Read Camp Confidential 03 - Grace's Twist Online

Authors: Melissa J Morgan

Camp Confidential 03 - Grace's Twist (8 page)

BOOK: Camp Confidential 03 - Grace's Twist
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Julie didn’t smile. “How many chapters have you read?”
“I’m not sure,” Grace said. “A few. I think.”
“How many is that?”
“Maybe three,” Grace told her. “Well, I think I’m almost to chapter three.”
Julie’s face fell, and Grace looked down at her feet. She loved Julie—Julie was the coolest counselor at Lakeview! The last thing Grace wanted to do was disappoint her, but obviously she already had.
“Oh, Grace, what am I going to do with you?” Julie sighed. “You know I hate acting like a police officer. Why won’t you just read the book?”
“It’s boring,” Grace said. “Every time I start reading it, I practically fall asleep. I’d rather be doing something fun with my friends.”
“But you have to read it! You know you won’t be able to go to the water park next week unless you finish it,” Julie cried.
“I know.” Grace kicked at the sand, frustrated. “But I don’t even care about the stupid water park. All I care about is auditioning for the play, and I won’t be able to do that, either!”
Tears filled her eyes. She’d managed to keep herself from thinking about this for a long time, but now that it was out there, all her emotions came rushing at her.
“Grace . . .” Julie reached out for her arm, but Grace pulled away. It was bad enough that she’d made Julie angry with her—she wasn’t going to cry in front of her, too. She turned and ran toward the trees, her vision blurring.
As she passed the last of the canoes, Grace noticed Gaby standing behind it. Her supposed friend looked away quickly, but Grace got the feeling that she’d been hiding there for a while. Which meant that Gaby had heard the whole conversation with Julie.
Gaby knew everything, whether Grace wanted her to or not.
“Look at that mop,” Natalie teased as Grace shook the water out of her curly hair.
Grace jumped closer to her and shook herself like a dog, spraying water all over Natalie’s face. Then she looked up innocently and said, “What? I didn’t hear what you said, Natalie.”
Natalie laughed and flicked her wet towel lightly at Grace.
“Hey, break it up,” Alyssa joked. “No fighting between swim buddies.”
Grace pulled her mass of hair back and wrangled it into a ponytail. She knew it wouldn’t dry for the rest of the day, but it was worth the messy hair just to get in some swim time. After talking to Julie, she’d managed to calm herself down in the girls’ room in time to squeeze in a few laps during free swim, with Nat and Alyssa as her partners. Gaby hadn’t come near her since Grace caught her by the canoes, and Grace hoped it stayed that way. She didn’t like to think that Gaby was eavesdropping, but there was no other reason for the girl to be hanging out nearby during a private talk.
“Let’s get back fast,” Natalie said, draping one arm over Grace’s shoulders and the other over Alyssa’s. “I hate sitting around in a wet suit. I want to be one of the first in the bathroom to change.”
They started up the trail that led to the bunks.
“Only a few more days until the water park,” Natalie said, bouncing a little as she walked. “I can’t wait!”
“Me neither.” Alyssa leaned forward so she could see Grace on the other side of Natalie. “We forgot to ask you if you want to sit with us, Grace.”
“Oh, yeah,” Natalie put in. “Alex says they rent a school bus, so we can all squish into a three-seater.”
“Definitely,” Grace said. She loved hanging out with Natalie and Alyssa. They were always friendly and never made her feel like a third wheel. “You guys have never been on a camp field trip, huh?” she said.
“Not yet. This will be the first, not to mention the greatest,” Alyssa said. “I love water parks.”
“Cool, so we’re all sitting together,” Nat said. She squealed with excitement. “I can’t wait!”
“I can’t believe you,” said a voice from behind them. Surprised, Grace turned to see Gaby following right on their heels.
“Me?” Grace said. “Why? What do you mean?”
“You’re supposed to sit with me on the field-trip bus,” Gaby said. “Obviously.”
“I am?” Grace asked. “Since when? We never even talked about sitting together. I don’t think we ever talked about the field trip at all.”
“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Gaby snapped. “Friends sit together. I didn’t know I had to make some elaborate plan about it.”
Natalie and Alyssa stepped in closer to Grace, but they didn’t say anything. Truthfully, she kind of wished they would—because she had no idea what to say herself. “How am I supposed to know if we’re friends or not?” she sputtered. “You wouldn’t even let me in your bunk. You were really mean.”
Gaby rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a baby,” she said. “I was only kidding.”
“Oh.” Grace felt stupid. Clearly she should’ve been able to tell that Gaby was joking around at bunk 3A, but it really hadn’t seemed that way. “Well, sorry.”
“Whatever,” Gaby said. “So we’ll sit together on the way to the water park?”
Grace bit her lip. She didn’t really want to sit with Gaby. In fact, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be friends with Gaby at all, let alone
best
friends. It was just too hard to figure out Gaby’s behavior, and Grace never felt comfortable around her.
“No, I think I’m still going to sit with Nat and Alyssa on the field trip,” she answered slowly. “They asked me first.”
Gaby’s face turned the same bright-orange shade as Alyssa’s hair. Without thinking, Grace took a step back.
“I think she’s gonna blow,” Alyssa whispered.
“You’re a rotten friend!” Gaby exploded, yelling right in Grace’s face. “And I don’t even care because you probably can’t go on the field trip anyway!”
I knew it!
Grace thought, horrified.
I knew she was eavesdropping on my talk with Julie!
“You heard me,” Gaby said to Natalie and Alyssa. “She told you she could sit with you, but she’s lying. She’s not even gonna be there.”
“What are you talking about?” Natalie demanded. “Of course she is.”
“Grace isn’t a liar,” Alyssa put in.
“She is, too,” Gaby said smugly. “If she doesn’t finish reading her lame-o book, she can’t go to the water park. And there’s no way she can finish it because she’s barely even to chapter three!”
Natalie’s mouth fell open. Alyssa whirled around to look at Grace. “Is that true?” she asked.
Grace had never been so angry in her entire life! How dare Gaby listen in on a private conversation and then tell everyone Grace’s business? How dare she make Grace’s friends think she was a liar?
How dare she be such a bully?
“Grace?” Nat said.
Natalie’s worried eyes were too much for Grace to take. How could she explain all this to her bunkmates? That she couldn’t go to the water park with them, and she couldn’t try out for the play . . . and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to finish that stupid book!
Tears blurred her eyes again, but this time they were tears of anger. She pushed past her friends and Gaby and stomped off toward the office.
chapter SEVEN
Dear Mom and Dad,
I can’t believe you’re doing this to me! Why are you trying to ruin my life? Now everyone knows that I can’t go to the water park. Or at least they will know soon. I’m not sure whether they’ll be mad at me or feel sorry for me, but either way they’re not going to act normal around me for the rest of the summer. It’s humiliating. Why can’t you just let me be normal and do the things everyone else gets to do? It isn’t fair! I promise I’ll finish the books. Just please, please, please let me go to the water park and try out for the play and be normal! I know you’re mad at me, but PLEASE don’t ruin my whole summer! I love acting so much, and you’re taking it away. Please let me audition, and let me go to WetWorld—I’ll read as many books as you want!
Grace hit Send and watched the e-mail disappear from the screen. Immediately she wished she could get it back. It wasn’t going to help. It would probably just make her parents even angrier at her than they already were, and she couldn’t blame them. She’d barely been able to convince them to let her come to camp this summer—there was no way they were going to let her go on the field trip now that she hadn’t held up her end of the bargain.
She stood up and made her way to the door of the camp office. “Thanks, Dr. Steve,” she called.
The camp director looked up from his desk and blinked at her. “That didn’t take very long, Grace,” he said. “Usually you’re here for at least fifteen minutes when you send updates to your parents.”
“I know. This was a short message,” she said. “Anyway, thanks again for letting me use the computer.”
“No problem, Grace.” He went back to his paperwork, and she pushed open the door and stepped out into the sunshine. It felt weird to thank him for the computer when she didn’t want to use it at all. If not for her father’s phone call to Kathleen demanding daily e-mail updates on her reading, Grace would have spent the summer happily ignoring her parents. She wouldn’t even have known that Dr. Steve had a computer with Internet access that the campers could use. And she would have gone on the field trip and tried out for the play and been totally happy.
She caught up with her bunkmates outside the mess hall, where everyone was milling around as usual before dinner. They all turned to stare the instant she walked up.
“Since I have your attention, I’d like to make an announcement,” Grace said. “I no longer have to do chores. You will all take turns doing my chores for me for the rest of the summer.”
Everyone laughed.
“What? I mean it,” Grace said, laughing along with them.
“You wish,” Alex told her.
“So where were you?” Chelsea asked. “You keep going off by yourself lately.”
Natalie and Alyssa wouldn’t meet her eyes. Obviously they’d told everyone about the scene between Gaby and Grace, and now they felt guilty. Grace sighed. They shouldn’t have to feel bad when she was the one who hadn’t been telling the truth.
“I’ve been keeping a secret from you guys,” Grace said, sticking her hands in her shorts pockets. She hated having to be all serious with her friends. Friends were supposed to be the people you had fun with! “You know how I’ve been reading
Call of the Wild
?”
Everybody nodded.
“It’s not for fun.”
“Shocker,” Jenna said. All the other girls cracked up, but Grace frowned.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “I could be reading for fun. Lots of people do that. Look at Alyssa!”
Alyssa snorted. “Thanks.”
“Grace, Alyssa likes to read,” Brynn pointed out. “You don’t. All last summer, I never once saw you with a book in your hand.”
“Me either,” Alex agreed.
“All we mean is that obviously you’re not reading that book because you want to,” Jenna said. “If you actually
wanted
to read it, you’d be done with it by now. So what’s the deal?”
This was it. Grace couldn’t put off telling them for another second. She bit her lip, hard. Were they going to think she was a total loser? Were they going to laugh at her? “You guys all have reading in school, right?” she blurted. “We have it as a separate class.”
“So do we,” Natalie agreed. “Every day we go to a different teacher for reading.”
“Yeah, well, I failed it.” Grace forced herself to say the words. “I got an F.”
“In reading?” Chelsea said incredulously. “What kind of idiot fails reading?”
Grace winced. That was exactly the reaction she’d been expecting, and it hurt even more than she’d thought it would.
“Chelsea!” Natalie hissed.
“Chelsea!” Candace cried.
“What?” Chelsea said. “Grace knows how to read—we’ve all seen her do it. So how could she fail? The only reason people fail reading is because they’re dyslexic or something and they need more time for the tests.”
Everyone looked at Grace.
BOOK: Camp Confidential 03 - Grace's Twist
12.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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