Camp Confidential 16: Golden Girls

by Melissa J Morgan

  Camp Confidential 16: Golden Girls

  Morgan, Melissa J.

  PENGUIN group (2010)

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  * * *

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Title Page

  chapter ONE

  chapter TWO

  chapter THREE

  chapter FOUR

  chapter FIVE

  chapter SIX

  chapter SEVEN

  chapter EIGHT

  chapter NINE

  chapter TEN

  chapter ELEVEN

  chapter TWELVE

  chapter THIRTEEN

  Teaser chapter

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

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  Text copyright © 2007 by Grosset & Dunlap. All rights reserved.

  Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2006103285

  eISBN : 978-1-101-04310-3

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  PROLOGUE

  Dear Michael,

  I thought I’d go old-school and write you an actual letter instead of an e-mail this time. Natalie had some of this sweet pink parchment from Kate’s Paperie—this cool stationery store in NYC—and I just had to borrow some. I wish I could see the look of surprise on your face when you get a pink letter by snail mail. If any of your friends are around when it arrives, I apologize in advance.

  Camp has been so much better lately. It seems like everyone has just decided to chill after our first couple weeks of, well, total insanity. There haven’t been any fights or drama or anything. I know. Sounds impossible, right? But it’s true! I’m finally feeling comfortable and having some fun. I never thought I’d say this, but I really feel like I belong here now. Last year I had no idea what I was doing. I may have acted like I was supercool with everything, but really I was like this lost little clueless girl stuck in the middle of the woods. But now, I don’t know, I feel like I’m really starting to get camp. The food, the people, the activities. I know who everyone is now, and where everything is. And I love my friends. Camp Lakeview feels sort of like a second home.

  Who knows? Maybe I am a camp girl after all! But don’t worry, I’ll still come back to L.A. at the end of the summer the same girl that left. I haven’t lost my mind completely. I could really go for a mango-orange smoothie, a salmon roll, and a deep scalp massage. And a hug from you, of course!

  Miss you!

  Tori

  chapter ONE

  “Yes!”

  Tori awoke with a start and tried to pry her eyes open. It couldn’t be morning already, could it? Her eyelids were so heavy they felt like rocks, but she managed to blink a few times and look around. A soft, gray light trickled through the cabin windows—definitely not bright enough for morning reveille. But then what had woken her up?

  There was a giggle and someone dropped something on the floor across the bunk. Oh, great. Was someone pulling a prank in the middle of the night? Tori so didn’t want to get involved. Pranks were so childish and pointless. Not to mention potentially damaging to personal property. She rolled over onto her side and lifted her pillow over her head to block out the noise. All she could do was hope it wasn’t a silly string or TP attack—something that would get the whole cabin up and screaming. Maybe if she ignored the pranksters, they would just leave her out of it.

  “Red team rules!”

  Suddenly someone jumped on Tori’s bed and flipped her right back onto her back. Tori whipped her pillow away to find Jenna Bloom hovering over her with a wild look in her eyes. Her curly brown hair stuck out in all directions, and she wore a brand-new red T-shirt over her pajama bottoms. Behind her, the rest of the bunk started to rouse and yawn and look around to see what the commotion was. Even though it was pretty dark in the bunk, Tori could see that everyone else was just as confused as she was.

  “Are you possessed?” Tori asked.

  “Red team is going to kick Blue butt!” Jenna cheered. “And this year I’m not getting injured, so there’s gonna be no stopping me! Woo-hoo!”

  Oh, God. Color War! Tori thought, her brain finally waking up enough to figure out what was going on. Jenna shook Tori a few times, chanting, “Red! Red! Red!” Then she climbed the bunk ladder to taunt Alex Kim.

  “How do you know you’re on Red?” Alex asked, fully alert as she climbed out of bed.

  “T-shirts in our cubbyholes, baby! Color War’s early this year! Red all the way! Woo-hoo!”

  Jenna was now in the center of the cabin doing a sort of jerky, bizarro dance, like she was trying to bring on the rain or something. Tori rolled her eyes at Natalie Goode, who was just stretching her arms over her head in her own bed. Natalie shook her head in reply, clearly amused. Everyone knew Jenna lived for Color War. The previous summer she had been all but shut out of participating because she had hurt her ankle right before the yearly ritual began. Tori remembered feeling badly for Jenna, but also a little bit jealous of her. Tori would love to be excused from Color War. The competition wasn’t exactly Tori’s cup of decaf chai tea. She had never been much of an athlete. Not like some of the other girls in her bunk. Tori was more into fashion and makeup and celebrity gossip than sports.

  “I’m on Blue!” Alex announced, finding a new T-shirt in her cubby and yanking it on. Her dark hair staticked out and she smoothed it with one hand.

  “I’m on Red!” Valerie exclaimed, high-fiving with Jenna. The beads at the ends of her multiple braids clicked as she lifted her hair out from the neck of her tee.

  As the rest of the girls yanked out their T-shirts, Tori reluctantly crawled out of bed. She was aching to go back to sleep, but she didn’t want to be labeled as a party pooper. Halfway across the room, Natalie tossed Tori a blue T-shirt. It had that crisp, brand-new cotton smell. It said CAMP LAKEVIEW in small letters above the pocket, and COLOR WAR in huge letters on the back.

  “We’re both on Blue!” Natalie announced, pulling her own shirt on over her head
.

  “Sweet,” Tori replied. At least with Nat on her team she’d have someone like herself to bond with. And maybe laugh with over the silliness of the whole thing.

  “Yeah, Blue team!” Grace called out, her red hair tucked into the collar of her new shirt. She slapped Tori’s hand so hard it stung. “Blue team rules! Blue team rules! Blue team rules!”

  Gaby, who was also wearing blue, joined Grace’s chant. Candace stuck her arms through the holes of her own blue T-shirt and came over to stand quietly near Natalie and Tori. Candace was normally shy and usually either stayed quiet or repeated everything the other girls said. She had never been the chanting type.

  “Red team rules! Red team rules! Red team rules!” Jenna shouted over Grace and Gaby. Priya, Valerie, Brynn, and Chelsea all joined in with her. Soon Alex came in on the Blue side, and finally Natalie joined in as well, clearly not wanting to be outshined by Red. Tori simply smiled and leaned back against Grace’s bunk bed behind her. She just did not have that competitive streak. Apparently Alyssa, who was on the Red team, didn’t have one, either. She had put on her red shirt and crawled right back into bed.

  “Red team rules!”

  “Blue team rules!”

  “Red team!”

  “Blue team!”

  “Red!”

  “Blue!”

  “Girls!”

  All the lights in the cabin flicked on and everyone instantly fell silent. Tori turned around to find Belle, the counselor for bunk 5A, standing in the doorway between her room and the main room, her short dark hair sticking straight up in the back. She wore her usual black tank top and gray boxer shorts, and had a bit of black mascara smudged under her eyes. Not a good look for her.

  “Okay, it is way too early for this. Would you kindly quiet down and go back to bed?” Belle said through her teeth. “I stayed up late waiting for you all to fall asleep so I could put your T-shirts in your cubbies, and I’m tired. And tiredness makes me really grumpy!”

  “We noticed,” Chelsea said under her breath, earning a round of laughter from the other girls.

  “Now I want perfect silence until reveille, which isn’t for another . . . hour and a half,” Belle said, checking her digital watch. “Is that understood?”

  Belle was definitely a no-nonsense type of counselor.

  “Yes,” everyone grumbled.

  “Good.”

  Belle turned around and seconds later her cot squeaked under her weight. Everyone, including Tori, giggled through the tension as they returned to their beds. Tori climbed under the covers, but after a few minutes, whoops and hollers could be heard from other bunks all over the camp. Everyone was waking up early and finding their T-shirts. Even in her anti-Color-War state of mind, a shiver of anticipation shot through Tori.

  “I love Color War so much,” Jenna said dreamily.

  Everyone laughed. So much for perfect silence.

  The sun was up and shining, and all of bunk 5A was already gathered in a circle in the center of the cabin later that same morning—red shirts on one side, blue on the other—when Natalie finally found the bottle of nail polish she was looking for and joined them. She plopped down between Grace and Alex, and placed her foam toe separators on each foot.

  “What’re you doing?” Gaby asked her. “Are you ever not primping?”

  “It’s for team spirit!” Natalie replied.

  She produced the bottle of blue glitter polish from behind her back and quickly went to work on her toes.

  “Wow! Nice touch!” Grace said. “But how’d you know you’d be on Blue?”

  “I didn’t. I have red, too,” Natalie said. “But personally, I like blue so much better,” she said pointedly, grinning at the Red side of the circle. “It’s so much more original.”

  “Ugh! Natalie, could you get rid of that stuff? It’s stinking up the place!” Jenna said, waving a hand in front of her face.

  “It never bothered you before,” Natalie said.

  “It’s not the nail polish. It’s the color that stinks!” Jenna replied.

  The whole Red team cracked up and Natalie went back to her pedicure. “Ha ha. Hope for your sake they don’t have a stand-up competition this year.”

  “Ooooh!” the Blue team chorused. Grace and Alex high-fived over Natalie’s head. Natalie smirked. After three summers here, she was starting to get good at this trash-talking thing.

  “Okay, ladies, let’s call this little meeting to order!” Belle announced, stepping out of her room with her clipboard. She was wearing a red T-shirt. The bunk’s CIT, Clarissa, wore a blue shirt and stood next to Belle with two cloth bags in her hands—one red and the other blue. This was new. Natalie was officially curious, and she could tell by the looks on her friends’ faces that they were as well.

  “First, thank you for going back to sleep earlier this morning . . . even if it did take you another half hour to quiet down,” Belle said, earning a few giggles from the bunk. “Now that you all know which teams you’re on, I have some Color War-related announcements.”

  “Color War! Yeah!” Jenna cheered.

  “I appreciate the enthusiasm, Jenna, but if you keep doing that I might never get through this,” Belle said with a laugh.

  “Sorry,” Jenna said, pressing her lips together.

  “Okay, since there are so few fifth-division campers this year, you guys will be combining with the sixth-division girls for some of the events,” Belle said. “Only those which require large teams like soccer and capture the flag. For the rest of the events, you’ll be strictly fifth division.”

  A murmur of interest ran through the circle. The sixth-division girls? They were so cool. And so . . . intimidating.

  “Dr. Steve has also decided that this year, each team in each division will have a captain.”

  “Cool! I’m in!” Jenna announced, raising her hand.

  “I’ll do it!” Alex chimed in as well.

  “Wait a second. What if I want to do it?” Gaby said.

  Belle held up her hand. “In order to avoid having this turn into a popularity contest, I’ve decided to choose captains based on chance. The last thing this bunk needs is more rivalry.”

  Natalie nodded her head in agreement as she moved to her pinky toe. Since the very first day of camp this year, she and her bunkmates had been feuding about one thing or another, and only recently had everyone sort of calmed down and started to get along. If they voted for captains now, everyone would get upset all over again.

  “So, in each of these bags there are six paper circles, five black and one gold,” Belle said. Clarissa stepped forward and placed the red bag in front of Jenna and the blue bag in front of Candace. “Whoever picks the gold circle from each bag will be your captain.”

  “Go ahead! Pick!” Clarissa instructed.

  Candace took a deep breath and reached into the blue bag. She came out with a black circle and sighed, clearly relieved. She handed the blue bag to Alex. Alex closed her eyes and yanked out . . . a black circle as well. She shrugged and gave the bag to Natalie. Nat quickly capped her nail polish, reached into the bag, and mixed up the circles inside. Then she grabbed one and pulled it out. Another black circle. She handed the bag to Grace.

  “Come on, gold! Come on, gold!” Grace said. She reached in and yanked out . . . a black circle.

  “Well, it’s one of you two,” Natalie said to Gaby and Tori. Secretly she was hoping Tori would get the gold. Gaby was bossy enough as it was. If she got to be captain, her head might swell to the point of explosion.

  Tori reached into the bag and pulled out . . . the gold circle!

  “Nice!” Natalie cheered.

  “Captain Tori!” Grace cried out.

  “Uh . . . great,” Tori said, forcing a smile.

  Gaby huffed and dropped back onto her elbows.

  “Yeah, Priya!” Brynn cheered on the other side of the circle. Natalie glanced over at the Red side and saw Priya clutching the gold circle. She was grinning from ear to ear.

&
nbsp; “Good. Our captains will be Tori for Blue and Priya for Red,” Belle said, making a note on her clipboard. “Congratulations, ladies. Now let’s do our electives, everyone. I’ll be in my room. Alyssa? You’re first.”

  As Alyssa got up to find out what her new elective activities would be, the Blue team gathered around Tori to congratulate her. Tori smiled and thanked them all, but Natalie could tell she wasn’t all that psyched.

  “Hey, Nat! Can I get some of that nail polish?” Tori asked suddenly, grabbing Natalie’s arm. She practically yanked Nat outside onto the front porch, Natalie hobbling awkwardly in her toe separators. A bunch of third-division girls walked by with their counselor on their way to the flagpole. Soon more campers joined them. It was still a bit early, but apparently everyone was psyched to get to the Color War opening ceremony.

  “What’s the matter?” Natalie whispered the second the screen door slammed behind them.

  “I can’t be captain!” Tori replied. “I don’t even like Color War, and I stink at sports.”

  “Better not let Jenna hear you dissing Color War.

  She’ll disown you for good,” Natalie said. She sat down on the front steps to finish her toenails as more campers trailed by, some already chanting for their teams.

  “I’m serious, Natalie. I have nothing to bring to the team. I’m sure someone else would be better,” Tori said, leaning back on the wooden railing that surrounded the porch. “Like Alex. She’s done, like, a million of these things. Or Gaby. She loves to tell people what to do. And they both wanted it. Do you think Belle would let me give it to someone else?” she asked, looking down at her crumpled gold circle.

  “I don’t know. She seemed pretty serious about doing it by chance,” Natalie said. “If you switch, then the Red team might want to switch. It’ll be a whole big mess.”