Natalie's Secret #1

by Melissa J Morgan

  “Do you have enough bug repellant? I have two bottles,” Chelsea offered. “And also sunscreen.”

  “It’s okay, Chelsea,” Natalie insisted, trying her hardest not to sound testy. “I’m all set.” She knew Chelsea was just trying to be nice—well, she assumed so, anyway—but the girl was starting to drive her crazy. Most of Natalie’s friends had been remote and aloof since yesterday. And for her part, Natalie didn’t know how to behave around them, either. But not Chelsea. Chelsea had been all buddy-buddy on the way back from evening activity the night before, and now she was practically trying to pack Natalie’s bag for her. Meanwhile, everyone else in the bunk was tiptoeing around her, and all the other campers were acting like she was some kind of rock goddess. Natalie felt like she was losing her mind. She couldn’t believe it, but she was almost looking forward to the camping trip! At least it would help her get away from everything and clear her mind. When she was back home and feeling stressed-out, she always went for long walks in Central Park. This camping trip was the closest she was going to get to that for at least six more weeks.

  “All right,” she said to no one in particular. “I’ve got to go. I’m in charge of picking up the lunches for the group and bringing them to the rec hall. That’s where the van is meeting us.” She shouldered her backpack. “Chelsea, Valerie, I’ll meet you there. Good-bye, everyone! Wish me luck avoiding snakebites!”

  Her bunkmates laughed and offered vague reassurances. None of it was especially comforting.

  Natalie started out toward the mess hall for the lunches. She hadn’t gotten farther than the front porch, though, when she heard the door creak open and bang shut again behind her. “Nat, wait,” she heard. She stopped walking.

  It was Alyssa. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you,” she said, biting her lip. “I feel terrible.” Alyssa hadn’t exactly been rude to Natalie, but she definitely hadn’t been overly friendly the evening before. Natalie had tried to convince herself that it was because of Alyssa’s deep-seated aversion to capture the flag, but inside she knew better. Which was probably why she herself had been reluctant to approach her friend. She just wasn’t sure what to say.

  “You feel terrible?” Natalie cried in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? I’m the one who lied to you guys! I feel awful! I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to speak to me again!”

  “Of course I want to speak to you again,” Alyssa said. “Listen, you have the right to want to keep certain things secret. God knows, I haven’t told you everything about my crazy family. Just wait until we’re back home in the fall, and you meet my older sister. What a freak she is!”

  Natalie giggled. “I guess everyone’s family is a little bit nuts.”

  “Excuse me, but have you seen Jenna when she and Adam bicker? It’s like they’re possessed or something. Anyway, I don’t blame you. Especially now that half the people in camp are your biggest fans. I can totally get why you wanted to keep this quiet. It must be so annoying to feel like no one knows the real you.”

  “Exactly!” Natalie said, relieved that her friend understood.

  “But I never knew anyone who was famous before, and when I saw who your father was, I guess I flipped,” Alyssa continued softly. “I mean, you’re so pretty and funny and sophisticated—you’re from New York, after all. So I knew you were definitely a character.”

  “Why does everyone keep telling me how much character I have?” Natalie asked wryly. “It could really give a girl a complex.”

  “Will you shut up and let me finish?” Alyssa asked. “Character, I like. But when it started to seem like maybe you had this whole alternate-Hollywood lifestyle or something, I got nervous. Like maybe I wasn’t cool enough for you anymore.” She looked down at the ground as though maybe she thought she’d said too much.

  Natalie’s eyes flew open. “Okay, first of all, I am so not more sophisticated than you! You’ve read, like, every book ever, and you have the coolest taste in music! And you draw so well, and you’re the best writer on the paper! And second of all, most of my friends in New York are really, really normal. Maybe some of them have money, but they don’t go riding around in limos everywhere. That’s just my father. And if you want the truth, well . . . I don’t see him that often. I mean, he means well. I know he loves me. But he’s pretty involved in his own thing. So if you think my life is one big Hollywood party after another, well . . . you have no idea. Honestly? I spend most of the time watching TV at home with my friends.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and regarded her friend. “Okay?”

  Alyssa nodded, clearly glad to have everything out in the open. “Okay. Can we stop being idiots now? Because yesterday when we weren’t talking was really bad.”

  Natalie smiled. “You’re telling me? Chelsea is, like, my new best friend!”

  “Ha ha,” Alyssa said. “Have fun on the camping trip!”

  “Very funny,” Natalie said, making a face. She glanced at her watch. “Now I really have to go,” she said. “Can’t keep the poison ivy waiting.”

  “What are in these lunches, anyway?” Pete asked, pretending to struggle under the weight of the garbage bag he was carrying. He and Marissa had been in the mess hall when Natalie came by, and they had packed up the lunches for her, offering to help her carry them to the rec hall.

  “So, Nat,” Marissa said, “how was everyone last night?”

  “Pretty much what I expected,” Natalie said. “Half the girls in our bunk have no idea how to act around me. Like Alex and Brynn and Sarah. They’re behaving like robots. Very polite, stiff robots.”

  “What about the other half?” Marissa asked.

  “Oh, they’re really into me now that they know who my father is. All fake-nice and stuff.”

  As if on cue, Chelsea stepped out in front of them. “Hey, guys!” she said. “Need help?”

  Pete stifled a chuckle. “I think we’re good, Chelsea. Are you all ready for the camping trip?”

  “Totally!” she said. She looked the part, too. She had done her hair up into two cute braids down either side of her head, and she was wearing a crisp white tank top and lightweight cargo capris. Her trail shoes looked appropriately broken-in, and a disposable camera peeked out from one pocket.

  “Chelsea, why don’t you show Pete where to bring the food,” Marissa suggested.

  “Totally!” Chelsea repeated. Her enthusiasm was slightly scary.

  Marissa poked Natalie in the ribs as they watched the two make their way into the mess hall. “Okay, I can see what you mean,” she said.

  “Right?” Natalie asked. “I get that all the time. I just didn’t want to have to deal with it here. This place was supposed to be a whole new experience.”

  “Well, I think it’s safe to say it was a whole new experience, right?” Marissa said. “I mean, look at you. When you first got here, you wouldn’t shower without wearing your bathing suit.”

  “Let’s not exaggerate,” Natalie protested.

  “Almost,” Marissa insisted. “And now you’re going on a camping trip! In the actual wilderness! Nat, you should really be proud of yourself.”

  “I guess I sort of am,” Natalie admitted. She never liked to say those kinds of things out loud for fear of people thinking she was stuck-up, but in this case, it was definitely true.

  “And I think you should know,” Marissa continued, “that your true friends are going to stick by you no matter what. Whatever you did or didn’t tell them, or whoever your father is, they’ll still be on your side. That’s how you know they’re your friends.”

  “You’re right,” Natalie said, thinking of Alyssa. Then she remembered the look on Simon’s face just before he ran off after the flag. At least, I hope you are.”

  “Okay, I want you all to line up, boy-girl-boy-girl,” Roseanne shouted. She seemed to have forgotten how to speak at a normal decibel today. Of course, Natalie had to give her credit for dragging a group of fifteen immature eleven-year-olds into the woods overnight with only LJ
from the kitchen as support. The line snapped into place and Natalie found herself at the end of it, behind Chelsea, due to an uneven number of boys and girls. “Now I want you to break off into pairs,” Roseanne continued. “The person you pair off with is your buddy. No matter where we are or what you’re doing, you are always responsible for your buddy. Do you understand? That means always knowing where your buddy is and what he or she is doing. The woods aren’t dangerous, but we all have to be alert at all times. Devon, Eric, you’re buddies,” she said, pointing to the first boy-girl combo at the front of the line. Dutifully, the rest of the campers began to partner up.

  Natalie glanced down the line. Paige and Eric, she ticked off mentally, Shari and Ross, Michael and Valerie, Topher and Melanie, Brian and Lizzie, Seth and Adrianne . . . with a sinking feeling, she realized who the threesome would be. After all, there were only three of them left.

  Simon and Chelsea . . . and me.

  Natalie didn’t know which was worse, the chafe of her backpack against her shoulders, or the deafening silence between Simon and herself. Both were extremely irritating and slightly painful. And both showed little signs of letting up anytime soon.

  Fortunately, Chelsea was doing enough chattering for the both of them. She had, thankfully, taken it upon herself to play the role of group leader. Each pair (or, in their case, trio) was responsible for identifying and gathering several types of flora and fauna along the way. The idea was that they would all share their findings around the campfire that night. Natalie was more open-minded about this trip than she would ever have dreamed, true, but try though she might, she just couldn’t get jazzed over rocks, leaves, and twigs for show-and-tell. So it was a good thing that Chelsea was eager to pick up the slack. “Pine needles are so totally obvious,” she was saying, waving her map in front of her buddies. She was either completely oblivious to the awkward tension coursing through the air, or deliberately ignoring it. “We totally lucked out.”

  Natalie frowned at the path beneath her feet, and kicked at a rock. “Totally,” she echoed.

  “Have you seen any?” Chelsea asked. “’Cause I just haven’t yet. But I know we will.” She stopped short, tossing her head so her braids flew back over her shoulders dramatically. “Let’s take a picture.”

  “Oh, uh, now?” Natalie asked with alarm. They’d been hiking along at the tail end of the group for about an hour now, Natalie imagining entire conversations with Simon in her head. It didn’t seem quite the right time for a Kodak moment. “Why don’t you wait until we hit the campsite? Roseanne says there are amazing views.”

  “Well, duh, I’ll take pictures then, too!” Chelsea said, speaking as though Natalie were five years old. “Oh, look—” she squealed. “A rabbit!”

  Sure enough, a tiny spotted rabbit leaped out from the trees and landed just before Chelsea’s feet. It froze, blinking furiously. Then it hopped away.

  “Oh, I so need a picture of that!” Chelsea exclaimed, darting off after it. The rabbit bounced off to the left of the path and down a sloping hill.

  Natalie glanced up ahead to where Roseanne and the group were continuing along. Everyone in the group was busy collecting samples from the trail and didn’t seem to have noticed that Natalie, Simon, and Chelsea were lagging behind. Suddenly, Natalie felt nervous. They really weren’t supposed to go off on their own. But then again, she and Simon were Chelsea’s buddies. They couldn’t let her out of their sight. That was the rules.

  “Shoot,” she muttered. “What should we do?”

  Simon looked equally panicked, in his own low-key way. “I guess we have to go after her, pull her back,” he said.

  They took one last, fleeting glance at the group and started down the slope after Chelsea. “Chelsea, come on!” Natalie shouted. “We’re not supposed to go off the path!”

  “Don’t be such a freak, Nat!” Chelsea called back over her shoulder. “We’ve barely been gone five minutes! Come on! The rabbit’s trying to hide! It would make a really cute picture.”

  “If the rabbit is hiding, Chelsea, it’s probably scared of you,” Simon pointed out. He slid a few paces and skidded to a stop in front of her.

  “Uf,” Natalie grunted, tripping over her feet and landing inches behind Simon. She grabbed at him for traction then pulled back as if she’d been electrocuted. “Sorry.”

  She blew a thick clump of hair off her face gracelessly. “Where’s Thumper?”

  “You scared him off,” Chelsea snapped, suddenly cranky. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Um, sorry?” Natalie said. “I practically skidded down the hill on my butt. It was hardly on purpose.” She was hot and tired and not in the mood for attitude. “Anyway, you know we’re not supposed to run off.” She rubbed at her shoulders and thought absently that it was probably time to reapply the sunscreen.

  “Guys,” Simon said, breaking into the heated moment. “Forget the rabbit. I think we have other problems.”

  Natalie put her hands on her hips. “What?” she asked. It was humid, buggy, and they still had at least another hour to go before they reached the campsite. What other problems could there possibly be?

  He jerked his head back in the direction of the group. “Well, for starters, I don’t see them anymore,” he said.

  Natalie glanced over to where he was pointing. He was right. She couldn’t make out even the faintest forms on the path. She had no idea where the rest of the group had gone.

  They were on their own.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have paired up with Miss New York,” Chelsea grumbled, trudging along. Since they had gotten separated from the group, she had completely reverted back to her old self. She was sour and angry, taking constant jabs at Natalie. It was as though her whole about-face thing had never happened at all.

  For her part, Natalie was mostly exhausted and exasperated, and more than ready to meet up with the group again to set up camp. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Natalie muttered. “You’re my best friend, too, Chelsea. Look, for now, let’s just concentrate on finding Roseanne. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m dying to set up the cooker and roll out our sleeping bags. I’d even be willing to bathe in the river.” She stopped for a moment, having a thought. “The river!” she said excitedly.

  Chelsea glared at her. “Yeah? What about it?”

  “Roseanne said we were camping a quarter mile upstream from where the river forked.” Flustered, she pulled the map out of her back pocket. It was damp and sticky, like everything else, but she ignored that and unfolded it. “Here’s where we last saw the group,” she said, pointing to a spot on the dirt path. “That’s where we went when we saw the rabbit—I think.” She slid her finger down and off to one side. “But I think we thought we were going parallel, but really, we veered off west. And the river is north.”

  Simon peered at the map over her shoulder. “I think you’re right.”

  “So what does that mean?” Chelsea demanded.

  “It means if we head north again, we’ll find the river,” Simon explained.

  “—and if we find the river, we’ll find the group,” Natalie finished.

  “Why should I listen to you two, anyway?” Chelsea whined. “Natalie, you’re just a stuck-up city girl, anyway. Not exactly the ideal trail guide!” She smirked to herself at her own nasty joke.

  “Why should you listen to me?” Natalie asked. “Because if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this mess, anyway! Now come on—we don’t have time for this. What other choice do we have?”

  “Ugh, fine,” Chelsea agreed. “But I don’t trust you at all.”

  “I can live with that,” Natalie said. She fished a compass out of her backpack. “Simon, can you read this thing?”