Twelve (7 page)

I pressed my lips together to keep from sharing my observation with Dinah. Mom had said “we'll see” when I begged her to let me join Amanda at camp, and “we'll see” was a good sign. Graduation plus the possibility of camp with Amanda was an intoxicating mix. I wiggled in my seat.

After the “school life” part of Pam's presentation came the baby-picture finale. There was rosy-cheeked Maxine, her hair as dark and curly when she was an infant as it was now. And there was Alex Plotkin as a toddler, wearing a diaper and cowboy boots and nothing else. Everyone howled.

Gail's picture showed her in a pink ballerina costume; Amanda, in her photo, was propped precariously against a teddy bear. The teddy bear was bigger than she was. It was so amazing, all these lives. All these lives changing and growing and turning into . . . us.

Dinah's picture was sweet, showing her as a baby nestled under a Christmas tree. She drew a chorus of
awwws
, and I was glad for her. I reached over and squeezed her hand.

My picture was one of the last. I had no idea which one Mom had picked, and I laughed with the others when I saw four-year-old me, looking stern in a trench coat and safety goggles from our dress-up drawer. I remembered pretending to be a spy in that particular outfit.

“That's so
you
!” Louise called.

I hid my face, but of course I loved it.

When the ceremony was over, we were sixth graders no more. We were soon-to-be seventh graders. Soon-to-be junior-highers. We shrieked with the weirdness of it while our parents chatted in the parking lot, and we ran like crazy around the playground. One last glorious free-for-all, like those funny square hats thrown into the sky. Only we were the ones flung topsy-turvy, not knowing where we would land.

July

CAMP WINDING GAP was divided into three cabins: the Chickadees, ages nine to ten; the Hummingbirds, ages eleven to twelve; and the Peregrines, ages thirteen to fourteen. It would have been fun to have been a Chickadee, because that was such a dorky-cool name, as in “Hi, I'm a Chickadee!” or “Hey there, little Chickadee!” But Hummingbirds were cool, too. Even cooler, since Amanda and I were Hummingbirds together. We got to share a bunk bed and everything, me on the top and Amanda on the bottom. We both wanted it that way. We both got our first choice.

“Finish making your beds and then come outside,” said our counselor, whose name was Amy. Amy had jet-black hair and a square jaw and big breasts. I guessed her to be around Sandra's age. She was a photographer, and if we wanted we could pick photography as one of our activities. I probably would.

I plumped my pillow with a series of overzealous punches, making the girls around me laugh, then walked with the others outside and sat down on a log. I propped my chin on my hands and made my expression super attentive.

Amy cleared her throat, and I said, “Yesssss?”

The other girls laughed again. It made me tingle and want more.

“
Shhh,
” Amanda said.

“Thank you, Amanda,” Amy said. “Now. Who can tell me why we're sitting around the fire ring, but there's no fire?”

“Because no one had any matches?” I suggested. Madison, the girl to my left, snickered.

“No,” Amy said.

“Because no one lit the kindling?” I couldn't help it—it was there for the taking. I felt proud of myself for knowing the word
kindling
.

“
No
,” Amy said. Amanda nudged me with her knee.

“Is it for safety reasons?” a girl named Jaden asked. “Like, maybe a fire restriction?”

“No, but good guess,” Amy said.

No better than mine,
I thought.

“There's no fire,” Amy said, “because until today, there have been no campers.”

“Ohhhh,” I said.

“And without campers, our fire has no life.”

“It's a metaphor,” I whispered loudly to Madison. “We are the fire! We are the coals that give it new life!”

“Winnie, hush,” Amanda said under her breath. “For real.”

But I was having too much fun, and I didn't understand why Amanda wasn't equally amused. Amy, too. I gave her my cutest smile, which I stole from Ty, but it had little effect.

With great formality, Amy lit a match from the box she pulled from her pocket. She tossed it into the kindling, and it fizzled out. Several of us tittered. She tried again, and this time one of the twigs caught fire.

“We
are
like the fire,” Amy said. “Alone, we're nothing, just random pieces of wood. But together, we burn bright and strong.”

“You mean we're going to burst into flames?” I whispered to Madison. “Owwie!”

Amy glared. “Winnie, did you have something you wanted to share with the group?”

Everyone looked at me. I looked back. And then . . .

I farted. A loud one, loud enough to be heard over the popping of the fire. There was a shocked silence, and then Madison said, “She tooted!” My cabin mates, including Amanda, fell into hysterics. I was mortified.

“Fine,” Amy said. “Thank you for that, Winnie. But I think we'll stick to fire and take a pass on the natural gas.”

The hilarity tripled, and Amy allowed herself a small smile. Amanda put her arm around me as if to comfort me, then drew back and said, “Pewww!”

“Ha ha,” I said, face burning.

“Just teasing,” she said.

“It's time for Group Sing,” Amy said, heaving herself to her feet. “You guys head on to the main lodge.”

“What about the fire?” Jaden asked.

“I need one person to stay behind and help me put it out,” Amy said. She scanned the group. I thought she was going to pick me, as punishment or reward or some sort of peace treaty, but she didn't. She picked Jessica, a tall girl with red hair pulled back in a ponytail. The rest of us were free to go.

That night, in my new-to-me bunk bed that squeaked when I moved, I felt strange in my own skin. I was so far away from Mom and Dad—that was one weird thing. I was basically sleeping outside—that was another. Yes, we were in a cabin, but the walls were thin and there weren't real windows, just screens. And no electricity, of course. Or running water. To wash up before bed, we'd used the one girls' bathroom at the top of the hill. If I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night—which I wouldn't, because no way was I going up there alone—I'd be in deep doo-doo.

Deep doo-doo
. Ha. Too bad everybody was asleep, or I'd have had another good one for them.

And that was the weirdest thing: this new barrel of laughs I'd somehow become. At home I was funny, sure, but in spurts like everyone else. Or more often, funny to myself but not funny to, say, Sandra. Here, I started out being funny because of nervousness and hyperness, and it had stuck. It had been only one day, but I could feel, because of how camp was, that this wasn't a role I'd be able to shrug off. Even if I wanted to.

I wished I hadn't farted, though. That hadn't been on purpose. Who could fart on purpose, anyway?

Never mind. Half the boys from my class, that's who.

But not me. I wished I could go back and make it so that moment never happened. Not said the bit about bursting into flames, so that Amy wouldn't have put the spotlight on me. Or maybe, if I'd felt the fart coming, I could have fallen backward off the log at the same time, which would have covered the sound and still given people something to laugh at.

Well, what was done was done. If I really was the person I was pretending to be—and who's to say I wasn't? Who's to say that this me wasn't the real me, and the back-home me the fake? But if I
was
that person, the jokey confident one, then I'd laugh over the fart and move on. So that's what I tried to do, as cicadas chirped and darkness wrapped around me and rustlings came from the woods that could have been bears, but probably weren't.

A week into camp, a horse stepped on my foot and wouldn't get off. The horse's name was Pudding Treat, and perhaps this was the reason. Because who names a horse “Pudding Treat”?
Good ol' Lightning
, now that had a noble ring. But
good ol' Pudding Treat
? He was fat and lazy and flies were always buzzing around him. He was as far from my fantasy horse as a horse could be without, in actuality, being a cow.

And he was standing on my foot. And it
hurt.

“Um, excuse me?” I said, trying to get the instructor's attention. At the same time, I pushed hard against Pudding Treat's massive side. He didn't budge.

The instructor, whose name was Leigh-Ann, kept talking about whatever she was talking about.

“Excuse me,” I said louder. Leigh-Ann was out in the middle of the riding ring, and all of us who were taking horseback riding were circled around her with our horses beside us. Or on us, in my case. “Excuse me, but I've got a problem!”

Leigh-Ann broke off. She shielded her eyes from the sun. “Yes, Winnie?”

I fought back tears. “He's on my foot! He's standing on my foot!”

“Oh my God!” Leigh-Ann cried. She dropped everything and ran over. “Move,” she said to Pudding Treat, shoving on his foreleg in a way that made his knee buckle. My foot slipped free.

“Let's get that shoe off,” Leigh-Ann said, fumbling with the laces of my sneaker. She put her arm around my waist and helped me hobble to the water trough. “Put your foot in there. Why on earth didn't you
tell
me?”

“I did,” I said.

“But why didn't you yell? Or scream? Or
something
?”

The other girls gathered around. They all looked concerned.

“You're so brave,” Madison said.

“Are you okay?” Jaden said. “Your foot's turning red!”

“Can you wiggle your toes?” Leigh-Ann asked. “Is anything broken?”

I wiggled my toes in the lukewarm water. Everything worked.

“Thank goodness,” she said. “But you're done for the day—and next time, if a horse steps on your foot, I want you to
do
something about it.” She pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Girls, I need one of you to take Winnie to the cabin. Who wants to go?”

Everyone raised her hand, and a chorus of “Me, me!” filled the air.

“Amanda,” I said.

Amanda stepped forward, proud to be chosen.

“Stop by the lodge and have Alice give her some ibuprofen, ” Leigh-Ann instructed. Amanda nodded. My foot still throbbed, but it was fun being the patient everyone wanted to take care of.

“The rest of you, back to your spots,” Leigh-Ann said. “And keep your feet out from under your horses!”

Back in the cabin, with my foot propped on a pillow, I let Amanda make a fuss over me.

“Eat one of these,” she said, handing me a Mike and Ike's HOT TAMALE from the stash in her trunk.

“Ooo, spicy,” I said, smushing the candy between my teeth.

“I know I'm not supposed to have them in the cabin—but oh well,” she said. She perched on the edge of my bed. “I can't believe you just
stood
there while Pudding Treat was on your foot. Did it kill?”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “But I was too embarrassed.”

“I would have been screaming my head off,” she said. She shook another handful of HOT TAMALES into my hand. Her expression told me she was going to change the subject. “So . . . who do you think's going to be Miss Hummingbird?”

Miss Hummingbird was like the most popular girl of all the Hummingbirds. There'd also be a Miss Chickadee and a Miss Peregrine. All the cabins voted, and the winners would be announced on the last day of camp.

“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe Jessica?” Jessica was the red-haired girl who was so clearly Amy's favorite. I watched Amanda's face and quickly added, “Or you? Maybe you, I bet!”

“No, not me,” Amanda said. “I think it'll be you.”

“Ha ha,” I said.

“No, seriously,” she said. “Everybody loves you. It's so weird.”

“Hey, now!” I couldn't decide whether to be thrilled at the compliment or put off by Amanda's qualification. I laughed.

“You know what I mean,” Amanda said.

“Not really,” I said.

Amanda shrugged. “You're different here at camp. I don't know why, but you are.”

So she
had
noticed. I had wondered.

“I don't know why, either,” I said. “I guess it is sort of weird.”

“Good weird, though.” She shook out the last three HOT TAMALES and gave one to me and popped the other two into her mouth. “Are you glad you came?”

“I am completely and totally glad I came,” I said. “Are you?”

“That I came, or that you did?” she asked.

I kicked her with my good foot.

“Both,” she said. “I'm glad of both.”

On the last day of camp—or rather the last full day, since the next day our parents would come pick us up—I stood up to the cheers of my cabin as I was proclaimed Miss Hummingbird. Amanda clapped loudest of all. I walked with Miss Chickadee and Miss Peregrine to the front of the lodge, where we picked up the trays of sloppy joes for our tables. Some might have said it was unfair that the most popular girls in each cabin were the ones who had to serve lunch, but I didn't mind. I liked being the server.

I didn't want a sloppy joe, so I made myself a Camp Winding Gap Special instead. Peanut butter always stood on the table, as well as white bread, for those who didn't want the day's entrée. There were also lemon wedges and sugar for the iced tea. To make a Camp Winding Gap Special, you spread peanut butter on a piece of bread, then sprinkled on a spoonful of sugar, then squeezed a lemon over the whole thing. Mmm-mmm.