and stood back, gesturing for Grace to pick up the first one. She lifted a drawing of two girls sitting on a cabin stoop and gasped.
On a drawing-size piece of paper underneath, the words WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID? were spelled out in red block letters. Spence’s messy handwriting. Actually it looked more like WAS IT SOMEFING I SAIG?, but Grace decided to let that one go.
She let out a little laugh, and Spence smiled with relief. “Seriously,” he said to her. “You seem a little weird today. Is it me?”
Grace took a deep breath. “No,” she admitted, “it’s not anything you said. It’s not anything you did, either. It’s just—me being stupid.”
Spence didn’t laugh, or look at her like she was crazy. He just watched her, patiently, waiting for her to explain what she meant. Grace couldn’t put her finger on it, but when she was with Spence, she felt like there was nothing she could say or do that would surprise or offend him—everything she did and everything she said was totally normal, interesting, even cool.
“I guess it started with me missing the first two weeks of camp,” Grace went on. “I came back and—it felt like I’d missed so much! There was some crazy camping trip, and half the people I like didn’t come back this year . . . I guess I felt . . . I mean . . . I guess I feel . . . like I don’t quite fit in.” She sighed and looked at her flip-flops. “Sometimes—like when everyone’s having a conversation around me about something I wasn’t even here for—I feel like I didn’t have to come to camp this year. You know? Like, I could have skipped camp altogether, and nobody would have noticed but me.”
Grace kept looking at her toes. They were raggedy and bare—another sign that she hadn’t been at camp last session. If she’d been there more than two days, Natalie or Tori would have attacked her and given her the Pedicure to End All Pedicures, with sparkles, French tips, and little flower decals. All the other girls’ toes were flawless.
Reality Bites #15 Page 4