Fearless (8 page)

At the end of the skit, Prissyrella decided she'd rather go on a hiking overnight than go to the Camp Crockett
dance. “I can have so much more fun at Pine Haven doing all the activities I love!” Prissyrella announced at the end.

“What a shameless plug for all the camp activities,” Reb muttered from where she was sitting on a bench with Kelly and Jennifer.

“Maybe that means we're having a dance tomorrow night!” Jennifer suggested.

“Maybe that means they've canceled the dance and we're all going on an overnight!” said Reb, which made Jennifer really mad.

While we were all talking and laughing, the counselors tried to get our attention again. “So you've just seen our version of one fractured fairy tale, ‘Prissyrella.' Now it's your turn. Every cabin needs to come up with your own fractured fairy tale and perform a skit for the rest of us,” announced Libby Sheppard.

All over the lodge, you could hear everyone groaning.
Most people thought it was fun to watch the counselors
do skits, but they hated it when they'd make us do them too.

“What if we can't think of anything?” asked JD Duckworth, a loud girl from Cabin 2.

“What if we have no talent?” asked Reb.

“You're all very talented, and you'll be able to think of something if you work together. So everybody, go to your cabins, make your plans, and meet back here in half an hour,” Libby told everyone.

“Half an hour?” Molly asked. “That's impossible. We can't come up with an idea in half an hour.” We were starting to file out through the big double doors.

Actually, I loved this idea. I thought it would be majorly fun to plan a skit for the whole cabin to perform.

“Sure we can,” I said. “We just have to get creative. With eight people, we can come up with something really good.”

It still smelled rainy, and we could hear drops of water falling off the leaves of the trees. We jumped over puddles as we climbed the stone steps toward Middler Line. “Which fairy tale should we do?” I asked everyone. I already had one idea, but I didn't want to be one of those bossy people who takes over.

Ahead of us in the crowd, Whitney was already tell
ing her cabin what to do. “We should do Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, because we have exactly eight people. I'll be Snow White, because probably the rest of you want to be dwarves.”

Translation: I want the starring role for myself.

“I know I've dreamed my whole life of being a dwarf,” I heard Whitney's best friend Sarah say. She happened to be the tallest girl in their cabin.

“I got a great idea! Let's do Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!” Reb shouted. Whitney turned and glared at her, and Reb gave her a friendly wave.

The hardest part about planning a skit with a group of eight people was not coming up with ideas. It was trying to get everyone involved. As soon as we got to the cabin, the Side A girls went right over to their side and plopped down on their bunks.

“Okay, somebody think of something,” Reb ordered. She stretched out on her bed and closed her eyes. Kelly and Jennifer weren't any help either. And forget Melissa. She would hardly say anything.

At the beginning of the week, Kelly had gone to all the activities with Melissa, but the last couple of days, it seemed like she'd dumped her for Reb and Jennifer instead.

“Well, here's an idea,” I said. “And we don't have to
do it. If somebody else can think of something better, we should definitely do that.”

Everybody looked at me, and I felt really embarrassed. “What about Little Red Riding Hood?” I said, in a voice that was suddenly all hoarse and congested.

I cleared my throat. “Except instead of it being a wolf that Little Red Riding Hood goes to see, we could make it Eda. We could do an impersonation of her. You know, like, ‘Let's hear some of that Pine Haven spirit!'” I said, doing my best Eda voice, which I happened to think was pretty good.

Everybody stared at me without saying a word. It was a horrible idea. I should've kept my mouth closed.

Then everyone laughed. “You sound just like her!” said Molly.

“You even looked like her for a second!” agreed Brittany.

“That's a great idea. What else?” asked Erin.

I couldn't keep from smiling. “Well, let's see. We could do something like . . . Little Green Pine Haven Camper.” It sounded stupid the moment I said it.

“Perfect,” said Reb. “Okay, Jordan, tell us what to do and we'll do it.”

And just like that, I was suddenly in charge of the whole skit. I've never been in charge of anything before.
I'm not a take-charge kind of person. But everyone else was so majorly bored with the idea of having to plan a skit and so happy to let me do it all, that I did. The ideas were pouring out of me.

“So Little Green Pine Haven Camper thinks she's going to visit her counselor,” I said, sort of thinking out loud.

“Her sick counselor?” asked Molly.

“Uh, no. Her counselor's . . . exhausted. Because she just got back late from raiding the kitchen,” I said. “In fact, Eda is mad at all the counselors for raiding the kitchen every night.”

“Which is true!” said Brittany. “And so Eda fires all the counselors, and she's hiding in bed when Little Green Pine Haven Camper comes to visit. Does she have enormous teeth?”

“No, an enormous clipboard,” I blurted out, because Eda never went anywhere without her clipboard. I was shocked when everyone roared with laughter over that.

“Good one, Jordan! ‘My, what an enormous clipboard you have!'” said Reb. “I'm starting to see this.”

“What can we use for a clipboard?” asked Molly.

After looking around the cabin, we eventually figured out something that would work. Molly pulled out this kind of cardboard thingy in her duffel that was sup
posed to make the bottom of it lay flat, and if you carried it under your arm, it actually did look sort of like an enormous clipboard.

I was thinking about how Eda always wore skirts—white skirts, denim skirts, khaki skirts. They were short and casual, but it would be funny to spoof that in some way. “Besides her enormous teeth, Little Green Pine Haven Camper is also amazed by Eda's stylish skirts,” I said.

“Oh my gosh! That's a great idea! Hang on one second!” Brittany ran over to Side B and then came back holding up a silvery, metallic-looking skirt. “It can be this!”

“Where did you get that? Do you actually wear that?” asked Molly with her mouth hanging open.

Brittany laughed. “I haven't yet! My mom thought it was cute. She said I could wear it to the dance. I'm like, ‘Why don't you just buy me a roll of aluminum foil?'”

Jennifer shook her head in disbelief. “You could be struck by lightning in that thing.”

“It's perfect,” I agreed. “And Eda wears Pine Haven polos a lot, so maybe we could do something like . . . ‘What a strange green shirt you're wearing.'”

I paused for a second. “I got it! You know how Wayward never wears the official Pine Haven polo? She
always wears that green T-shirt with a snowboarder on it that says, ‘What day is it, anyway?' Maybe we could borrow that!”

“Oh, that is too funny!” shouted Molly.

Jennifer, Reb, and Kelly were all laughing too. “Now we just need to figure out who's going to play which part,” said Reb. “Okay, Jordan, what's it going to be?”

I was so excited that everyone else was finally getting into the spirit of doing this. Molly went to find Wayward to borrow her shirt. The rest of us started planning out the whole skit, coming up with lines, figuring out props, and deciding who would play what.

And I was basically the one in charge. Everyone was listening to me, and asking me to make decisions, and expecting me to plan everything out. That was really surprising and weird, but at the same time, I loved it.

So I decided that at the beginning of the skit, the counselors, played by Molly, Jennifer, and Kelly, would all be raiding the kitchen. Then Eda, played by Reb, would come in wearing her shiny skirt and Wayward's T-shirt, carrying her enormous clipboard. Once she'd fired all the counselors, she would crawl into a sleeping bag to take a nap, and that's when Little Green Pine Haven Camper would come in.

I picked Brittany to play the part of the camper,
because she could act all sweet and innocent easily. Erin would be the narrator. Melissa said she didn't want a part.

“I don't want one either,” I said.

“No way, you have to be in it. You should play Eda,” said Reb. “You're the one who can do the best imitation of her.”

“Yeah! Do it, Jordan! Do that same voice you did a minute ago,” said Brittany.

I could do it. I could be Eda. I could put on the costume and carry the big clipboard and do my impersonation. Instead of just doing it in front of a few people, I could do it in front of everyone.

I could see the scene in my mind. Me walking into the lodge dressed as Eda, so sure of myself. Delivering lines and getting laughs. What would that be like?

But then, all of a sudden, my stomach muscles felt like a clenched fist. Was I ready for this? What if I got up there and felt like regurgitating instead of saying my lines?

“I'm the director, and the director never plays a part,” I told them all. As soon as I said that, my stomach muscles relaxed.

Melissa glanced at me and gave me a little smile. I could tell she didn't want to stand up in front of every
one either.

“That's not true,” said Kelly. “Lots of directors make appearances in their movies. Like Hitchcock. He showed up in all his movies.”

“Well, I'm not going to!” I insisted, slightly yelling. “I just don't want to, okay? I planned everything, so if I don't want a part, you can't make me!”

Reb held her hands up. “Chill! We're not going to force you to do it. Give me that piece of aluminum foil, and I'll be Eda.”

I did feel better, knowing I wasn't going to have to get up in front of everyone.

Once we had everything planned out, we went back down to the lodge. One by one, each cabin performed their fractured fairy tale. Cabin 3's version of Snow White was actually pretty good, even if Whitney did overact. Everyone in Cabin 4 acted bored doing Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They'd probably put about five minutes of preparation into it.

When it was our cabin's turn, just seeing all my cabinmates up there in front of everyone made me nervous for them. My heart pounded so loud I could hardly hear some of the lines, and I had to keep my hands folded in my lap because they were trembling.

I had no idea why watching everyone else made
me so uptight, but it did. Maybe because the skit was mostly my idea.

But it was incredible. When Reb walked in with her costume, carrying that oversize “clipboard,” the whole lodge went insane, and the audience laughed for practically five whole minutes. Everyone remembered their lines, we got tons and tons of laughs, and at the end, the applause almost made me deaf. The counselors especially loved our skit.

“I wish Eda could have seen that,” said Libby Sheppard. She smiled at all of Cabin 1's actors.

It was definitely a movie moment. And I was really okay with the fact that no one realized I'd been the one who'd planned the whole thing. The main thing was that we'd done a great skit. I should be happy about that.

When evening program ended, we got in the good-night circle and sang “Taps,” then had graham crackers and milk before going back to the cabin to get ready for bed.

As Molly was climbing up to her top bunk, she stopped and looked at me. “You should've been Eda. Reb got lots of laughs, but she made Eda sound like a little old lady. Your impersonation was much better.”

As soon as Molly said that, I felt a sad, heavy lump in my stomach. I knew she was right. I could've done a
better job.

But at least Reb had the guts to get up in front of everyone. She didn't sit in the audience with her hands folded, trying to keep them from shaking.

“Thanks, but I had enough fun just planning it,” I said. My voice actually sounded slightly convincing.

Everyone was changing and getting ready for bed. Tis was asking us all where Kelly, Reb, and Jennifer were because they weren't in the cabin, but then they showed up, looking like they'd been up to something.

I crawled into my bottom bunk and pulled the covers up around me. I couldn't stop thinking about how the whole skit had gone.

I'd planned everything. At least that was something. I'd just panicked at the thought of actually being in the skit. But I could've done it. Maybe I would've been nervous. Maybe I wouldn't have been able to say all my lines very well.

But then, who knows? Maybe everything would've gone just fine. Maybe I would've even been good at it.

It was almost time for lights out, but I took
Our Town
off my shelf. I flipped to the middle of the book where the blue piece of paper was hidden inside.

I took it out and looked at it. It was folded into quarters. The whole time I'd been at camp, I hadn't
once unfolded it to look at what it said. I didn't need to. I'd read this piece of paper so many times, I had all the words memorized.

Why did I even pick up this paper in the first place? Was I ever going to need it? Probably not.

I started to unfold the paper to read it one more time. But then I stopped myself. Instead of reading it, I stuck the paper back inside my book before I put it away on the shelf.