“Dude, do you know who her father is?” Adam asked. “Tad Maxwell. You know, huge action spy. She might be able to kick your butt!”
“It’s just a movie,” Natalie said desperately. She looked over at Simon, but he wasn’t looking back. “I mean, he’s really not that tough.”
“Oh, yeah?” Caleb asked thoughtfully. “I’ve got an idea. How about you hook me up? I get to meet your dad, you get to capture the flag?” He winked and then burst out laughing as though this were the most hysterical joke ever told.
“You know who I want to meet? Josie McLaughlan!” Adam said. “Her father’s girlfriend. She’s so hot, I could cry. Do you think she’ll come up for Visiting Day, Natalie?”
“I doubt it,” Natalie said. “I think my father’s going to be shooting.”
Do we
have
to talk about this?
she thought anxiously.
“But you could get us, like, an autograph or something, right?” Caleb pressed.
“Ah, sure, maybe,” Natalie said. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Chelsea creeping behind the flag, waiting for Morgan from 3B to break in and away. She was racking her brain for the right thing to say to Simon but drawing a blank. It didn’t matter—he didn’t look like he wanted to talk, anyway.
Suddenly, Betsey burst forward, cutting between Natalie and Caleb in a blur of long brown braid and legs. She snatched the flag from its pole and circled around Simon, passing it off to Chelsea and backing away again.
“YEAH!” Chelsea screamed, tearing forward and making a break for the far end of the field.
“Dude, are you asleep?” Caleb shouted to Simon, taking off after Chelsea. After a moment, Adam followed him. Now Natalie stood alone, facing Simon. The tension in the air was thick. A thousand ways to open a conversation raced through Natalie’s mind, but she rejected them all.
Finally, Simon spoke. “You should go after them,” he said quietly.
Then he ran off to follow his teammates.
chapter ELEVEN
“Nat, do you want to borrow my extra flashlight for the camping trip?”
Natalie looked up to find Chelsea beaming down at her, waving a bright yellow flashlight. “Oh, ah, I’ve got my own,” she managed. “But, thanks.” She pressed her toiletries case into her daypack and zipped it shut. Everyone who was going on the camping trip had packed a larger duffel that was being driven to the campsite separately. That baggage had been delivered to the rec hall the night before. But all the campers were responsible for bringing their own daypacks and carrying them on the hike.
“Do you have enough bug repellant? I have two bottles,” Chelsea offered. “And also sunscreen.”
“It’s okay, Chelsea,” Natalie insisted, trying her hardest not to sound testy. “I’m all set.” She knew Chelsea was just trying to be nice—well, she assumed so, anyway—but the girl was starting to drive her crazy. Most of Natalie’s friends had been remote and aloof since yesterday. And for her part, Natalie didn’t know how to behave around them, either. But not Chelsea. Chelsea had been all buddy-buddy on the way back from evening activity the night before, and now she was practically trying to pack Natalie’s bag for her. Meanwhile, everyone else in the bunk was tiptoeing around her, and all the other campers were acting like she was some kind of rock goddess. Natalie felt like she was losing her mind. She couldn’t believe it, but she was almost looking forward to the camping trip! At least it would help her get away from everything and clear her mind. When she was back home and feeling stressed-out, she always went for long walks in Central Park. This camping trip was the closest she was going to get to that for at least six more weeks.
“All right,” she said to no one in particular. “I’ve got to go. I’m in charge of picking up the lunches for the group and bringing them to the rec hall. That’s where the van is meeting us.” She shouldered her backpack. “Chelsea, Valerie, I’ll meet you there. Good-bye, everyone! Wish me luck avoiding snakebites!”
Her bunkmates laughed and offered vague reassurances. None of it was especially comforting.
Natalie started out toward the mess hall for the lunches. She hadn’t gotten farther than the front porch, though, when she heard the door creak open and bang shut again behind her. “Nat, wait,” she heard. She stopped walking.
It was Alyssa. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you,” she said, biting her lip. “I feel terrible.” Alyssa hadn’t exactly been rude to Natalie, but she definitely hadn’t been overly friendly the evening before. Natalie had tried to convince herself that it was because of Alyssa’s deep-seated aversion to capture the flag, but inside she knew better. Which was probably why she herself had been reluctant to approach her friend. She just wasn’t sure what to say.
“
You
feel terrible?” Natalie cried in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? I’m the one who lied to you guys! I feel awful! I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to speak to me again!”
“Of course I want to speak to you again,” Alyssa said. “Listen, you have the right to want to keep certain things secret. God knows, I haven’t told you everything about my crazy family. Just wait until we’re back home in the fall, and you meet my older sister. What a freak
she
is!”
Natalie giggled. “I guess everyone’s family is a little bit nuts.”
“Excuse me, but have you
seen
Jenna when she and Adam bicker? It’s like they’re possessed or something. Anyway, I don’t blame you. Especially now that half the people in camp are your biggest fans. I can totally get why you wanted to keep this quiet. It must be so annoying to feel like no one knows the real you.”
“Exactly!” Natalie said, relieved that her friend understood.
“But I never knew anyone who was famous before, and when I saw who your father was, I guess I flipped,” Alyssa continued softly. “I mean, you’re so pretty and funny and sophisticated—you’re from New York, after all. So I knew you were definitely a character.”
“Why does everyone keep telling me how much character I have?” Natalie asked wryly. “It could really give a girl a complex.”
“Will you shut up and let me finish?” Alyssa asked. “Character, I like. But when it started to seem like maybe you had this whole alternate-Hollywood lifestyle or something, I got nervous. Like maybe I wasn’t cool enough for you anymore.” She looked down at the ground as though maybe she thought she’d said too much.
Natalie’s eyes flew open. “Okay, first of all, I am
so
not more sophisticated than you! You’ve read, like, every book
ever
, and you have the coolest taste in music! And you draw so well, and you’re the best writer on the paper! And second of all, most of my friends in New York are really, really normal. Maybe some of them have money, but they don’t go riding around in limos everywhere. That’s just my father. And if you want the truth, well . . . I don’t see him that often. I mean, he means well. I know he loves me. But he’s pretty involved in his own thing. So if you think my life is one big Hollywood party after another, well . . . you have no idea. Honestly? I spend most of the time watching TV at home with my friends.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and regarded her friend. “Okay?”
Alyssa nodded, clearly glad to have everything out in the open. “Okay. Can we stop being idiots now? Because yesterday when we weren’t talking was really bad.”
Natalie smiled. “You’re telling me?
Chelsea
is, like, my new best friend!”
“Ha ha,” Alyssa said. “Have fun on the camping trip!”
“Very funny,” Natalie said, making a face. She glanced at her watch. “Now I
really
have to go,” she said. “Can’t keep the poison ivy waiting.”
“What are in these lunches, anyway?” Pete asked, pretending to struggle under the weight of the garbage bag he was carrying. He and Marissa had been in the mess hall when Natalie came by, and they had packed up the lunches for her, offering to help her carry them to the rec hall.
“So, Nat,” Marissa said, “how was everyone last night?”
“Pretty much what I expected,” Natalie said. “Half the girls in our bunk have no idea how to act around me. Like Alex and Brynn and Sarah. They’re behaving like robots. Very polite, stiff robots.”
“What about the other half?” Marissa asked.
“Oh, they’re really into me now that they know who my father is. All fake-nice and stuff.”
As if on cue, Chelsea stepped out in front of them. “Hey, guys!” she said. “Need help?”
Pete stifled a chuckle. “I think we’re good, Chelsea. Are you all ready for the camping trip?”
“Totally!” she said. She looked the part, too. She had done her hair up into two cute braids down either side of her head, and she was wearing a crisp white tank top and lightweight cargo capris. Her trail shoes looked appropriately broken-in, and a disposable camera peeked out from one pocket.
“Chelsea, why don’t you show Pete where to bring the food,” Marissa suggested.
“Totally!” Chelsea repeated. Her enthusiasm was slightly scary.
Marissa poked Natalie in the ribs as they watched the two make their way into the mess hall. “Okay, I can see what you mean,” she said.
“Right?” Natalie asked. “I get that all the time. I just didn’t want to have to deal with it here. This place was supposed to be a whole new experience.”
“Well, I think it’s safe to say it
was
a whole new experience, right?” Marissa said. “I mean, look at you. When you first got here, you wouldn’t shower without wearing your bathing suit.”
“Let’s not exaggerate,” Natalie protested.
“Almost,” Marissa insisted. “And now you’re going on a camping trip! In the actual wilderness! Nat, you should really be proud of yourself.”
“I guess I sort of am,” Natalie admitted. She never liked to say those kinds of things out loud for fear of people thinking she was stuck-up, but in this case, it was definitely true.
“And I think you should know,” Marissa continued, “that your true friends are going to stick by you no matter what. Whatever you did or didn’t tell them, or whoever your father is, they’ll still be on your side. That’s how you know they’re your friends.”
“You’re right,” Natalie said, thinking of Alyssa. Then she remembered the look on Simon’s face just before he ran off after the flag. At least, I hope you are.”
“Okay, I want you all to line up, boy-girl-boy-girl,” Roseanne shouted. She seemed to have forgotten how to speak at a normal decibel today. Of course, Natalie had to give her credit for dragging a group of fifteen immature eleven-year-olds into the woods overnight with only LJ from the kitchen as support. The line snapped into place and Natalie found herself at the end of it, behind Chelsea, due to an uneven number of boys and girls. “Now I want you to break off into pairs,” Roseanne continued. “The person you pair off with is your buddy. No matter where we are or what you’re doing, you are always responsible for your buddy. Do you understand? That means
always
knowing where your buddy is and what he or she is doing. The woods aren’t dangerous, but we all have to be alert at all times. Devon, Eric, you’re buddies,” she said, pointing to the first boy-girl combo at the front of the line. Dutifully, the rest of the campers began to partner up.
Natalie glanced down the line.
Paige and Eric,
she ticked off mentally,
Shari and Ross, Michael and Valerie, Topher and Melanie, Brian and Lizzie, Seth and Adrianne
. . . with a sinking feeling, she realized who the threesome would be. After all, there were only three of them left.
Simon and Chelsea . . . and me.
Natalie didn’t know which was worse, the chafe of her backpack against her shoulders, or the deafening silence between Simon and herself. Both were extremely irritating and slightly painful. And both showed little signs of letting up anytime soon.
Fortunately, Chelsea was doing enough chattering for the both of them. She had, thankfully, taken it upon herself to play the role of group leader. Each pair (or, in their case, trio) was responsible for identifying and gathering several types of flora and fauna along the way. The idea was that they would all share their findings around the campfire that night. Natalie was more open-minded about this trip than she would ever have dreamed, true, but try though she might, she just couldn’t get jazzed over rocks, leaves, and twigs for show-and-tell. So it was a good thing that Chelsea was eager to pick up the slack. “Pine needles are so totally obvious,” she was saying, waving her map in front of her buddies. She was either completely oblivious to the awkward tension coursing through the air, or deliberately ignoring it. “We totally lucked out.”
Natalie frowned at the path beneath her feet, and kicked at a rock. “Totally,” she echoed.
“Have you seen any?” Chelsea asked. “’Cause I just haven’t yet. But I know we will.” She stopped short, tossing her head so her braids flew back over her shoulders dramatically. “Let’s take a picture.”
“Oh, uh, now?” Natalie asked with alarm. They’d been hiking along at the tail end of the group for about an hour now, Natalie imagining entire conversations with Simon in her head. It didn’t seem quite the right time for a Kodak moment. “Why don’t you wait until we hit the campsite? Roseanne says there are amazing views.”