Pranked (4 page)

“How was your game?”

“Good game. Good game.” Reb balanced the end of her racket on the palm of her hand.

Jennifer bent down to tie her shoelace, and we all stopped. “Yeah, for you it was. For me it was a humiliating defeat. You ought to play Tisdale or the other counselors if you want to improve your game. I'm tired of losing.”

“Oh, right. Like I never lose. When I play my brother or my dad, I end up crawling off the court. Talk about humiliation.” Reb tossed her racket into the air, caught it, then spun it between her palms. Obviously, she'd never lose her paddle in the water or get stuck in a canoe going in circles.

“My dad has a serve like a cannonball. Once he hit me right here”—she rubbed her shoulder—“and it left a huge bruise that stayed there forever. I told him I didn't want to play him anymore, because I was afraid one of his serves would hit me and I'd die of a hemorrhage. He told me, ‘Fear's a good teacher. Gives you an edge.' ”

“That's pretty mean.” The second I said it, I knew I'd messed up.

“My dad's not mean! You don't even know him! He's a great guy!”

“Uh, no, I meant . . . it just sounds a little . . .” I wanted to hit the backspace and delete that last comment. Too bad real conversations don't work like IMs.

“Hey, if it weren't for my father, I wouldn't even know how to play tennis.” Reb frowned at me. “My parents have always helped my brother and me to be the best. They put us in sports, music lessons, art lessons, everything—trying to find out where our talents were. And now my brother Zach just finished his first year at Brown. And I'm going to an Ivy League school too. My parents and I are already making plans.”

“Reb, your parents are pretty intense,” said Jennifer. “You have to admit.”

“What's intense about wanting us to be good at stuff? That's not intense, that's . . . being a good parent.”

“Sorry. I didn't mean anything bad about your dad,” I said. I hoped Reb wasn't mad at me. Nobody said anything else. All of a sudden Melissa stopped and bent down.

“Oops. Sorry. I hate when that happens,” Reb said, and I saw that she'd stepped on the heel of Melissa's sneaker and given her a flat tire.

“That's okay.” We all stopped while Melissa wriggled her heel back inside her shoe. Reb sounded sorry, but then I saw Jennifer give her a playful slap.

I felt a little bad for Melissa, but I was so relieved Reb hadn't done that to me. She might have, to get back at me for that comment. Why'd she pick on Melissa, though?

Maybe because Melissa hadn't said a single word. She might as well be invisible sometimes. Sure she was shy, but she could at least
try
to take part in the conversation.

In the cabin I rummaged through my trunk and found my secret bubble gum stash. We weren't supposed to have gum, candy, or snacks in the cabins. Supposedly that stuff would attract ants. A likely story. They probably just said that to scare us. I offered everyone a piece, but Jennifer couldn't because of her braces and Melissa said no thanks. Reb took a piece, and I hoped it made up for my stupid comment.

Melissa stood in the doorway looking at me. “What should we do now, Kelly?”

I plopped down on my bunk and stared up at Jennifer's bedsprings above me. “Nothing.” It was morning free time. We had a half hour before lunch to do whatever we wanted, and I really didn't want to spend it with Melissa.

“Want to go swimming?”

“No, we just came from the lake. I don't feel like walking all the way back.”

She just stood there. I was busy blowing bubbles. Reb was organizing her trunk, something she did at least two or three times a day. She hated to have anything out of place. Jennifer was brushing her bushy hair in front of the tiny mirror on the wall. Neither of them said anything.

“I guess I'll take a shower,” said Melissa. There was really no good time to take a shower. In the morning we had to get up, clean the cabin for inspection, and go to breakfast, all in thirty minutes. At night we had evening program, and then we had to go straight to bed. You had to find weird times to take showers, like before lunch.

She got her shower stuff and left. Good. When she was out of earshot, Reb burst out laughing. “I thought she was gonna ask you to wash her back or something.”

“Gross!” I groaned. “The thought of washing Melissa Bledsoe's pale, skinny back . . .” I made puking noises into my cupped hands, and Reb acted like she was heaving. It was kind of mean, but I'd never say that to her face. Anyway, Reb was right. Melissa had turned into a leech. We didn't have to spend every single minute together.

Jennifer looked at me. “You aren't friends with her, are you?” Her nose wrinkled.

“She's not my BFF, if that's what you're implying. I barely know her.” And that was true. Melissa was okay, but she definitely wouldn't have been my first choice as a friend.

“Well, you two have been hanging out a lot. You look pretty chummy to me.” Jennifer turned back to the mirror and clenched her teeth. Anytime she looked in the mirror, she made that face.

My stomach tensed up. I was dying to say something. I blew a huge bubble that popped all over my face, then I sucked all the gum back in. “It seems like you guys don't like her much.”

Jennifer snorted. “Oh, you noticed that, huh? Didn't you see how obnoxious she was to me about the whole bed thing?”

“Yeah.” Although I wouldn't exactly have called Melissa obnoxious.

Reb closed her trunk and plopped down on her bed. “Nobody likes her. It's because of last summer.”

“What happened last summer?” Maybe now I could finally find out what was up.

Reb blew a bubble and popped it. Then I blew one. We kept making smacking noises. She was better at it than I was.

“Well, last summer we knew this girl, Heather Crabtree. She was in Melissa's cabin, and she couldn't stand her. She told us all kinds of unbelievable things about her.”

“Like what?”

“Well, one time Heather and some other people wanted to short-sheet somebody, so they picked this girl Annie, just as a joke, right?”

I had no idea what she meant by “short-sheeting,” but I didn't want to look like a complete idiot, so I nodded like I knew what she was talking about.

“Well, so Annie and Melissa are, like, best friends, and they both went crying to the counselor about being short-sheeted. I'm sorry, but your counselor is not your mommy away from home.”

Jennifer sat on top of her trunk and looked at me. I could barely see her eyes through her bangs. “But that's not the worst thing about Melissa. Is it, Reb?”

“Oh, no. The worst . . . the WORST! Are you ready for
this
?” Reb leaned forward like she had this big secret.

I sat up and leaned forward so I wouldn't bump my head on Jennifer's bed. I couldn't believe they were actually confiding in me, a new camper. It was cool that they felt like they could trust me.

“She used to wet the bed last summer.” Reb sat back and looked at me.

I made a face like I didn't believe her. Because I didn't really, but I wasn't about to call her a liar.

Jennifer broke out laughing. “Can you believe that? Heather told us.”

“Yeah. Heather said that one time she saw this big wet spot on Melissa's bed and so she goes, ‘Hey, Melissa, did you have an accident?' Just teasing her, you know. But Melissa says, ‘It's from a swimsuit' or something. Then she got all nervous, and she changed her sheets! Now, if she hadn't wet the bed, why'd she change the sheets?”

“That is too weird,” I admitted.

“So now we're stuck with Melissa Bledsoe, a bed-wetting narc, in our cabin. Can you imagine any worse luck?” Reb groaned.

“Well, yeah. It could be worse. It could've been worse for
me
,” I said. I'd just thought of a good line. I glanced out the screen window to make sure Melissa wasn't coming back.

“Yeah, how?” Reb asked.

“Jennifer wanted her to take the top bunk.” I patted the bottom of Jennifer's bedsprings. “If she had, then
I'd
be waking up with wet sheets every morning too.”

“Disgusting!” Reb shouted. We all burst out laughing.

I didn't really believe that stuff about bed-wetting, and I doubted Reb and Jennifer did either, but it was something to laugh about. I was glad the Evil Twins liked my joke.

A few minutes later Melissa came back from the showers, and Reb and Jennifer tried not to laugh. I acted normal and didn't laugh. I did feel bad for talking about her behind her back. The least I could do now was try to be nice to her. But I'd have to find a way of being nice to her without doing it in front of Reb and Jennifer.

After rest hour everyone was leaving for activities. Reb was putting on her shoes when she looked at me. “So, Kelly, what activity are you going to now?”

“Uh, I haven't decided.” I held my breath for what might come next.

“Jennifer and I are going to the climbing tower with some other people. Want to come with us?” she asked, like it was no big deal, like “Hey, is this Wednesday?”—not knowing that when she asked me, my heart actually did a flip. It was like being picked first for teams.

I shrugged, because if she was going to be casual, so was I. “Uh, sure. That sounds like fun.” I started to say, “I haven't been there yet,” just to make conversation, but I didn't want to overdo it and look like a geek.

Melissa had walked over to the wall where the activities list was posted. She looked at me really fast, then glanced away. Reb and Jennifer were already at the door. I just wanted to walk out with them and not have to deal with Melissa. I looked at her.

“You could do the climbing tower too.” I was a little nervous about asking Melissa. Reb and Jennifer had invited me, and then I'd turned around and asked Melissa without checking with them first. And now I knew for sure how they felt about her.

“Um, I don't know.” Melissa stared at the activities list, considering her options.

“Yeah, want to come?” asked Reb in the weirdest tone. It reminded me of how my voice came out whenever I had to get Cheshire into the cat carrier to go to the vet's. Those were the only times he wouldn't come to me when I'd call him. Melissa just shrugged and didn't answer. I guess she didn't trust the cat carrier tone either.

Then the three of us left the cabin. I looked back once to see if Melissa was coming, but she wasn't. We
had
invited her. Anyway, she wasn't a new camper like me. She must have
some
friends from last year. She didn't need me to take care of her. I went to morning activities with her. Did that mean I had to go to afternoon activities with her too?

At the climbing tower Reb introduced me to some other girls—Darcy, Nicole, and Meredith. They were all old campers from last year. Thank God for these name tags so I could keep everyone straight. I wasn't used to meeting people and having to remember names.

“Kelly's in our cabin. It's her first year, but she's cool. She's going to hang out with us,” said Reb.

What was cool about me? Whatever it was, I wanted to keep doing it. I'd just been awarded a cool badge and I didn't want to lose it.

I couldn't believe I was actually hanging out with Reb and Jennifer, and I was meeting their friends. All those girls I'd watched on the first day—at the time I didn't like them because they all knew each other, and I was alone. But now things had changed.

The climbing tower was so much fun. It was this huge fifty-foot-tall tower made out of tree trunks tied together. Some parts had netting to climb up, and at the very top there was a ledge to sit on, like a tree house. We had to wear helmets and rappelling harnesses and everything. It was
so
scary. Most of us got only about halfway up. Reb was goofing around, driving Rachel crazy. She kept acting like she was falling. We had a blast. I wondered what activity Melissa ended up going to, but it couldn't have been as fun as this one.

By the end of the day it was like I'd been hanging out with Reb and Jennifer and their friends forever. At first I kind of felt like I was holding my breath all the time. I didn't want to have another slip-up and make some stupid remark again. Also, I kept trying to think of funny things to say. Reb was really funny. Jennifer could be too, but mostly she just laughed at things Reb said. It was kind of exhausting having to be funny and careful all the time, but I knew I could do it.

Before evening program we all changed into jeans because it got really cool at night in the mountains, even in summer. I put on a sweatshirt. Reb was wearing a hoodie from Brown. I guess her brother gave her that.

When we walked into the lodge, everyone looked over and called out to us. At least it seemed that way. Reb picked out a long wooden bench for us to sit on. “Hey, Jordan, Molly. Come sit here. This is Cabin One's bench,” she called. Then Melissa came in and looked at us, but there wasn't enough room. I mean, there really wasn't. The five of us could barely all squeeze on there. Melissa looked around and found a spot on the floor. Anyway, it wasn't the whole cabin. Erin and Brittany were already sitting on the floor when we came in.