Thirteen
I come up from behind the sports stand and stop just out of sight. Naturally Henry is sitting on the bench. He’s a terrible basketball player. No confidence.
“Henry,” I call to him.
He looks around. I poke my head out and wave. He comes running over. He really is so cute—if only he would smile more.
I tell him about the plan and how it’s a big secret and he’s been chosen over everyone else. All he has to do is wear this fur wrapped around him and sneak up the hill with the flag tucked under his arm. It gets his usual reaction.
“I don’t wanna.”
“Come on, Henry. The worst that can happen is you get caught. So big deal, at least you tried. What do you say?”
“I don’t wanna.”
“Sure you do. It’s your big chance to really win over Steven. You could be the hero of the whole camp. That’d be great, wouldn’t it? Huh?”
He’s got his head down and he’s kicking the grass. He’s in his pre-crying position; unless I can convince him fast I won’t be able to get to him through the tears. And there’s only one way to get to him. It’s for his own good.
“Forget it, you’re doing it.” That’s called the Steven-bully method. “I’ve already signed you up.” Combined with a little lie.
“But I don’t wanna.”
“It’s too late. Your name is on it.”
“Can’t you erase it?”
“No way. Dr. Davis won’t let me.” I probably didn’t need this last thing, but I’m in a big hurry.
“I’m scared.”
I tell him not to worry, that I’ll be with him and to wear dark pants and a dark T-shirt. “I’ll pick you up right after dinner.”
When I send him back into the game he’s still on the verge of tears, but nobody notices because he’s always that way.
I do my regular things for the rest of the day, but all the while I’m trying to work out some sort of plan for this evening. It gets dark at about eight, so it should be just perfect around seven forty-five.
Henry and I will go around to the wooded side at the base of the mountain, just far enough away so that they can see somebody’s there, but not make out who we are. Now, in my head, this is the way I see it. Just before we get there, I wrap the sheepskin around Henry and then just pretend I’m out walking the dog. Forget it that nobody has dogs at camp, if somebody sees me with a dog they’re going to figure that somebody does have a dog. Seeing is believing, right?
Okay, so I sort of play with my dog for a couple of minutes and then I pretend to throw a ball up the mountain. That’s when Henry takes off. He runs up the side of the hill on all fours, supposedly after the ball. He’s got the flag folded under his arm. As soon as he gets out of sight he can get up and run the rest of the way normally. Once he gets to the top all he has to do is stick the flag into the ground at the side of the Mohaph flag. That’s it; then he just walks down and I’ll be waiting for him. Nobody will know anything until the morning.
It’s in the bag. Even Henry can manage something as easy as this. Boy, if this works it’s going to change his whole life. I just know it.
I work on the plan all the rest of the day, and by the time I’m ready to pick Henry up I’ve got it down pat. It’s practically foolproof Alexandra thinks so too. At the last minute she lets the guard on our team in on it so they can help out if I need them.
I spend all the time it takes us to get from Henry’s bunk to the mountain trying to build up his confidence, but he’s nearly hopeless until I put him in the fur jacket. Then, magically, something happens; he turns into a puppy. In two seconds he’s scurrying along through the tall grass at top speed with only his little furry back showing; he’s not Henry anymore, he’s a real-live dog. The transformation is incredible. And when I throw the ball he chases after it and brings it back in his mouth. Nothing to do but pet him, so I do.
Meanwhile, one of the gray-team guards watching calls out to me, “That your dog?” And I know we have it made.
“Yeah,” I call back.
“What’s his name?” she wants to know.
I can’t get involved because I have to get him going up the mountain in the next couple of minutes before it gets dark. The first name that comes to mind is Sport so that’s what I tell her. Then she starts calling, “Here Sport, here Sport …”
Henry is so deep into his dog act that he starts performing for her. Oh no …
“Sport, come!” I shout to Henry, but he keeps making his little circles. If he screws this up I’ll kill him.
“Sport, for God’s sake, come over here right this minute. You stupid mutt!”
Lucky for us the guard turns out to be Christy Margolies, who is not known for her great brains, but even she has to see that this isn’t one of your everyday run-of-the-mill poodle-type breeds.
And she does. “What kind of dog is that?”
I grab the first name that comes into my head, “A whiffle.”
“Really weird,” she says, stretching her neck to get a better look.
Now I—m getting nervous. Even Christy can’t be fooled much longer. Just when I’m starting to lose faith in the whole stupid idea, Henry suddenly stops dead, walks over to the nearest tree and, brilliant kid that he is, lifts his leg.
“Yeah, a whiffle.” She’s one of those dummies who pretends to know everything. “I think my cousin had one.”
“They’re great with balls—watch,” I say, and throw the ball as hard as I can up the hill. “Get it, boy! Go up there and get it! And bring it back for all of us.”
And off he goes up the mountain with Christy cheering him on.
• • •
Later everyone had to admit it was brilliant. Henry was fantastic. He went up that mountain, planted the flag, and came down again—with the ball. I ran to meet him, scooped him up in my arms, gave him a giant kiss, and nobody even knew what happened.
At least not that night.
The next morning the whole camp went crazy when they saw the green-team flag at the top of Mount Mohaph. We got five hundred points and Henry was the camp hero. It was fabulous. He was carried on people’s shoulders all the way down to the mess hall. They made up a special song for him, and overnight he became a superstar. And boy, did he love that.
Steven didn’t stand a chance. He was finished. Kids were fighting to sit next to Henry, to stand next to him—everything. He was an instant star.
What a difference it made in that kid. All smiles. No more tears, and probably no more damp sheets either. He really had it made now. That was almost as good as the five hundred points that would go down in camp history.
I get a lot of credit too. Only I’m too nervous to enjoy it. Especially with Robbie turning my stomach upside down, Steffi on my mind, and Dena Joyce on my back.
Fourteen
As of tonight, the last night of Color War, the green team is one hundred and eight-five points ahead. We were trailing badly until Henry’s big flag coup. The last major event is the musical, worth five hundred points. All we have to do is pick up one hundred and fifty-eight points and we win the whole thing.
There are two parts to this event, the singing part and the dance contest. I’m a pretty good dancer, but I decided not to enter when someone suggested Robbie be my partner. That’s all I need, so I said I was too busy.
Robbie’s in it, but he’s dancing with Alexandra, who’s only all right. Steffi’s very good, and she’s dancing with Ken. He may be good too, but Iv’e never really seen him do his stuff.
The musical part turns out to be really great. The sets we made for our team are perfect. It looks like just what it’s supposed to be, lots of different flags. Even the ones painted on canvas look real. I wasn’t involved in any of the music so it all comes as a surprise to me. I love it; even the gray team has some good songs. It’s a hard choice, but the judges give us 150 and the gray team gets only one hundred. We’re looking good.
Twenty couples enter the dance contest.
The first and second place winners will share the two hundred and fifty points.
Nina is dancing with one of the senior boys. She’s not bad. Mostly it’s because she’s borrowed my style exactly. If she wasn’t my sister I would think she was kind of cute. And if she wasn’t dressed in my clothes from head to toe I’d like her even better.
Steffi and Ken are terrific. They’re really a hot couple together. If only it were true. That would be the answer to all my problems. But it isn’t. No matter how good it looks, it just isn’t.
The judges are from the dance academy in town so they don’t know anybody. Second place is chosen first. It’s two seniors on the gray team. Now we have to win first place. But it’s going to be tough because Steffi and Ken are really grooving and they’re fantastic.
I’m torn. I want my team to win and I’ve really worked hard, but Steffi is my best friend and it would be so great if at least she had this triumph. I guess it’s really because I feel so guilty. I want her to win.
They start eliminating couples until they get down to five couples, including my own sister. She’s getting terrific, but Steffi and Ken are really standouts. They’ve got some steps that I never saw before. They must have been practicing a lot lately. Here I go again, trying to make it something it’s not just because it would be so neat. Instant problem solving, that’s my line.
Now they’re down to two couples, two green team Super seniors who aren’t bad, but not nearly as good as Steffi and Ken. The gray team’s got it.
And they do! It’s Steffi and Ken and they carry their team over the top. It’s all over and the gray team wins!
The place goes crazy with all the screaming and jumping up and down. Through it all I manage to stay as far away from Robbie as possible. Every once in a while I catch him looking over at me, but I turn away fast. Last time I look he’s with Steffi and then the band starts to play “Friends” and everybody joins hands and sings together. Color War is officially over.
I wish camp was.
Or at least Steffi’s birthday. In three weeks, which also happens to be the last week of camp. She has great plans for her and Robbie. I’m even included in some of them. The whole thing is horrendous, and I dread it.
Fifteen
I may be wrong, but I think I sense something different in Steffi these last ten days since the end of Color War. She’s quieter than she usually is, but it’s mostly about Robbie that she’s different. Normally she goes on and on about him, but lately she hasn’t been talking about him much. Maybe it’s just me. I run every time his name comes up. In fact that’s what happened just now. We were sitting around after lunch doing our nails; Alexandra, one of the twins, Steffi and me, when D. J. comes wiggling into the bunk.
“Victoria,” says Miss Obnoxious of the World, “I think I’m coming down with a sore throat. Could you do me a huge favor?”
“I guess so.” I try to make it as inconspicuous as possible, but everybody hears. They all turn around in unison and look at me as if I just went bonkers.
“If you could just do my mail delivery today and tomorrow it would really help sooo much….” I don’t know why she bothers, but she smiles. Maybe she’s just happy. I would be, too, if I didn’t have to do that lousy job.
It’s too much for Steffi. “Why don’t you just take an aspirin? A sore throat is no big deal, you know.”
“I didn’t ask you.” No smiles now. “I asked Victoria. Do you want to do it or not?” she says to me.
“It’s okay, I don’t mind.” Then I turn to Steffi. “Really, I don’t mind.”
Steffi shrugs her shoulders like, do what you want, and I get so nervous I spill the whole bottle of Glorious Pink all over my shorts.
“So.” D. J. gives Steffi one of her triumphant looks. “What’s up with Mr. Wonderful lately?”
My cue to exit—and fast. “I’ll get an early start on that mail.” And I’m off and out the door dripping Glorious Pink all the way.
I’m halfway to the main office before I feel safe enough to slow down to a walk. I have to do something about D. J. She’s blackmailing me like in a movie. It’s incredible that she knows how to do it so well. I never could—I’d feel too bad for the person. Besides, I’d be embarrassed to do something as dinky as that, but she takes it so naturally.
“Torrie!”
I know without turning it has to be Robbie, the only other person who calls me by that name. I’ve been successfully avoiding him for over a week now.
I stop, take a deep breath, and turn. “Hi.”
He catches up to me. “I have to talk to you.”
“I’m just hurrying now. I have to sort mail and then I’ve got, uh, I don’t know …” Suddenly I can’t think, but then I decide I’m going to go with the truth. “Actually, I don’t want to. It was all a terrible mistake and I’m sorry it happened.”
I watch those earnest blue eyes start to squint up in pain while I say these things to him.
“I know what you mean,” he says. “That’s why I’ve got to tell her.”
“About us?”
“No, not if you don’t want me to, but I do have to talk to her about what’s happened between her and me.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I don’t know. I’ll just tell her the truth.”
“That you don’t love her anymore?”
“I’m not sure if I ever did. I think she thought she loved me, but we were apart a long time. Things change in a year….”
“You mean it was different when you saw her again?”
“Yeah, it was, even before you. Sure, I still liked her, but not like before.”
It’s not much, but it does make me feel a little better knowing it wasn’t only me that ruined it. I tell him that, and he says I shouldn’t feel guilty. He’s the one who let Steffi down.
This is the first time I’ve ever had any kind of conversation with Robbie where I wasn’t running off, or so uncomfortable because of how I felt about him that I couldn’t think straight.
He is a nice guy and I can see he feels really bad about Steffi. I’m not sure how he feels about me. I know he’s attracted to me, but I don’t know if it’s any more than that. Maybe that’s all it is with me too.
“I think maybe you jumped to conclusions about me,” he says.
“How do you mean?”
“Maybe made too much of a simple attraction because you weren’t supposed to feel it.”
“I’ve never been so miserable since I met you.”
“Me too,” he says. “That week when you were on dock duty …”
“Wasn’t that horrendous?”
“The worst.” His face gets very intense with that special look that grabs you so you can’t turn away. “There wasn’t a minute in that whole week when I didn’t know you were there. No matter what I was doing, you were in my head, I kept thinking I’ve got to quit this. It’s crazy.” Then his eyes let me go and he shakes off the seriousness with a smile. “One more rainy day and I’d have gone off the deep end.”
“You’re lucky,” I say, and I’m just as happy not to have to tell him what I felt, “one more day like that and I’d have pushed you off myself.”
He’s back to serious. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was still fighting it. Why didn’t you?”
“I wanted to, but I kept thinking what if I misread you. What if you really didn’t like me?”
“I know what you mean. I was thinking the same thing.”
“I could just picture it. There I was, your best friend’s boyfriend making a pass at you. You’d have probably spat in my eye.”
“My problem is I probably wouldn’t have.”
“What about now?”
“Now is something else. I don’t know what’s up anymore. Anywhere I turn looks bad.” And I tell him how terrible it’s been; how it bugs me all the time, every time I see him, and how it’s getting so bad that it’s even beginning to sneak into my time
s alone with Steffi. “I have to do something. Make a choice one way or the other.”
“I know which way it’s going to be.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s not going to be me.”
As soon as he says it, I know he’s right. And so does he.
“No matter what you decide,” he says, “there’s one thing I have to do. I have to tell Steffi before her birthday.”
“That’s horrible. She’s been planning this for weeks. Can’t it wait until after?”
“No, it can’t. I feel like I’m lying to her and that’s the worst of all. At least I owe her the truth.”
Watching Robbie struggle with all this and knowing how horrible it’s making him feel and what it’s done to me makes me see something I didn’t see before. I try to tell him.
“Somehow talking to you about all this takes some of the scare out of it. I know I like you, I can’t pretend I don’t, but it’s really no good.”
Then I tell him how it’s not Steffi over him but it’s the important things inside that you’ve got to listen to or everything comes out terrible. When you say honor and loyalty and stuff like that everybody thinks you’re talking baloney, but they’re wrong. It really matters. And getting something you want by betraying someone important to you just doesn’t work. I know Robbie really is a nice guy and he feels awful about Steffi too, and he knows I’m right.
“Did you talk to Dena Joyce yet?” he asks.
“Not yet. But I’ve got to do something quick. It’s terrible.”
And I tell him what she’s doing to me and he’s furious. Still, there’s nothing he can do. “Turn the tables on her,” he says.
“Are you kidding? She’s invincible. She’s like made of steel.”
“Everybody’s got a soft spot, you just have to find it.”
“That’s exactly what I used to think, but you don’t know Dena Joyce,” I tell him. “Which reminds me, I better get to her mail delivery or I’m done for.”
“Am I going to see you again?” he asks when I get up to leave.
“You can hardly avoid me in this place.”
Love & Betrayal & Hold the Mayo Page 15