Summer by the Lake

by Kay Gordon

  It was still pitch black when someone shook me awake six hours after I’d gone to bed and I proceeded to wake up the rest of the girls. Everyone had wanted to come except for Maria and Lizzy, both saying they’d rather sleep.

  It had taken some effort to find what we needed, including me borrowing buckets from both the dining hall and the health center. No one had asked what the buckets were for but the smile on Anna’s face had told me that she knew it wasn’t for something innocent. Finding almost twenty of them had been a miracle.

  With those buckets now full of lake water in hand, we snuck across the campus with the other two groups of girls. The six of us counselors went ahead of the campers and we worked on unsnapping the rain flies from the top of the tents, signaling the girls over once we’d slid them off quietly.

  We watched the Cabin Sixteen counselors for the signal and as soon as they gave it, we took four buckets of water and dumped them on top of the tent, over the mesh ventilation.

  Surprised shrieks rang out from all around us and the tents shook as the boys jumped to their feet. I heard Jordan curse while one of their campers yelled that it was raining.

  While the boys scrambled to get their tents open, Sixteen let out a low whistle to signal the second wave, and two more buckets of water were dumped over the top of the tents. The boys cried out again and started shoving each other out of the way so they could get out of the tents.

  I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t breathe. One of the Cabin Fourteen counselors yelled for us to retreat and I caught sight of Drew, who was still smiling despite being soaking wet, before I jogging after my group of girls.

  “That was amazing!” Cate exclaimed as we came to a stop in front of Cabin Fourteen. All of the girls were grinning and some had their hands on their knees as they tried to catch their breath. The six adults congratulated everyone and sent them inside ahead of us.

  “That should put us back in the lead,” said one of the counselors for the eighth graders. “The guys are pretty ruthless, though.”

  She wasn’t joking. Her cabin had been the victim of a bra and underwear flag the week before. Cabin Wars was starting to breed desperation.

  I nodded my head. “It’s going to be a photo finish this year.”

  We all thanked and praised one another before heading back inside our respective cabins. The girls were still awake and buzzing with conversation but we encouraged them to lie back down to try and get a couple more hours of sleep.

  “I have to say, I’m impressed,” Jordan said just a few hours later when we ran into Cabin Seven in the dining hall. I laughed when I saw that he had a streak of charcoal along his forehead. “We thought the sand in the sleeping bags was kind of weak but when nothing happened, we assumed you’d given up.”

  “The stuff in the cabin was good, too,” Drew chimed in, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “It took me so long to get the tape off of the toilet that I thought I was going to have to run to the staff lounge.”

  I turned my head to grin at him. “We couldn’t let the bear thing go unanswered. I think I have my first grey hair from that prank.”

  “Seriously,” Hannah agreed, allowing Jordan to press a kiss to her cheek.

  The boys didn’t seem too put out with the pranks from the night before as they interacted with our girls. We sent them all in ahead of us so they could get their breakfast and I looked to Drew expectantly.

  “What are you guys doing today?”

  “Training for the camp challenge next week.” He chuckled when I looked at him with my brows raised. “Hey, we’re going to need to kick your guys’ asses if we want to win Cabin Wars.”

  The camp challenge was always held on week seven and it pitted boys against girls in a series of events. The ninth graders would team up with the tenth graders to participate in head-to-head events that included tug-of-war, three-legged races, canoeing, water hauling, trivia, cartwheel races, basketball shoot outs, water balloon tosses, and a sprinting race. It was an all-day event and there were prizes for the groups that accumulated the most points.

  Plus, there were Cabin Wars points to be dished out. The camp challenge could very easily decide the winner.

  “Are you really?” Hannah turned to Jordan and he shook his head with a grin.

  “No, but we probably should. The boys want to spend time at the lake and with your girls.”

  Our campers felt the same way because our Sunday was spent swimming, playing in the obstacle center, and lazing around camp. The boys were with us almost every step of the way, even during the showing of Secret Life of Pets that played later that evening.

  Over the next few days, minor pranks were played back and forth between our cabins. Missing socks, fake snakes, pillow cases full of rocks, and Axe bombs appeared in the cabins. The Axe bombs, which were two cans of Axe deodorant with the nozzles taped down, were one of the proudest pranks I’d done. We’d thrown them in during the rest period and according to Drew, it had taken almost two days for the smell to go away.

  The seventh week seemed to go by even faster than the week before it had. All joking aside, we did spend some of our free time practicing different events that we would run into during the camp challenge. With the points still as close as they were, we really needed to be as on point as possible.

  The girls had their strengths and weaknesses. Hannah, September, and Lizzy were the only ones who could pull off real cartwheels. Half of the girls couldn’t handle tug-of-war without shrieking the entire time. Canoeing was something we should have spent more time on because our coordination sucked. Basketball and sprinting were two events I would definitely be participating in, but I couldn’t catch a water balloon to save my life.

  It was going to be interesting.

  Thursday after dinner, when we’d been given the okay to skip our evening activity by Howard, we were split up on the empty soccer field. I was helping some of the girls run with their legs tied together while Hannah sat with another group on a bench, oars in their hands so they could practice rowing in sync.

  “One, two, one, two,” I chanted, jogging between two sets of girls I’d tied together. “Say it out loud, girls. One, your outside leg. Two, your inside leg. Come on.”

  Hannah was barking something similar to the other girls and I almost laughed at how ridiculous we were. Cabin Wars had turned us into a couple of drill sergeants. I didn’t even care about lap dances, thongs, or who waited on who anymore. It was all about pride at that point.

  “I could have been a coxswain,” Hannah said as she came to stand next to me while the girls took a break from their running and rowing. “Giving orders seems to be my forte.”

  I chuckled and sat in the grass. “Which four are you thinking?”

  “Nicole, Robbie, Cate, and Thalia. I keep thinking one of us should be in there with them but the less weight, the better. If they can just stay in sync and work together they should be fine.”

  Counselors were allowed to participate in the events but we were limited to two each. The decision to place ourselves in had to be strategic. Even though we were teamed up with Cabin Sixteen, they would be entering their own sets of counselors into each event. The only things we’d actually participate in with them directly would be the tug-of-war, water hauling, and the water balloon toss. We had already agreed to meet up with the older girls the next evening for one final training session before Saturday.

  Jenny appeared on the field with her hands full of popsicles that she’d run and picked up from the dining hall. She passed them out and we all began devouring them greedily. Evening with the evening air being cooler, only in the mid-seventies, it was warm outside thanks to the stifling humidity that had risen.

  “Okay,” Hannah announced as she stood up once the frozen treats were eaten. “I’m calling it. Let’s go back to the cabin and shower.”

  The girls all moved to their feet and we walked back to the cabin slowly. I think the realization that the summer was
just a week away from being over was really sinking in. The girls had been more melancholy since we’d had our talk about keeping in touch beyond the summer.

  “What are you guys going to do with your boyfriends once camp is over?”

  I turned my head to look at Alexandra and shrugged my shoulders. “Drew and I haven’t really talked about it.”

  “Why not?” Thalia asked with her brow furrowed. “You’re kind of running out of time.”

  “I know, I know.” I sighed and dropped my arm across her shoulders. “What about you and Kevin?”

  Thalia’s cheeks went red. “We’ve talked about it. We’re going to stay friends once camp is over but trying to do the long distance romance thing isn’t going to work for us.”

  “That’s a mature decision, kiddo,” Hannah chimed in. “Not an easy one, either. Jordan and I are going to try to make it work with the distance but the odds are definitely against us.”

  The conversation was light for the rest of the evening and I thought about what the girls had said while I took my lap around the lake. Drew and I haven’t had that conversation and we needed to. The thought of backing off after camp was over and just remaining friends made my stomach hurt. It was something I needed to prepare for, though, especially if he didn’t share my feelings.

  My feet made soft thuds every time they hit the dirt path and the sound helped soothe my erratic thoughts.

  There was no use in dwelling on it. Instead, I resolved to share my feelings with Drew. Soon.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Dressed in our teal camp shirts, comfortable shorts, and sneakers, Hannah and I led our girls to the dining hall Saturday morning. Everyone was so serious, so focused, that it was almost comical. When one of the girls started humming “Bad Blood” by Taylor Swift, I burst out laughing.

  The dining hall was tense. People were dressed similarly and Cabins Seven and Eight had both applied black paint under their eyes. The boys stopped by our table to smirk and wish us luck but our girls ignored them in favor of their food that they were eating.

  Drew dropped a kiss to the top of my head, still amazingly good-natured about the competition. That blue, Los Angeles Dodgers cap was sitting on his head, turned backwards and making him look entirely too sexy. He straightened up and smiled out at our girls. “Good luck today, everyone.”

  “God,” Hannah muttered as he walked away. “I hate how absolutely swoony that man is.”

  I chuckled and stuck a piece of fruit in my mouth. “He is annoyingly perfect, isn’t he?”

  “Very much so.”

  We all ate hearty meals and headed towards the fields where the games would take place. Different stations were already set up and a large board with the rotation schedule was displayed near the front. It would take us more than five hours to rotate through all of the events, with lunch in between, and then the awards ceremony would be before dinner. It was all pretty exciting.

  We met up with Cabin Sixteen and all four of us counselors went over the rotation schedule and confirmed which events we’d be participating in. The winners of the event would earn three points, two points for second place, one for third, and fourth received nothing. The points for the cabin teams would be added together at the end and prizes awarded to the winners. We also had Cabin Wars points attached to points for individual cabin points. It was going to be interesting.

  “Looks like we have the three-legged race first. I think we’re going to go with Alexandra and Jenny,” I said, looking out at the girls. “You two seemed to have the best coordination.”

  They both nodded but before they could speak, May’s voice boomed through a loudspeaker. We all turned our heads to see her standing on top of the stage that had been erected in the middle of the field, a smile on her face.

  “Welcome to the to the twenty-fourth annual Holcomb Camp Challenge!” She paused while cheers rang out all around us. “The event schedule is posted on the board and we’ll do rotations every thirty minutes with a break for lunch at noon. Remember that this is supposed to be fun!”

  “Have fun,” Hannah agreed in a low voice. “But wipe the floor with them while we’re at it, okay?”

  Everyone tittered in agreement and we walked with Cabin Sixteen over to our spot on the field. Cabins Seven and Eight were already there, all of them smiling cockily, and I offered my own self-assured smile right back.

  The employees running the three-legged-race were two I recognized from the dining hall staff and they went over the rules while I tied Jenny and Alexandra together.

  “Count together, guys. One is your outside leg, two is your inside,” I murmured, making sure they were tight. “Start with one.”

  Five minutes later, four duos were running across the designated space with forty onlookers screaming at them. I was running along the side, waving my arms like a crazy person while yelling “ONE, TWO! ONE, TWO!”

  I swear, I’m not normally an overly-competitive person… And I definitely didn’t laugh maniacally when Cabin Seven’s boys tripped halfway through…

  Alexandra and Jenny crossed the finish just seconds behind Cabin Eight and shortly before Cabin Sixteen. Cabin Seven crossed the line last, grumbling under their breath.

  Our smirks didn’t last long because the boys killed us at tug-of-war next. And when I say killed, I mean that September, Maria, Robbie, and a few Cabin Sixteen girls ended up wet and muddy from being pulled into the pit in the middle.

  “It’s okay,” Hannah said as she helped September wipe the mud off of her legs. “We’ll get them in the next one.”

  And we would. The next rotation led us to the one-hundred meter dash. That event was the one I knew I’d excel in.

  I was the only counselor participating in the race. Everyone else had sent in campers, which made sense because they were lighter than the counselors. The boy from Cabin Eight was supposedly a member of his high school’s track and field team and I probably had five or ten pounds on him but I wasn’t worried.

  “I’ve seen you jog, babe, but can you sprint?”

  I turned my head and smiled at Drew while holding my calf in a stork stretch. “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”

  “I guess so.” He grinned, lifting his hat off of his head momentarily before readjusting it. “I just love watching you stretch. I think you need to do some toe touches.”

  “Shut up and go back to your boys,” I said, playfully shoving him away. Drew laughed and winked at me before heading to where Cabin Seven was.

  The nerves started to hit me when I moved to the starting line with three other teenagers. I knew I’d never live it down if I lost this silly race. I closed my eyes, inhaling a few deep breaths while shaking my shoulders out. I lowered myself to one knee and kept my eyes closed until the person running the event started calling out set signals. I lifted slightly, putting myself in ready position with one leg extended and my fingertips touching the grass in front of me.

  On ‘Go’, I pushed off on my left foot and my right hit the ground almost immediately. I tuned everything else out and pretended like I was back on the track in high school. I made sure each step counted and felt the wind rushing against my cheeks. My ponytail bounced behind my head and my arms moved in time with my strides. As if I was in a real race, I threw my shoulders back when I crossed the finish line and it took me a few more seconds to come to a complete stop.

  When several of my campers slammed into me, cheering so loudly that my ears hurt, I knew that I’d won. It was confirmed when one of the event runners told me that I’d crossed the finish line in less than thirteen seconds and that it was another three seconds before anyone else followed.

  It was like I’d won the Olympics, not a simple camp race, with how we were celebrating. We jumped up and down happily and I finally had a chance to catch my breath when they stepped away. I caught Drew’s eye and sent him a cocky grin that he returned easily.

  Our high carried us through the next even
t, the water hauling, before we eventually came in last during the canoe race. It didn’t help that the canoe carrying our four girls capsized when it almost collided with Cabin Seven’s. I might have thought the boys had done it on purpose if it hadn’t earned them third place.

  “That sucked,” Cate complained as she wrung the water out of her t-shirt. Nicole, Robbie, and Thalia all grumbled in agreement and I just handed them all towels with a smile.

  “It’s okay, guys. We’ll refuel and then get them back after lunch.”

  The twelve of us joined the masses that were heading back to the dining hall and it took about ten minutes in line before we were sitting down with our food.

  “We have the basketball shoot out, cartwheel contest, and trivia left in our solo events. Our final one will be the water balloon toss with Sixteen,” Hannah informed us as she looked at the schedule. “We’re trailing Cabin Sixteen by three points, tied with Seven, and ahead of Eight by one point.”

  I chewed my hamburger slowly while doing the math in my head. “If we can keep a male cabin in last place for each event and win at least two more, the girls will win. We’ve got this.”

  Lunch lasted for forty-five minutes and then we headed back over to the field, refreshed and ready to take on the boys.

  And take them on we did. Thalia and I shot basketballs, earning us second place and Hannah and September took first in the cartwheel race. When we got to Trivia, we enlisted Cate, Lizzy, and Emma to represent out team.

  They did really well, better than I would have. The three of them seemed to have all five categories locked down pretty tight when the only one I would have been comfortable with was geography. I couldn’t answer even half of the music and movie category.

  Our cabin had pulled ahead but with the way Sixteen and the guys had placed, the girls and boys were dead even going into the water balloon toss. This event was different in that everyone participated. One member of each cabin had to partner with another member of cabin they were teamed up with. Starting at three feet apart, we’d toss the balloons back and forth once each and then step back. This continued until the balloon was dropped and then you were out. The gender with the last couple standing won.