“I don’t know, I was pretty little back then. But I can ask him if you want.”
“How come you went to a different camp if your brother liked it here so much?” asks Roo.
I decide to stick as close to the truth as possible. “My parents’ friend started a camp, and they wanted me to go there,” I say. “I always wanted to come here, though. I finally convinced them this year.”
“And we’re so glad you did,” Val says. She slings an arm around my shoulders, like I’m as much a part of the group as Roo or Lexi, and it makes me warm and happy all the way through. “All right, everyone, put your stuff away and get your bathing suits on. We’ll have plenty of time to toss ideas around later. You’ll tell us some of your brilliant plans during Cabin Chat tonight, right, Izzy?”
Cabin Chat tonight? I had no idea I was going to have to come up with something that quickly. It usually takes Mackenzie and me days to work out all the details of a prank. And if I’m honest, she’s usually the one who thinks of all the best ideas, not me. We’ve always been a perfect team because we have such different skills—she’s great at coming up with concepts and working out how all the little details fit together, and I’m better at stuff like making props, sneaking into places I’m not supposed to be, and lying with a straight face. But none of those skills are going to help me if I can’t make a plan on my own.
Why did I think I could do this without my best friend?
“Izzy?” Val asks. “Everything okay?”
I give her my calmest, most confident smile and pray she can’t tell that my stomach is doing a series of backflips. “Of course,” I say. “The Wolverines won’t know which way is up by the time I’m done with them.”
* * *
The swim test is easier than the one at Camp Sweetwater; all we have to do is swim out to a buoy and back and tread water for five minutes. The lake is beautiful, shimmery and blue, and there’s not a leech or a piece of trash in sight. I scan the pier for Mackenzie so I can tell her everything that’s happened, but the Maples are running behind, and they don’t arrive until all ten Willows are done swimming. (Everyone passes except Hannah, who immediately starts crying again, even when Summer reminds her that she doesn’t like water sports.) I lag behind as the Willows head off across the lawn, hoping I can at least stick around long enough to cheer my best friend on—no matter how prepared she is, Mackenzie gets nervous taking tests. But when Val calls, “Izzy, come on!” I realize I’m not totally sure how to get back to the cabin on my own, so I scurry after her. I’ll see Mackenzie at dinner.
When I get to the mess hall an hour later, my long braid still dripping down my back, Val leads us straight to the Willow table all the way on the left side of the room. It’s marked by a plaque in the shape of a weeping willow tree. I glance at the tables next to us, hoping to spot a maple leaf, but we’re surrounded by the Magnolias, the Porcupines, and the Owls. I finally find the Maple table two whole rows away. When Mackenzie spots me, she returns my wave and tries to smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Do we always have to eat with our cabins?” I ask Mei as she climbs onto the bench next to me. It’s heavy and old, rubbed shiny and smooth by decades of camper butts.
Roo shoots me a hard look from across the table. “Why, you don’t want to sit with us?”
“No, I do. It’s just . . . my best friend’s over there in Maple, and I want to make sure she’s settling in okay. She’s really shy, and I’m the only one she knows here.” I leave out the part about desperately needing her help to think up a prank.
Val sits down at the end of the table. “We do always sit with our cabins, Izzy. But that’s thoughtful of you, and you can check on your friend after we’re done eating, okay?”
“Okay,” I say. Roo doesn’t say anything else, but she raises the huge camera that’s hanging around her neck and snaps my picture while I’m scratching my nose.
“Candid shot,” she says, and I vow to win her over no matter what it takes. If I’m going to be somebody at this camp, I need her as an ally.
The mess hall is huge, with hardwood floors and exposed beams in the ceiling, and shouts and laughter echo everywhere as the room fills up. There’s a series of thirty or so framed all-camp photos on the walls, one for each year, and I hope nobody asks me to point out Tomás in one of the older ones. Over the fireplace in the corner is a mangy taxidermy moose head, its antlers draped with Mardi Gras beads, tinsel, and a few random Christmas ornaments. Everything smells like dust and tater tots.
“The kitchen staff will serve us tonight,” Val tells us, “but starting tomorrow, you guys will switch off being waiters. I’ll pass out the schedule later. Your responsibilities are to set the table, fetch the food from the serving window, return the serving dishes after the meal, and wipe down our space. Most of you know the drill, and you’ll pick it up fast, Izzy.”
I wish people would stop reminding everyone that I’m new. “I know how it works,” I say. “We had waiters at my old camp.”
Val smiles. “Great. Thanks for making my job easy.”
A group of boys our age enters the dining hall and marches directly toward us, and Val sits up straighter. “You guys,” she says quietly. “That’s them.”
“Who?” I ask, but it immediately becomes obvious when they start shouting, “Wol-ver-ine! Wol-ver-ine! The fiercest furry mammal that you ever have seen!” They’re all wearing those sticky HELLO, MY NAME IS name tags, but most of them are blank. As they do a complete loop around our table, I catch a few that are filled out: GROUCHO, BEANS, CHOMPERS. A redheaded boy with a sticker that says TWIZZLER makes his hands into claws and hisses right in my face, and I hiss back, which makes Mei laugh. When the Willows start shouting our cabin cheer to drown out the boys, I try to join in, but I only remember about a quarter of the words.
The Wolverines head back to their table, and their counselor comes up beside Val and bumps her with his hip so hard she almost slides off the bench. He’s tall and lanky, and his hair is all messed up, like he rolled out of bed two minutes ago. There’s a hole in the shoulder of his FOXY T-shirt, though everyone else’s looks brand-new.
“I hope you’re ready for us, Fail-erie,” he says with a smirk. “Get it? ’Cause you guys are going to fail?”
Val rolls her eyes. “Dude, that’s not remotely clever. And was that little charade supposed to scare us? Because you’re the ones who should be nervous. My Willows are going to wipe the floor with you. Right, girls?”
We all cheer, and the guy raises one eyebrow. “Oh, is that so?”
“It is, actually,” Val says. “We’ve got a secret weapon this year.” She looks right at me and winks, and I stop feeling even the tiniest bit sorry that I lied.
“A secret weapon?” the guy repeats in a super-high-pitched snotty voice that sounds nothing like Val. “And what might that be?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?”
“Whatever,” says the guy. “Watch your backs. We’re gonna make you Willows weep.”
All the Wolverines start pumping their fists and chanting, “Weep! Weep! Weep!” Their counselor walks backward toward them while doing that cheesy thing where he points two fingers at his eyes, then back at us. He’s been over here all of thirty seconds, and I’m already incredibly annoyed by him; he reminds me a lot of Mateo Mendoza, this loud, irritating guy in my class at school. But Val seems pretty good-natured about the whole thing. Actually, she kind of seems like she’s trying not to laugh.
“That’s Stuart,” she says when he’s gone. “Otherwise known as Public Enemy Number One.”
Mei leans closer to me. “I heard Stuart stole all of Val’s bathing suits last year, dipped them in water, and froze them, and in the morning—”
“We do not speak of that incident,” Val says, mock-stern, and Mei giggles. “We concentrate on taking him down.”
A guy from the kitchen comes over and puts two huge pizzas and a bowl of salad on our table, and the conversa
tion stops as everyone scrambles for the kind they want. I manage to grab a slice of pepperoni—clearly the best topping—and then I make a point of sliding the tray directly across the table to Roo. But she wrinkles her nose and says, “I’m a vegetarian,” like I should somehow know that already.
“Oh, okay,” I say. I take a bite of my own pizza, and she snaps another photo of me as a bunch of sauce drips down my chin. Perfect.
I try as hard as I can to be part of the conversation during dinner, but I’m totally lost most of the time. The first night of camp is always about telling stories from past summers, and every sentence begins with “Remember that time . . .” and “Wasn’t it hilarious when . . .” At first Mei tries to fill me in on some of the Willows’ inside jokes, but there are way too many of them, and she can’t keep up. I glance over at Mackenzie and see that she’s not talking to anyone either. She’s picking all the cheese off a slice of pizza, looking completely miserable, and I wonder why she doesn’t have the special meal she’s supposed to get because of her dairy allergy.
I stand up and go around the table to Val. “I’m done eating,” I say. “Is it okay if I check on Mackenzie now?”
Roo and Ava look up at me like I have a thing or two to learn about Willow loyalty, but Val says, “Yeah, that’s fine. We’re going to head out in ten minutes, so be back by then.”
I narrowly avoid being hit by a flying piece of cucumber on my way to the Maple table, but Mackenzie’s face brightens when she sees me. “Hey!” she says. “Are you allowed to come eat over here?”
“No, but my counselor said I could visit for a little while. How’re you holding up?”
“Um.” Mackenzie side-eyes the girls next to her. They don’t seem to be paying any attention to us, but she clearly doesn’t want to say anything personal in front of them.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I say. “Do you want to come with me?”
“Yeah,” she says, obviously eager to get out of here.
Neither of us says anything until we’re inside the bathroom at the back of the mess hall. But the second we’ve checked under the stalls to make sure we’re alone, Mackenzie’s words pour out in a rush, like she’s been saving them up for hours. “This place is the worst. I hate not knowing where anything is or which people are nice or how anything works. And the nurse’s office lost the form that says I have a dairy allergy, so there’s nothing for me to eat besides pizza crust. I’m starving.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “You can still eat the salad, right?”
“Well, yeah, I guess. But it’s salad.”
“Good point. Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll talk to the nurse’s office for you in the morning and make sure it gets fixed.”
“Eleanor already did, I think. That’s my counselor. Did you ask if we could switch into the same cabin?”
“I did, but it’s not allowed,” I say. “I’m really sorry. I think we might be stuck where we are.”
“Of course.” Mackenzie slumps against the wall next to the paper towel dispenser. “Ugh, why did we bother coming to camp at all if we couldn’t go to Sweetwater? I wish we’d just stayed home. Don’t you?”
Now that the prank war is on the table, I actually feel like this summer has potential, even if Mackenzie’s not in my cabin. But I can’t really say that to her, so I try to distract her instead. “Have you met anyone cool?” I ask. “Who are you bunking with?”
“This girl Lauren. She’s okay, I guess, but she doesn’t really talk to me. Nobody does. Are people ignoring you, too?”
“Not really,” I say. “But only because I did something kind of bad.”
I tell Mackenzie about the rivalry with the Wolverines and my fictional prank-master older brother, and by the time I’m done, her eyes are huge. “You told them Tomás is twenty?”
“I know, it’s ridiculous, right? Good thing nobody knows that he stuffed pinto beans up both his nostrils last week.”
“Man, why can’t my cabin have a prank war?” Mackenzie says. “This is so unfair.”
“Maybe you could start one. Like, pick a boys’ cabin and attack? Maybe you’d be legendary, like the Paddington twins.”
“The Maples don’t seem like they’d be into that kind of thing. All they talk about is converting our cabin into a spa. They want to have a ‘hair-braiding clinic’ for Cabin Group tomorrow, whatever that means.” Mackenzie runs her fingers through her own light brown hair, which is way too short for braids. “Plus, it’s not like they’d listen to me if I suggested doing something different.”
“I would seriously give anything to have you in my cabin right now,” I say. “All the Willows expect me to come up with something perfect by tonight, and Val’s calling me her secret weapon, and I’ve got nothing. I’m going to look so stupid.”
I feel a little bad that I’m complaining about the thing Mackenzie wants most, but she doesn’t look annoyed at all. Actually, she’s starting to look kind of hopeful. “I’ll help you think of something, if you want,” she says. “I could help you plan pranks all summer. We’d have to keep it a secret, but it would make this place so much more fun.” Then her eyes light up. “Wait! What if you did the spaghetti prank?”
I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself. The spaghetti prank is killer. We thought of it at a sleepover way back in April, and we were so excited to test it out that we sneaked downstairs and cooked a bunch of pasta at one in the morning. We laughed so loudly at the result that we woke up my mom, and we had to shove all the pasta under my bed so she wouldn’t see it. In the morning, we totally forgot about it, and it stayed there an entire week before I found it again, covered in mold.
“That prank would be perfect,” I say. “Is it really okay if I use it for this, though? I wouldn’t be able to give you any credit. I’d have to say the idea came from Tomás.”
Mackenzie shrugs. “Pranking for credit is for amateurs. The fun part is seeing how everyone reacts when you pull off something really great, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. I know that’s how I’m supposed to feel. But secretly, I love when everyone knows it’s me.
“Besides,” Mackenzie says, “you won’t get any credit either if you say it was all your brother’s idea. It’ll be like we’re secret agents.”
Actually, I wasn’t planning to give Fictional Tomás all the credit for my ideas, but Mackenzie doesn’t need to know that. It’s not like it’ll affect her if I move up the ranks in my own cabin. This still seems like a way better deal for me than it is for her, but if she’s satisfied, I’m not going to try to talk her out of it. With my best friend behind me, I’ll have an endless supply of hilarious pranks. I could go from total unknown to leader of Willow Lodge in no time, and then camp will finally feel right again.
“Great,” I say. I extend my pinkie to her. “Let’s do this. Partners in crime?”
Mackenzie links her pinkie with mine. “Partners in crime,” she says. “We’re going to do way better than any college dude ever could, even if he were real.”
CHAPTER 4
I wasn’t the star of the treasure hunts at Camp Sweetwater, exactly. Whatever cabin Emma Foster was in always won; she ran like a gazelle and always managed to figure out the clues faster than I could read them. But I was pretty good too, and my cabin was usually in the top three, at least. Even if I wasn’t the absolute best, I was close.
Here at Camp Foxtail, I’m so far from the best it’s like I’m not on the same planet.
I haven’t gotten slower; when the Willows run from one place to another, I’m always near the front of the pack. But I’m completely useless at figuring out the clues. How am I supposed to know the infirmary is “home of the biscuits” because Nurse Patchett is from England and doesn’t know the right word for cookies? How could I possibly guess that “Doobie doobie doo” means we’re supposed to go to Camp Director Dana’s office? (Doobie is her nickname because her last name is Duberman, apparently.) I know I shouldn’t feel dumb for not knowing my way a
round—the whole point of an opening night treasure hunt is to learn about the camp if you haven’t been here before. But I hate not being able to contribute when even people like weepy Hannah know exactly what’s going on.
We come in fourth out of twenty, but I can’t enjoy it because I’m too stressed about being dead weight. I wish we could fast-forward to later tonight, when I’ve already told the other girls my plan for the prank and proven I’m an asset to this cabin.
Everyone’s still pretty riled up by the time we get back to Willow Lodge. Petra, BaileyAndHope, and Mei start squealing over some guy named Caden from Owl Lodge, who got really cute since last year. Summer and Hannah giggle together in the corner, and Roo, Lexi, and Ava curl up on Ava’s bed and scroll through Roo’s photos from earlier today. They keep laughing hysterically and imitating people’s unflattering facial expressions, and I wonder if Roo’s showing them the one of me sloppily eating pizza.
Nobody talks to me as I change into my oversize Snoopy T-shirt and blue plaid boxers, and I know Mackenzie’s probably feeling equally alone as she puts on her seahorse pajamas. Her cabin’s only a short walk down the field, but she feels impossibly far away. I didn’t get to say good night to her after the treasure hunt, and I wonder whether she’s scared to sleep in a new place without me.
To make me feel less lonely, I climb up onto my bunk with a roll of tape and start putting up the photos I brought from home: Mackenzie and me in front of the Camp Sweetwater sign, me holding my little cousin Julio, my grandma and me curled up together on the couch, watching her favorite telenovela. I’m about to put up one of my whole family from my birthday last year, but then I realize I can’t; if the other girls see it, they’ll wonder why there’s a little brother in the picture and no big brother. So I take one last look at the photo and fix all the details in my mind—the laugh lines around my dad’s eyes, my mom’s wild strawberry blond hair, my siblings’ gap-toothed smiles. And then I tuck it away in my sock drawer, right next to the St. Christopher medal and the picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe that my grandma insisted I bring for protection. I figure it’ll be extra safe there.
Willows vs. Wolverines Page 3
