Authors: Melissa J Morgan

Camp Confidential 05 - TTYL (5 page)

BOOK: Camp Confidential 05 - TTYL

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Posted by: Natalie
Subject: first day over!

hey, everyone. so, i just got out of my first day of school. it was pretty good—a lot of the kids were in my elementary school. i saw kyle . . . he looked supercute in a brown button-down and jeans. besides that, not much to report. i’m exhausted, though! all that running between classes! i’m going to ask my mom if we can go out to dinner to celebrate the first day of sixth grade.

luv you all,

nat

chapter
THREE

grace>
FRIDAY

“No, my favorite is definitely
Romeo and Juliet
,” Lara said. She picked up her can of apple juice and took a long sip. “I mean,
Macbeth
is cool—”

“You’re not supposed to call it that,” Greg interrupted her. “You’re supposed to call it
The Scottish Play
.”

“Isn’t that only when you’re like, performing it?” another boy, Andrew, jumped in. “I think you can call it
Macbeth
when you’re not.” He reached over and took a few of Greg’s potato chips.

Grace put down her bag of baby carrots. “What do you mean? Why can’t you call it
Macbeth
?” Her drama club friends knew the weirdest things about theater stuff.

“It’s bad luck, or something,” Andrew said, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t think it really matters if Lara calls it that when we’re working on scenes from
My Fair Lady
.”

“You’re probably right,” Greg said. “But I wouldn’t take any chances.”

Lara and Grace looked at each other and laughed. The four kids were seated cross-legged in a circle in their school’s huge theater, sharing snacks during their ten-minute break at drama club. It was only halfway through the club’s first meeting, but Grace had already become great friends with Lara, Andrew, and Greg. She even had plans to go to a movie with Lara over the weekend. She’d barely had time to feel guilty about lying to her parents, though she realized she’d have to do some damage control and tell Lara to just say she was Grace’s friend from class.

“Anyway, since I was so
rudely
interrupted,” Lara said teasingly, “like I was saying,
Romeo and Juliet
is my favorite. I just love Shakespeare. He’s so
romantic
.”

“Yeah,” Andrew said, rolling his eyes. “It’s so sweet how they die at the end.” He and Greg burst out laughing.

“Whatever,” Lara replied, pushing a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear. “All I know is, it’s romantic, and beautiful, and like, the best love story ever.” “I know,” Grace said excitedly. “When Leonardo DiCaprio finds Claire Danes lying on that—” She stopped abruptly, noticing Lara’s sly smile. “What?”

“It’s way more romantic in the actual
play
, Grace,” Lara said, grinning.

“Oh,” Grace responded, feeling slightly stupid. “I haven’t read it.”

“Really?” Lara asked nonchalantly. “We read it last year in my English class—”

“Wow, really?” Grace said. “Isn’t it pretty hard?” She knew that Shakespeare’s plays were usually read during middle school or high school—she couldn’t imagine someone reading it during a class in elementary school.

Lara shrugged. “Come on,” she said. “I mean, it is in
English
,” she joked, reaching over to squeeze Grace’s arm affectionately.

Grace looked down at the floor. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “I mean, obviously it is.”

Andrew laughed. “Whatever, Lara, we didn’t all go to smarty-pants school for fifth grade.” Grace relaxed a bit, remembering that Lara had gone to a super-exclusive private school, but had decided to stick to public school for sixth grade because there wasn’t a good drama club at the private middle school.

“Speaking of smarty pants,” Greg said, “can you guys believe the homework we have already?” He leaned over and grabbed one of Grace’s baby carrots and shoved it into his mouth.

“I know,” Grace said. Even on the first day of school she’d spent two hours doing homework, and the load had gotten considerably worse since. “I’ve had tons of homework every single night.” She took a deep breath and looked around at her new friends. “The worst part is,” she admitted, “my parents think I’m staying at the library after school instead of coming to drama club, so I have to hole up in my room and pretend like I’m on the Internet or something, or they’ll get suspicious.”

“How come they won’t let you be in drama club, anyway?” Greg asked.

Grace sighed. “It’s complicated,” she replied. She didn’t want to get into the problems she’d had in school the previous year. “They just want me to spend more time on my schoolwork, I guess.”

“It’s too bad that you have to lie to them,” Andrew said.

Grace sighed again. “Yeah, I know.” She flung the back of her head against her forehead dramatically to lighten the moment. “Anyway,” she said, changing the subject, “what kind of homework do you guys have for the weekend?”

“Where do I begin?” Greg joked. He leaned back and began ticking the work off on his fingers. “Two pages of math problems, a North American geography work sheet, plus there’s a quiz in my world history class on Monday that I totally have to study for. Can you believe there’s a quiz already?”

“That’s rough,” Andrew said sympathetically. “I only have to read the second chapter of
Animal Farm
. Shouldn’t be too bad.”

Greg moaned. “Oh, man . . . I have that too!”

“Me too,” Lara said, picking up one of Grace’s carrots and twirling it around in her fingers like a miniature baton. “Plus math. I’m going to try to get it done tonight, though—I hate doing work on the weekends!”

“Wow,” Grace said jealously. “You guys are all in the same English class? I don’t know anybody in my classes yet, except a couple of people who went to Washington Elementary with me.”

Greg and Andrew looked at each other. “No . . .” Lara said. “Aren’t you reading
Animal Farm
too? I thought it was a sixth-grade requirement or something.”

“Oh,” Grace said. “Um, no, my class isn’t reading it. We’re reading
Hatchet
right now.”

“I read that last year,” Greg said casually.

“Well, I didn’t,” Grace snapped. Seeing the hurt look on Greg’s face, she immediately felt bad. “But we went to different schools,” she added in a softer voice.

“Yeah,” Lara said. “We’ve probably read tons of different books.” She threw a strange, confused look at Grace. “Anyway, so, what homework do you have, Grace, besides
Hatchet
?”

Grace took a deep breath. “Um . . .
Hatchet
, and a couple of pages of math,” she said. “I guess it isn’t that bad. It’s way more than in fifth grade, though.” She picked up a carrot and put it in her mouth, but she wasn’t hungry anymore. She just felt sad.

“Tell me about it,” Greg moaned. “Fifth grade was a
breeze
compared to this.”

“Not as fun, though,” Andrew said. “This year’s off to a great start!”

“Totally,” Lara replied. She smiled reassuringly at Grace. “I bet we’ll all get the hang of it before we know it though, right, Grace?”

“I hope so!” Grace said, smiling back at her new friend.

“Okay, kids, let’s regroup,” Mrs. West, the drama club leader said from her perch onstage. “Let’s try it from Eliza’s entrance . . . and this time, Grace, will you please play Eliza, and Andrew, Mr. Higgins?”

Grace scrambled to her feet, snatching up the carrots as she stood. After shoving the baggie into her backpack, she marched to the stage and climbed the few stairs on stage left. “What page are we on?” she asked Mrs. West.

Later, walking home, Grace tried to figure out why
Animal Farm
was such a touchy subject for her. She knew she was smart; she just had trouble reading. But it hurt to know that her friends were all doing just fine, while she was struggling to read a book that Greg had finished in fifth grade.

It
was
hard. To Grace, reading anything was hard. It took a lot of concentration and effort to even get through a few pages. For the past few nights, she’d been staying up far past her bedtime, curled under her blanket with a flashlight and her copy of
Hatchet
, and she was already a little behind in class. She sighed, and kicked a pebble on the sidewalk in front of her. “Sometimes I’m so
stupid
,” she said aloud.

But she knew she wasn’t stupid. She just had a hard time concentrating on reading, that was all. Still, she knew it was going to take a lot more late nights to finish
Hatchet
. And there was bound to be way more homework in her future. For the first time she almost regretted her decision to join the drama club. Almost.

Grace scurried up the stairs to her room, threw her backpack on the ground, and turned on her computer. She immediately went to her camp’s blog. Alex’s entry about soccer tryouts on Tuesday had sparked a long conversation that included almost all of the girls—everyone, in fact, except for Chelsea, had left encouraging messages for Alex.

Grace knew that her camp friends would understand what she was going through. After all, when they’d found out about her summer reading, they had formed a book club to help. But even after she read through all of their entries and responses to one another, she logged off and turned the computer off without writing a word.

Picking her backpack up off the floor, she dug through the papers and books inside, finally drawing out her copy of
Hatchet
. She sighed, crawled into her bed, and opened to the page that she’d bookmarked that day in study hall. She was on page thirteen.

An hour later, when she heard the front door slam and her dad’s footsteps on the stairs, she was only on page twenty. Her dad poked his head into her room without knocking and Grace put her finger in the book to keep her place. “Hi, honey,” he said. “How was school?”

“Pretty good,” Grace said.

“Did you go to the library afterward? I called here a couple of hours ago to see if you wanted me to pick up anything for you at Chung’s Chinese, but there wasn’t an answer.”

“Yeah, I’m working on this book,” Grace said, holding up
Hatchet
for her dad to see.

Her father walked farther into the room and took the book from her, putting his own finger in where Grace’s had been. “Wow,
Hatchet
, huh?” he said. “Looks like one I’d like.”

“It is, Dad,” Grace said. “It’s about this boy who gets stranded in the wilderness.”

“Sounds great, Grace.” He handed the book back to her. “Why don’t you take a break and come down for dinner? I got you some sweet-and-sour chicken. Figured that would be okay.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Grace said. “But I’m not hungry right now. Is it okay if I come and eat later?”

“Of course, sweetie,” he said. “Enjoy your book!” He turned and left the room, shutting the door behind him. And Grace, who was starving, went back to her reading, determined to get through another couple of pages before going downstairs to her Chinese food.