Crossing Over

by Stacy Davidowitz

  “This way. It’s a shortcut,” she whispered now, leading them into the abandoned Social Hall. Melman shone her flashlight on the large wooden building that looked just like their own Social Hall, only the wood was gnawed and the entrance was a frame without a double door. She stepped inside and immediately got totally creeped out. Old Color War banners flanked the ceiling, just like in their hall, but this hall also had rats and spiderwebs and bird’s nests. One part of the wall was caved in from a fallen oak tree, and Melman gave it till the summer’s end before the whole building collapsed. The windows were pane-free, and a spooky draft whistled through, making the hairs on her arms stand on end.

  Missi stumbled on a loose floorboard, and Jenny came across a scurrying mouse, but they both followed protocol and gasped instead of making bloodcurdling screams. Getting caught out of their tents in the middle of the night meant a phone call home and a strike. Everyone knew three strikes meant you were kicked out of Rolling Hills till the following summer. It had happened before. Last summer, it was the Goldstein twins, out of their Notting Hill Cabin at four a.m. to “hang” with the Katzinstein twins in Wawel. The risk scared Slimey a little bit and Missi a lot a bit, but Melman and Jenny had convinced them it would be scarier to stay alone in their tents. Plus, the Faith Hillers unanimously agreed that contacting the ghosts of polio victims was worth all the strikes in the world. They would never have this opportunity again.

  The girls followed Melman through the back of the Social Hall and outside. They held hands as they crossed through waist-high weeds growing through the pavement of what was once a basketball court. They scrambled past a large eerie building with a chimney. The kitchen? Melman wondered. Or the main office? They pushed past branches, thin and scratchy like witches’ fingers, and hopped over roots of trees growing outward like tentacles. Even Melman felt herself swallowing away the temptation to scream her head off. It was no-joke-scary up in here.

  At last, they heard it: the splashing and mumbling and laughing of the Hamburger Hillers. They were gathered around the lakeshore where they’d docked their canoes.

  “You made it!” Play Dough said, opening his arms to whichever girl would hug him, even though everyone knew he hoped that girl would be Jenny. Jenny knew it, too, and even though she was in L-O-V-E with Christopher, it was obvious she L-O-V-E-D the attention, and she went in for the hug.

  “Omigod, it was so scary, Play Dough,” she said, nestling into his belly. “We saw a million rats and, like, I dunno, probably some ghosts of dead Polio kids.”

  “Definitely Polio kids,” Jamie said, standing awkwardly by Jenny, outside the hug.

  Totle rose from the sand and gave Melman a bright smile. Melman’s heart started racing. Knowing what she knew now, about Totle like-liking her, just smiling back at him made her nervous. The last time they’d seen each other, they’d had that awkward but sweet handhold as he pulled her out of the lake.

  Suddenly, she felt über-self-conscious of her princess getup. She tucked some of the pink frills from her dress into her sweatpants. It hid it, sort of, but made a lump in her belly like she was pregnant. She untucked, figuring Totle knew what was up—he’d been at Ghost Court—and, hey, maybe he, like everyone else, thought she was prettier with the dress on. Well, not with the sweatpants underneath. But those weren’t coming off. It was too cold. And it would have been weird if she just dropped her pants. Not like I care what Totle thinks, Melman thought, overthinking it.

  “Where’s Steinberg?” Sophie asked, skipping laps around the boys and searching behind trees and rocks. “Stein-berg! Where are you?” she sang softly, like she was luring a victim into a deadly trap.

  “Steinberg’s on lookout,” Dover said, fighting a yawn.

  Sophie snapped her head to face him. “Why?”

  “I dunno. ’Cause he said he wanted to be.”

  Sophie sniffed the air for a clue. “He’s lying. No one wants to be lookout.”

  Dover shrugged her off and moseyed over to Play Dough and Jenny, then stood with his hands in his pits.

  Melman wasn’t sure why, but she found herself looking everywhere but at Totle. Smiley and Smelly were holding hands by the canoes. Missi was sucking on the ends of her hair behind Jamie. Wiener was . . . Oh, great, watching Totle watch her. She averted her eyes as he swaggered in her direction.

  Melman cut over to Totle and never looked back. “Hey,” she said with urgency, then dropped her eyes in search of a pebble to dribble. There was just sand at her feet.

  “What’s up?” Totle said. He said it really enthusiastically, then took the energy down a notch with a tired head scratch. She wondered if he was excited to see her, or nervous like she was.

  She thought about saying, “Nothing much,” or “The sky,” or just being real, but she wasn’t sure how real she should get when all he’d asked was “What’s up?” She noticed he was looking at the dress, but because he hadn’t said anything, she wondered if he thought she looked ugly. And then she wondered if she wanted him to think she looked ugly in the dress because that wasn’t the real her. Or did she want him to think she looked nice both ways? She looked out at the lake and shook her head side to side like she was weighing something over. All this crush talk was making her crazy. This was just Totle—the guy she’d been friends with for five summers! Why couldn’t she just act normal? She didn’t even know if she like-liked him!

  “You wore the dress,” Totle said.

  Melman’s heart beat in triple time. She waited for him to say something more, something positive or negative about it, but he just stood there. What does that mean? Does he like it? Think it’s ugly? Think it’s pretty? How was she supposed to respond to that? It was just an observation!

  Melman still hadn’t settled on an answer when Jenny cut in. “Spin the bottle!” she exclaimed, breaking free from Play Dough. “Who has a bottle?” She was met with a collective “Shhhhh” and ten blank stares. Melman felt her heart drop. This was not part of the plan at all.

  Play Dough stepped in. “I have a flashlight,” he offered. “We could use a flashlight, right?” Melman could tell he was desperate to play, as long as Jenny was playing, too.

  Jenny grabbed it. “Everyone has to play.”

  Says who? Melman hoped the group would ignore Jenny’s bossy antics and get started with what they’d come here to do: get in canoes, hold their breath for eleven seconds, whisper “Polio, polio, polio” into the lake, look for a ghost’s reflection, and then ask questions. Jenny waved everyone over, flapping her hand like it was a hyperventilating bird.

  Jamie, Missi, Play Dough, and Wiener flocked to her first. Sophie skipped one more lap in search of Steinberg, then skidded to a halt right at Jenny’s heels. Melman tried to make Let’s not do this eyes at Slimey, but she and Smelly were already strolling over, their pinkies intertwined. Dover tossed a fistful of dirt toward the woods, then joined the circle, too. Oh no, Melman groaned to herself, the great migration’s begun. She and Totle were the only ones left.

  Melman noticed his sneakers were pointing toward the group, like he wanted to head over, too, but was waiting for Melman to make the first move. Melman didn’t want it to look like she cared one way or the other, so she led the way, while Totle picked up the pace alongside her. She wondered if that meant he was excited to play or excited to get out of their awkward conversation. Even if he had a crush on her, that crush could’ve been crushed by the Princess Bethany getup. Who knew?

  Jenny held out her hand to Play Dough, and Play Dough, being clueless and way too hopeful, slid his hand into hers. “Ew!” she cried. “No. I need your sweatshirt.” Play Dough bashfully pulled it over his head and handed it to her, pulling the T-shirt he was wearing underneath down over his belly. He looked confused, since Jenny was already wearing a sweatshirt. “OK, so I’m playing,” Jenny announced way too dramatically. Play Dough brightened. “But I’m in a serious relationship, so if you land on me you have to French Jamie instead.” Play Dough shrunk with a sigh.
/>   “What? No!” Jamie whined, sending Jenny terrified puppy eyes.

  “Fine. Missi.” Missi’s eyes bulged so far out of her face, Melman worried they’d pop out. Missi ran her palm over her lips and nose, like she was rubbing her face awake, but Melman could tell she was testing her breath. Slimey raised her hand.

  “Slimey,” Jenny called, like she was their teacher, but then, anticipating her question, cut her off. “Oh, and Slimey and Smelly can only mush each other.”

  Melman had first heard Jenny refer to kissing as “mushing” last summer, when she was teaching Jamie how to do it. Jenny thought mushing made it sound cuter, but Melman pictured two lips morphing into one, and it grossed her out.

  As Jenny laid Play Dough’s sweatshirt on the dirt and took the flashlight for a test spin on top of it, Melman felt her heart beat like an ominous drum. Who put Jenny in charge anyway? Was this her plan all along? If Melman had known this adventure would devolve into a make-out game, she would’ve slept through the night. Even if there were spiders biting her nose. And, hello?! What happened to contacting the dead?!

  “Hey, guys,” Melman said, tucking her hair behind her ears and trying not to appear so self-conscious, “I think we should do what we came here to do. And then if there’s time—”

  “We’re doing this first,” Jenny said, dismissing her with a wave.

  “Yeah, but what if—”

  “If you don’t want to play, Melman, don’t play.”

  She looked around the circle, but everyone seemed to be averting their eyes. Even Slimey.

  She sighed away her growing rage and tried to think productively. I can walk away, she told herself. If I don’t want to play, I don’t have to play.

  Even so, her feet stayed planted. She didn’t want to be “that girl.” And where would she even go? Venturing back alone was out of the question, so . . . what? She’d sit by herself, outside the circle, like an oversize princess party pooper? As if this dress isn’t enough of an attention grabber. Melman resolved to stay quiet.

  As Jenny reviewed the rules, Melman brought her pink polished nails to her mouth and chewed. They tasted nasty, so she stopped. She tried to psych herself up instead. I can play this stupid game. The spin probably won’t even land on me, and if it does, it’s just my mouth touching another mouth for a second.

  “Last rule,” Jenny chimed. “One whole minute of make-out.”

  Or one whole minute, Melman thought, overcome with dread. Whatever. She tried to be optimistic. Maybe I’ll like it. It seems disgusting and pointless, but, hey, if everyone else is into it, maybe there’s some magic I’m missing. She figured if she could be Princess Bethany for three whole days, she could do anything for sixty seconds. She crossed her arms against the pink satin and tried to recall everything she knew about kissing.

  Unfortunately, everything she knew was from Jenny’s tutorial to Jamie last summer. Jenny had Jamie practice on her stuffed frog until Jamie got too many fuzzies on her tongue. Then Jamie practiced on her arm, until she cut herself with a broken braces wire. And then, finally, she practiced on a watermelon slice. By the end of the lesson, Jamie had eaten the whole thing and was mouth-attacking the grind. She’d panicked, screaming, “I ate his face! I ate his whole face!”

  Reliving that tutorial was far from helpful. She tried going over Jenny’s Four Rules of Kissing instead:

  1. Don’t bang teeth. You can’t come back from that.

  2. Some guys dart their tongues like lizards. Make sure his tongue doesn’t trigger your gag reflex. You’ll throw up in his mouth.

  3. You know it’s sloppy if you have to wipe your face like after you’ve eaten a sloppy joe.

  4. Write your initials in his mouth with your tongue, breathe, then repeat.

  Melman figured she had pretty good body control and could keep her teeth from knocking against someone else’s. But if a guy shoved his tongue so deep in her mouth that it made her vomit, wasn’t that his problem? Her tummy rumbled just thinking about sloppy joes, but she was pretty sure she was missing the point on that one. As for her initials, they spelled BAM (Bethany Ann Melman). She smirked at the idea of tonguing BAM over and over into a guy’s mouth. BAM! I kissed you. BAM! Kissed you again.

  Melman caught Wiener gesturing to her across the circle, and she killed her smirk. He was drawing a triangle in the air between himself, Melman, and the bottle. She rolled her eyes. If she kissed Wiener, she’d hear him bragging about it for years.

  “Who wants to go first?” Jenny asked. All eleven of them were now sitting in a circle with the flashlight in position, ready to spin.

  Wiener’s hand went flying up. “Me!” He leaned in before Jenny could approve. The flashlight beamed around the circle, spotlighting the soles of boots and sneakers and flats. It started to slow down around Smelly, then teetered on Melman, and landed on Jenny. Phew, Melman thought. Missi looked to Jenny fearfully.

  “Wiener-miss! Yay!” Jenny clapped, and then, when no one moved, said, “What are you waiting for?” Missi and Wiener hesitantly crawled across the sand and kneeled on Play Dough’s sweatshirt. They both sort of stared at each other, while everyone else stared at them, too, muffling their giggles in their sleeves. “Your make-out starts . . .” Wiener gulped. Missi sucked in air. “Now!” Wiener attacked Missi’s face, his lips over her lips, his eyes wide open. “Thirty seconds!” Missi scrunched her nose, her fingers flexed and curling like she couldn’t breathe. “Time!”

  Melman decided that watching them kiss was more disturbing than watching an alien-invasion horror film. She couldn’t have been more relieved that the flashlight hadn’t landed on her.

  Missi crawled back to her spot, smiling sheepishly. She nuzzled Jamie, who couldn’t look anywhere but at Missi’s re-bruised mouth. It was less black-and-blue than it was from the Snapple bottle mishap, but not by much. Wiener strolled back to the guys, fist-pumping. He high-fived whoever would give him some skin, which was just Play Dough and Dover.

  Jenny kept the game moving. “Wiener, who’s next?” Oh no.

  “Melman.” Of course.

  She felt her throat close in as she walked on her knees to the middle. She took a deep, sorrowful breath, and spun. It was a lose-lose situation, and whatever happened, she’d hold her breath, sit still, count the seconds, and hope no one swallowed her mouth whole like Wiener had just done to Missi. Oh, jeez, not Wiener, she prayed. It slowed and teetered and landed on . . . Totle.

  “Tot-man! Mel-tot! Yay!” Jenny cried.

  It was all happening now, in this moment, and Melman’s heart was beating off the chain. If she was going to kiss someone, she figured it made sense that it would be Totle, unless she did like Totle and this was moving too fast, or unless she didn’t like Totle and this was leading him on. She was so confused. Her fearful thoughts were racing and the stares were staring and she knew she needed to do something STAT. “I’m getting in a canoe,” she announced. After all, that was the plan, right? To contact the spirits. She swallowed hard to no relief.

  Jenny was squinting in thought. “Totle, do you want to canoe?”

  “Sure, I—”

  Jenny held her hand out like a stop sign. “Seven minutes in . . . wait for it . . . a canoe!” she squealed.

  Melman exhaled, enormously relieved. Seven minutes? I’ll do ten! I’ll do twenty! I’ll canoe till sunrise! She couldn’t believe Jenny had let her off scot-free, mush-free, embarrassment-free. “Uh, sure. We can canoe for seven minutes.”

  Jenny clapped her fingers together in rapid succession. “This is the best night of my life!”

  Melman nodded. Compared to the turn it had been about to take, this was quickly becoming the best night of her life, too. “I’ll let you know what the ghosts say.”

  “No ghosts. We’re all watching you,” she warned.

  Watching me? Melman started to suspect she’d missed something.

  “You can come up for breaths and stuff, but this is a riff on seven minutes in heaven and the heaven part mean
s making out.”

  Oh no. Enough was enough. “That’s not happening.”

  “Booo! Do it!” Jenny cheered. “Do it!!!”

  Melman glanced at Slimey. Her eyes were bugging out and she was mouthing, You like him over and over.

  Melman had overanalyzed and second-guessed herself so many times, but she was even more lost now. Maybe Slimey was right that she liked Totle back. Maybe she was just scared to admit it. Maybe she would never know until she kissed him, like Slimey had said. At this point, she didn’t want to make Totle feel even more awkward, or let the group down, or seem like a baby. And what was the worst that could happen? “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  The guys and girls cheered.

  Before she knew it, she was out on the lake, in a canoe, facing Totle, and gearing up for her first-ever kiss. The night was so silent and still, Jenny’s voice cut through the air like a knife. “Do it! I’m not starting the clock until you lock lips!”

  Melman rolled her neck and noticed the moon was nearly full and the stars were bright and it was beautiful. Unfortunately, all of the nine other campers were lined up on the shore, and with the glowing sky, they could see everything.

  “Hmm,” Totle said, bringing his paddle in. Melman glanced at him nibbling on his lower lip, his eyes skimming across the now rippled lake. She realized this was the first time she’d looked his way since the flashlight chose him, and she felt a little bad about that. She wondered what in the world was going on in his head, and then wondered if he was wondering the same about her. Her brain was flip-flopping between nausea and regret and hope and thrill and nervousness and some other emotions she’d never felt.

  “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he said softly, lowering his eyes to the life vests at his feet.

  Melman was surprised to feel a jab at her heart. He doesn’t want to kiss me? Is it because I’m dressed so stupidly? Was Slimey wrong? Did Totle never like me? “Yeah, I mean if you don’t want to—”

  “I want to.”

  She felt her chest warm up. “Oh.”