Everyone cheers.
The head staff talk about the history of color war, making it sound as epic as possible to get the kids excited. Not that they need to try that hard—the kids are pretty excited. Two full days of competitions! Three teams! One winner!
I search the crowd for Gavin. I spot him to my right, the next bunk over, arm around one of his campers.
Aw, he’s so cute.
But why is he not looking at me? We still haven’t spoken since the overnight. Is he not thinking about me at all? Two days ago we almost made out and now he is totally over me? Is that even possible?
Why do I even care if he looks at me? I don’t want to cheat on my boyfriend! I love my boyfriend!
“And now it’s time to announce the captains of the yellow team,” Priya says.
My head snaps back to the head staff.
“The captains are Brody Friedman and Ilana Morris!”
Everyone cheers. I cheer too, trying not to look at all disappointed.
“I hope we’re on the same team!” Slugger says to Em.
The two captains run to join the center of the circle.
Danish takes the mic. “And the captains of the red team are: Benji Rhee and Audrey Goodman!”
Yay for Smokin’ Hot Benji. Boo for me.
Only one more chance.
Maybe they didn’t pick me at all. Maybe I’m not really that good of a counselor. Maybe Josh and Danish actually were annoyed that I was calling Eli in the middle of the day. Maybe no one even likes me. Not Gavin, not Talia, not Danish. Maybe when I’m not in the room, they all laugh about me and call me Porny.
Botts takes the mic. “And the captains of the blue team are: Gavin Lawblau and Sam Rosenspan!”
It’s me! YES! Hooray! They called my name! AND GAVIN’S! Now we will run into each other’s arms and make out immediately!
No, no, no.
We will not make out immediately. We will not make out at all. I have. A freakin’. Boyfriend! What is wrong with me?
I slowly turn to catch Gavin’s expression. He smiles and shrugs. I smile and shrug back.
I AM CAPTAIN WITH GAVIN OMIGOD OMIGOD.
We both run up into the center of the court. Everyone cheers.
“Sam and Gav! Sam and Gav! Sam and Gav!”
It has a nice ring to it, though, doesn’t it?
After they read out the lists of campers on all our teams and the kids are all sent to Milk and Cookies, the head staff ask the six captains to stay behind.
“Ready for this, Sam?” Gavin asks, lazily putting his arm around my shoulders. His touch makes me freeze.
“Yup,” I say.
He is touching me, he is touching me.
“You looked shocked,” Priya says to me.
“I am.” He is still touching me.
I need Gavin to stop touching me or I am going to make out with him, and I really don’t think I should make out with someone who is not my boyfriend.
I take a step away from him so his arm slides off.
“You really didn’t know we were going to choose you?” Priya asks me, an eyebrow perfectly arched. “You’re such an obvious favorite.”
Favorite? I am a favorite? An obvious favorite? “I hoped but I didn’t know.”
“Of course they were going to choose you,” Gavin says, smiling at me. “You’re a killer counselor. And you look good in blue.”
My cheeks heat up. He’s still flirting with me!
“So, you know the rules?” Botts says. “Try not to make the kids in your bunk who aren’t on your teams feel bad. You still have to help put them to bed, and you still have to do OD if no one will switch with you. But your curfew is waived for the next two days. For organizational purposes only, you’re allowed in boys’ or girls’ cabins. You should spend tonight coming up with a few cheers for the morning, and giving jobs to the staff members on your team. And as always, the winning captains get a five-hundred-dollar bonus.”
“Really?” I say. “Fun!”
“Yes. Added incentive. Go, captains!”
“I have OD,” I tell Gavin when we disperse. The colored spotlights all turn off and we’re standing in the dark.
“That’s fine. I’ll come to your bunk. We’ll hash it all out.”
“My bunk?”
“Yeah.”
Oh boy. Gavin. In my bunk. I clear my throat. “I . . .”
“About . . .”
We both stop.
We both laugh.
“We got a little carried away the other night,” I say.
“Yes,” he says.
“But I love Eli and you love Kat and neither of us wants to do anything dumb,” I say.
“We don’t?” he asks.
“We don’t,” I say.
“We don’t,” he repeats with a crooked smile.
Oh, boy. “Okay,” I say. “Good. We’re on the same page.”
“Kind of,” he says. “But if that’s what you want . . .”
“It’s what I want,” I say quickly. “I think.”
He smiles again. “Then okay.”
Everyone congratulates me at Milk and Cookies. I love every second of it.
“Yes! You’re on my team!” Janelle says, high-fiving me as we walk back to our cabin. “Oh, captain, my captain! This is going to be amazing! I am totally going to paint my face blue,” Janelle says.
I am not painting my face blue. “Come on, girls, into bed!” I yell out as I step into the bunk.
“You’re my captain!” Shira and Lily tell me, giving me hugs.
“I wish I was on the blue team!” Fancy says. “This sucks. I don’t want to be red!”
“Lis is on your team,” I say.
“But she’s not the captain,” Fancy says with a pout. “You’re the captain.”
“No color war in the bunk,” Prague says. “Right, Sam?”
“Absolutely. And it’s only two days, Fancy. Then everything will go back to normal. Do you guys all have clothes for tomorrow?”
“Remember, guys,” Lis calls out, “everyone can also wear black and white.”
“Who wants to trade yellow and red clothes?” one of them calls out.
It’s a frantic swap meet for the next ten minutes. After they’re settled, and after Janelle and Lis and Talia all go out for the night, I hear steps on the front porch and then a soft knock on the front door, and then it opens.
“Sam?” Gavin calls.
“In here,” I say from the counselors’ room. My heart is beating hard, but I try to keep calm. He is here for color war, that’s all. Nothing is going to happen. This is work. We have to work.
He pushes back the sheet doorway. “Ready?”
“Let’s do this,” I say. I pull out the clipboard the organizers handed me on the tennis courts. I’m sitting on my bed, cross-legged.
He sits on Janelle’s bed across from me and leans his head back against the wall.
“So, what are you thinking for the first cheer?” I ask.
“B-L-U-E, blue team on to victory,” he says in a dry voice.
“That’ll be our morning cheer,” I tell him. “Well, look at that. We’re half done. We’ve practically won.”
“So this is where you live,” he says, looking around our room. “Lis and Talia are in there?”
“Yup.”
“No pictures of your boyfriend?”
I shake my head. “I forgot to print them out before I left. Do you have pictures up?”
He nods.
We’re both quiet. I don’t want to talk about Eli or Kat. “I have a list of all the staff on our team and all the big jobs. Should we go through it?” I scan the paper. On the final night of color war, all the camp sections have to perform. The seniors do a skit. The inters do a dance. The juniors do a cheer. The CITs do a magic act. Each team does a song. We have to choose a staff member on our team who can lead them.
“Let’s start with the senior skit,” he says. “Allie’s on our team. And she wrote it last year.
It was funny. We can ask her to do it again. The performance is worth twenty points.”
“Great,” I say. “What about the team song?”
“We have Trevor. And he always has his guitar out.”
“The basketball teacher?”
“Yes.
“Perfect.”
“Junior cheer? That’s only worth fifteen points.”
“Janelle?” we both say at the same time.
“Done.”
We pick counselors to do the inter dance, and the CIT magic act, and by the time we’re finished, Talia and Lis are back, with Janelle close behind.
“Janelle! You up for the junior cheer?” I ask.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I am up for anything my lovely leaders need me for!”
“You are a rock star,” I tell her, writing her name in.
Lis nibbles on her thumbnail. “Argh, Talia and I both have to write our junior cheers too.”
“We’ll have the cheeriest bunk in camp,” I say.
“Should we talk to everyone else?” Gavin asks. “Give them their assignments?”
“Sure. Let’s do it,” I say.
I grab a thick sweatshirt, stuff my feet into my shoes, and meet him on the porch. It’s cold out.
“Wait! We forgot about the plaque,” he says. Every year, every team has to paint a plaque. They’re about the size of a laptop, and have to list the captains, the camper captains, and the organizers. Then they’re hung in the dining hall. The best one gets ten points.
“Do we have anyone good?” I ask.
“Yellow will win it since Brody’s the captain,” he says. “But we have the pottery teacher. I bet she can draw.”
“But isn’t it supposed to be done by campers?”
“Suuuuuure. Campers.” He turns to me. “I kind of want to win this thing. I know it’s fun just to compete, blah, blah, blah, but—”
“Oh, we’re winning this thing,” I say. “Or we’ll die trying.”
Back in the bunk, I wash my face and then get into bed, smiling.
I am color war captain! Me! Porny! Zoe Buckman would DIE of jealousy. HA!
And Gavin and I kept it totally professional! There was no inappropriate touching or stares or anything! Even though I told him nothing could happen between us, we are united in our pursuit of victory on a FRIENDS-ONLY BASIS and we can hang out and be together all the time—but just as friends. I am so glad he is my super-hot-only-a-friend person who I have to do everything with for the next two days while I am faithful to my boyfriend even though my boyfriend was a tiny bit jerky on the phone but it’s fine, because I made things clear with Gavin, and I am a very trustworthy, reliable individual.
Yeah.
The next day is intense. Instead of lining up at flagpole with our bunks, we line up with our teams. In the Dining Hall, we sit with our teams instead of our bunks.
I sit next to Gavin. He winks at me. Not the most professional, but friendly. I decide I’ll allow it.
I imagine putting my hand on his knee under the table. What? No. Brain, stop imagining things like that. Stay focused. Eli is boyfriend. Gavin is co-captain. Hands to myself. I get coffee instead.
After calling freeze, Gavin says, “We should do a cheer.”
“Right now?”
“Yup. Which one?”
“Um . . .”
It dawns on me that I am captain. For real. That means I have to get up and lead these people. Leading a bunk is one thing, but there are sixty people on my team. Whether or not we win—it’s up to me. And Gavin. I take a deep breath.
“Let’s do something everyone knows,” I tell him, and stand up on the bench. “Maybe blue team, you’ve got the spirit?”
“Great. Blue team, stand up!” Gavin yells, and stands up beside me on the bench.
Everyone stands up. Just like that.
The bench wobbles underneath us. I grab his arm for balance.
“One. Two. Three,” I say, and then together we yell, “Blue team!”
“Blue team,” they all yell back.
“We’ve got the spirit,” I call out.
“We’ve got the spirit,” they reply.
“Blue team!” we yell again.
“Blue team!” they repeat.
“Come on, let’s hear it!”
“Come on, let’s hear it!”
Then together we all yell, “Na, na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na . . .”
We do the whole thing one more time and then start screaming, “B-L-U-E, blue team on to victory!”
Then we cheer loudly and sit down.
The yellow team and then the red team scramble to do a cheer next.
After breakfast, we send everyone back to the bunk for a quick cleanup.
Gavin and I head to the picnic tables for a catch-up.
“We need some way to get them quiet, too,” I say, sitting right on the tabletop. “What about if we yell something and they yell it back and then they’re quiet?”
“Like what?” he asks, sitting on the bench below me.
“Something that makes sense? What’s blue?”
“The water? The sky?” He smiles. “Your eyes?”
I laugh. “You’re making it difficult to be professional here!”
He smiles again. “Am I?”
Oh brother. “Yes! We need something besides my eyes. Blue ribbon?”
He smiles. “Blue balls?”
“No! Gavin!”
“What?” He laughs. “It’s funny because it’s true.”
“I do not want to hear about your balls! First of all, they are not my responsibility. Deal with your own balls. And second of all, you’re the one with pictures of your girlfriend all over the wall of your bunk. We agreed.”
“Okay. I won’t talk about my balls. That was terrible. I’m sorry. I was trying to be funny. To, like, acknowledge the elephant in the room, I guess.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I get it.”
“Honestly, guys talk about their balls all the time when girls aren’t there. JJ talks about his balls. Muffs talks about his balls. Eric talks about his balls. It’s balls all the time in our cabin.”
I laugh. “Be good.”
“I’m just putting it in context. But from now on, polite conversation only,” he says.
“Thank you. We are behaving ourselves,” I say.
“But your eyes are really pretty,” he says. “I meant that.”
“Blue ribbon it is,” I say.
Ten minutes later, we march the kids to Upper Field for opening ceremonies.
Once everyone is there, each section competes in a tug-of-war and an egg toss. We win some, we lose some. We lose the staff tug-of-war. The yellow team has the Tank, the wrestling coach. He is not called the Tank for nothing.
We do the blue team chants and cheers again. Gavin and I scream in front of the campers at the top of our lungs.
“I am totally going to lose my voice,” I say.
“We’re light! We’re bright! We’re going to win this fight!” the yellow team yells.
“Yellow looks like pee!” one of the kids yells.
“We’re red! You’re dead!” the red team screams.
“Blue moon!” two of the senior boys from our team yell, and then pull down their sweatpants and moon everyone across from them.
The campers howl with laughter.
Crap. The judges are not going to like that.
“Ten points from the blue team!” Priya yells. “Keep your pants on, ladies and gentlemen!”
Fair enough.
Janelle offers to put two blue lines on our cheeks like we’re football players. I accept. Gavin passes.
“Too cool?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
“Not me!” I cry. “I’m all in.”
After the opening ceremonies are done, the kids are broken up by section. Junior girls have gaga ball, junior boys have soccer, inter girls have boating races, and so on and so on.
Gaga ball is basically
dodgeball but played in a circular pit, and we check on them first. Blue team wins both games. Woot!
While the kids have more competitions throughout the day, Gavin and I run through the camp cheering them on and checking on the staff who are working on the big-ticket items like the song, skit, cheer, and dance. The song needs to be done by three o’clock so we can start teaching it to the kids. Last period is a team-wide practice.
Ours is pretty good—it’s to the tune of Lady Gaga—not to be confused with the game gaga—and Bradley Cooper’s song “Shallow.”
Basically the counselors just change the words so that it sounds like it’s about camp. We go into Bunk 10 to hear it.
Trevor takes out his guitar and starts strumming and singing all the lyrics about camp and summer and friendship and home.
“Great,” I say when he’s done. Hopefully it’ll do.
We go to visit Janelle next. Her cheer is actually adorable. It’s to the tune of “Blue Suede Shoes.”
“I got you, girl!” she says.
We check on the dance team and the skit team. The dance team hasn’t picked a song yet, and the skit team only has two lines so far, but they promise us that they’ll finish it by end of day.
By midnight, Gavin and I are giddy with exhaustion. We kicked ass all day. We both nailed the counselor hunt—I hid in a cupboard in the A&C and he hid behind the curtain in the Rec Hall. Every time a counselor got found, Eric announced it over the intercom like we were in the Hunger Games. Regular counselors were worth five points to whatever team caught them. Captains were worth twenty.
Neither Gavin or I got found.
“I think we’re in good shape,” he says when we’re outside my bunk. “The relay race is going to be hardcore.”
The relay race involves every camper and takes about two hours. It starts at the office, with three seniors, one per team, running across camp. Then the sticks are passed to teams of kids who do various relay activities like sort a bowl of Froot Loops by colors, make a bed, or canoe across the lake. Eventually, the last camper runs to the beach, where she hands the baton to the staff in charge of making the bonfire. When they get the baton, they start the fire. About five feet in the air, a rope stretches above each fire. The first fire to burn through the rope wins the relay race.
Just a Boy and a Girl in a Little Canoe Page 14