Just Like Me

by Nancy Cavanaugh

  It was of me in the orphanage in China. It was the photo the Chinese officials had sent my parents before they came to China to get me.

  Bundled up in thick, puffy clothes, I sat outside a run-down building in a tattered and worn baby walker, holding a plastic ball. My short hair stuck straight up, and I had bug bites on my cheeks.

  The photo looked like a police mug shot.

  The thing about the picture was that I knew Avery and Becca had the exact same photo. Avery’s photo sat in a frame on her dresser, and Becca’s hung in a frame in the front hall of her house. Mine was in the life book my mom had made for me.

  The caregivers at the orphanage in China must’ve put all the babies in the same clothes with the same plastic ball and sat them in the same secondhand walker to take the same photo. I wondered how many other Chinese girls had a photo exactly like mine. Probably a million.

  This photo always gave my stomach a weird feeling.

  I wondered if Avery’s and Becca’s moms had included this photo in their envelopes. If Avery and Becca put their photo on their collages, and I put mine on mine, everyone would see what we looked like when we were orphans. Everyone would see that we looked exactly alike.

  “Oh, Becca, look at this!”

  Avery had found it. Her orphanage picture. She held it up for Becca to see. “Look, Julia!” she said, turning it toward me.

  It was too late. Now everyone would know.

  Becca shuffled her photos around on the table, looking at the ones underneath those she’d already seen.

  “Yeah, I’ve got mine too!” Becca yelled as she found the photo and held it up. “What about you, Julia?”

  “No, my mom didn’t send that one,” I said, sliding the photo facedown underneath a picture of me dressed up as a pumpkin for Halloween.

  I thought Gina might have seen me hide the photo, but I didn’t care. I was not going to admit to having this photo, and I was not going to include it on my life collage.

  Thankfully, Jen told us we’d better get busy so we’d be able to finish our collage before morning activity ended. So with the orphanage photos forgotten, at least for the moment, we all got back to work on our projects.

  When we got back to the cabin, we hung our posters on the wall outside the bathroom, and I was glad mine didn’t look like anyone else’s.

  Does being adopted make you feel special?

  Dear Ms. Marcia,

  My mom always tells me how special that orphanage photo is because it was the first time she saw what I looked like. But that photo is NOT something I want to remember. Why would I want to remember being an orphan? Why would I want to remember that I was just like every other baby in that Chinese orphanage? That I was just like every other baby in any orphanage?

  My mom often says, “God always knew you would be my daughter, so you were never really an orphan.”

  But if I was never really an orphan, this picture doesn’t really belong on my life collage.

  So here’s a question for you, Ms. Marcia. How can you feel special when there are a million other girls just like you?

  Julia

  PS I know Mom would want me to talk to her about all this, but how could she understand? She’s not Asian. She’s not adopted. And she was never ever an orphan.

  11

  “Watch out, Camp Little Big Woods!” Vanessa yelled. “Because White Oak is coming for you!”

  We were at the volleyball courts on the far side of the grassy field, and Donnie had just announced the afternoon activity. A Newcomb tournament. While all of us campers got organized, he danced around and sang “Eye of the Tiger” as it blasted from the mess hall speakers.

  Newcomb is a game like volleyball, except that instead of bumping, setting, and spiking the ball, players throw the ball over the net, and the opposing team tries to catch it.

  “This is killer!” Becca yelled. “We’re gonna be awesome at this!”

  “Well, some of us are,” Meredith said, raising her eyebrows to Vanessa.

  Vanessa didn’t say anything, but she looked as determined as an Olympic athlete getting ready to play for the gold.

  “I do have a feeling we’re going to be earning some of those points back,” Avery said cheerfully.

  I had a different feeling. A feeling that made me wish Newcomb wasn’t this afternoon’s activity. A feeling that made me wish I wasn’t on this team. A team where Vanessa’s need to win turned her into a screaming maniac. A team where people expected me to be good because of Avery and Becca. A team that made me wish I was back at home in the park district craft class with Madison.

  “Let’s get on the court,” Vanessa said. “Meredith, Julia, and I will take the front row. Avery, Becca, and Gina take the back.”

  Becca was so excited about the game that she didn’t even notice that Vanessa was bossing us around again.

  We all got into our places, and Vanessa turned to us and said, “Look, you gotta throw hard! Every time. Make it impossible for them to catch that thing.”

  While Vanessa bullied us into playing our best, the Silver Birch girls got situated on their side of the court.

  As soon as both teams were ready, “Eye of the Tiger” faded, and the ref blew the whistle, starting the game.

  It began with Gina throwing our team’s first serve. But instead of throwing the ball high enough to go over the net, she tried to do what Vanessa said and throw it as hard as she could—but she threw the ball so hard that it was a line drive. Straight at my head. I tried to duck, but I wasn’t fast enough. It hit me on the left ear, and I hit the dirt.

  “Time-out!” Gina yelled. “Rumper bumper! Man, Julia, are you okay? I’m sorry.”

  “What is wrong with you, Gina?” Vanessa yelled. “Can’t you even throw a ball over a net?”

  Gina reached out a hand to help me up.

  “Watch yourself, White Oak,” the counselor reffing our game warned.

  “Unbelievable,” Meredith mumbled.

  Gina had only been a few feet behind me when she threw the ball, so it felt like someone had hit me in the head with a two-by-four. It made me wish I hadn’t been the one standing in front of her.

  Silver Birch served next, and of course they threw the ball straight at Gina. I guess they figured she was the weak link. The ball hit her in the stomach, and she fell down.

  “Rumper bumper number two!” Gina yelled and brushed herself off as she got to her feet again.

  “One, zero. Silver Birch in the lead,” the ref announced.

  The next serve came at Gina even faster and with more force, but she didn’t need to worry about it.

  “I got it!” yelled Vanessa, who dove across the court to catch the ball.

  She threw it back over the net, right into the back left corner of Silver Birch’s court.

  “White Oak’s serve,” the ref announced, after the ball bounced.

  After that, Becca served.

  Silver Birch returned her serve, and even though this time the ball headed toward Gina and me, Meredith lunged across the court and yelled, “It’s mine!”

  “One to one,” the ref said.

  Becca served again, and when the ball came back to our side, Becca yelled, “Take that!” as she hurled it back over to the Silver Birch side.

  And so it went for the rest of the game with Vanessa, Meredith, and Becca diving and lunging in front of Gina and me, yelling, “Got it!” “It’s mine!” and “Take that!”

  White Oak racked up point after point after point until the game was over.

  Our next game was against Red Maple, and Vanessa, Meredith, and Becca played exactly the same way—lunging, diving, and yelling.

  So Gina yelled things too like, “You got it!”

  “Here you go, Vanessa. Take that one!”

  “Help yourself, Meredith!”

 
“Don’t worry about us, Becca. You take this one!”

  The Bermuda Triangle was so busy winning that they didn’t realize what Gina was saying, or that I couldn’t stop laughing about it.

  Avery knew what was going on, and she looked annoyed. But what was she going to do? Stop White Oak from winning?

  We played against three more teams to win the tournament. There were three more rumper bumpers—two for Gina and one for me. Besides that, Gina almost knocked the ref off her ladder stand with one of her serves, and there were more than a couple times when I was pretty sure Gina missed her serve on purpose just to be funny and to bug Vanessa.

  At the end of the last game, Donnie announced, “White Oak wins the tournament!”

  “Sweet!” Becca yelled.

  Then he awarded our cabin ten points for winning, and Vanessa, Meredith, and Becca chanted, “White Oak rules! White Oak rules!”

  Avery smiled but didn’t chant.

  And Gina shrugged her shoulders.

  Then “We Are the Champions” blasted through the trees.

  But this time Donnie wasn’t singing or dancing. He was whispering something to Tori and looking over at us. I could tell he didn’t think any of us in White Oak deserved even one of the ten points that we’d just been given, and he certainly wasn’t acting as if he thought we were the champions of anything.

  Dear Ms. Marcia,

  I don’t want to worry you, but your adoption story might be in trouble.

  When Avery and Becca came to camp, they were pretty much best friends, but this afternoon I heard them arguing about the Newcomb tournament.

  I know that red thread isn’t supposed to break, but it might be stretching pretty thin.

  Anyway, I don’t think the three of us will be finding any time to get together today and “share” our feelings about our adoption stories.

  What a relief, especially after our visit to the arts-and-crafts room earlier today.

  Julia

  PS I wonder why it doesn’t seem to bother Avery and Becca when people talk about how “Chinese” we look. And I really wonder why they don’t seem to mind having that orphanage photo smack-dab in the middle of their life collage.

  12

  “Hey, Julia,” Gina said, coming into the cabin. “Wanna go down to free swim?”

  “Um…” I hesitated, stalling.

  Vanessa and Meredith had left a few minutes ago to go canoeing, Avery was down at the nature hut with the rabbits, and Becca was over at the archery pit. Avery and Becca had both asked me to go with them, but my hope had been to just chill out in the cabin by myself until dinner, maybe even work on Madison’s friendship bracelet. I had kind of forgotten about Gina.

  “C’mon,” Gina begged. “I wanna go down that slide in the deep end.”

  “You know you have to wear a life jacket, right?” I asked.

  I wasn’t going to be like Vanessa and make fun of Gina for not knowing how to swim, but even so, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to free swim with the only eleven-year-old camper who still had to wear a life jacket in the deep end. I knew that made me even shallower than the shallow end of the Camp Little Big Woods swim area, but it was the truth.

  “So what?” Gina said, digging in her suitcase. She pulled out her swimsuit and kicked off her flip-flops. “Nobody here at camp knows me except for Vanessa, and she already can’t stand me. So who cares?”

  Gina had a point. Who cared if I was Gina’s swim buddy, and she had to wear a life jacket? Nobody knew me either, except for Avery and Becca.

  “Okay,” I said, putting my journal back in my cubby and digging around my suitcase for my swimsuit. “That slide does look fun.”

  “Besides, both of us could use some exercise after that Newcomb game we didn’t play,” Gina said, smiling.

  I laughed.

  We changed and headed down the hill toward the lake.

  “So this is your first time at camp?” Gina asked as we passed the flagpole.

  “Yeah, but Avery and Becca come every year.”

  “So why haven’t you ever come?”

  “They do a lot of stuff together that I don’t do because they live in the same neighborhood and go to the same school.”

  Swimming with Gina in a life jacket was one thing, but telling her the whole story of Avery, Becca, and me was another—and it wasn’t going to happen.

  Once we got down to the beach, we found our swim tags on the board, threw our towels on a log bench, and ditched our flip-flops.

  Lots of campers were already playing around in the shallow water, and even more were out swimming in the deep end. The scent of suntan lotion and the sounds of camper chaos filled the air.

  “So what about you?” I asked, changing the subject. “How come you’ve never come to camp with your cousin before?”

  “Are you kidding?” Gina asked. “You’re really asking me that? Vanessa doesn’t even like to breathe the same air as me.”

  “Why does she hate you so much?” I asked.

  “Because I’m not ‘officially’”—Gina used her fingers to do air quotes—“her cousin.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “I’m really a foster cousin,” Gina said. “Vanessa’s aunt, Ms. Lena, is my foster parent.”

  What? Gina was a foster kid?

  Now it made sense why Gina didn’t have any baby pictures when we were making our life collages.

  “I’ll be right back. I’ve gotta go get a life jacket.”

  Gina jogged over to the boathouse and grabbed an orange life jacket off one of the hooks. She put her head through the opening, attached the strap around her waist, and tied the strings.

  “C’mon, let’s hit that slide,” Gina said, jogging toward me and grabbing my arm.

  We passed the younger campers goofing around in the shallow water with small inner tubes and rafts, and we headed for the dock. We ran for the deep end, where the older campers swam and splashed, dove and jumped.

  Tweet! Tweet!

  The lifeguard whistle stopped us.

  “No running, girls!” a deep voice yelled.

  We both looked up to see DD Jr. standing guard at the end of the dock. He looked even better in his swimsuit and sunglasses than he had at the mess hall on the first day of camp.

  Gina tiptoed the rest of the way out to the end of dock, pretending like she was trying to sneak past DD Jr., but it was obvious she was trying especially hard to be noticed. Since she was still holding on to my arm, I ended up kind of tiptoeing and sneaking too. DD Jr. watched us and smiled and sort of even laughed, and I didn’t know how it was possible, but that made him look even cuter. I wasn’t sure if I should be excited or embarrassed that he was paying attention to us.

  When we got to the end of the dock, Gina jumped. And even though she pulled me into the deep end with her, she somehow managed to tuck her knees so that she cannonballed into the water. Just before I went under, I saw a tidal wave of lake water splash DD Jr.

  We both came up sputtering and saw DD Jr. dripping wet.

  Gina laughed her head off. I couldn’t believe she had just done that. On purpose. But it didn’t seem to bother her at all, and DD Jr. laughed.

  “You know you’re crazy, right?” I said, giggling.

  “And proud of it,” Gina said, swishing some lake water in her mouth, tipping her head back, and spitting out the water as if she were a fountain.

  I kicked my legs hard, trying to warm up in the icy water. The sun was so hot and the lake so cold that the combination made my head hurt.

  “This water’s freezing!” I said.

  “I think it feels good!” Gina said. “Let’s go!”

  And we headed toward the slide.

  We climbed the ladder of the raft, and while we waited our turn, water dripped down our legs onto the
faded wooden raft. The hose attached to the yellow slide pumped lake water down its surface, making it super slippery and ice-cold. We flew down the curved plastic as if we were sledding down a snow-packed luge run, screaming the whole way.

  A few kids gave Gina weird looks about the life jacket, but she ignored them, so I did too. We just kept climbing the raft and shooting down the slide over and over until the bullhorn blasted to end free swim.

  As we climbed the ladder onto the dock to get out of the lake, I wished everything at camp could be as much fun as this free swim had just been, but more than a few things stood in the way of that happening.

  “So does it ever bother you that Vanessa’s so mean?” I asked Gina.

  “Yeah,” Gina said. “But I try to remember she’s mean because of her, not because of me.”

  “So you think she’s just a mean person?” I asked as we walked toward the shore.

  The sun beat on our backs and dried the water as it ran in rivers down our skin. Campers all around us hurried toward the swim tag board and then rushed to the warmth of their dry towels.

  “No, just that she’s mean because she’s worried.”

  “Worried about what?” I asked.

  “About her dad.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Is he sick?”

  “No, he left about a year ago. Her parents got into a huge fight, and Vanessa’s mom had to call the police on him and everything,” Gina explained as she hung up her life jacket.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t really know the whole story. All I know is that Vanessa never really liked me much, but after her dad left, it was almost as if she started to hate me.”

  “Why would her dad leaving make her hate you?” I asked, hanging my swim tag on the board.

  “I don’t know,” Gina said as she hung her tag next to mine. “I guess she just feels so crummy about everything in her own life that she takes it out on whoever she can. And since she doesn’t really like me anyway, I’m an easy target.”