Camp Confidential 06 - RSVP (2 page)

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Authors: Melissa J Morgan

BOOK: Camp Confidential 06 - RSVP
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Yes, it had taken her a while to settle in, but by the time summer was over and she was due to come home, it was difficult for her to believe that she hadn’t been a Lakeview camper for years.
Six months had passed since the end of camp. She was back in the greatest city of the world, in her second semester of sixth grade, and doing lots of fun things with Hannah, her best New York friend. It seemed a lifetime ago that she had shared Jenna’s care packages of chocolate-on-chocolate cupcakes, and applauded Grace and Brynn in the campwide production of
Peter Pan
.
At the thought of seeing the girls of Bunk 3C again, her stomach fluttered with anxiety. Although she had many fond memories of them, she figured they had changed a lot since they’d seen one another. It would almost be like getting to know eleven new people—but with the added responsibility of making sure they had a fun weekend.
On top of that, she was going to see Simon again. Simply planning what to wear to dazzle him was almost more than she could handle from now until the party.
Her mother interrupted her thoughts. “Sweetie, it’s just pizza and a movie, and your good friends in sleeping bags. Nothing to be worried about.”
Can she read my mind? Or am I that obvious?
Natalie smiled at her mother, knowing she meant well. But her stomach still fluttered. Because it was much, much more than that.
They’re coming to my city and staying in my home. What if they don’t like the food, or the movie, or any of the activities I’ve planned? What if they think I’ve ruined the reunion for them? I don’t have a whole summer for them to get used to my world the way I got used to theirs.
“Oh, look at the time!” her mother cried, glancing down at her watch. “If we don’t leave now, you’ll be late for school.” They both loved to walk to Natalie’s school whenever they had time.
She folded up the
Times
and took a last sip of her coffee as Natalie gathered up her lists. They both pushed back their chairs, Natalie bobbing her head at Mr. Edelman, the deli owner, as he waved good-bye.
They went to the coat rack and retrieved their coats, Natalie handing her mother her stack of papers so she could slip her arms through the sleeves of her fabulous new leather coat from Paris.
“Goodness, you have a lot of lists,” her mom said as she neatened up the pile. “Maybe we could put this all in a notebook tonight.”
“That’s a great idea,” Natalie said enthusiastically, taking the papers back while her mom put on her own coat.
Just as they walked onto the sidewalk, a sharp gust of wind caught Natalie by surprise. Her papers flew out of her arms. They capered and cartwheeled and flapped away like black crows against the snowy landscape.
“Oh, no!” Natalie cried, racing after the closest few. She bent down and retrieved three pages from a snowdrift piled around the base of fire hydrant.
Natalie rose to her feet, facing the traffic as honking taxis and a heavily bundled bicycle messenger rolled over at least half a dozen more of her carefully thought-out lists.
“Oh, great,” she moaned. “I’ll have to start over!”
“No, sweetie,” her mother insisted, gesturing for her to move along. “Think back. Haven’t some of the best times with your friends been spent just hanging out? Give your weekend with your friends room for some surprises.”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll have a few of those,” Natalie said glumly. Then she chuckled. “After all, Jenna will be there. And Grace, too.” That meant pranks for sure. She just hoped she was up for them.
“There, you see?” Her mom walked behind Natalie and retrieved another piece of Natalie’s black paper, which had flapped against a tree trunk. It was the RSVP list for Saturday’s all-bunk sleepover. Most of the names were smeared from the wet snow, but the name she could read most clearly made her lose her smile.
For while it was true that fun-loving Grace and Jenna would be there, and her best camp friend Alyssa, too, it was also true that the biggest party-pooper of Camp Lakeview had let her know just yesterday that she would be there, too.
Chelsea.
Chelsea wasn’t joining them until Saturday—her mom had to work late on Friday and her father couldn’t drive right now—but Chelsea would eventually be there. And she could be so sour and cranky . . . it was going to be an extra challenge to be nice to her.
I’m glad we’re making that surprise for her
, Natalie thought.
Maybe it will de-crankify her.
“Sweetie? Stop worrying,” her mother said, interrupting her thoughts.
“Okay, Mom,” Natalie replied.
Just show me where the worry off-switch is, and I will!
chapter
TWO
“Paging Mia Hamm!” Alex Kim’s mother called from the barely open sliding glass door that led to the backyard.
“On my way!” Alex called back.
Alex wore thick leggings and a heavy hockey sweater as she dribbled her soccer ball across the brittle brown grass in the backyard. As she panted, her breath curled upward like smoke.
She had been practicing since dawn. She needed to drastically improve her game by next Saturday. She was playing indoor soccer for the Blue Angels. Last Saturday, with both teams tied, she had lost control of the ball, and the Maroon Menace, their rivals for the league championship, scored a goal in the last eight seconds of play.
That game would have been ours, if I hadn’t messed up
, Alex thought, angry at herself for her sloppy dribbling skills.
The sliding glass back door opened farther, to reveal Alex’s petite mother in a cream-colored velour track suit and pink Uggs, holding a jade-green bowl in both hands. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail that bounced when she talked.
“Alex, you know you need to eat,” she admonished her daughter. “Take extra-good care of yourself, sweet-heart. You have a big weekend ahead of you.”
Alex sighed as she untied her cleats and slung them over her shoulder. Ever since her parents had learned how Alex had fallen into diabetic shock at camp—brought on by eating sugar-laden Twinkies and on top of that, neglecting to take her insulin—they had hovered around Alex like she was two years old.
She came into the warm house and sat at the dining room table. A bowl of steaming oatmeal was waiting for her. Picking up her spoon, she sampled it, and instantly detected the artificial sweetener her mom had used. Wistfully, she remembered the rivers of maple syrup she used to drown her hot cereal in before she was diagnosed. She could still have honey on occasion, but the days of maxing out on sugar and syrup like her friends did were definitely over.
Meanwhile, her mom had resumed cutting mounds of colorful vegetables for Alex’s mid-morning school snack.
Her mom said, “Be sure to take the new batch of insulin needles to practice this afternoon.”
“I will,” Alex replied. For each activity she was engaged in, she had to provide an insulin kit for the coach. She had hopes of switching to insulin pills she could take by mouth, or maybe even an insulin pump, but for now, her usual dosage was one injection a day.
She also wore a silver medical I.D. bracelet. That would alert people to her condition if she couldn’t speak for herself. She had been very lucky that Julie, her Lakeview counselor, had known what to do after Alex collapsed at camp. But without reading the warnings on her bracelet, an unknowing stranger might not interpret Alex’s dizziness and confusion as symptoms of her blood-sugar imbalance. With the wrong emergency care, Alex could wind up going into a diabetic coma . . . or worse.
“We need to leave for school soon,” her mother told her as she quickly packed the vegetables into a bright blue snack container.
“Okay, Mom.” Alex took the snack container from the counter. She hoisted up her heavy school backpack from the floor so she could load it in. She unzipped the main compartment and pulled out her Firefly cell phone.
A text message winked in the window of the faceplate, which was decorated with sparkly soccer balls:
CU soon! B.
She grinned. “B” was Brynn, her bestest bud from camp. Brynn was coming to spend the night on Friday. Alex’s game was bright and early on Saturday morning. As soon as it was over, the two girls would get ready for the reunion together and take the bus into New York City.
When she’d first received the official Camp Lakeview invitation to the reunion, Alex had been nothing but excited. Then things got complicated—Natalie Goode invited her to spend the night at her apartment on Friday. Coolness, except that was the night before her next soccer game. And since she had essentially lost the last one for her team, she knew she had to show.
Not realizing Alex’s dilemma, Natalie had described in excruciating you-cannot-miss-this detail all the fun activities she had planned for her guests. A movie at a local theater, and a spa day where everyone could have manicures, pedicures, and facials. Alex had wanted like anything to go.
But she had a commitment to her team. And with their standings hanging in the balance of this Saturday’s game—after she herself had handed the victory to the Maroon Menace—she knew she couldn’t skip the Saturday morning game.
She had been very disappointed. But as her mother had pointed out, she would still be able to stay over at Natalie’s all-bunk sleepover on Saturday, after the party at Village Bowl.
“You can still be a good team member
and
have fun with your bunk,” her mother had said.
So she made her decision: skip Friday night at Natalie’s and play the game on Saturday. The rest of the Blue Angels were very envious that she was going to Village Bowl—but even
more
impressed that she knew Tad Maxwell’s daughter, and would be spending the night at her fancy penthouse apartment.
Then the trouble started. Like the other girls of Bunk 3C, Alex had been posting her ideas about how to decorate their party table on the bunk blog that Julie, their counselor, had created. Everyone had loved Alex’s idea of using a blue-and-red Color War theme.
Excited, Alex had hurried out to buy some tablecloths and napkins, using some of her birth day money from her grandmother. And she worked out what she thought was a pretty cool outfit, mixing one of her standard navy polo shirts with khaki pants and red accessories—a red scrunchie and a necklace of red crystal beads.
But the very next day, Natalie posted that she had learned that Bunk 3A was going with the Color War theme as well. Natalie had insisted that since 3A were 3C’s traditional rivals, they couldn’t possibly use the same theme. When Alex had posted, “Y not?” Natalie had simply replied, “Puh-leeze!”
Natalie went on to suggest they “be more subtle” by mixing blue and red together, to come up with a purple color scheme. The entire bunk got on board with that and Julie announced that it was official. Before the end of that same day, Natalie had posted an entire list of purple stuff they could buy and websites to order it all online. Julie thanked her for being such a huge help. So did everyone else.
Except Alex. Alex was really mad. Natalie had taken over the whole thing!
Frustrated, Alex put all the napkins and tablecloths she had purchased back in their sack so she could return them . . . only to trip in the parking lot of the party store and dump everything into a pothole filled with melting, dirty ice. Two packages of napkins were ruined . . . and the party store clerk refused to refund her money for them.
Meanwhile, Natalie kept coming up with more and more plans . . . down to the point of assigning each girl what kind of treats to bring. Finally Julie logged in and said that it would probably be easier just to let everyone contribute a surprise.
To make matters worse, Alex’s mother started fretting about Alex going so far away. Alex couldn’t believe what she was hearing. After all, she was in competitive soccer and her teams traveled all over the place. True, her mom usually accompanied the team as a chaperone, but
still.
She complained to Brynn about it, and it turned out that Brynn’s mother was also a little anxious about Brynn traveling to New York City by herself. So somehow, it got decided that Brynn would stay over at Alex’s on Friday, and the two would go to New York together.
“A perfect solution!” Brynn had declared.
For me, anyway
, Alex thought.
But does Brynn really want to stay here? I’d give anything to go to Natalie’s on Friday. Or at least I would have, before she started running everything. But Brynn doesn’t have any issues with Natalie.
“We’re going to have so much fun!” Brynn had added. “I can’t wait to see all your trophies and eat your mom’s Korean barbecue!”
Alex was only semi-convinced. How much fun could they really have when the start time for her Saturday morning game was eight o’clock? Especially given that because of her diabetes, she would have to go to bed super-extra-early?
Just like in soccer, I’ll do what it takes to make sure Brynn enjoys herself while she’s here. Only I sure hope I don’t fumble the ball.

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