“We’ll be arriving at camp in about a half hour or so,” he explained. “When we get there, you’ll come off the bus. There will be a counselor waiting to tell you what bunk you’re in and where you’re going. So the first thing you want to do is go to your bunk. If fate has been kind to us—and I’ve got my fingers crossed here—then your trunk or any other luggage you may have shipped will be waiting for you there. You’ll meet your counselors and your bunkmates, unpack, and have your bunk meetings.” He paused. “Any questions?”
“Yeah,” shouted a rowdy boy from the back of the bus. “What’s for dinner tonight?”
“Cookout!” Pete said. He sounded highly thrilled at the prospect.
The entire bus erupted into a chorus of cheers. Natalie stared at her fellow campers incredulously.
Cookout?
she wondered. She could not for the life of her understand why something as simple as a barbecue was eliciting such a response.
Sushi, maybe
, she thought.
Hamburgers . . . not so much.
She glanced to her right again. Her seatmate was still engrossed in her notebook, completely unimpressed by the news of the cookout. Well, that was one thing they had in common, at least. Natalie folded her arms across her chest and leaned back, sighing again.
It was going to be a long eight weeks.
chapter TWO
Natalie rested comfortably in bed, her head cradled by soft down pillows, her body on a mattress that was just the right balance of firm and squishy. The room, a log cabin similar to one Natalie had stayed in on a recent ski trip with her mother, was air-conditioned to the perfect temperature.
Hmmm, I didn’t think there would be air-conditioning at camp
, Natalie thought.
I could get used to roughing it.
Maybe there’s going to be sushi for dinner
, she thought.
And then afterward we can make frozen-yogurt sundaes.
“Natalie, wake up,” her counselor said, leaning over and nudging her gently. “We’re leaving for our field trip in just a few minutes. We’ll be going to New York, to the Met.”
The Metropolitan Museum? New York?
Natalie thought. That was another pleasant surprise. She was pretty sure that Camp Lakeview was at least three hours away from New York.
Some field trip.
“Natalie, wake up,” the voice said again. The owner of the voice nudged her again, this time not so gently.
“Ow,” Natalie said, rubbing her shoulder. “Come on! Quit it.”
“Sorry,” the voice said, “but we’re here. I think you have to get off the bus now.”
Here?
Natalie peeled her eyes open.
Here.
As in, Camp Lakeview. They had arrived. Natalie groaned.
“Yeah, you were sleeping pretty soundly. You dropped off just after the announcement about the cookout tonight. I take it you’re not big into red meat.”
“Whatever,” Natalie said, rubbing her eyes and feeling grouchy. She looked over to see who was talking to her. It was her seatmate, the maybe-cool notebook girl. “I guess not,” she admitted, feeling bad about being so touchy. It wasn’t this girl’s fault she was so anti-camp.
“Yeah, well, I’m a vegetarian. I get it,” the girl said. “My name’s Alyssa.”
“I’m Natalie,” Natalie said with a little smile. A little smile was about the best she could do at the moment.
“I know, I heard you introduce yourself to that girl Grace. You said it was your first summer here. Mine too. And I’m also eleven. So maybe we’re in the same bunk.”
“There are four bunks of eleven-year-olds,” Natalie pointed out. A look of disappointment flickered across Alyssa’s face, and Natalie worried that she had unintentionally hurt the girl’s feelings.
Nice people skills, Nat,
she scolded herself. “But, you know, I hope we are!” she said quickly. She was relieved to see a smile return to Alyssa’s face.
Natalie and Alyssa gathered their things and stepped off the bus. It took a moment for Natalie’s eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight, and when they did, she gasped in surprise. Whatever her expectations had been of camp, she wasn’t prepared for
this.
In a word, it was chaos. All the buses were lined up, parked, in an open field. Just beyond all the buses, though, was a clearing lined with balloons and enormous, hand-lettered signs with greetings like “Welcome, Lakeview Campers!” and “Happy Summer!” And girls and boys anywhere from age eight to sixteen were wandering back and forth, some looking eager, some looking as confused as she felt. In the midst of the crowd were older people—counselors and staff, Natalie assumed—waving clipboards and shouting instructions into megaphones. It was all extremely perky, Natalie thought. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Come to think of it, she was practically still half-asleep.
“WHAT’S YOUR NAME?” A clipboard was thrust under Natalie’s nose. She followed the clipboard up and found herself looking into the face of an older woman wearing a fluorescent orange sun visor and a stripe of zinc down her nose.
No one
in New York City wore sun visors. At least, not anyone Natalie knew.
“Natalie. Natalie Goode,” she managed, after taking a moment to recover.
The woman looked at her clipboard briskly. “Natalie Goode. New York City.”
“That’s me.”
“Well, Natalie, I’m Helen Proctor. I’m the camp nurse. Right now, I’m helping all the campers find their bunks. You, my friend, are in the third division. Kathleen is your division head. You’ll love her. And you’re in bunk 3C,” the woman told her. “Your counselor is Julie and Marissa will be your CIT.”
“CIT?” Natalie asked. Was that anything like the CIA? Or NPR? Probably not.
“Counselor-in-training,” Helen explained. “It’s the division between the oldest campers and the counselors. The CITs wait tables in the mess hall, and they’re each assigned to one bunk.”
Natalie nodded. “Cool,” she said. At least, it sounded cool. Time would tell.
Helen leaned forward, crouching next to Natalie. She pointed toward a thin dirt path leading away from the field. “If you follow that path, you’ll see that it curves around. That path runs through the main part of the camp—the bunks, the mess hall, and the rec hall. Head down that path and stick to the left. The fourth bunk you pass will be 3C.” She patted Natalie on the shoulder reassuringly.
“Great,” Natalie said, unconvinced. “Um, thanks.” She looked around to see where Alyssa had gone, but she had already disappeared. There could be no more putting it off. She was here at Camp Lakeview, on her way to the bunk.
While on the bus, Natalie had somehow managed to convince herself that camp might not actually be that bad. She had even dreamed of bunks like log cabins, cute little cottages like the ones she and her mother stayed in when they went on vacation. But now, suddenly, her mouth was dry and she felt sweaty and nervous. She willed herself to relax.
Your bunkmates will be cool
, she told herself.
There’s going to be a girl there who’s into just the same kind of music that you like, and there will be someone who’s way funny and wears the same size clothes as you, and you can share jeans and give each other manicures. And you can take a nice, long shower after you’ve unpacked so you can start to feel human again.
She imagined herself digging her thick terrycloth robe out from her trunk and hanging it just outside a nice shower stall. She’d turn the water on full blast and melt away the travel grime. Then she’d change into her most comfortable track pants and snuggle under her covers until dinnertime. Maybe she’d even blow her hair out—
first day of camp, and all.
The path curved around, and Natalie hung a left, just like Helen had told her to. Almost immediately, she came upon a cluster of . . .
No. No way.
It just wasn’t possible. There was no
way
that these crumbling, paint-chipped shacks were the
bunks
. As in, where she was expected to
live
for eight whole weeks!
The ramshackle structures couldn’t have been less similar to the log cabins of Natalie’s fantasies. They barely looked like they would make it through the summer, they were so dilapidated. The bunks were constructed of flimsy-looking planks of wood that had probably been a uniform color once upon a time, but age and weather had rendered them a dull and faded shade of gray. “Windows” were screens without shutters or panes. Natalie wondered what happened when it rained.
Swallowing hard, she counted to the fourth building and stepped up toward it slowly.
Looks can be deceiving
, she reminded herself.
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
She racked her brain for any other clichés that could offer any small bit of comfort. Someone had tacked a big pink posterboard to the front door. “WELCOME, BUNK 3C,” it said. The sign was decorated with glitter and lots of girls’ names. It was hard for Natalie to imagine that in just a few moments all those names would be actual people—people she’d be sharing one big room with for two whole months. She had never shared a room before, ever, other than for a sleepover party.
Just do it
, she decided
.
It was time to just jump in.
Here goes nothing
, she thought, and pushed the door open, stepping into bunk 3C.
Natalie couldn’t believe that her own mother had paid money for her to stay here. Or that there were girls who were looking
forward
to living in a bunk. She didn’t know how she was going to make it.
The door clacked shut behind her, bouncing on its hinges. The fact that the door didn’t have a knob or any other lock-type mechanism did not escape her. But she couldn’t dwell on such matters. Because the bunk itself had many, many other problems.
Six bunk beds were lined up on either side of the small, square room. Two single beds were arranged just beyond the main bunk “area,” obviously intended for the counselors. The thin, stained mattresses bore little resemblance to the fabulous bed she’d been dreaming of. And sleeping on a top bunk was clearly out of the question. She’d never fallen out of bed, but she sure wasn’t eager to tempt fate from eight feet in the air. The top bunks had some sort of railing, but she wasn’t interested in taking chances.
The floor was wooden, scuffed, and looked likely to splinter off. She thought gratefully of having packed her striped, rubber flip-flops. Crooked wooden cubbies were built into the walls, obviously intended for the campers’ belongings. She was supposed to unpack her clothes and just leave them in open shelves for everyone to see? Wouldn’t they get dusty or dirty or . . . well, she couldn’t really think of anything too terrible that would happen to her stuff, but still—it seemed like a bad idea.
Thinking again of her grand plan to shower, Natalie cautiously made her way into the bathroom.
How bad could it be?
she asked herself. She was instantly sorry that she had.
Oh.
That
bad.
It wasn’t the sticky, stained floor that bothered her (she did have those striped flip-flops, after all). Neither was it the no-frills row of stall showers facing the far back wall. Oh, sure, she could see even from the doorway how mildewed and moldy those curtains were. The fact that the toilet-paper rolls were soggy with humidity wasn’t a great concern.
No, what freaked Natalie out was the toilet. Specifically, the state of one toilet—one of only
two
that twelve girls were expected to share. On top of this toilet was the hugest, slimiest, squirmiest, and all-out grossest spider Natalie had ever seen. Even if someone had been able to kill this spider—and frankly, she wasn’t really sure that that would even be possible—its spidery, icky essence would live on. On the toilet seat.
Well, she just wouldn’t use the bathroom. Ever.
Natalie crossed to one of the sinks that stood in a row on the opposite wall of the shower stalls. She glanced at her face in the mirror—no good news there—and splashed some water across her cheeks. She patted her face and walked back into the sleeping area of the bunk.
“So, you’re Natalie? Or are you Alyssa or Chelsea or Grace?”
Natalie looked over to see a petite blond girl talking to her. “I’m Julie,” the girl continued, smiling widely. “I’m going to be your counselor this summer.”
Julie had bright, clear blue eyes and freckles covering every visible square inch of skin. Her hair was short, straight, and shiny. Her skin was scrubbed clean, and her complexion was fresh. Julie looked like a very “perky” person. Natalie had her doubts about “perky” people and couldn’t help but be slightly wary of Julie. But of course, she had to at least try, didn’t she?
“I’m Natalie,” Natalie said, introducing herself. She coaxed what she hoped was a passable smile to her face.
“Right, I knew I had a one-in-four shot because the tri-state buses just arrived. So it was either you or Alyssa or Grace or Chelsea. Chelsea’s from Pennsylvania,” Julie explained.
Natalie was a little relieved that Julie was just organized, not a mind reader. “A girl named Alyssa was on my bus. So was a Grace. They’re both eleven. So it’s probably them,” she reasoned, feeling a little more relaxed to know that there would be at least two people in her bunk who weren’t
total
strangers.