Over & Out (14 page)

When Jenna walked onto the basketball court, the last thing she expected was the brightly wrapped box that Nat handed to her with a huge grin.

“For you,” she said, “from all of us.”

Alyssa, Karen, Perry, Tori, and all the other girls from the bunk gathered around Jenna with expectant faces.

“It's to say thank you,” Andie explained, “for being such a good sport about, well, not playing sports.”

Jenna opened the box and pulled out an adorable baby tee that said LAKEVIEW'S #1 COACH, JENNA BLOOM on the front and GET YOUR BLOOM ON! on the back.

“Nat made it in her arts and crafts class,” Mia explained.

“I love it,” she said quietly, feeling tears well up in her eyes. She looked at her friends. “But I don't deserve it. I've been anything but a good sport
or
a good coach. I lost my temper . . .”

“True,” Chelsea said.

“. . . and yelled at all of you . . .”

“Yup,” Perry confirmed.

“. . . and threw a major pity party for myself on a daily basis!” Jenna cried.

“All of the above,” Alyssa said. “But we still love you.”

“Which is why we came up with a plan,” Jessie added in.

Andie put her arm around Jenna. “Actually, it was Alex who came to me with the idea after breakfast this morning, and then we all went to talk to Dr. Steve about it.”

“What?” Jenna asked.

“Well,” Mia said, “we know how much you're going to miss playing sports in Color War this year, but we're going to replace blob tag with a different event. One I think you'll really enjoy competing in.”

“And your sweet tooth will thank us,” Chelsea said. Jenna couldn't believe that Chelsea had been involved in this, too. It wasn't like her to stick her neck out for anybody. But there was a first for everything.

“It's a pie-eating contest,” Andie said. “A group event, and we'd like you to represent us in it.”

“Seriously?” Jenna said, getting excited. “All-you-can-eat pie, huh?” A smile broke across her face. “That's my kind of contest. So, what sort of pie will it be?”

“Dr. Steve's keeping that a secret from all of us,” Andie said. “But if it has sugar in it, I bet you'll like it.”

“I know I will.” Then she smiled. “Thanks so much for doing that for me. You guys are the best.” She held out her crutches. “Group hug!”

Everyone piled in, careful not to tip her over, since she was stuck right in the middle.

“Okay,” she finally said as she noticed the girls from 4C showing up for the game. “Enough mush. It's time to get your Bloom on!”

The girls clapped and cheered and ran onto the court, and it was right then that Jenna got her idea. Her friends had all been so sweet to her, and now she wanted to thank them, and she knew just how to do it. Once the girls were all dribbling balls and passing them back and forth to warm up, Jenna turned to Andie.

“Andie,” she said, “would you mind if I went to the ceramics workshop for a little while? Maybe Chelsea can take over coaching, just for today. There's a project I need to work on that I want to finish before the Color War rally tonight. It's really important.”

“Sure, Jenna,” Andie said. “But the girls will miss your coaching.”

“I have a sneaking suspicion that Chelsea will be a great coach.” Jenna winked at Andie. “And next to her, I bet I'll seem like a piece of cake.”

“So true.” Andie laughed. “Just meet us back at the mess hall for lunch, okay?”

Jenna nodded, but she was already walking away. She couldn't wait to get to ceramics and start working. As she walked, she thought about how patient and understanding everyone had been with her ever since she'd broken her leg. And now she even had something to look forward to in Color War. A pie-eating contest was way more fun than Scrabble, that was for sure, and she might even stand a chance of winning, too. She was back in action, thanks to her friends. For the first time in almost two weeks, she wasn't dreading Color War. She was looking forward to it. And then there'd be the great banquet afterward with the music and awards and—yikes! Jenna froze mid-step. The banquet was when Operation Drowned Rat would come down. But now that everything was going so great, how could she pull the prank and risk ruining it all again? Even if she managed to successfully frame Blake for Operation Drowned Rat, the banquet would still be a wash, thanks to her. If her friends found out, they'd never forgive her . . . not this time. And they mattered more than anything. She couldn't do it . . . not even getting back at Blake seemed so important now, not with her friends by her side. And the perfect prank didn't seem so perfect anymore, either.

She stopped at one of the outdoor trash cans and pulled her notes for Operation Drowned Rat out of her backpack. She stared at them for a minute, then threw them into the trash can. She didn't want to carry through with her prank after all, not when she was going to have an honest-to-goodness part in Color War. The banquet would be amazing without the prank, as long as she had her friends to share it with.

She worked for the next hour on her ceramics project, and again that afternoon in ceramics class. She left lunch as soon as she was finished eating to get back to work. Now, as she pulled her tray of beads out of the kiln and began to string them together, she smiled at her progress. She'd have just enough time to finish these before the start of Color War, and they'd be perfect.

When Blake showed up to class, ten minutes late as usual, even he surveyed her handiwork with a glimmer of admiration.

“Not bad,” he said. “Your coffee mugs and vases were pretty pathetic, but those actually look half-decent.”

Jenna rolled her eyes but laughed. “Coming from you, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

“It was an accident.” Blake grinned. “It won't happen again.” He pulled his own project from the craft shelf and set it on the table, and for the first time Jenna really looked at it.

“Wow,” she said. “That's . . . beautiful.” It was a small sculpture of a horse galloping, so carefully detailed that Jenna could even see the hairs in its mane. “You're a real artist. But I never saw you working on it.”

“I don't like doing artwork in front of other people, so I worked a lot during free time instead.”

Jenna blinked in surprise. This was a whole new side of Blake she'd never seen before. “I thought you hated ceramics,” she said.

“Nah,” Blake said. “I take sculpting classes at home, but, you know, it's
my
thing. I just didn't want to answer a million questions about it when I came here.”

“That makes sense,” Jenna said. “I feel that way about my parents' divorce when I'm at home. But how did you learn to sculpt horses like that?”

Blake shrugged. “Practice, I guess. He's my horse back home. His name's War Bonnet.” He looked down at the horse and smiled. “When I'm at home, I ride him every day.”

“You must miss him,” Jenna said.

“Sure,” Blake said casually, but Jenna could tell that he did. He cleared his throat and squirmed in his seat. “So, Uncle Steve told me about the pie-eating contest,” he said. “I guess that beats Scrabble any day.”

“You know it,” she said. “Sugar can never take the place of soccer, but it comes in a close second.”

“I hate pie.” He grimaced. “But sports . . . I could handle that.”

“Does that mean you're actually thinking about participating in Color War?” Jenna asked.

“Uncle Steve's going to make me, no matter what, so I have to stick with my team, right?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “It's just surprising, that's all. I mean, the last couple of days you've been more interested in pulling pranks than participating in the rest of the camp activities. And you've never been nice to me before, until today. So what's with the big switch?”

Blake thought about that for a minute before answering. “Sometimes I get treated differently because of the kind of life I have,” he said. “Kids just want to hear me talk all about my dad's jet, or our house in Lake Como. You're the first person I've met in a while who wasn't afraid to be honest with me. Like you were yesterday.”

“So,” Jenna said, “maybe camp isn't such a huge waste of your time after all?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“You'll love Color War,” Jenna said. “And the final banquet is awesome.”

“Yeah, I'm looking forward to that,” Blake said. Then, to Jenna's surprise, he gave an honest-to-goodness, genuine smile.

The rest of the day flew by in a flurry of excitement, and by dinnertime the counselors could hardly keep order in the mess hall. A few food fights broke out, but Kenny, Andie, and the CITs put a stop to them before anything got really out of control. Jenna loved every second of it, though. This was what always happened just before the start of Color War, when everyone was so pumped up that sitting still became completely impossible. As soon as the sun set, everyone met at the campfire for the rally. It was so muggy out that it seemed almost ridiculous to even have a campfire, but there was no way they were going to break that tradition.

“Wow,” Jenna said as she sat down with her bunkmates around the crackling fire. She'd been coming to camp for so many years that she thought she'd seen just about everything, but even she was impressed when she saw how the counselors and CITs had decorated the campfire area.

A huge Color War banner painted in red and blue letters was strung up between two of the bigger pine trees, and streamers and balloon clusters hung from every tree branch Jenna could see. All the counselors and CITs were wearing red and blue wigs and face paint, and even Dr. Steve was wearing a huge, poofy, red-and-blue-striped wig.

He lifted his bullhorn to his face and yelled out the start of the Lakeview camp cheer, “We're Camp Lakeview!”

“We're Camp Lakeview!” sang out all the campers.

“We're gonna tell the world . . .” he shouted.

“Who we are!” answered the campers. They all stood up and stomped their feet, until the entire campground sounded like a herd of stampeding elephants. “Lakeview campers rule, yes we do! Lakeview, Lakeview, we love you!”

Dr. Steve passed the bullhorn to Kenny, who shouted out, “Let's hear it from bunk 4E.” Adam's bunkmates huddled together and yelled their bunk cheer as loud as they could.

“That was loud,” Dr. Steve said, looking at the noise-o-meter he had in his hand. It was a special gauge for measuring noise levels that Dr. Steve had bought from a hardware store earlier in the summer.

4C gave their cheer next, and Jenna laughed as she watched Alex, Sarah, and Brynn's faces turn red as they screamed as loud as they could.

“Louder,” Dr. Steve said. “But still not loud enough.”

Then Andie took the bullhorn and turned to 4A. Jenna hooked her arms through the other girls' until their whole bunk formed a tight half circle. “Let's hear it!” Andie shouted.

Jenna threw her head back and yelled at the top of her lungs with her bunkmates:

They erupted into a deafening round of applause, foot-stomping, and war whoops as Dr. Steve watched his noise-o-meter.

“Definitely earsplitting!” he shouted. “Silly String 'em!”

Jenna high-fived her friends as the other campers doused them in Silly String. All the counselors had passed out cans of Silly String to the campers before the rally, and so far, every bunk had done something to get themselves doused. It was all part of the fun.