Rumors (20 page)

I sat on my bottom bunk with my note cards in my lap. My hand was actually starting to cramp a little from all the writing I'd been doing, so I stopped to lay down the pen and wiggle my fingers. Scattered in front of me on the bed were all the letters and postcards I'd gotten from my friends this summer.

Even though everyone was supposed to be at activities, I was cabin-sitting, because I had something more important to do.

I don't know why, but I'd suddenly been inspired this afternoon to do something I hadn't done all summer—write letters.

I'd already finished Danielle's letter and Maricela's, and now I was on Emily's. I was telling them all how sorry I was that I hadn't written them. The one line I kept writing over and over was this one: Even though I haven't been good about keeping in touch so far, I promise I'll do better from now on.

When the screen door opened, I wasn't all that surprised to see Laurel-Ann.

“Hi. Do you mind if I come in here?” she asked.

“Of course not. It's your cabin too,” I said.

I hadn't completely shunned her, but things really weren't okay between us. It was hard for me to even look at her, knowing all the problems she'd caused me this summer.

Laurel-Ann sat down on the edge of her bed. “You're writing letters. That's a good thing, right?”

I nodded and kept writing. Last week I'd told Laurel-Ann all about how I couldn't even make myself write to all my friends because I was still so sad about the move. She'd definitely helped me by listening to me talk about everything.

That made it even harder to deal with all this now. She'd been such a good friend to me in lots of ways. But at the same time such an awful one.

“You're still mad at me, aren't you? I really am
sorry, Kayla. And I never did thank you for helping me get the book back.”

“You're welcome,” I said. Last night I'd watched her stuff Brittany's book in the bottom of her trunk. I wondered what she planned to do with it, but it wasn't really my problem.

There was a long silence while I kept writing and Laurel-Ann watched me. The only sound was my pen scratching on the paper.

Finally she cleared her throat. “Do you think we'll ever be friends again?”

I folded up the letter I'd just finished and stuck it inside an envelope. “I don't know. I'm pretty mad about all this.”

“But at least it's over now. We got the book back.”

“This isn't just about the book!” I said suddenly. “There's a lot more to it than that!”

Laurel-Ann drew back with a stunned look on her face. “Why are you so mad at me?”

“Don't you know? Don't you know all the things you did to me? And not just me. You did them to Boo and Shelby, too. And Katherine, Brittany, and Erin! And let's see—who did I leave out? Oh, yeah. Natasha and Ashlin.”

I was raking all the letters and postcards up off my
bed and trying to put them into a neat pile, but my hands were actually starting to shake. “And those are just the ones I know about! For all I know, the list could go on!”

“What are you talking about? What did I ever do to Shelby or Boo?” she asked. The whiny sound of her voice made me so mad I felt like walking over there and yanking on one of her braids.

“Laurel-Ann, I found out! I figured out that you were the one who was spreading all those rumors around. You were the one who was going around telling everyone that I was the daughter of a rich movie star. And you told everyone that Shelby's mother was dead. And you let us think that it was Boo! Shelby's been mad at her all summer because of that, and I blamed her too. And all the time, it was you!”

I was shocked by how mad I was getting. I was breathing hard and fast, and I could feel the blood pumping through all my veins. I watched Laurel-Ann's bottom lip start to quiver. All the tears in the world couldn't wash away what she'd done.

“I didn't …”

“Don't deny it! I know it was you! That just makes it worse for you to sit there and say you didn't do all those things. I know you did!”

Laurel-Ann couldn't hold back any longer. She burst into tears, and all I did was watch her. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed so loud I was afraid people outside would come rushing to see what was happening in here.

When she was finally able to take a breath, she looked up at me with red, puffy eyes.

“You're right! I'm a horrible person! I hate myself.”

That made me so frustrated, I actually growled at her through clenched teeth. “Stop it! That doesn't help the situation. So you admit that you're the one who's been going around spreading all these rumors?”

She nodded. Seeing that she was at least willing to admit to it made me sigh with relief. “Why, Laurel-Ann? Why do you do it?”

Laurel-Ann shook with sobs. “I don't know why,” she wailed. “I guess … I guess maybe I'm afraid that people are gossiping about me. So maybe that's why I do it first.”

She wiped her tears away with the backs of her hands. She was sniffling so loudly that I got up and took some Kleenex off the shelf by Gloria's bed. I handed them to her without saying anything.

“The thing is, when I'm telling people some big secret about someone else, they're always really interested in
me. They like hearing about other people, and so they listen to what I say.” She blew her nose in the Kleenex several times and then sat there, shuddering.

“Well, yeah, they like hearing gossip about other people. But they hate hearing it about themselves! Don't you care about the feelings of the people you're talking about? Doesn't it bother you to know that you're telling some private thing about them that they don't want anyone else to know? Or even worse, that you're telling stuff about people that isn't even true?”

She sniffled a few times and stared at a spot on the floor. “I guess I'm not even thinking about that when I'm talking about them.”

“You got that right!” I yelled. “You're not thinking! It's horrible what you're doing, Laurel-Ann. You've got to stop it! You'll never have any friends if you keep talking about them behind their backs.”

“I don't have any friends now,” she said sadly, shaking her head and staring at the floor. “I used to, but I've lost the only friend I ever had.”

I grabbed my pillow and put up it to my face. Then I screamed into it as loud as I could. When I pulled it away, I glared at her. “Stop it! Stop being so dramatic. This isn't making it any easier. Yes, we were friends … are friends. You really can be a good friend at times. We
had so much fun together, and I was able to talk to you about things. You were there for me when I needed you. But you've got to stop all this gossiping. Look at how many problems it's caused. And it almost cost you my friendship!”

I breathed deeply in and out. Sometimes a good scream will do you good.

She looked up at me with her red, tearful eyes. “Did it? Did it cost me your friendship?”

I shook my head. “I don't know. I'm still mad about this. It's not the kind of thing I can get over right away.”

“But I'm really, really, really, really sorry, Kayla. I want you to forgive me.”

“It's not just about me forgiving you. This is like … the biggest mess I've ever seen. Natasha and Ashlin don't like Katherine, Erin, or Brittany now. Katherine doesn't like you. Shelby doesn't like Boo, and you know what? It all comes back to you. It's like this big, tangled web that everybody's trapped in, and you're the big fat spider that spun it all.”

I stopped talking and let all that sink in. That actually sounded pretty good. I was impressed with myself for thinking it up.

“But what do I do?” asked Laurel-Ann. “I can't tell them I'm sorry! They'll hate me!”

“Oh, you're right. So let's just let them all go on hating each other, even though they're not the ones who caused all this!” I snapped at her.

“Well, what am I supposed to do? I can't take it back. I wish I could, but I can't. How am I supposed to fix all this?” she whimpered.

I shook my head. “I have no idea. It's the biggest mess I've ever seen.”

Laurel-Ann looked at me as if she'd just thought of something. “My mom's always telling me to make a list. She thinks if you write stuff down you can figure it out better. Maybe we should make a list.”

“What kind of list?” I asked.

“I'm not sure. But maybe we should try it.”

“Fine,” I said. I grabbed a notepad from my shelf and tossed it to her. “Make a list.”

Laurel-Ann paced back and forth across the wooden floor of the lodge. “I'm so nervous. What if … what if she hits me or something?”

“She's not going to hit you,” I assured her.

“She might. You don't know her the way I do.”

“Actually, I think I do know her pretty well by now,” I said.

I sat at the piano and practiced a scale series, anything to break the tension in the room right now. This was our last item on the list, and I figured it was probably going to be the hardest.

We'd had lots of things to do in the past two days. Laurel-Ann had first gone to Shelby and admitted that
she was the one who'd told lots of people about her mom. Although I did feel a little guilty too. If I'd been better about keeping my own mouth shut, none of that would've happened.

Then we'd talked about what to do about Boo. We eventually decided to leave her one last anonymous note.
Dear Boo, Sorry for calling you Bubonic and leaving you these strange notes. Just a case of mistaken identity. Sorry about that
.

And now Katherine. I'd told her to meet me in the lodge so I could get the notebook back from her. That was another item on the list that we'd be able to check off. I'd given Katherine a blank notebook and asked her to recreate the funny drawings she'd done in Brittany's book. As far as she knew, Brittany's book had gotten lost on the honor trip, so we were making a new one for her.

Yesterday, Laurel-Ann and I had found Ashlin and Natasha. Laurel-Ann had explained to them everything that really happened with Brittany's book, and even though they were pretty mad about it, they'd taken it fairly well. And they'd signed the new book we were planning to give to Brittany.

Now we just had to get the new book from Katherine with her pictures in it. And Laurel-Ann was going to
apologize to Katherine for what happened last summer.

I turned around when I heard footsteps.

Katherine had just walked in, but when she saw Laurel-Ann with me, she stopped dead in her tracks.

“Hi,” said Laurel-Ann in a tiny voice.

Katherine looked first at Laurel-Ann, then at me. “Here's the book.” She had a cautious look, as if she expected both of us to tackle her.

I got up from the bench. “Okay, great. She's really going to love getting this. Thanks for taking the time to draw those pictures again. We all loved your artwork.”

“No problem.”

Katherine and Laurel-Ann were just standing there, looking each other up and down. Not only did they hate each other, but I could tell there was some jealousy between them over me, also.

Last night for the talent show, I'd asked Katherine to be onstage with me to hold the sheet music and turn the pages at the right times. I didn't really have to have someone do that, but it helped. Sheet music had a way of not staying open, and it could get really annoying during a performance. I'd played Chopin's Prelude in E Minor, and Katherine had been
thrilled to help me out. But I could tell it bothered Laurel-Ann.

“Laurel-Ann wants to tell you something,” I said.

“Okay,” said Katherine. She still had that look of distrust in her eye.

Laurel-Ann took a deep breath. “I'm sorry that I talked about you last summer. I know you told me all that stuff in private and I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. I'm sorry I did it.”

Katherine shrugged. “All right. Whatever.”

“And she wants to ask you something,” I prompted.

Laurel-Ann gave me a quick glance and then looked at Katherine. “Would you please stop calling me Rainbow Trout?”

“Fine. I'll stop calling you Rainbow Trout.”

Well, it wasn't the warmest apology I'd ever seen, but at least it was over. “And there's something I want to say. Tonight at the Circle Fire, I want to sit next to both of you.”

We were having the final campfire tonight, and everyone had been talking all day about what a big deal it was. It was going to be really solemn, with people giving speeches and talking about what Pine Haven meant to them. And we'd be singing lots of camp songs, and then lighting candles at the end. Everyone said that
it was really special, but also really sad because we were all going home tomorrow.

“This will be my first Circle Fire, and everyone says you should sit with your best friends. And I consider you both the best friends I have here.”