Best (Boy)friend Forever #9

by Melissa J Morgan

“He never heard that you can light your farts. Can you believe that? I mean, every other guy in the bunk knew. You know, right?”

  “I’ve known since kindergarten,” Priya answered. “Where’s Zach from? Where in the United States can you grow up without knowing that fart gas is flammable?” This was the great part about having a BBFF. Girls just didn’t have conversations like this.

  “Someplace in Florida. There’s no excuse for it,” Jordan said. “Hey, an acorn, that counts as someone’s food.” He grabbed it and tossed it into his bucket.

  “So this guy Zach, how are his burping skills?” Priya asked. “I’m not talking advanced, like burping the alphabet. But can he at least do his name? I mean, it’s only one syllable.”

  “No data on that,” Jordan answered.

  “Well, you gotta get some, pronto. If he has no skills, then I’m thinking an alien has taken over his body,” Priya teased. She knew the conversation was totally moronic. But that was the best kind.

  “An evil alien planning some kind of invasion?” Jordan asked.

  “That’s what I’m thinking.” Priya checked out another possible Y-shaped stick. No go.

  “One point if you burp the pledge of allegiance at lunch,” Jordan challenged.

  Priya reluctantly shook her head. “You can’t do that kind of burping on bug juice, my friend.”

  My best friend.

  “It’s Barbeque Night, Barbeque Night,” Brynn sang to the tune of “Halloween Town” from The Nightmare Before Christmas. “No need to take fright. It’s Barbeque Night.” She leaped and twirled down the aisle between the beds.

  Priya knew exactly why Brynn and everybody else was so excited over the BBQ. She didn’t know if the outdoor grills were easier for Pete, the cook, to use or what—but the hot dogs and hamburgers he served up at BBQs were much tastier than his indoor cooking. Tasty enough to be almost edible.

  “There might be a need to take fright,” Alex said. “It’s a full moon. And one of the counselors always tells a creepy story at the campfire when there’s a full moon.” Alex had been a Lakeview camper forever. She knew the scoopage on everything. Although Priya and the campers who were back for a second or third summer knew a few things, too. Like the full moon deal.

  Brynn flopped down on Sarah’s bed. “Cool. I love scary stories. Have you heard the one about—”

  The door to the bunk flew open. “I now interrupt the regularly scheduled programming for an important news bulletin,” Valerie announced.

  “Um, Val, Brynn’s the drama queen,” Grace joked. “I’m the funny one. Priya’s the tomboy. Gaby’s the—”

  “The tomboy’s going to want to hear this. And I bet the rest of you are, too,” Valerie interrupted.

  Gaby looked doubtful as she smoothed on a coat of strawberry pink lip gloss.

  Valerie turned to Priya. “Remember what we were talking about last night at dinner? You know, what it meant when Jordan brought up kissing?”

  “Didn’t we already decide that it meant he liiiikes Priya?” Gaby asked, sounding bored.

  “Oh, no we didn’t,” Priya answered. “And anyway, Jordan was totally normal today. Regular old Jordan. I’m now completely positive he was just kidding around,” she told the group. “He has no interest in any girl—including me—except as a friend.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Valerie said, brown eyes shining. “At least don’t bet anything you’re not hoping to get rid of. I ran into Natalie on my way over, and she said Simon said that Jordan was asking the guys in his bunk for advice. On girls. Make that girlfriends and how to get them.”

  “Wow,” Abby said.

  “That’s . . . wow,” Candace said.

  “But, like I said, Jordan was acting completely the way he always does,” Priya said. “He didn’t mention the K word or anything like that.” Her voice got higher with every word. She hoped no one noticed. “He talked about farts, okay? That’s the level of normal I’m talking.”

  “Again with the too much information.” Abby shook her head.

  “Too much,” Candace agreed.

  “The only reason he went into bodily function territory was ’cause he hadn’t gotten the lowdown from his crew,” Grace offered. “The boy didn’t know any better.”

  Sophie stuck her head into the bunk. “Let’s move it out, girls. You know how fast the chow moves at barbeques.”

  Priya stood up and followed the other girls outside. The sky was going all pinky-purpley-orangey as the sun set, and she could already smell the smoke from the barbeque. But her stomach felt as if it was filled with grasshoppers. Live ones, not the chocolate-covered kind.

  Just chill. Maybe the whole thing got garbled when it got passed from Simon to Natalie to Valerie to everyone in 4C, Priya told herself. Remember when you went to Shelly Barone’s stupid birthday party in the third grade and you played that stupid game telephone—instead of something fun like kickball or freeze tag? The whole point was that the message got all messed up as it went from person to person.

  Yeah, that’s probably the deal, Priya thought as she got in the hamburger line. Then Gaby elbowed her in the side and nodded toward the closest hot dog line. And the grasshoppers in Priya’s stomach started doing some extreme hip-hop moves.

  Jordan had changed his t-shirt. Which was bizzaro enough. If Jordan had some kind of mega-spill or whatever, he’d maybe turn his tee inside out before dinner. Maybe. If he thought about it.

  But the really bizzaro part was what he’d changed into. A whatchamacallit—polo shirt. With a collar and everything. Priya hadn’t known that Jordan even owned one. Was he wearing it to impress a girl? Was he wearing it for her? Because he was going to attempt to become her boyfriend?

  “The guys in his bunk don’t exactly read Vogue,” Gaby commented. “The outfit’s passable. But what did they have him put in his hair—corn syrup?”

  Priya raised her eyes up from the polo shirt. Jordan’s brown hair was slicked down—and weirdly shiny. She had no idea how he’d gotten it that way. The most she attempted with her own hair was—well, nothing. That’s why she liked it short. You couldn’t really do anything with it but brush it.

  “Oooh. Look at loverboy,” Grace teased from her spot in front of Priya. “He’s gonna make his move tonight. Maybe not on you. But on someone.”

  “No way,” Priya said. But what else was she supposed to think? Grace had to be right. This had to be girl-related. What other reason could Jordan have for creating this . . . spectacle? It couldn’t be that he thought he’d be given more burgers at the BBQ.

  On autopilot, she grabbed a paper plate and held it out for a burger and some corn on the cob. She loved corn on the cob. But the melting butter on top reminded her of the gunk on Jordan’s hair, and that got the grasshoppers all excited again, and she realized there was no way she was going to be able to force any food in there with them.

  Priya sat down on one end of a fallen log, next to Brynn. A whole bunch of logs were arranged in circles around the big pit they used for camp-wide campfires. She stared at her full plate. “Anybody want seconds?” she asked, holding up her plate of firsts.

  “Maybe. But I’ve only taken about two bites of what I’ve got,” Alex answered from the next log over.

  “Aren’t you feeling good?” Becky asked from her spot next to Alex. Her blue eyes were wide with concern.

  “I’m good. Just not that hungry,” Priya said quickly.

  “Everyone loses their appetite when they’re in like,” Grace joked from the other side of Brynn. Usually Priya thought Grace was funny. Usually.

  “Everyone loses their appetite,” Candace agreed, straddling the log in front of Priya’s.

  “I’m totally not in like,” Priya snapped.

  “Well somebody is,” Brynn commented. “Somebody keeps staring over here. Somebody named Jordan.”

  And it was true. Jordan was gawking at her from one of the fallen logs on the opposite side of the huge campfire. The shadows thrown on his face by the fl
ames made him look like a stranger. That and the freaky hair. And the polo shirt. The thing didn’t even have a slogan on it. Priya jerked her eyes off him.

  Why her? It would be bad if Jordan had started crushing on any girl. Because . . . because then everything would change. And Priya liked things exactly how they were, exactly the way they’d always been.

  But out of all the girls around, why did Jordan have to liiike her? It just made it so much more gross. It would be gross to see Jordan looking at any girl with goo-goo eyes. But to feel him looking at her that way, that was gross squared. She took a quick peek at him. Yeah, he was definitely staring in her direction. Yikes.

  “Maybe just try a few bites,” Becky suggested in concerned-counselor mode. “I don’t want the sound of your stomach growling to wake everybody up in the middle of the night.”

  Priya figured it was easier to eat a little than argue. She picked up her corn on the cob and scraped some of the sweet corn off with her teeth. Grasshoppers would probably rather eat corn than hamburger, right?

  She shot another glance at Jordan. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t stop herself. He definitely wasn’t having any trouble eating. He was heading over to the barbeque pits for another hot dog. Whatever. At least he wasn’t still mooning at her with big moo-cow eyes. She managed another bite of corn.

  “Incoming!” Alex called from her place next to Candace.

  Priya automatically jerked up her head, looking for the baseball or football or Frisbee that should be flying toward her.

  “Not that kind,” Alex said. “Boy incoming.”

  Incoming like a bomb. There he was. Jordan. Candace and Alex scooted closer together so he could sit down on their log across from Brynn and Priya. “Hey,” Priya muttered, goosebumps appearing on her arms, even though it wasn’t that cold. She felt as if every single girl in her bunk was staring at her, like she had suddenly sprouted a second head or something.

  “How is everyone enjoying their food?” Jordan asked, staring down at his deck shoes.

  First—“How is everyone enjoying their food?” What was he, some kind of lobotomized cruise director? Second—deck shoes. True, his sneaks reeked. But Jordan was kinda proud of the stench they’d accumulated. Those shoes weren’t his, Priya was sure of it. She felt her two bites of corn try to come back up her throat.

  “Yummy in the tummy,” Brynn said, since Priya hadn’t answered.

  Jordan laughed. Hard. As hard as that time at swimming when Priya had floated on her back and pretended her belly button was a whale’s blowhole.

  Brynn started to giggle. “Yummy in the tummy,” Jordan repeated, and he actually giggled himself. Yes, giggled. Then he straightened the collar of his polo shirt and glanced at Priya.

  She had to help him. Jordan was in there somewhere. Trapped under the clothes and the hair and the cruise-director speak and the giggling. She just needed to bust him loose.

  Light bulb. Priya leaned across Grace. “Hey, Gaby,” she whispered. “Do you have one of your secret stash of Cokes with you?”

  Gaby checked out Becky and Sophie to make sure they weren’t listening—although they didn’t mind the girls having some junk food contraband inside the bunk, as long as the campers were willing to share with them. “Yes. But it’s for me, as in M-E.”

  “What if I do whatever comes up for you on the chore wheel tomorrow?” Priya asked. “Then who’s it for?”

  Gaby slapped a lukewarm can of Coke into Priya’s hand. Priya slipped it to Jordan. “Give you a point if you burp the camp motto here and now,” she challenged.

  “That’s gross,” Brynn said.

  Jordan tossed the can back to Priya. “I’ll pass.”

  Dylan, the counselor for 4F, stood up. “Quiet down, everyone. Quiet. I’m about to tell you a story—a true story. It’s what happened to a bride, a bride who always wore a black velvet collar,” he called. “And I have to warn you that her story is intense. So I need you to keep an eye on your neighbors. Campers have been known to faint when they hear the story. If you see someone near you getting pale or having trouble breathing, shoot up your hand, and one of the counselors will be right over to help. The story is that frightening.”

  More frightening than the fact that Jordan has clearly been taken over by an alien? Priya thought.

  chapter THREE

  “They’re both asleep,” Sarah whispered late that night after she did a Sophie-and-Becky bed check.

  Priya climbed out of the top bunk as quietly as possible and joined the circle of girls gathering in the middle of the cabin. “Everybody knows how to play, right?” Gaby asked as they sat down.

  “I don’t,” Priya answered.

  “Me either,” Abby said.

  Gaby rolled her eyes. Geez, Priya thought. Could Priya help it if she hung with boys, and boys didn’t play this “I Never” game, whatever it was?

  “Okay, Alex is handing out the candy that we use as tokens,” Gaby went on.

  “The Lifesavers are sugar-free, if anyone cares,” Alex said, as she gave eleven of the individually wrapped candies to each girl. Alex only ate treats without sugar because she had juvenile diabetes.

  “How it works is, we go around the circle. Each person says something they’ve never done—but it should be something they think a lot of the rest of us have done,” Gaby explained. “If you’ve done what the person says they haven’t, you have to put one of your candies in the middle of the circle. Once all your candy is gone, you’re out of the game. The winner is the one who still has candy left at the end. We go around the circle as many times as it takes to eliminate all but one of us.”

  Priya nodded. She got it. It didn’t exactly sound exciting. Or even fun. But she got it. And maybe it would keep her mind off Jordan and his BBQ freak show. It’s not like she’d have been able to sleep after that. And everyone else was a little tense after the story Dylan told about the bride and her black velvet choker and the way her head plopped right down onto the staircase when she finally took the choker off, which she was never, never, ever supposed to do.

  “I’ll go first,” Gaby said. She tilted her head to one side, thinking. “I never had a birthday party at my house.”

  “Come on!” Sarah protested.

  “Shhh!” Grace pointed toward the part of the bunk where Becky and Sophie slept.

  “It’s true,” Gaby insisted. “Even my first birthday party wasn’t one of those home ones with crepe paper streamers. It was at a tea shoppe. That’s with an ‘e’ at the end.”

  “Oooh. Fancy. And I mean that with an ‘e’ at the end,” Grace said.

  Sarah tossed a piece of candy into the center of the circle. So did every other girl. “I never go anywhere that doesn’t have an ‘e’ at the end would probably have worked just as well,” she commented.

  Gaby gave a cat-who-just-scarfed-a-gallon-of-cream smile. Then she turned to Alex, who sat on her right. “Go,” she instructed.

  Alex nibbled her lower lip. “I never . . . I never got my period.”

  About a third of the girls tossed in candy. Priya wasn’t one of them.

  She was a little surprised. She thought practically every girl in her school had started. It was good to spend some time in an X-chromosome-only situation. You could learn a few things. Priya grinned trying to imagine discussing her period with her little brother. Or Jordan.

  She shoved the thought of Jordan out of her head. This game was about distraction from the horror.

  “That wasn’t as good a one as mine,” Gaby told Alex. Gaby had been one of the candy-tossers. “You should have known at least some of us would have gotten our period. You have to choose more unique stuff if you want to win.”

  Alex gave a little shrug. “I just wanted to know,” she admitted. “I was hoping I wasn’t the last one to, you know . . . get it.”

  Priya had just learned something else from the girly game. She wasn’t the only girl who worried about not having gotten her period. Not that she wanted it. Not exactly. But
she wanted it if everyone else had already gotten it.

  “I’m glad you used the period thing for your turn,” Abby said. “I wanted to know, too. I haven’t gotten mine either, and I keep obsessing. I don’t know if I should ask my mom to take me to a doctor or what. But I don’t want a doctor to do whatever they’d have to do to test me.”

  “Lots of people our age don’t have it yet,” Sarah told her. “Look at the candy pile. Not even half of us put in candy for that one. So a lot of us are in the ‘I never’ group.”

  Abby nodded. “Yeah. I guess I just got worried because my best friend at school got hers when she was ten.”

  “Ten!” Priya burst out at the same time as Valerie.

  “Yeah,” Abby insisted.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with mine,” Sarah admitted. “I got it once, then I kinda got it one other time. Then nothing.”

  “In health, they said that’s normal at the beginning,” Priya said. It felt good to have something to offer to the conversation.

  “It should have an official start day. So you could be completely prepared,” Valerie said, getting nods from everyone.

  “My turn,” Grace said after a moment. She glanced around the circle, like she was trying to read each girl’s mind. When she spoke, her voice was low, and deep, and intense. “I never . . . never . . . ever . . . took off my black velvet choker.”

  “Not funny!” Abby whisper-screamed. “I can totally see that bride’s head bouncing down the stairs.”

  Priya bit down on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from launching into a loud hee-haw fit. Abby’s eyes were so wide they looked almost ready to fall out of their sockets.

  “I don’t think any of us should have to give up candy for that one,” Gaby said, sounding annoyed because Grace wasn’t taking the game—her game—seriously.

  “That wasn’t my real turn,” Grace protested.

  “Yes, it was,” Gaby insisted.

  “Who votes that Grace gets another go—this time only?” Alex asked. Everyone but Gaby and Abby raised their hands.

  “Okay, seriously, I never went to pre-school,” Grace told the group.