Wish You Weren't

by Melissa J Morgan

  Priya spun around, in the direction of the squeaky definitely Jordan voice. “Bat!” she called out again. She got answers of “tree” and “moth” from all around her, along with some more probably Grace giggles. Priya focused on one particular “moth.” This time it had been called out in a deep, booming voice. But Priya’s best friend couldn’t fool her. She’d spent part of every day at Camp Lakeview with Jordan Bryant. And part of almost every day with him last summer. She knew him inside out. They’d even exchanged most embarrassing moments (on a dare). His: calling his second-grade teacher “Mommy” in front of everybody. Hers: peeing in her pants at Holly Perry’s seventh birthday party after proving that she could chug a half gallon of lemonade without taking a breath and then getting really, really involved in a game of hide-and-seek.

  “Bat! Bat! Bat!” Priya yelled. Arms outstretched, she stumbled toward the voice calling “moth” that she was sure was Jordan’s. Gotcha, she thought. Then she launched herself into the darkness and tackled . . . somebody . . . onto the grass. She jerked off her blindfold. Green eyes. Messy longish brown hair. Freckles. Yep, it was Jordan.

  “Great echolocation, Priya,” Roseanne, the woman in charge of the nature hut, called. “You guys see how the bat located its dinner? When Priya called ‘bat,’ that was like a bat sending out an ultrasonic beep. And when you guys answered, that was like the bat receiving the echoes from the beeps. That’s how bats pinpoint where things are.”

  “I rule!” Priya shoved her fists into the air.

  Jordan climbed to his feet. “Congratulations, bat girl. You just ate a moth.”

  “So? Good source of protein,” Priya told him as she stood up.

  “Priya’s right,” Roseanne agreed. She ran her fingers through her long curly hair, making it even more wild. Priya was glad her own sandy hair was short, short, short. Pretty much nothing she did could mess it up. Roseanne continued, “Insects are high in protein and low in fat and cholesterol. They are really nutritious. I have some chocolate-covered grasshoppers back in the hut if any of you want to try them.”

  “No, thank you. I’m on a special diet. Nothing that hops,” Grace joked. “I’m really missing the frog legs and kangaroo meat. But I’ve lost like an eighth of a quarter of a pound already.”

  Maybe if they’re gummy grasshoppers she’ll go for it, Priya thought. Grace had a serious gummy bear habit.

  “That is completely disgusting. And chocolate does have fat,” Chelsea, one of the bunk 4A girls, decreed. She narrowed her eyes at Grace. “You might want to consider cutting out chocolate if you’re serious about losing weight.”

  “But I’m not,” Grace answered.

  Priya shot Jordan a wicked smile. “I’m thinking three points,” she whispered to him. No way would he let a grasshopper into his mouth, even one that was covered in sweet chocolaty goodness. He was the Picky Eater poster boy. Jordan didn’t even like the foods he was willing to eat to touch each other. “That would put you one point ahead of me,” she added, just to torture him. As if he didn’t totally know that already.

  “How is that extreme?” Jordan asked. “How is that worthy of the Who’s-the-Most-Extreme Challenge?”

  “Oh, right.” Priya shook her head. “You eat bugs every day. It’s not extreme at all.”

  “You know what would be extreme?” Jordan asked, leaning close to her, his breath hot against her ear. “If you made me kiss someone.”

  Priya jerked back and stared at her best friend.

  Wh-what?

  “Bug juice. I will perish of dehydration if Priya doesn’t pass me the bug juice!” Brynn exclaimed.

  “Priya!” Sarah, Alex, and Abby called together, with their hands cupped around their mouths.

  Priya blinked. “Huh?” She realized that she had frozen, holding her Sloppy Joe halfway to her mouth. She also realized that everyone at her table in the mess hall—which meant every girl in her bunk—was staring at her. “What?” she asked.

  Sarah smiled. “Brynn has asked you for the bug juice, like, three times.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Priya passed the plastic pitcher of bright red bug juice across the table to Brynn.

  “I’m going to live!” Brynn cried dramatically, green eyes all twinkly. Brynn pretty much said everything dramatically. She was really into theater. She’d just played Little Orphan Annie in the camp production of the musical. She already had the red hair, but that’s not why she got the part. Brynn was really talented. Although sometimes it got annoying when she didn’t keep the drama on the stage.

  “What were you thinking about, anyway?” Alex asked Priya. “You were totally zonked.”

  Priya felt her cheeks get hot. She knew her face had to be turning red, even with her tan.

  “She’s blushing. It has to be good,” Gaby observed. “Tell, tell, tell.”

  Priya took a mega bite of her Joe to give herself time to think. Should she tell them what had really been going through her brain? The girls in her bunk were pretty cool. But she didn’t know them that well. Her best friend at camp was Jordan. She spent as much time with him as possible.

  But what she’d been thinking about . . . it was nothing she could talk to Jordan about. Because it was about Jordan.

  “Well?” Gaby prompted as soon as Priya swallowed. The girl could be a little pushy. Geez.

  “She doesn’t have to tell if she doesn’t want to,” Alex said, knocking a soccer ball back and forth between her feet under the table. Bunk 4C’s own Mia Hamm was the bunk peacekeeper.

  “No, it’s okay,” Priya told her, deciding to go for it. This sitch was probably something she could use the girl POV on. Even back at home, she didn’t hang with girls that much. She was on the boys’ soccer team, and she did stuff with Sam a lot. Her little brother was only a little more than a year younger than she was, and he liked almost all the same things she did. Meanwhile, her boyfriend was Jordan. At home, at camp . . . at always.

  “Well?” Gaby said again, her lower lip sticking out in a pout. She always pouted when she didn’t get what she wanted right when she wanted it. That or threw a tantrum.

  Priya sucked in a deep breath. But she still didn’t feel ready. So she took a long drink of bug juice. Choked on it. Then started to talk. “Um, you know that competition I have with Jordan?”

  “As in the competition that has required three visits to Nurse Helen?” Becky, their counselor, asked. It wasn’t a question.

  “Uh-huh.” Priya nodded. “But we aren’t doing anything that might require a nurse anymore. I swear. So, anyway, I was telling him that I’d give him three points if he’d eat a grasshopper—”

  “What?” Valerie burst out. Gaby’s pout opened up into an O of surprise.

  “Roseanne said she had chocolate-covered grasshoppers in the nature hut,” Grace explained. “Priya wasn’t just going to catch one in the field and make him eat it with its legs kicking or anything.”

  “Oh, ew.” Abby wrinkled her nose.

  “Ew,” Candace echoed. Candace repeated things a lot.

  “I’m sure they were sterilized or something,” Grace reassured Katie. “Roseanne wouldn’t offer us food—or whatever you call it—that would send us to the nurse.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with the grasshopper,” Priya said quickly. “See, Jordan said something after I gave him the grasshopper challenge. Something, um, weird. I don’t know what it means.” Her words came out faster and faster. “Maybeitdoesn’tmeananything.”

  “You should sign up for drama next time,” Brynn said loudly and slowly. “You need to do some work on your e-nun-ci-a-tion.” She winked.

  “So tell us what he said already,” Gaby ordered.

  Priya reached for her glass of bug juice again, then told herself not to be such a chicken. “He said that if I wanted to give him a really extreme challenge, I should make him to kiss someone.”

  Sophie, their CIT, put a bowl of sort of old-looking fruit on their table, and lingered, ears wide open.

&n
bsp; “Ooooh.” Grace leaned closer.

  “Yeah, ooooh,” Candace said.

  “I need more details,” Valerie told Priya. “Was there anyone else in the group when you two were talking about the kissing thing?”

  “No,” Priya answered. “He didn’t exactly whisper it. But he leaned in. He was definitely only talking to me.”

  “Interesting,” Valerie said.

  Priya’s heart started skipping rope inside her chest. “Interesting? Why? Why interesting?”

  “Sounds like he liiiikes you,” Sarah said. And Sarah should know. She’d just found out that this guy David liked her.

  “Sounds like maybe he even wants to kiss you,” Abby added.

  “No way. We’re buds, compadres, amigos, uh, pals, um . . .” Priya’s voice trailed off. She couldn’t think of any more words.

  “Mates, chums,” Grace volunteered as she peeled one of the mushy bananas.

  “Jordan’s my best friend,” Priya told the group, going for the simple truth. “You don’t go around kissing your best friend. That’s just . . . yuck on a stick.”

  “But wasn’t there that movie with Austin Kutcher and Amanda somebody where they’re best friends and then they fall in love?” Abby asked.

  “It’s Ashton,” Alex told her. “Repeat after me. Ashton.”

  “I just meant that just because he’s your friend, it doesn’t mean he couldn’t end up feeling something else,” Abby explained. “Not that I know what I’m talking about. Sports are my life. Not boys.”

  “You guys, you’re freakin’ me out. And I was already freaked out because I thought that what Jordan said meant he was ready to jump into the boyfriend/girlfriend thing with some girl. I got the wiggins thinking he wanted to kiss any girl. Forget about me!”

  “Maybe he was just talking about kissing in a general kind of way,” Alex said. “Don’t go into a total meltdown.”

  “Right. You’re right. Or, or, maybe Jordan just said the worst thing he could think of,” Priya suggested, unable to think about anything but the big stinking mess her best friend had created. “Like that kissing was even worse than eating a grasshopper.” Except for that part where his mashed potatoes touching his salad dressing made Jordan go into a minor freak. Eating a grasshopper had to be very, very high on his list of worsts.

  “And that was the very worst thing he could come up with?” Valerie shook her head, her cornrows flopping around her face. “That would make him one sick boy. I mean, there are many bad things in the world.”

  “Would it really be so absolutely, completely terrible to be boyfriend/girlfriend with Jordan?” Sarah asked. “Maybe not the kissing thing. At least not right away.” A slight blush crept up her neck and into her cheeks. “I definitely wanted to punch David when I first thought he liked me, but now it’s really cool.”

  “But you guys weren’t ever best friends like me and Jordan,” Priya answered. “You found out pretty fast that he liked you liked you. And he probably knew from the beginning. Jordan—he’s almost like my brother. I’ve seen him pick his nose, okay?”

  “Too much information,” Abby cried.

  “I didn’t need to know that fact,” Candace agreed.

  “Yeah, I think I’ll take myself back to the kitchen now,” Sophie said. She gave them a little wave as she hurried away.

  “I just couldn’t think of him as a boyfriend,” Priya said. She let out a long sigh. “Anyway, he was probably just kidding around. Right?”

  Nobody answered fast enough for her.

  “Right,” Priya said, answering her own question.

  But not quite convincing herself.