Second Time's the Charm (5 page)

A moment later, she grabbed the box back. “What the heck. I'm already dying as it is,” she said, shrugging and shoveling a cookie into her mouth.

“Did everyone get the M&M's?” Andie asked.

The girls chorused their affirmation.

“Great,” Andie said. “Don't eat them.”

“Huh?” they whined in unison.

“Yet,” Andie amended hastily. “Don't eat them yet.” She glanced around the circle. “We're all here, yes?” She did a quick head count. “And we all have M&M's. Great.” She held out her hand to show the girls her own collection—a modest fist of candy. “Six,” she said. “So that means that I get to tell you six things about me.”

Another wave of hushed conversation erupted among the bunkmates as they all deftly reassessed their candy collections. Nat realized with relief that she had stocked up on cookies to the exclusion of much of anything else. Alyssa, however, had not fared as well.
Sucker.
She'd be regaling her bunkmates with every anecdote she could muster from the time she'd taken her first step until the minute she stepped off the bus that afternoon.

Andie cleared her throat. “You get the gist of the game. We thought the candy would make for a nice bribe. So, anyway, I'll start. As you know, I'm Andie, and this is my first summer as a counselor at Lakeview. Before this summer I worked as a CIT at Camp Arrowhead, which is in upstate New York. I went there as a camper for five years before that.” She ticked off the facts in her head, nodding to herself. “Three more. Okay, well, I have a boyfriend, Brad, who is traveling in Tahoe this summer. I totally miss him”—the girls giggled at this admission—“and maybe he'll come up for Visiting Day.” The girls squealed with delight. “Done,” Andie said with finality.

“Hey, no fair. Two of those points were about Brad, not you,” Jenna protested.

“Do you really want to go there, Jenna?” Andie teased, nodding her head toward Jenna's handful of candy.

“Point taken,” Jenna said, smiling sheepishly. “Thank you for sharing.”

The girls went around the circle systematically occasionally sneaking bites of their stashes and thereby rendering the game slightly more manageable. Natalie learned that Chelsea's favorite color was purple, and that she liked to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that had been grilled first, which was kind of an interesting idea and not something that would have ever occurred to Natalie. Alyssa kept every single piece of artwork she'd ever created, even notebook doodlings. “My mom is dying to clean out my closet,” she confessed. She got around her massive heap of candy by naming each and every masterpiece individually.

Karen shocked them all by explaining that she had given away her stuffed animal collection to a homeless shelter in her hometown. “I think it was time,” she said. Natalie and the others rushed to protest, not wanting her to feel bad about her hobby.

“You gave them
all
away?” Jessie asked, wide-eyed. It was, after all, a lot of stuffed animals.

“Almost all,” Karen admitted shyly, causing them all to break out in laughter again.

“Well, each one of these M&M's counts for every member of my family,” Jenna announced, before popping six of them in her mouth at one time. “And, as some of you know, I have a twin brother. He's here, too.” She gobbled two more. “My parents got divorced last summer, which was yucky at first, but now I'm sort of used to it and it's kind of fun to have two of everything . . .” She paused thoughtfully, then chomped down on three more pieces of candy. “I rock at soccer, you'll see,” she told the newcomers, “
and
I'm really modest about it.” She winked. Then she cocked her head in Andie's direction again. “Do I really have to come up with”—she glanced down at her hand in despair—“I can't even count how many.” She brightened. “What if they melted together and made one big hunk of chocolate?”

Andie shook her head ruefully. “One more factoid, dearie, and we'll move on.”

“Um, well, unlike some of my bunkmates, I am
totally
not into boys,” Jenna said defiantly. “Done!” She popped the rest of the chocolate into her mouth all at once. “Yum!” Everyone laughed.

Jessie got off easy. “Allergic to chocolate,” she explained. “But, um, I'm really into sports, too. Not soccer. I mean, it's okay, but at home I play field hockey, and I love to Rollerblade.” Her curly, brunette ponytail bobbed up and down as she spoke.

Lauren was born on a leap year. Perry had a golden retriever puppy that her parents had adopted when she'd gotten an A in reading. Anna was relieved to be away from her four-year-old sister for two whole months. (“She's cute, but the built-in babysitter thing gets old.”) Mia, like Jenna, had a twin, though hers was an identical twin, who was doing a high-school exchange program in Australia over the summer. “So she won't be coming up for Visiting Day,” Mia said sadly. “I totally miss her.”

Finally it was Natalie's turn. “Well, I'm really excited to be back here for another summer,” she giggled. “I chose to come back myself—can you believe it?” She turned to Andie. “I wasn't exactly a Girl Scout my first summer here. Anyway, that's two things, right?” Andie nodded. “And, um, my mom is away, doing more art buying this summer in Europe, and my dad and his girlfriend are buying a new house. It's in the Hollywood Hills, near when Brad and Jen used to live.” She loved that little detail, even though she knew that by the time her dad and Josie moved in, they'd have a whole new set of neighbors. “As some of you know, my dad is an actor. Tad Maxwell.”

Most of the campers knew this already, so they took it in stride. And the others were managing not to have any sort of weird reactions. Nat had to marvel at how cool everyone was being. And just this time last year she was so worried to tell them the truth about her parents!

“That's crazy that your dad is Tad Maxwell! I
love
his movies! And that he's moving in next door to Brad and Jen's house—my mom says that Jennifer has the
best
stylist in L.A.!” Tori gushed. “She gets featured in every magazine, and she's never on the fashion ‘don'ts' list.” She stopped herself abruptly, realizing that she had cut Natalie off. “Omigosh, I am
so
rude. I didn't mean to interrupt you, Natalie. I just get excited talking celebrity-stalking, you know?”

“Totally,” Nat said. “My dad's girlfriend and I love to have lunch at the Ivy—”

“The
Ivy
!” Tori shrieked. “I
totally
sat next to Tom and Katie there!” She turned to Andie breathlessly. “Does that count as three things for me?”

Andie smiled. “The game has pretty much broken down, anyway. What do you say we dispense with the formalities?”

The girls were more than happy to oblige. They hit the snacks with renewed abandon, glad to be able to chat more free-form. “How tall is Tom in real life?” Jessie asked, sidling up closer to Tori on the floor.

“And, um, what's her
real
hair color?” Perry chimed in.

Nat looked down. She still had a rainbow of brightly colored candy resting in her cupped palm. But no one was paying any attention to the game anymore.
Guess I'm off the hook,
she thought. Tori had distracted them all when she started in like a deranged gossip columnist.

She popped the chocolate in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
Lucky me.

“Yeah,
Natalie
!!! Woo-hoo!”

Nat could hear Jenna, Jessie, and the rest of her teammates screeching at the top of their lungs as she flew around the bases.
First, second, third . . .
she thought, the breath rising up in her chest rapidly.
Keep going.

She was—she could hardly believe it— rounding home plate! In her whole life, Nat had never won a round of sudden-death kickball, and she herself had never kicked a homerun. This was . . . this was
amazing.
Camp was
way
awesome the second time around!

She sprinted home, taking care to tap the plate as she sped past it.

“Did I make it?” she gasped, grinning and wiping the sweat off of her forehead with the back of her hand.

“I'll say!” Alyssa exclaimed, whistling in admiration. “Who are you, and what have you done with Natalie?”

Natalie shrugged modestly. “I know, I know, it's incredible. It's all about focus and energy,” she said, sounding like one of those motivational athletes you always saw on TV just after she'd won an Olympic medal or whatever.

“Seriously, Natalie—it
is
incredible,” Eric, the new sports counselor, chimed in. “I mean, aren't you the girl who would duck every time the ball came near her last summer?”

“Yup,” Chelsea snapped. “Looks like she finally managed to get the basics down. Only a year too late. Impressive.
Not
.”

“Whatever, Natalie, we're totally impressed,” Lauren said, waving her hand at Chelsea dismissively. “I can't remember the last time I had a homerun.”

“Not during this game,” Chelsea said. “And, anyway, while you were all fawning over Natalie, Anna struck out. We're in the field.”

The girls took their positions as 4B came off the field and up to bat. A few of them clapped Natalie on the back as they passed by, saying, “nice one,” or “awesome job.” Natalie wasn't used to getting praised for her sports skills. She understood, finally, why Jenna and Alex would get so amped about soccer matches. A girl could get used to being MVP.

“What's my position again?” Tori asked, looking confused. “God, I am, like, allergic to sports. I take Pilates with my mother—that's
it.
And once a month we go on a twenty-four-hour juice fast. It's totally the latest thing in L.A.”

Natalie clucked her tongue sympathetically. She wasn't into any crazy fitness trends—a juice fast sounded completely gross—but she knew what it was like to be totally sports-averse. “Trust me, I understand. At home I am either Rollerblading with my best friend in the park, or I'm camped out in front of the TiVo. No organized sports for
moi.
We're outfield, remember? It's nice and easy. If and when a ball even makes it out here, chances are, someone will go for it before we do. And even if no one does, we've got plenty of time to brace ourselves.”

Tori smiled gratefully. “Sounds perfect.” She frowned. “How close am I allowed to stand to you?”

Natalie laughed. “You're fine where you are.”

“Right, right,” Tori said, nodding. “We want to look like we're trying, huh?”

Nat nodded her head, giggling. “Definitely.” As she said it, though, she felt a trickle of sweat run down the back of her leg, no doubt left over from her spontaneous burst of major-league talent. Suddenly, she wasn't sure if she just wanted to
look
like she was trying, or if she wanted to actually try. Trying had been. . . kind of fun. More than kind of.

“Who's up?” Tori asked, squinting into the sun.

“Um . . . it looks like . . . Lainie is up?” Natalie guessed, as a petite girl with white-blond hair stepped up to the plate. “I have no idea whether she's any good or not. Brace yourself.”

Lainie yanked on the ends of her ponytail, tightening it, and prepped for the pitch. She was normally a bubbly and vivacious girl, but she took this game very seriously, and her usually easygoing expression was currently replaced by one of sheer determination.

Jessie stepped up to the pitcher's mound with an equally fierce look. She leaned forward and rolled the kickball with perfect precision. Natalie tensed; obviously she wasn't exactly an expert on the subject, but judging from Lainie's posture . . . she was going to kick the ball at a certain angle . . . and it would probably travel . . . in a particular direction . . .

Slam!
The ball came soaring toward Natalie, who raised the flat of her hand up to her forehead to shield the sun from her eyes.
Here we go
, she thought. She knew she could catch the ball if she could line herself up with its trajectory. “I got it,” she said, stepping backward and outstretching her arms. “I got it!”

The ball sailed toward her in a perfect arc. It landed forcefully, the rubber edging scraping against her fingernails.
I'll need to file those again later,
Natalie thought wildly. “I've got—”

“She's got it!” Tori shrieked, running toward Nat.

Which was when it happened.

It was like a bad dream, like a movie set to slow-motion. One minute, Natalie was hugging the kickball to her stomach like precious cargo, and the next second, Tori, who up until now had been loudly cheering from a peanut-gallery perch three steps or so away, was hurdling toward her . . .