“Can I live here too?” Prissy asks, and then sticks her finger into her nose.
Jennifer knocks her hand away. “Sweetheart, we talked about that, didn't we? Fingers don't go anywhere near your face. Got it?”
“But what if I have food in my teeth?”
“I packed your dental floss. It's in your pink princess cosmetic bag.”
“But I don't like to floss! It hurts my hands.”
Within the next ten minutes, most of the parental traffic has subsided. I finally spot Miri making her way up the road. “Mir! We're over here.”
She scowls. “Why didn't you come to my bunk? I was waiting for you.”
“And hello to you, too,” my dad says. He puts his arms out and waits for Miri to walk up the hill and give him a hug.
“Hi,” Miri says quietly, backing out of my father's hold. “Hi, Jennifer. Hi, Prissy. Is Mom here?”
“Not yet,” I say. What is wrong with her? A little enthusiasm, maybe? And where is Mom? It's two-fifteen! All the other parents have been camping out since one-thirty. She gets only three hours with us, and she's wasting them!
Miri shrugs. “She probably forgot.”
“She wouldn't forget,” I snap. Why is she making Mom look bad in front of Dad and Jennifer? I try to give her a “shut up” look, but she's too busy staring at her sneakers to notice.
“I'm sure she'll be here,” Jennifer chirps. “She probably got stuck in traffic. How is she getting here, anyway? She doesn't have a car. Daniel, why didn't you think to offer her a lift?”
Now that would have been interesting.
“Can I see my bunk now?” Prissy asks.
“Not yet, honey. We're waiting for Rachel's mom.”
“Rachel and Miri's mom,” Miri says.
“What, honey?” my dad asks.
My sister crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Miri. Me. Does anyone remember me?”
“Of course, dear. We're here to see you.”
“No, you're here to drop Prissy off.”
“What's wrong with you?” Dad asks. “We just got here and you're already picking a fight? We haven't seen you in almost a month.”
“Sorry,” Miri grumbles.
“Why don't we walk to Upper Field?” I say extra brightly, trying to instill some cheerfulness. What is Miri's problem? “Mom might not know where to go.” I lead the way to Upper Field and immediately spot my mother crossing the parking lot. At least, I think it's my mother.
It looks like her. Kind of. But she's slimmer and smiling, and she has short hair the color of Morgan's.
“Is that Mom?” Miri asks incredulously.
“Where?” asks Jennifer. “I don't see her.”
When the redhead—aka Mom—sees us, she starts waving her hand like a crazy woman.
“She looks great,” Dad says. “Who is that with her?”
I was too shocked by Mom's new do to notice Lex at first, but there he is, holding her hand. Do they have to do that in front of my dad?
I look at my dad to see if he's weirded out.
His features look frozen, like he's been Botoxed, and he immediately reaches for Jennifer's hand. Yeah, you could say he's weirded out. True, he's the one who dumped my mom, so it's not like he has a right to be, but I guess it's strange to see your ex with someone new, no matter what.
“It's Lex,” Miri says. “I can't believe she brought him.”
“He is her boyfriend,” I say.
“This isn't Take Your Boyfriend to Work Day,” Miri snaps, kicking the ground with the toe of her shoe. “It's Spend Time with Your Kids Day.”
My mom is still waving her free hand. I run up to give her a hug. “Hi!” I squeal. “You look great.”
“Thanks, so do you.”
“A little help from your fairy godmother?” I whisper in her ear.
“A little help from a salon in SoHo. You like?”
“I love. You look ten years younger!” I check out her new svelteness. “Have you been working out?”
“Lex and I have taken up jogging.”
If Lex can get my mom to stay healthy, then he's worthy of being upgraded to hug status. I pull away from my mom and give him a quick squeeze. “Very impressive, Lex. You got her off the couch.”
He tips his cowboy hat. “She outruns me every time.”
“That's because you're a hundred.” Miri mumbles this from a few feet away, but I hear her.
My mother does too. “Miri!”
“What? I'm kidding. Hi, Mom.” Miri gives her a millisecond-long hug and pulls away. “You're late.”
“We got a little lost,” Mom admits.
“She's not that late,” I say quickly. “Do you want to see my bunk?”
“That sounds great,” Lex says. He tips his cowboy hat at my dad. “You must be Daniel.”
My mom's cheeks turn pink. “Lex, meet Daniel. And Jennifer. And Prissy. Everyone, meet Lex, my friend.”
They all shake hands while I die of uncomfortableness.
“I love your hair color,” Jennifer says to my mom.
My mom fluffs her new hair. “Thank you.”
“It's so much fun. Maybe I'll become a redhead too. It's so feisty. What do you think, Daniel?”
I think I want to hide in Lex's car. “Follow me,” I say, leading the pack back to bunk fourteen. What am I going to do with them for the next two and a half hours? I really don't want to hang out and discuss feisty hair colors. I push open the door and wave them all in.
Poodles' bed is covered in packages. Carly is showing her parents, who both look like her, around the bunk. I introduce my parents to her parents.
Liana is nowhere to be found, which suits me just fine. Having my mom and dad both in the same place at the same time is stress enough for one day.
After about five seconds, Miri says, “When are we going to my bunk?”
Sigh. “Fine, let's go now,” I say. “There's nothing more to see here, anyway.”
“Um, where's your little girls' room?” my mother asks.
“The bathroom is just past the cubby room,” I answer, motioning with my chin. “But trust me, you don't want to go there.” Even though we cleaned extra hard for visiting day, I don't think parents should be subjected to our graffiti, never mind the doll-sized toilets.
“Trust me, I do. I had four cups of coffee this morning.” She laughs and makes a run for it.
“You guys go on ahead,” I say. “I'll wait for Mom.”
“I'll wait with you,” Lex says, looking uncomfortable.
He probably doesn't want to go with Dad and Jennifer, I think as I watch the others leave. Not that I blame him. Talk about awkward.
“Hello, Rachel,” says Liana in her nasal voice. She's perched on her bed, her legs crossed and ladylike.
Huh? Where did she come from? She's so sneaky. “Hello, Liana,” I say through clenched teeth. “Where's your family?”
“They're traveling for the summer, so I told them not to bother.”
“Oh. Okay. Have a nice day.”
“I'm dying to meet your family.”
You already stalk my quasi boyfriend and my sister, so I'd rather not. “You're too late.”
“Pity.” The next thing I know, she's on her feet, shaking hands with my mother's boyfriend. “Hello, Lex. It's such a pleasure to meet you. I love your shirt.”
Such a pleasure? What a pleasure it would be if she jumped out a window. Why is it a pleasure to meet Lex, anyhow? Why does she care? And what's up with the “I love your shirt”? Is there a bucket I can throw up in?
Come to think of it, how exactly does she know his name? Ah. Miri. Why is Miri feeding Liana background on our family? I make a mental note to ask her later. To interrogate her, actually. What the heck is going on with my sister?
Lex tips his hat. “It's a pleasure to meet you, too. And you are?”
The bathroom door opens and slams. We turn to see my mother, who's readjusting her outfit. “Those stalls are tiny,” she says.
“Where did she go?” Lex asks.
“Who knows?” Hopefully far, far away.
“Who are you talking about?” my mother asks.
“One of my bunkmates,” I say. “Um, can we please go now?” The last thing I want to do is talk about Liana.
We head to Miri's bunk and meet up with the others. Prissy is hopping from foot to foot, looking bored out of her mind. “Can we go see my bunk now?”
“I want to show them the tennis courts,” Miri says.
“Why don't we stop by Prissy's bunk first, and then we'll go to the courts?” Jennifer says.
So we all head to bunk one, Prissy's bunk. My mom and Lex decide to wait on the porch, but the rest of us go inside.
“Look, honey, here you are!” Jennifer says, pointing to a photograph on the bed near the window. “That's the picture we sent in last month, remember? And look, they wrote your name inside a big red heart. Later, Daniel will get your bags from the car, and we'll get you all settled. How does that sound?”
At first Prissy looks excited, but then she says, “Am I the only girl in the bunk?”
“No, the other five girls are coming tomorrow,” says a tall brunette. “I'm Tilly, your counselor.”
“Oh, hello!” Jennifer says excitedly. “So nice to meet you. Prissy, say hello to Tilly.”
Prissy suddenly gets shy and buries her face in her mother's legs. Then she pulls away, looks around the bunk, and announces, “I want to go home.”
“What are you talking about, sweetheart? You've been counting down the days until camp.”
Prissy stamps her leather sandal on the ground. “I want my bed.”
“This is your bed for two whole weeks,” Jennifer says.
“I don't like this bed. It smells like pee.”
“You'll like it, I promise. Rachel, won't she like it?”
“Yes, Prissy, you will,” I say, sitting down on one of the bare mattresses. “You're going to have so much fun!”
She considers this for a moment, then asks, “Why will I have fun?”
I'm too tired for this. “Because . . . because you can go sailing.”
“I don't want to go sailing.”
“She probably can't go sailing,” Miri says. “You can only go sailing if you have your dolphin.”
Prissy's face crumples. “But I want to go sailing!”
I shoot Miri a dirty look. “Prissy, you can go swimming.”
“I don't know how to swim.”
“You'll learn,” says my dad.
“I don't want to learn.” She starts crying and then sobbing, but then she notices my lanyard bracelets, stops abruptly, and points. “Did you get those here?”
I roll one around my wrist. “I made it here. You can make one too.”
“Can I make it now?”
“I think A&C is open,” I say.
“I thought we were going to the tennis courts,” Miri whines.
“Let's just get her some lanterns first,” Jennifer says.
“Lanyards,” I say. “Look, why don't Mom and Lex go with Miri to the tennis courts, and I'll take you guys to A&C and we'll meet them there when we're done?”
We find Mom and Lex making out on the porch steps.
“Yuck!” screams Prissy.
I'm too mortified to talk. There are parents roaming around all over this place. Children, too. Little children, who will be scarred for life.
Mom and Lex pull away from each other and at least have the decency to look embarrassed.
“Forget it,” Miri says, scowling. “I don't want to be alone with these two. Let's all go to A&C first.”
After our stop at the A&C, Stef announces snack time over the loudspeaker (“What did she say?” Prissy screams at the top of her lungs. “What's a thnack?”), so we go to the picnic tables and pile Danishes and cantaloupe on our paper plates. I introduce my mom and dad to all the other kids. And then the kids introduce my parents to their parents. I feel my face flush when I introduce them to Raf's parents, because the last time I saw his parents, I was on a date with Will.
Then we get Prissy's stuff from my dad's car and set her up. Then we check out the lake, and my dad decides he wants to go rowboating, and then all of us—oh yes, the whole clan—get fitted for life jackets by Harris (Jennifer, my mom, and Prissy giggle and bat their lashes), and we pile onto the lake.
Can you say awkward? I can't help counting the minutes until it's time for all the parents to go home.
When we get back to shore, the head staff is handing out Popsicles. Stef returns to the loudspeaker and announces, “Vithiting Day will be over in ten minuteth. Would all parenth thay their good-byeth and thtart making their way to Upper Field?”
When our parents drive off—separately, of course—and Prissy is clinging to my hand, blinking away tears, I realize that Miri never showed them the tennis courts. “Why didn't you remind us?” I ask. I realize that I forgot about something else, too—I meant to ask my mom if she's been sending her letters to Miri to the right bunk. Oops.
“Because no one cared,” she answers.
“That's not true.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“What's gotten into you lately?”
“What's gotten into you?”
Prissy tugs me toward the A&C. “Can I get more lanyard?”
“Let's go find Tilly,” I tell her.
“I'm going back to my bunk,” Miri says.
After depositing Prissy with Tilly, I stop by Miri's bunk to try to talk to her again.
“She's not here,” says one of her bunkmates, a scrawny girl in full headgear paraphernalia. This is one of the girls who's picking on Miri? Please.
“Do you know where she is?”
She shrugs.
I check the tennis courts but don't find her there, either.
I finally see Miri at dinner, but she's uncommunicative. Prissy, on the other hand, won't stop talking.
“I got more lanyard, and Tilly showed me how to do butterfly but I'm not so good at it, so I braided them instead and then I got to help make the other girls' beds, and their names are Mandy and Candy and Dahlia and Caprice, and they're all coming for two weeks just like me, except Mandy and Candy and Dahlia are seven and Caprice is six like me—”
“That's great, Prissy, but I have to get back to my table, 'kay?”
She's still talking as I make my way across the mess hall. “You looked like you wanted to kill your family today,” Poodles says to me.
“I did. It was so uncomfortable. It was the first time my mom, her boyfriend, my dad, and his wife were all together. It was awful. So embarrassing. Carly, pass the spaghetti?”
Liana, who's sitting next to Carly, grabs the pasta and serves herself. “Rachel, tell us. Why was it so awful?”
“What do you mean? It just was. When your parents are divorced, you don't want them in the same room.”
“Seems immature to me. If they don't care, why should you?”
“Because I do.” Why's it her business, anyway?
“Where was your family?” Carly asks Liana.
“They're way too busy to come here,” she huffs. “They're yachting in France. With some Greek prince.”
Morgan's eyes widen into saucers. “Really? A prince?”
“That is so cool,” Deb says. “Have you met the prince?”
“Of course I have,” Liana says with extra haughtiness.
I don't buy any of this. “Oh, come on.”
“Don't believe me if you don't want to. Unlike you, I don't care about what other people think.”
I'm about to tell her where to get off when Deb yells, “Freeze!” at the top of her lungs.
My nose is tickling. I think I'm going to—
No! “Achoo!”
“You stack, Rachel,” Deb says.
That sneeze came out of nowhere. I hope I'm not getting sick.
“Whoops,” Liana says as she dribbles tomato
sauce across the table. “Hope you don't get all dirty when you clean up. Sorry about that, Rache.”
No, she's not.
The only thing around here making me sick is her.
Evening activity is charades in the rec hall. Unfortunately, it's interrupted by Tilly, who finds me and asks me to go with her. “Prissy wants you. She's seriously homesick.”
“Sure,” I say, grabbing my sweatshirt. “See you later?” I ask Raf.
“Okay.”
Miri, who's sitting two rows up, turns around. “Where are you going?”
“To check on Prissy. She's homesick.”
“Do you want me to come?”
“Who are you?” Tilly asks.
“I'm her sister.”
“I thought Rachel was her sister.”
“She has two sisters.”
“Oh,” says the counselor. “No, you can stay. She just asked for Rachel.”
Miri's face clouds.
“Why don't we both go?” I say.
“Never mind, I don't want to go,” Miri says, and whips her head back around.
“Miri, come on,” I say, but she ignores me.
Why is my entire family so crazy?
I follow Tilly all the way across camp to bunk one, wave hello to the on-duty counselor on the porch, and enter Prissy's cabin.
“Hey, kiddo,” I say.
She jumps off her bed and throws her arms around me.
“There are ghosts under the beds,” she wails. “Stay with me?”
“Of course.”
She wraps her arms more tightly around my waist.
Two seconds of silence and then: “I want to go hooooooooooooooooooome.”
“Prissy, you're only here for two weeks.”
“I don't like it. The water is cold. I want warm water. And I want my bath!”
“No baths at camp, Priss.”
“I want one.”
“Come on, Prissy, let's get into your bed and I'll tell you a story.”
“I don't want a story.”
“Well, what do you want?”
“Lanyard?”
“Fine, we'll do lanyard.”
I spend the next twenty minutes making a bracelet for her. It's already nine-thirty, which is way, way past her bedtime. Evening activity should be ending. If I leave now, I'll still have time to spend with Raf.
Spells & Sleeping Bags Page 15