“Thank you so much for all your help, Izzy,” she says in a low voice as she slips the ribbon over my head. “You were a truly indispensable team member.”
I’m pretty sure she didn’t any anything like that to the rest of the team. I wonder if they mind that I’m clearly her favorite.
When she moves on to the next person, I pick up my medal and inspect it more closely. There’s a fox head stamped in the center, and around it in loopy script, it says Camp Foxtail Color Wars: First Place. Roo is moving along the edge of the fire with her camera to her eye, and when I raise my medal and smile at her, she snaps a picture. I couldn’t feel more like a champion.
Everyone sits back down, and the six counselors who led the teams produce torches and light them in the fire, then move to stand behind the captains. Doobie gives a short speech about their incredible leadership, team spirit, and graceful acceptance of defeat, which is actually kind of funny since Kaitlyn is crying again. Lexi looks radiant. When Doobie finishes her speech, she says, “Captains, please follow your counselors down to the water,” and the entire camp falls silent. Nobody coughs or fidgets, and the only sounds are the crackling of the fire and the captains’ footsteps as they form a procession down to the lake. I picture myself in that procession next year; now that everyone has seen what an amazing unofficial captain I am, there’s no way I won’t be chosen as one of the twelve best leaders in the camp.
Each pair of captains climbs into a canoe, and the counselors sit behind them and hold their torches aloft. And then, as the captains start to paddle, the counselors begin to sing. The song doesn’t have any words I can understand—it’s either nonsense syllables or another language—but it’s haunting and sweet, almost unearthly. Val’s gorgeous voice floats above the others, and even though it’s still pretty warm outside, listening to her gives me goose bumps all down my arms. We watch the canoes cross the lake in complete silence, and when they reach the opposite shore, the torches all go out in perfect unison. Color Wars is over.
* * *
When the campfire ends and the captains have returned to our side of the lake, almost everyone heads to the mess hall for cookies and hot chocolate. But because we’re the winning team, we get our own special treat: pizza in the Social Lodge next door. Dinner was only a couple of hours ago, but I’m already starving again, probably because I spent the entire day running around screaming. The whole Blue Team must feel the same, because everyone descends on the pizzas like a herd of velociraptors. I push my way over to the pepperoni, which is disappearing fastest, and grab a slice. Pepperoni is Val’s favorite, too, but I don’t see her anywhere, so I grab an extra plate and take a piece for her. We have to look out for each other, like we talked about, because that’s what friends do.
“Izzy, over here!” Lexi shouts from across the room, where she and Amira have claimed the squishy green couch with the fewest springs sticking out of it.
“Have you guys been on your overnight to Sandpiper Village yet?” Amira’s asking when I join them. “We did ours last week, and it was soooo fun. I almost set Sadie’s hair on fire with a flaming marshmallow.”
“Ours is on Wednesday,” Lexi says. “It’s going to be the best. Last year Roo and Ava and I slept out under the stars instead of in our tent, and we got a million mosquito bites, but it was so worth it. You should do it with us this year, Izzy.”
“Definitely,” I say.
“We carved our initials into this giant tree by the lake on our first overnight when we were ten, and every year we sit in the exact same order and take a picture by it,” Lexi says. “I’ve got all the pictures framed in my room at home. Here, look, I’ll show you the one from last year.” She looks around to make sure nobody’s watching, then pulls her phone out of her back pocket and scrolls through her photos till she finds the one she wants. There she is with Roo and Ava, sitting on the ground by the base of a huge oak tree with their arms around each other. Lexi’s hair is much shorter, and Roo has different glasses. All three of them look incredibly happy and relaxed. I wonder if they’ll let me be in the photo this year.
“You can look at some of the other pictures,” Lexi says. “Sandpiper Village is so beautiful. It’s seriously the best part of the entire summer.”
I swipe through some of the photos. There’s Lexi on the rope swing, Summer setting up a tent with Hannah, BaileyAndHope swimming in a stream with Petra and a girl I don’t know, who must be Juliet. Lexi’s not kidding about how pretty Sandpiper Village is; there are giant trees on one side of the campsite and wildflowers all along the banks of the stream. There’s even a gazebo.
I hand back the phone. “I can’t wait to see it in real life,” I say. “Hey, do you guys know where Val is? I got her some pizza, but I don’t see her.”
“I think she went into the storage room,” Lexi says. “She’s probably getting more napkins or something.”
“Cool. I’ll be right back. Save my spot.” I know I could wait for Val to come out—it’ll probably only be a minute. But I want one more second alone with her before Color Wars ends for good, to thank her for letting me be an honorary captain. And if I’m honest, maybe I’m hoping to snag a few more compliments about what a fabulous unofficial leader I was.
The light is on in the storage room, but the door is shut most of the way. “Val?” I call as I pull it open. “I got you some pizza. There’s room on the couch if you want to come hang out with—”
And then I stop and stare, because my brain can’t process what I’m seeing.
Val’s in the storage room, like Lexi said. But she’s not getting more napkins. She’s pressed up against the wall next to the door, both arms around a boy, and she’s kissing him furiously.
And the boy is Stuart. Public Enemy Number One.
The plate of pizza falls out of my hand, and the cheese hits the floor with a wet slap. Val and Stuart immediately pull apart, like that’ll somehow erase what I’ve seen, and Stuart yells, “Get out! What are you staring at?”
“Don’t yell at her,” Val says, but I don’t hear anything after that, because I’m too busy running away.
All this time, Val made me believe she was my friend, the one person I could absolutely trust at Camp Foxtail. She took me on special secret Popsicle runs and told me secrets about her family and her love life and pulled strings to get me on her team for Color Wars. She never made me feel like I had to prove myself to her, unlike everyone else, including Mackenzie. I thought I totally understood her. But now that I’ve seen her wrapped around Stuart, that illusion crumbles into a million tiny pieces.
Since the day I got here, I’ve been plotting and scheming and working so hard to help Val beat Stuart, to help the Willows beat the Wolverines, because I thought everyone cared about this prank war as much as I did. I thought we were all taking it seriously. And now it looks like Val isn’t even on our side. Who knows how long she’s been cozying up to Stuart behind out backs? For all I know, she’s been lying to us since the very beginning.
I think back on the conversation Val and I had yesterday, when I told her Stuart was trying to manipulate her. I thought I was so special, looking out for her feelings, and I thought she cared about my feelings in return. But now that I know she’s an enemy-loving traitor, I don’t know what to believe. What if she sneaked out of the cabin after we were asleep last night and told Stuart all about our conversation? What if they laughed together about how stupid and naive I was to try to protect her from him? What if they’ve been laughing about things I told her in confidence all summer?
I was so sure Val and I had a special bond. And now it turns out I don’t really know her at all.
The last thing I want to do is cry. But finding out someone you trust has betrayed you is like having a hole punched in your chest, and I’m so worn out from this weekend that I can’t hold my tears back. I wipe them away quickly; when Val follows me out here, I’m going to have to look strong and confront her. But I wait, and I wait, and she doesn’t come, even though s
he has to know how much she hurt me. So I give up and let the floodgates open.
There are a bunch of kids sitting in the grass in front of the mess hall, and I’m relieved when I spot Mackenzie among them. She doesn’t see me at first because she’s too busy laughing about something with Lauren. But I walk right up to them, and her eyes widen when she notices I’m crying. “Hey,” she says. “Are you okay?” For once, she actually sounds like the normal old Mackenzie, not Lauren’s new Mackenzie.
“Not really.” I wipe my eyes and sniffle. “Can we talk for a minute?”
“Yeah, okay.” She turns to Lauren. “I’ll be right back.”
Mackenzie and I don’t speak until we reach the big oak tree where we used to sit and plan pranks, back before everything fell apart. Then she asks, “What’s going on?”
“I caught Val and Stuart kissing,” I blurt out, and saying it out loud is enough to trigger a fresh flood of tears.
I wait for Mackenzie to comfort me, but she just stands there with her eyebrows scrunched together. “Um, okay . . . ,” she says. “Why do you care?”
“Seriously?” It seems like it should be obvious.
“Do you like him or something?”
“What? Stuart? No! God!” I can’t believe she would consider that possibility. How is she this out of touch with my feelings after one week?
“Sorry, I just . . . I don’t really get what the big deal is.”
“She’s not supposed to like him!” I shout. “He’s our enemy, and I thought she was on our side, but now she’s obviously not, and the entire prank war is ruined!” My nose is running now, but I don’t have any tissues, so I wipe it with the back of my hand.
“Did Val say you have to stop pranking them?” Mackenzie asks.
“No. That’s not the point.”
“Then . . . sorry, but I still don’t really get what the point is.”
“The point is that I was taking this prank war seriously ’cause she made it seem like she took it seriously, and then it turns out this whole thing was a huge joke to her! She’s been lying to us this entire time so we’d keep thinking up pranks for her!”
“I mean, technically, you’ve been lying to her this whole time too,” Mackenzie says. “She still thinks Tomás is real, right?”
“I should’ve known you’d take her side,” I snap. “You’re as much of a traitor as she is.”
Mackenzie blinks at me. “What? How am I a traitor? What does this even have to do with me? All I did was help you!”
“Yeah, until you decided you weren’t getting enough credit and you ditched me!”
“Are you serious?” Mackenzie’s eyes are bugging out of her head now. “I ditched you? I did all your dirty work and wrote your stupid letters from ‘Tomás,’ and I never complained about any of it, including when you started backing out of our plans every time someone more popular made you a better offer! And you couldn’t even be bothered to remember my birthday!”
“I apologized for that, like, fifty times!” I shout back. “What do you want me to do, get down on my knees and beg you for forgiveness?”
“You apologized twice, and then you literally never tried to talk to me again!” Mackenzie’s starting to cry now too, and she shoves her hands up behind her glasses to wipe her eyes. “I had every right to be mad, and you gave up on me after two seconds, like it didn’t even matter to you if we were friends anymore!”
“You obviously don’t care if we’re friends either, now that you have Lauren to hang out with! You’re with her, like, every second. It’s Lauren Lauren Lauren all the time. Remember when I offered to let you help with the mountain lion prank, and you turned me down to go swimming with her?” We’re being loud enough that Lauren can probably hear us from where she’s sitting, but I don’t care.
“This isn’t about the prank war!” Mackenzie yells. “Not everything is about the stupid prank war, okay? I started hanging out with Lauren because I was sick of sitting around by myself and waiting for the popular girls to dump you so you’d notice I existed again!”
“Roo and Lexi and Ava are my friends! They’re not going to dump me! They actually respect me, unlike some people!”
“If they respect you so much, why did you need to make up a fake older brother to get them to listen to your ideas?”
“Fake older brother?” says another confused voice.
I seriously didn’t think tonight could get any worse. But when I turn around, Roo, Lexi, and Ava are standing right behind me.
CHAPTER 22
“What are you guys doing out here?” I ask, like that’s the most important question right now.
“It was too hot in the mess hall. We needed some air,” says Ava.
“I saw you run out of the Social Lodge, and you looked upset, so I came out to see if you were okay,” Lexi says.
I glance at Mackenzie like, See? My new friends do care about me. But she’s looking over her shoulder toward the mess hall. She’s probably trying to figure out how long she has to stand here before she can go join her real friend again.
“So, is it true?” Roo asks.
This is probably the worst possible moment to try to explain myself to her. She’s spent the whole weekend furious about not being a Color Wars captain, and I’m sure she’s not feeling very forgiving. “Is what true?” I say to stall a tiny bit longer.
“Come on, Izzy. Do you have a brother or not?”
“I do,” I say, and it’s not a lie.
“Then why did she say your brother is fake?”
Mackenzie meets my eyes, and hers are steely. If I don’t tell them the truth, it’s clear she’s going to do it for me.
“My brother’s not fake,” I say. “But, um . . . he’s four years old.”
Lexi’s eyes widen. “Then who was that in the picture you showed us?”
“Some actor,” I say. “His name is Raul something. He’s on this telenovela my grandma likes.”
“Where were the letters coming from? Who thought up the pranks?” I swear Roo has grown six inches since we started this conversation, and I take a small step back.
“Mackenzie and I wrote the letters,” I say. “We thought up the pranks together.”
“It was mostly me,” Mackenzie says. For someone who accused me of being a show-off, she’s pretty interested in taking credit all of a sudden.
“It was both of us,” I say. “And the Sea Witch prank was all mine, after Mackenzie decided she was too good for the prank war and refused to keep helping.”
Roo and Lexi and Ava stare us down, and for a second, I allow myself to imagine that they’ll be impressed by the truth. After all, coming up with professional-quality pranks by myself is way cooler than relaying them from my “brother.” But then Roo says, “So . . . you’ve been lying to us the entire summer.”
“I wasn’t lying,” I say. “I mean, okay, I guess I kind of was. But I only did it so you guys would listen to me! I tried to suggest pranks to you on the first day, and you shut me out and told me I didn’t know how anything worked around here!”
“Because you didn’t,” Roo says. “You’d gotten here three seconds ago. The rest of us have been coming here since we were eight. We weren’t going to let you walk in and take over.”
“I didn’t want to take over! I just had better ideas than you! You admitted they were better when you didn’t think they were mine! Roo, you’re the one who was talking about how boys get more credit than girls for the same ideas, right? Isn’t this exactly the same thing? You wouldn’t let me suggest stuff, but when the pranks came from Tomás, who’s a boy, you were totally willing to listen.”
Roo looks at me like I’m a squashed cockroach on the bottom of her shoe. “We didn’t take Tomás’s ideas seriously because he was a boy. We took them seriously because you told us he was a Wolverine.”
“I don’t see why it matters where the pranks came from,” I say. I’m trying to sound confident, but it kind of comes off like I’m begging. “They were pretty
genius either way, right?”
“What matters is that we thought we could trust you, and we clearly can’t,” Roo says. “If you’ve been lying about this, who knows what else you’ve been lying about? How do we know you’re not working for the Wolverines?”
“Yeah, how else would they have known about our dance costumes? Or the Ouija board?” Ava says. “Seems awfully suspicious. We’ve seen you acting friendly with that redheaded guy.”
“Don’t try to deny it,” Roo says. “I have pictures.”
It’s very possible Josh really did learn about the dance costumes from me, but it’s not like I told him on purpose. “I’m not working for them!” I snap. “I’ve been ridiculously loyal to the Willows! If anyone around here is a spy, it’s Val!”
“Val?” Roo says. “What are you talking about?”
“I caught her making out with Stuart in the Social Lodge tonight,” I say. “I thought she was on our side, but she’s not. She’s a traitor.” Roo’s eyes bug out with rage, and for a second I think I’ve gotten through to her. “I can help you think of more pranks if you want to keep going without her,” I say in case this is working. “I can—”
She cuts me off. “Just because she defected too doesn’t make what you did any better. We don’t need either of you. We can take down the Wolverines without your help.” She turns and walks away.
Lexi and Ava follow her, and I run after them. “Come on, guys. Give me another shot. I only lied to you for the good of the cabin, and I promise I won’t ever do it again!”
Lexi stops for a minute and looks back at me, clearly torn. If she were by herself, I think I could convince her to give me a second chance. But when Roo says, “Lex, come on,” she shrugs and turns to go.
“Sorry, Izzy,” she says quietly. When it all comes down to it, being part of the group is more important to her than doing what she believes in. She can’t afford to lose her friends either.
Willows vs. Wolverines Page 17
