Natalie's Secret #1

by Melissa J Morgan

  He took it from her and held it flat in his palm. “Yup,” he said. “Follow me.”

  “Natalie!”

  Natalie thought she had never in her life been so glad to hear the sound of Roseanne’s voice. For her part, Roseanne sounded thrilled beyond belief to see Natalie, Simon, and Chelsea.

  “Where did you guys get off to? We’ve got LJ driving the van off in every direction trying to find you.”

  “Well, obviously not every direction,” Natalie quipped wearily. “Have you got any water?” She tossed her pack off her back and collapsed down next to it, taking her hair out of its ponytail and shaking it out.

  “Of course, of course,” Roseanne said, offering her canteen to Natalie. “The others are pitching the tents over in that clearing—” she pointed to a spot in the distance. “And then when LJ gets back, he’s going to start cooking dinner.”

  “Thank God,” Natalie said. “I dropped my granola bar in the river a mile or so back, and I’m starving.”

  “Whatever,” Chelsea interrupted. “It’s totally Natalie’s fault that we got lost.”

  “What? But—” Natalie began, then stopped. She was too tired, anyway.

  “Chelsea, dear, why don’t you go help the others pitch the tents, okay?” Roseanne suggested. Chelsea marched off in the direction indicated without offering even a second glance at Natalie or Simon.

  Once she was out of earshot, Natalie turned to Roseanne imploringly. “It is so not my fault that we got lost—” she started.

  Roseanne laughed. “Why do I not doubt that? Sweetie, don’t get yourself all worked up. You’ve had a long afternoon. Just relax and take a load off. Simon can fill me in on the rest.”

  Natalie had to admit, the idea of resting for a bit sounded awfully appealing. From across the clearing, she could hear the laughter of the group. The thought of making conversation and explaining what happened felt overwhelming. A moment to regroup seemed like the right thing. And regardless of where their friendship was, she trusted Simon to relay the truth to Roseanne. So she smiled at the both of them, stood, brushed herself off, and walked away—though not too far away. She’d learned her lesson, after all.

  Natalie found a quiet spot in the shade. She crouched on a flat rock and looked out over the hilltops. She could see the river down below—and if she turned around, she could see the other campers chilling out at the site. She exhaled deeply and took in the scenery.

  Central Park had nothing to compare to this. True, she could ride horseback or canoe in the lake, eat ice cream or watch Shakespeare performed outdoors. New York was a special place, no doubt about it. But then, so was Lakeview. Natalie realized that she didn’t care that Chelsea was being bratty again—in a way, it was even a relief. At least it felt natural. And she would somehow apologize to Simon. Even if he didn’t want to be friends, she owed him that much, and she would gather up the courage to tell him so. But not now. Right now, she was just going to breathe in the clean mountain air.

  I’m like a commercial for Grape-Nuts or something, she realized with wonder. What’s going on with me? Am I, like, a real camper now? She glanced down at her legs. The scratches and bruises she’d gotten while trying to link up with the rest of the group were proof-positive that she was definitely gaining a new perspective on the great outdoors. The thought made her smile to herself.

  “I’ve got something that’ll really make you smile,” she heard.

  She looked up to see Simon holding out a granola bar. “Since I knew you lost yours.”

  She took it eagerly. “Have I mentioned I’m dying of hunger?” she asked.

  He gave her a look. “I think once or twice.”

  She swatted at him jokingly. “Sit. Share,” she commanded.

  Simon lowered himself onto the ground next to her and took half of the granola bar willingly. “So,” he started, suddenly sounding nervous.

  “No, me first,” Natalie cut in. “I need to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about my father. I shouldn’t have been so secretive. And I’m sorry I ran away the other day. I could tell you were upset, and I just wasn’t ready to deal.”

  Simon nodded thoughtfully. “I know. I get it. I mean, I’m not gonna lie—I was really upset yesterday, Nat. It really hurt me to think that you didn’t feel you could tell me.”

  “It’s not that—” Natalie started.

  “—listen,” Simon pressed. “The point is, I get it now. I saw how everyone reacted to your father, and I can see why you wanted to keep it a secret for a while.”

  “I wanted people to like me for who I am,” Natalie explained.

  “People?” Simon asked.

  Natalie blushed. “Some people more than others.”

  Simon put his arm around Natalie’s shoulders. Rockets went off in her stomach. “I just hope that from now on, you know you can always be straight with me.”

  Natalie tilted her head to look him straight in the eyes. “I know. I will. I promise.”

  “I think you were awesome today, the way you knew how to find the way back to camp,” he said.

  “Come on—you knew, too.”

  “You had the compass. We would have been lost without you,” Simon said.

  “Fair enough,” Natalie agreed. “Let’s just compromise and say that we’re a great team.”

  Simon slipped his hand around Natalie’s own. “Absolutely,” he said.

  chapter TWELVE

  “Okay, so is it true that Chelsea was, like, trapped by a bear and almost eaten?” Brynn asked. She sounded sort of excited at the prospect.

  “Not even!” Natalie exclaimed. “Where did you hear such a thing?”

  “Well, Simon’s telling everyone how you rescued Chelsea after she got lost,” Alex said.

  The three girls were on their way out of the mess hall following dinner. Natalie and the rest of the campers from the overnight had returned back to Lakeview early that afternoon, but they were given a few hours to kick back and do whatever they wanted. For Natalie, that meant sitting out on the front porch of 3C reading Entertainment Weekly. She only counted two wild rumors connected to her father. To her that was progress. One said he was having hair transplants done before his next movie. To the best of her knowledge, Natalie’s father had never had any plastic surgery done. She’d have to make sure and give him a hard time about that gossip the next time they spoke.

  Since Natalie had spent the afternoon by herself, she was totally unaware of the rumors that were flying around camp about her. Simon had let it slip—intentionally, she guessed—that the three of them had been separated from the group and had been forced to find their way to the campsite with little more than a compass and some bug spray. But somehow, the story had morphed into a tale of daring rescue. One that made her sound like a cross between Lara Croft and the Crocodile Hunter. It was too funny. She had to admit, she didn’t mind the attention that much. It seemed to have superceded people’s obsession with her movie-star father, so for now, at least, she was okay with it.

  “It was so not a big deal,” Natalie said, shaking her head. “Chelsea ran off, and we ran after her.” It was the truth, after all.

  Chelsea had been quiet since they’d all returned. Those who were talking about her didn’t seem to have the guts to go right up to her and ask her about the trip. She and the rest of bunk 3C were still milling outside of the mess hall while Brynn, Alex, and Natalie killed time in the nearby pagoda. Natalie was finding that her opinion toward Alex had mellowed slightly. The girl was definitely a type-A model camper, but she was friendly and sincere, and she was one of the few of Natalie’s bunkmates who had really gone out of her way to be as normal as possible after she found out the truth about Natalie’s father.

  “Well, I heard that when she realized that you guys had lost the rest of the group, she totally freaked, and you had to, like, talk her down,” Brynn said.

  She seemed pretty unwilling to entertain any other version of the story, and Natalie decided she
wasn’t too interested in correcting her, after all. It had been a pretty harrowing experience, and she deserved at least some of the glory, didn’t she? “Someone had to step up,” she said airily.

  “Tell us, Nat, how does it feel to have barely escaped from the wilderness with your life?” Alex asked jokingly. She held out an imaginary microphone, pretending to be a newscaster.

  “No comment,” Natalie said, cracking up. She saw Marissa talking to Pete, Brian, and Beth, and she ran over to them.

  “Hey!” Marissa said, smiling. “You made it out alive.”

  Natalie groaned. “Just barely.”

  “Yeah, so we heard,” Pete teased. “Aren’t you glad all those hours in the nature shack finally paid off?”

  “Ahem,” Brian interjected. “I believe it was her excellent training during sports that prepared her for the physical challenges of her outdoor adventure.”

  “Definitely,” Natalie agreed, laughing.

  “Too bad she still won’t go into the water for free swim!” Beth protested.

  “Excuse me, but after my harrowing experience, shouldn’t I get a get-out-of-jail-free card?” Natalie asked.

  “Fair enough,” Beth conceded.

  “We heard that Chelsea, ah, isn’t recovering quite as well,” Pete said delicately.

  “Well, she wasn’t exactly thinking positively when we got lost,” Natalie said, thinking back to how incredibly negative she herself had been when she got to camp. She actually felt a little bit sorry for Chelsea. Now that they were back, no one had a good word to say about her. “But, I mean, it was a hard day. It was hot, and we were tired—and we had no idea where we were going. I was just crossing my fingers that the compass was going to work. I can’t really blame her for being suspicious.”

  “Oh, gosh, Nat, that’s so generous of you,” hissed a voice in her ear.

  Natalie turned to find Chelsea shooting her a look of death. The girl had obviously overheard the entire exchange. “No, Chelsea, we were just—” Natalie began.

  “—Like I care,” Chelsea spat, and stormed off.

  “Yikes,” Pete said, raising an eyebrow.

  “But, well . . . I guess at least things are back to normal?” Marissa asked, shrugging tentatively.

  “Exactly,” Natalie agreed. “And you know what? You were right.”

  “What about?” Marissa asked, puzzled.

  At that moment, Alyssa emerged from the mess hall, notebook tucked under one arm and black hair piled up on the top of her head. She squinted into the sunlight, then spotted Natalie and smiled, making her way over to her friend.

  “Hey there, superstar,” she said, tossing an arm around Natalie’s shoulder. “Let’s get going.”

  “You were the one that told me, Marissa—that my true friends would always stick by me,” Natalie said, sticking out her tongue at Alyssa. “And you were right.”

  “Trauma-rama or horoscopes?” Julie asked, waving two magazines in the air by way of comparison.

  “Oooh, horoscopes,” Jenna said. “I need to know whether or not—” she stopped abruptly.

  “What?” Julie asked, narrowing her gaze. “What have you got planned, my little terror?”

  “Nothing,” Jenna sang innocently. “Nothing at all.”

  “Trauma-rama,” Natalie put in. “Do they have one where, like, this city girl goes off to this weird place in the country where kids voluntarily sleep on threadbare mattresses and pee in beaten-up, bug-infested stalls, and then after almost two weeks of pretending she isn’t the hugest fish out of water, her big movie-star father shows up and outs her as a Hollywood brat?”

  “Um, no, that one’s not in here, Nat,” Julie said sarcastically. “But have you got something on your mind?”

  “First things first,” Natalie said, reaching under her bed and sliding out the economy-sized box of cookies. “Snacks.”

  “Natalie, you know you’re supposed to tell us what you’ve got and clear it before giving it out,” Julie said, pretending to be more annoyed than she was.

  “Do you want one?” Natalie asked knowingly.

  “Actually, I kind of want two,” Julie admitted, scooting over to the box. “Okay, ladies, we’ll have a little extended evening activity before lights-out. Courtesy of Natalie.”

  “Courtesy of Tad Maxwell,” Natalie said. “You are eating cookies purchased by Tad Maxwell.”

  “That’s a very tough offer to turn down,” Alex said, pretending to swoon. But Nat noticed she passed the box without taking any cookies.

  “Or, at least purchased by his assistant,” Natalie amended. “My dad can get a little busy.”

  “I’ll bet!” Grace said.

  “I owe you all an apology,” Natalie said, growing serious for a moment. “I didn’t mean to lie. Or omit. Or whatever. I just really wanted to have a chance to get to know you all without having the thing with my father be a part of it. I mean, I wanted you to like me on my own terms.”

  “Well, come on, that would never be an issue,” Grace said.“’Cause of how we don’t really like you, anyway.” She grinned to show that she was teasing and reached for another cookie. “Hey, does anyone have anything to drink?”

  “My dad also brought me some sodas,” Natalie said, feeling slightly embarrassed. “I guess sometimes he goes overboard.”

  “Hey, when it comes to Diet Pepsi, he can go as overboard as he wants!” Valerie said. “Maybe now I’ll even go see his next movie!”

  “I have an idea for lights-out,” Karen suggested quietly. Everyone turned to stare at her. She almost never spoke out in large groups. “How about Natalie tells us some good Hollywood dirt? That’s better than anything you read in a magazine, because we know it’s real.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Natalie hedged . . . But then she stopped herself. Why not? she thought. It’s not like they don’t read all about him in People magazine every day. And since I’ve been keeping my dad a secret, I haven’t been able to dish about him since I got here. “Cool, I’m in!” she decided. The girls whooped and cheered.

  “Hey, the first two weeks are almost up and we have to pick our next electives,” Alex reminded everyone. “Does anyone have any idea what they want?”

  “Ceramics,” Chelsea said sullenly. “I guess I’ll take ceramics and drama.”

  “Photography!” Jenna said. “And maybe woodworking.”

  “I really want to stay on the newspaper,” Alyssa said. “I’ll have to think about what else I want to do.”

  “I wish they offered an elective for napping,” Grace quipped. “That or eating.” She stuffed another cookie into her mouth for good measure.

  “What about you, Nat?” Sarah asked. “Are you and Simon gonna, like, pick your free periods together?” she teased.

  Natalie laughed, feeling a little flustered. “Um, not quite,” she stammered.

  “So is he your boyfriend now, or what?” Grace sang, kissing the back of her hand furiously in a bizarre imitation of, Natalie assumed, her and Simon.

  Natalie shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s my friend. And he’s a boy. And maybe he’s also a little bit more than a friend. But I’ve never really had a boyfriend before, and I don’t know what that means.”

  “Translated, that means she likes him, likes him,” Alyssa translated, smiling at her friend.