“Excuse me while I dance with Jamie,” Chico announced, edging away. “If you like Missi, my Wiener, then you can go dance with her yourself. I bet she’ll love your few boogers and tree smell.”
“Hey,” Play Dough said, stopping Chico with a hand to his chest. “When you have the greatest little thing handed to you, and by the greatest little thing I mean Wiener, you don’t piss on it.”
“Ew,” Dover said.
“Not literally,” Play Dough said. “Right, Wiener? He never pissed on you?”
“Right,” Wiener affirmed.
The Wawels, minus Chico, began giggling. Wiener was giggling with them. “Guys, should I piss myself right here? Someone tell the story of Cropsy! Actually I’m not scared of Cropsy—haven’t been since Bunker Hill. Tell the story of Cropsy’s zombie bride, Crapsy!”
“Crapsy isn’t a thing,” Play Dough said.
“I know!” Wiener cried, bursting with bliss. “I made her up!” Play Dough smacked the back of Wiener’s head, which made him crack up even more.
And then, out of nowhere, Missi appeared. The giggling stopped and the guys froze. She inched closer, slowly. “Chico, can I talk to you?”
“I don’t know,” Chico said, followed by awkward silence.
“Man up,” Play Dough chanted slowly. “Man up.”
The Wawels, minus Wiener, joined him: “Man up, Man UP, MAN UP!”
Chico was rolling his eyes. Wiener was wincing apologetically.
“Um, why are you guys chanting that?” Missi asked, then stared at Chico.
“STARFISH,” Totle reminded him.
“STARFISH, STARFISH, STARFISH,” the Wawels began chanting instead.
“Okay, okay, FINE!” Chico said, halting the chant. He looked at Missi. “I stole all the stuff at Hersheypark, and we’re over.” He turned to the guys. “Now are you all happy?” Then he stormed onto the basketball court and took his place beside Jamie.
Wiener looked at Missi’s face, red as a cherry, and felt a prick of guilt in his chest. Her eyes began to well up, but before they spilled over, she ran past the guys and up toward Harold Hill.
“Missi, wait up!” Wiener called, racing after her.
She didn’t wait. She was fast. Way faster than Wiener. Three hills later, they were half a hill apart, and Wiener watched her duck into the Nature Shack. Twenty seconds after that, at the Shack’s closed door, over his own monster breathing, Wiener could hear her sobbing. He’d never heard Missi sob, let alone cry, and he felt his heart plummet. “Knock knock,” he said softly, his knuckles brushing the door.
“I’m fine,” Missi said in between sobs. “Really, I’m fine.”
“Cool. I’m fine, too,” Wiener said. “We’re just two fine friends in nature.” He waited. Nothing. “So, uh, wanna talk about how we’re both fine?”
He listened to Missi swallow a sob with a laugh. “Fine,” she said.
“Score-sauce.” Wiener pushed the Shack door open and was showered with dust and woodchips. “Yikes. I see they haven’t shaped up the Nature Shack yet.”
“Nope.” Missi was seated on a bale of hay and cuddling a bunny rabbit on her lap. Her ponytail was a mess, with the front pieces popping up like she’d been electrocuted. “They’ve got some animals,” she said with a sniffle, nodding toward the dinky array of newts and frogs. “But they’ve all been brought here by kids who abducted them on hikes. This should be a place for abandoned, hurt animals who need healing, you know?”
Wiener nodded, watching the bunny paw at Missi’s tie-dye T-shirt and then at her khaki shorts. Suddenly he realized that she was dressed in her normal clothes, not one of her new exotic dresses and chunky necklaces. Still, she looked just as beautiful.
Wiener found a bale of hay beside Missi and hoisted himself up. His legs dangled. “What happened to the funky clothes—like that dress from Rishikesh?” he asked.
Missi lowered her chin and pinched her T-shirt. “I retired them.” Then her face turned cotton-candy pink and her eyes welled up.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t—um—mean to make you sadder.”
“I just want to feel like I’m special to one person.”
Wiener felt swallowed by her sadness. He wanted to wrap his arm around her, but his haystack was a foot too far from her shoulders. He also wanted to tell her that she was special to him, the most special-sauce, but Missi’s hazel eyes stared into his, and the words dissolved in his mouth.
“I was trying to share something personal with Chico,” she said, patting her shorts pocket where a folded letter was sticking out, “because, I dunno, I really liked him and was starting to trust him. I finally thought he liked me for me.”
“Who wouldn’t like you for you?”
She cocked an eyebrow.
“Look,” Wiener said, “I’m not trying to be corny. If anything, you shouldn’t like Chico for Chico. He stole stuff and then pretended he’d bought them for you!”
“I’m not mad he stole,” Missi said, cool as a cucumber with ranch.
“Why—how—not?” Wiener asked, blinking in bewilderment.
“I mean, of course what he did was wrong,” she said, little pebbles in her throat. “He acted like a big-time jerk. But, like me, he has a lot going on in his life. When people have a lot going on, sometimes they do things they shouldn’t do.”
“Okay . . .” Before Wiener could finish flipping through his mental binder of all the things he’d done these last few weeks he shouldn’t have done, Missi plowed on: “Do you know what it’s like to feel like you’re not wanted by your own parents?”
“Maybe?” There was one time his parents opted to celebrate their anniversary alone in a five-star restaurant after he’d baked them lasagna and blueberry crisp using recipes he’d taken from MasterChef Junior. “I know a little bit,” he said.
“No, not really you don’t. You were the closest friend Chico had here. Did you ever ask him about his life and family and school and situation?”
“He never seemed like he wanted to go into it.” Wiener shook his head with confusion. “Wait, hold up! Are you mad at me for defending you to Chico?”
“No.” Missi bit her bottom lip. “I dunno, it’s complicated.”
“What is?”
“At camp, everything’s fun.” Missi’s voice got thin. “I think, because of that, sometimes camp friends forget to ask each other about their lives outside of the bubble.” Her voice cracked on “bubble” and her chin began to quiver. “We need to be there for each other.”
“What’s going on with your life outside the bubble?”
A single tear slid from her eye, and then they came flying down her cheeks in threes, fours—so fast, they blurred her freckles. “It’s my mom,” she said. “She came back into my life this year, after not being around my whole childhood. And it was really great to spend time with her. She was supposed to come up to camp for Visiting Day, but then I got this letter.” She patted her pocket where the letter was sticking out. “She’s not coming. She’s gone off again. I don’t even know the next time I’ll see her.”
“I’m so sorry,” Wiener said. “I had no idea.”
“It’s fine,” Missi said, wiping her face. “I mean, it’s not fine, but yeah.”
Wiener didn’t know what else to say so he just held out his hand. She slipped her hand in his. Then they sat in comfortable silence for a long while. “Hey,” he eventually said into the quiet. “Sorry I’ve been acting so dumb. I think you’re really awesome, Missi. You care about people. And animals. And you’re funny. So. Yeah. That’s what makes you special-sauce.”
“Thanks.” Missi chewed the inside of her cheek. “Well, you’re special, too.”
Wiener flexed his bicep. “People keep telling me that.”
Missi giggled. “So weird.” She paused. “I changed my mind about your inner animal. You’re not a seahorse. You’re—”
“Wait! I watch Planet Earth, so my brain’s an animal word bank. Let’s say it t
ogether.”
“Ha, okay. One, two, three—”
“A stallion!” Wiener said.
“A peacock,” Missi said.
They burst into laughter. Missi whistled through the gap in between her front teeth, and it was the most adorable thing he’d ever heard. Then the sixth-period bugle sounded. It was the least adorable thing he’d ever heard.
Missi rose from the hay and headed to the bunny’s crate. Wiener wasn’t ready for their time together to be over. He wished they could stay here through Shower Hour. That they could meet up in private every day. “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” he said. He followed her to the crate and helped her put the bunny inside. “Let’s fix up the Nature Shack.”
Missi looked at him funny—like he was an actual peacock.
“Seriously,” Wiener said. “Like you said, we should make this a place for the animals that need our help.”
Missi’s eyes turned into sparklers. “You’d really do that with me?”
“Are you kidding?” he said.
“And you’re not allergic to fur or scales or whatever?”
“I could wear eight feisty cats as a boa, and I wouldn’t sneeze once.” Then Wiener’s body betrayed him, and he sneezed twice. Missi exploded with giggles. It made him feel like The Man of Mans.
“So,” she said, throwing her hands on his shoulders. They were smiling-face-to-smiling-face. “Let’s meet tomorrow at Rest Hour?”
Rest Hour was now Max Time in Bunker Hill Cabin. Dinosaur Onesie, whose name was Davey but whose nickname had morphed to Dino, was teaching them a card trick that defied logic. “How about Free Play?”
“You got it.”
“Is this thing on?” Jenny asked, tapping a jumbo tampon like a microphone. It was eleven at night, and she was sitting on Jamie’s top bunk, spotlighted by five flashlights, one in the hands of each Notting Hiller.
Missi giggled for a second, because, you know, tampon microphone.
“I can hear you loud and clear,” Sophie said, pressing her finger to her ear like she was wearing a headset.
“Great,” Jenny said. “But not so loud that Cookie will hear and then shut this operation down? Somebody check.”
Missi peered out to the porch. Cookie was absorbed in a tacky romance novel. So absorbed that she seemed to have no idea her campers weren’t sleeping. “All clear,” she reported.
Jenny smacked her ChapSticked lips together. “So, as you all know, this is the dress rehearsal for tomorrow’s confessionals.”
“Confessionals?” Slimey asked. “Aren’t we practicing for our interviews with the film crew? Like what we’re going to say to them when they ask us what we love about Rolling Hills?”
“Correct.”
“Because when you say confessionals, it makes me think of reality TV.”
“This is reality,” Jenny said flatly. “And we will be filmed.”
“Also, dress rehearsal?” Melman asked. “I’m wearing boxers with bananas on them.”
“Yes, we see that,” Jenny said flatly and then made Let’s do this already! eyes with Jamie.
Jamie dutifully complied. “Jenny Nolan of Notting Hill Cabin, what do you L-O-V-E about Rolling Hills? Please restate the question in your answer.”
Jenny flipped her hair and “smized”—smiled with her eyes. “Hi, I’m Jenny. What’s not to love about Rolling Hills?” She tapped her cheek in thought. “The rolling hills roll with, like, effortless beauty. The people. The facilities. The activities. All A-MAZING. So if you’re a parent wondering: Is Camp Rolling Hills right for my precious child? Look no further. Seriously. Stop. Eyes on my eyes. This camp is the best home away from home for all the precious little ones in the world.” She lowered the tampon and her head. “And . . . scene.”
Missi didn’t disagree with anything Jenny had just said, but she thought the whole thing sounded scripted, like a cheesy commercial, rather than a genuine outpouring from the heart. But before anyone could say a word, Sophie tossed up the open box of tampons and shouted, “Mic drop!” The purple, yellow, and orange packages flew around the cabin like confetti. Sophie skipped over to Jenny’s dangling legs and gripped her ankles. “An idea: We should write together. I’m a pro at contest submissions.”
“Cool, maybe,” Jenny said. “But if we do coauthor something, my name will be listed first, because J is before S.”
“Not if my pen name is Aurora—”
“Jamie’s turn!” Jenny yanked her legs from Sophie’s grasp and folded them underneath her butt.
“Um, um, um,” Jamie said. “I don’t know what to say yet. Someone else go next.”
“I’ll go,” Melman said. She brought a whole fistful of tampons to her mouth. “Yo, yo, yo. The Hills is where the magic is at. Here a gal can open up.”
Questionable, Missi thought. She’d wanted to open up to her cabinmates the very first day of the summer, but no one seemed to want to listen. She’d brought her mom’s I’m leaving you again letter all the way to Square Dancing rehearsal to share it with Chico, but before she could even get that far, he’d dumped her.
“What do you mean ‘open up’?” she interrupted Melman, mid-description of Color War, maybe.
“Huh? Um.” Melman shook her head to rewind her thoughts. “I think I mentioned that here a gal can open up and try different sports—rock climbing, waterskiing . . .”
“Oh,” Missi said, embarrassed.
“Proceed,” Jenny instructed Melman.
“Great. So, basically, Color War is competitive, but at the end of the week, it’s all about your friends, whether they’re on Blue or White.” Melman wrapped up her confessional with a “Go Blue!” and offered the bouquet of tampons to Slimey, who plucked a purple one.
“At camp, I can truly express myself as an artist. I painted my first landscape on Forest Hill, overlooking the lake. It still hangs in my bedroom at home.”
At the mention of “artist” and “home,” Missi’s mind sprang back to her mom. Before she’d gotten her letter, Missi had thought about Rebecca Joy a few times a day, imagining just how amazing Visiting Day with her would be. Now, Rebecca Joy popped into her mind every few minutes, and Missi’s happy memories with her seemed kind of messed up. Like their bike ride through Palisades Park to sketch the cliffsides. At the time that had felt like a cool, carefree adventure, but Missi had skipped school and missed her math final. Her grade had dropped a whole letter. Rebecca Joy didn’t care about rules and expectations and commitment. She just did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, with no consideration for what was best for her daughter. What kind of mother did that?
“Missi, hello?” Jenny said.
“Huh?”
“Your turn.” Jenny tossed Missi a tampon, even though there were six at her feet.
“Right on.” Right on? Who says that? She held the tampon like a microphone. She looked at her cabinmates looking back at her, and she tried to wash away the image of her mom’s long braid whooshing in the New Jersey farmland wind. “I love Rolling Hills because—” Her voice cracked. “Because—” It wasn’t that she didn’t know what to say. She loved camp for a million reasons—her friendships, the sports, the trips—but Rebecca Joy wasn’t leaving her head, her heart, or her throat.
“Are you okay?” Melman asked.
“Yeah,” Missi said.
“Is it He Who Must Not Be Named?” Jenny asked. “Because I will make a Frankenstein collage of him with Lord Voldemort.”
Slimey, the biggest Harry Potter fan of them all, just shook her head.
“It’s not about Chico,” Missi assured Jenny, feeling little pricks behind her eyes. “I mean, I’m sad about him, but I’m sadder about something else.”
“Is it Wiener? Were you, like, in love with him the entire time? IS THAT WHY YOU AND CHICO BROKE UP?”
“No,” Missi croaked, though her feelings for Wiener were kind of kicking back in. “Nothing like that.”
“Who do you need me to terrorize?” Sophie asked. “Because I
will go guano-crazy on whoever you want. Guano is bat poop.”
“No, it’s—” A wave of sadness hit Missi so hard, she couldn’t finish her sentence. The cabin fell quiet. The hum of the AC became the loudest sound in the room. Talking to Wiener about her mom had left her feeling so much closer to him, but talking to the girls? She didn’t want to be a downer. She chewed her lip and willed herself not to break down—not here, not now.
“I’m scared,” Jamie said. “I’ve never seen you so serious.”
“Sorry,” Missi said, forcing a smile.
“Don’t apologize,” Slimey said. “It’s okay to be serious if that’s where you’re at, trust me. It’s not good to keep stuff locked inside.” Slimey untucked her locket from under her T-shirt, and without thinking, Missi reached for her mom’s chunky beaded necklace. She curled her fingers around air, forgetting that yesterday she’d shoved it in her plastic drawer set, where it would be out of sight, out of mind. Out of mind, ha.
Missi took a deep breath and looked at the picture of her and her mom sticky-tacked above her bed. It had felt right to tuck away the beads and retire the frocks, but taking down the Christmas photo had felt wrong, no matter how hurtful it would be to see Rebecca Joy’s face multiple times a day. “Did anyone notice this picture?” she asked her cabinmates, trying not to let her voice shake too much. She scooted off her bed so they could see.
“I noticed it,” Jamie said. “That girl looks a lot like you. Is she your cousin?”
“She’s my mom.”
The J-squad’s eyes widened. Sophie’s jaw unhinged. Slimey covered her mouth with her fingers. Melman dropped her soccer ball to the floor.
“But she looks so young,” Sophie said, moving to Missi’s bed to get a closer look. “No gray hairs or wrinkles or anything.”
“She had me when she was a teenager.”
“Wait, didn’t she leave, like, a decade ago?” Jenny asked, climbing down from Jamie’s top bunk.
Missi lit up a little. Jenny had remembered. “Yeah, I hadn’t seen her in ten years.”
The rest of her cabinmates made their way over. The six of them squeezed on Missi’s single bed, hovering over the photo of Rebecca Joy. Missi felt her heart go heavy and bouncy all at once. She had chills, but her cheeks were burning. Suddenly she was eager to spill everything about all the excitement and letdown her mom had brought into her life, but her throat was still partly clogged up.
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