Pranked (2 page)

The dining hall had two screen doors, and I got squished by the crowd, all trying to squeeze through at the same time. Inside was a bunch of green wooden tables. I looked around, not sure what to do. I was still blinking really hard, and my nose tingled.

“Kelly, over here!” I saw Rachel and Andrea at a table in the corner, so I wiggled through the mob. On the table was a little white card folded in half with
MIDDLER CABIN
1 printed on both sides. I sighed and sat down. At least I wasn't going to have to eat by myself. Four other girls were already at the table. None of them looked evil, but then sometimes you can't tell by looking.

We had tacos and fruit salad, but I had a hard time swallowing, because there was something like a walnut stuck in my throat. I got to meet Jordan, Molly, and Erin, who were all on Side B. Jordan and Molly came together, and they were obviously best friends. They spent the whole time talking about horses. Molly had dark hair and dark eyes, and she was short and squatty, kind of like a fire hydrant. But she seemed more outgoing than Jordan, who was quiet and pretty. There was something about Erin that seemed really grown-up. The only other Side A person was Melissa, and everything about her was pale—pale skin, pale eyes, even pale hair.

“Is this your first year?” Molly asked me, the second after I took a bite of taco.

I chewed fast. “Yeth.” I swallowed and tried not to cough.

“It's our second.”

That started a conversation about how long everyone had been coming here. Everyone was really impressed that it was Andrea's seventh summer. It seemed like the longer you'd been coming here, the more status you had.

That meant I had no status. No status and no friends. I looked at all these new faces. Did any of them look like friend material? Probably not Molly and Jordan. They had each other, so they didn't need me. Maybe Erin or Melissa. There were three empty chairs for the girls who still weren't here, and two of those chairs were for the Evil Twins. Just thinking about them made me want to heave up my tacos.

After lunch we went back to the cabin for rest hour.

“Okay, ladies—so we all get to know one another, we wear these the first week,” said Rachel. Then she and Andrea passed around name tags made out of little circles of wood with a string to hang them around our necks. Andrea's said
TIS
, which was short for Tisdale. That's what everyone had called her at lunch.

Rachel hung up two name tags on a nail by the door. One said
REB
; the other said
JENNIFER
. The wooden circles swung back and forth on the nail and then stopped. I tried not to look at them. At least they didn't say Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort.

“So, Melissa, which bed do you want?” Rachel asked the pale girl.

“The one by the wall, I guess.”

From my bottom bunk, I watched her and Rachel make up one of the single cots. After they finished, Melissa sat on her bed and organized her stuff on the shelves. Any time I glanced at her, she looked away. Whatever.

Rachel sat on her bed listening to her iPod and shuffling through papers on her clipboard. She told us that rest hour was the only time we could listen to our MP3 players. We also had to be quiet, which was no problem. Who was I going to talk to? I held a book in front of my face so I didn't have to stare at all the graffiti.

I must've been out of my mind coming to a camp where I didn't know one single human being. I knew this was a bad idea when Mom started sewing name tags in all my clothes. “What if nobody there likes me?” I'd asked.

Mom had just stared at me as if I'd said something random, like,
What if everyone there secretly turns out to be an extraterrestrial?

“Now why wouldn't they like you?” she'd replied.

I wished it was that simple. I wasn't used to making new friends. I've always gone to the same school, and I've known all my friends forever. What if I didn't know how to make new ones? Mom made it sound like making friends was no big deal. But obviously lots of girls here already had friends. What if the new girls paired up, like,
today
, and I was a leftover—like the extra odd number when you count off in twos for teams in PE.

A bell rang, which must've meant the end of rest hour, because Rachel put down her clipboard and pulled her earbuds out. She smiled at Melissa and me. “Time for swim tests,” she announced, jumping off her cot. “Everybody does it the first day. Get your suits on, ladies, and let's go to the lake!”

I got up and looked through my trunk for my suit. When I found it, I turned toward the wall, with my back to Melissa and Rachel.

I hated this part. Why was it that some girls never seemed to mind getting naked in front of other people? They always acted really casual, like it was natural to take off your clothes in front of twenty other people. But they were usually the ones with boobs, so they had something to flaunt.

I just barely got a bra this year. And I almost died when I saw the camp application. It had a question that said, “Has your daughter begun menstruating?” My mom had written “No” in the blank. What if my dad had seen that? Why was it their business, anyway?

After we had our suits on, we all walked out together. Molly and Jordan talked to each other about horses, but the rest of us kept quiet. I was so glad we were in a group. I'd die if I had to walk to the lake alone. Then it was obvious you didn't have friends.

As lakes go, this one was really pretty small. I couldn't believe there wasn't a pool. Was it safe to swim in a lake? The water was green, but not slimy green. It looked just like a mirror, the way it reflected the trees and grass. I could see the wet heads of a few girls bobbing up and down in the water, and a couple of counselors stood on a wooden dock, holding clipboards and shouting directions.

A bunch of girls sat on a large, flat rock by the edge of the lake, waiting their turn, so we all sat down too.

“The water's really cold.”

I turned around to see who'd said that. It was Melissa, the pale girl.

“Is it?” It was stupid, but it was all I could think of.

“Yeah, it's freezing. The lake water comes from that little stream over there.”

“Ugh. I hate swimming in cold water.”

“Me too.” She sat there, hugging her knees under her chin.

I stared at the edge of the water and noticed some little squiggly things swimming around. “What are those? There's something alive in there!”

“It's just tadpoles,” said Melissa.

“Tadpoles?”

“Yeah. They won't hurt you.” Then she didn't say anything else. If she hadn't talked to me first, I sure wouldn't have gone out of my way to get to know her.

But at least now I had someone to talk to. It was better than nothing. Besides, I might need some help to ward off any evil influences.

After the swim tests Melissa and I walked back to the cabin together wrapped in our towels. We were both still shivering, and Melissa's lips were blue. One girl had to be pulled out when she got tired. It was pretty dramatic, and everyone was talking about it. I was so glad something embarrassing like that didn't happen to me.

“So this is your second year?” I asked Melissa.

“Yeah.” She shuddered and clutched her towel tighter.

“I guess you know a lot of people then, huh?” Any minute now, Melissa could run into some old friends and hug them, and I'd be all alone again.

“Well, some people are back from last year, but not everyone came back.”

“What about the other two Side A girls? Rachel called them the Evil Twins. Do you know them?” Saying their nickname out loud made me feel like I was calling upon demon spirits.

“Oh, yeah. Reb Callison and Jennifer Lawrence. I can't believe I got into
their
cabin.”

“How'd they get that nickname?” My heart was pounding a little, like I'd just asked her to tell me a ghost story.

Melissa bit her bottom lip. “I don't know. Last summer they were sort of . . . wild. You know, during assemblies and stuff.”

She watched her flip-flops kick the loose gravel of the road and didn't say anything else. I waited for more information. Did she not want to talk about them?

“Do you wish they weren't in our cabin?” I asked finally.

Melissa looked up. “What I do wish is that Annie Miller was in our cabin. She was supposed to be, till she broke her ankle playing soccer. So now she's going to miss the whole camp session! She was my best friend last summer.”

“Wow, that's too bad.” Okay, good. It was a relief to know she didn't have a best friend waiting somewhere.

When we got to Middler Line, Melissa stopped in the bathrooms—Solitary, or whatever—and I waited around for a second. Should I wait for her, or would that seem weird? I decided to go to the cabin. I didn't want her to think I was stalking her. But after I left, I wondered if she'd wonder why I didn't wait for her. Maybe I should've just pretended to go to the bathroom too, and timed it so we left together.

When I got to the cabin, there was someone new inside. She was tall and skinny, with bushy, reddish brown hair. Whoever this was, she must be one of the twins. I tried not to make eye contact.

“Hi. Are you in the bottom bunk?”

“Yeah.” I wished Melissa would come back from the bathroom. I didn't want to face this twin alone.

But this new girl was busy looking over her choice of beds: the top bunk or the other single between Melissa's and the bunk beds. While she was distracted with that, I rummaged through my trunk for some clothes.

“I'm Jennifer.”

“I'm Kelly.”

“Is this your first year?”

“Yeah.”

“It's my second.” See, that whole status thing again. “Do you know if Rebecca Callison is here yet?”

“I'm not sure. A girl named Melissa has that bed.”

Her eyes grew two sizes. “Melissa? You mean Melissa Bledsoe?”

“I think so. Blond hair, skinny, kind of quiet . . .”

“Yeah, that's her.” Jennifer shook her head and looked at the two empty bunks. I draped my beach towel over me and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt.

“Well, I guess I should take the top bunk. Reb will want the single.” She started moving her things. I noticed she had braces, and her eyes were covered by long, shaggy bangs. She honestly didn't seem evil. So far, at least.

When Melissa walked in, she and Jennifer just kind of looked at each other.

Wow, don't everybody talk at once.

“Um, Melissa? Do you want to switch with me? I don't like the top bunk—you know, it's hard to climb up and everything. Do you want it?”

Melissa looked at her, then looked away. I just sat on my bottom bunk and kept quiet. If she asked me to switch, what should I say? I didn't want to switch either.

“You could take that one,” Melissa said, meaning the other single cot next to hers.

“Reb will want that one. See, I was thinking, if you'd switch, you two guys”—she turned and nodded at me—“could have the bunk beds and Reb and I could have these singles. Do you mind switching?”

Melissa stared at her bed. “Um, I've already put sheets on.”

Just then Rachel walked in and gave Jennifer a big hug.

“So, Jennifer,” said Rachel with a smile, “you can have the top bunk or that single one there. What's it gonna be? I'll help you make your bed.”

Jennifer looked at Melissa. “So are we going to switch?”

“Uh, no thanks.” Melissa looked away and arranged some stuff on her shelf.

Jennifer glared at her. “The top one.” Then she and Rachel made up the top bunk, and I sat underneath on my bunk and watched. OMG. I had no idea picking a bed was such an enormous deal. What was up with the two of them? It was a good thing Rachel had walked in.

When her bed was made, Jennifer stood in front of the little mirror nailed to the wall and clenched her teeth together, looking at her braces. Except for the whole bed thing, she seemed pretty normal. So what was evil about her? And what about her missing twin?

“I've only had these two months. Do they look weird?” Jennifer asked the mirror. I wasn't sure who she was talking to. She looked at me.

“Uh, no,” I said.

She turned back to the mirror. “Well, I hate them.”

Just then a counselor yelled outside the screen window, “Reb Callison! Get out here!”

Jennifer ran out the door. “Alex!” The two of them hugged and screamed. I heard Jennifer tell her Reb wasn't here yet. Then a couple of other girls walked up, and
they
asked about Reb too.

Rachel saw me watching them through the screen and smiled. “Reb's fan club.”

I nodded and acted like I had to get something from my trunk. This other girl had a fan club? Great. But what happened to anyone who wasn't a member? I had a sick feeling deep in my stomach. Jennifer wasn't the twin to worry about. It was the other one.