chapter EIGHT
Tori stood at the obstacle course with the rest of her team while the fourth-division boys ran, crawled, rode, and climbed their way through the various challenges. Once again, she was faced with making a decision on which team member should take on which event, but this time she wasn’t feeling so stressed about it. Now she knew she had the support of her teammates, and together they could take on anything.
“I think Alex should do the trike ride,” Gaby said, as the entire crowd cheered a blond boy’s successful scaling of the portable climbing wall. “She has the shortest legs.”
“Hey!” Alex protested.
“What? You’ll be able to work it better. My knees would hit the handlebars and tip me over,” Gaby said with a shrug.
Tori glanced at Alex. Gaby’s point did kind of make sense. “What do you think?”
“Fine. I’ll do it,” Alex said with a determined nod. “For the team.”
Tori grinned. “I think Candace should do the rock climbing, and Gaby—you’ve been killer at basketball this year. What do you guys think?”
“I’m in,” Gaby said.
“I don’t know. It’s really high,” Candace said, looking worriedly over Tori’s shoulder.
“Well, it’s either you, Grace, or Natalie,” Tori said.
She looked over at Nat, who was standing somewhat to the side, staring into space. The moment Tori said her name, she started twirling her hair around her finger like she wasn’t paying attention. Tori’s heart constricted. She couldn’t believe that in less than a week, she and Natalie had grown so far apart. Part of her wanted to ignore Natalie’s existence, just like Natalie was doing to her, but she was the captain here. She was supposed to be the bigger person. Tori took a deep breath and swallowed her pride.
“Natalie, what do you want to do?” she asked.
“Whatever,” Natalie said, not even bothering to look Tori in the eye. “I don’t care.”
Tori had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at the girl. Why was she giving Tori attitude? Natalie was the one who had completely ditched Tori for someone else. Tori had a feeling that if Lainie were over here right now asking Natalie what she wanted to do in the obstacle course, Natalie would be volunteering for everything and being all super-positive. Anything to impress Queen Lainie.
“The one thing I don’t want to do is the dizzy run,” Grace put in. “I’ll do anything else.”
“Oh, yeah. Me too. Anything but the dizzy run,” Candace echoed, sticking her tongue out.
Over near the course, the crowd whipped into a cheering frenzy, which meant the fourth-division boys were entering the last leg. Tori had to make her final decisions now.
“Okay, then Candace, you’re on the wall. Grace, you do the egg run, and I’ll . . .”
For a split second, Tori thought about doing the dizzy run herself—taking one for the team as the captain. But didn’t she already do that with the pie-eating contest? When Natalie was basically nowhere to be found? She glanced again at Natalie, who was now casually inspecting her fingernails. Girl didn’t want to participate in the team meeting? Then it was her loss.
“I’ll do the tires and Nat can do the dizzy run,” Tori said.
“What?” Natalie said, suddenly snapping to.
“You said you’d do ‘whatever,’ ” Gaby pointed out before Tori even had a chance. She even threw in some air quotes for good measure.
Natalie narrowed her eyes, but said nothing.
“Fifth-division girls! Please take your places!” Dr. Steve called out through his megaphone.
“All right, Blue team!” Tori shouted, ignoring Natalie’s stare of death. “Let’s do this!”
“Yeah!” everyone cheered.
They all high-fived and clapped before walking off to take their places along the course. Tori stood in front of the tunnel o’ tires and saw that she was up against Alyssa for the Red team. Alyssa, as uncompetitive as ever, raised her hand in a wave. Tori smiled and did the same. It was nice that some people were still normal around here. Of course, Tori was still planning on completely smoking Alyssa in her leg of the race. Thanks to the support of her friends, Tori had officially gotten the Color War bug.
“On your mark! Get set! Go!” Dr. Steve shouted.
Natalie stuck the bat to her forehead and spun around with Clarissa counting off her turns. When she dropped the bat, she took off to the right and everyone laughed. Luckily, on the other side, Chelsea had started running completely off the course.
“Go, Natalie! Go!” Alex screamed from the trike run. “Over here! Run to me!”
Natalie shook her head like she was trying to clear water out of her ears. That earned her another laugh from the crowd, but then she focused on Alex and took off in a staggering line. She was yards ahead of Chelsea, who had just figured out that she was not supposed to be approaching the steps of the nature shack.
“Go, Natalie!” Tori shouted, getting into the spirit. She may have been angry at Nat for personal reasons, but this was a team thing now.
Nat slapped Alex’s hand, and Alex straddled the tricycle. She pedaled like a maniac, weaving in and out of the cones. Her face was set in a concentrated frown and she hunched low over the handlebars. She looked so funny, Tori couldn’t help laughing through her cheers.
“Go, Alex! Rock that trike!” Tori shouted.
Alex got to the end of the winding course before Brynn ever even got onto her trike. She slapped Tori’s hand, and Tori hit the deck. As she crawled through the snaking maze of tires, her knees scraped against silty rocks and rubber edges, but she took it all and kept going. When she stumbled out the far side, Alyssa was nowhere to be seen. Tori shoved herself to her feet and ran over to slap Candace’s hand.
“Go! Go! Go!” she cried, catching her breath.
Candace turned, her brown hair flying, and started up the wall. It was slightly tilted to keep it from being too difficult, and Candace was doing well. But when she got halfway up the wall, she paused. Looking around in confusion, she clung to her spot.
“What’s the matter?” Tori shouted up to her, glancing over at Alyssa, who had just slapped Valerie’s hand.
“Where do I go?” Candace cried.
Tori studied the wall. Candace did have a problem. It looked like all the handholds were out of her reach. Valerie was catching up with her and the Red team fans were going nuts, cheering her on. Tori was just starting to see this competition, like all the others, going down the drain. But then her eye caught on a plan.
“Candace! Move to the right!” Tori shouted. “There’s a clear path to the right!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah! See the red foothold to your right? Go there!”
On the other rock wall, Valerie was climbing like a pro. Candace held her breath and moved her right foot over. She grabbed a blue handhold with her right hand, then followed with her left leg and arm. Once she was secure, she looked up.
“See it? Grab the green handhold and you’re golden!” Tori cried. “Now go! Go! Go!”
“Okay!” Candace squealed.
And then she started to climb again. Like a spider, she scurried up the wall so quickly it was as if someone was chasing her. The second she reached the top, Tori jumped up and down.
“Yeah, Candace! Good work!” Tori shouted.
Candace grinned. “Couldn’t have done it without you!”
Tori welled with pride. Maybe she was good at this captain thing after all.
Candace swung her legs over and slid down the slide on the other side. She slapped Gaby’s hand just seconds before Valerie slapped Priya’s.
“Go, Gaby! Go! You can do it!” Tori shouted.
Candace came over and clung to Tori’s hand, and soon Alex and Natalie were there as well. Tori glanced at Nat’s shouting face and thought that maybe, if they could come together for this, everything could still be okay. She wished things could just go back to the way they were a week ago, before Color War had ever started, wh
en she and Natalie were still best friends. Meanwhile, Gaby dribbled around the chairs set up on the court, then threw her penalty shot at the end. It swished right through the hoop.
“Yes! Yeah, Gaby! Yeah!” Tori shouted, raising Candace’s hand in the air.
Gaby smacked Grace’s hand so hard, Grace winced. But then she took her spoon and egg and took off toward the finish line. Priya made her shot easily and slapped Jenna’s hand as well.
“Let’s go!” Tori told her friends.
They all ran to the sidelines along the egg run. Holding hands in a chain of five, they screamed for Grace.
“Go, Grace!” they all shouted.
“Don’t drop that egg!” Gaby added.
Grace bent at the knee, as if it would give her more balance, and moved forward quickly. She looked like a duck, but she was moving fast. Her lips were pressed together as she concentrated on the egg. Jenna meanwhile, jogged forward, a determined look in her eye.
“Come on, Grace! Go!” Tori cried.
Then Jenna suddenly stopped and her eyes widened. Everyone gasped as she got her balance. She’d almost lost her egg! She righted herself and kept running, but it was too late. Grace was a few feet from the finish line.
“Go, Grace! Go Blue!” Tori cried, her heart pounding in her ears.
Grace crossed the finish line and threw her hands in the air as the entire Blue team went totally insane. Her egg flew in a wide arc and landed with a splat, right on top of Dr. Steve’s one red shoe.
“Yes! We won!” Tori shouted. “We actually won!”
She ran toward Grace and threw her arms around her friend. Her whole team gathered around her, hugging and cheering and hugging some more. Tori glanced around for Natalie, but didn’t see her in the crowd. Maybe she’d been wrong about patching things up after all. Tori felt a pang of disappointment, but then decided she couldn’t let Natalie get to her right now.
She had won her first Color War event! And she was going to celebrate with the rest of her team.
That afternoon before dinner, bunk 5A had free time to write letters home. This time, Tori didn’t ask Natalie for some of her handmade stationery. She simply took her plain old notebook and went outside to the porch to write. Natalie’s heart felt heavy as she leaned back on her pillows. She lifted her pen to write to her mother and tell her all about her new friend and her potential boyfriend (Nat’s mom was cool like that), but she found she didn’t much feel like gushing. Instead, she pulled out the latest Us Weekly, which her friends from home had sent her, and settled in to look at the pictures.
“Uh, Natalie?”
Grace and Alex hovered over Natalie’s bunk.
“Can we talk to you?” Alex asked.
“Sure,” Nat said, laying the magazine aside. “What’s up?”
Together, Grace and Alex sat down near the foot of Natalie’s bunk, ducking under the upper cot. They both had serious expressions on and Natalie felt a thump of foreboding. Grace, for one, almost never looked serious. Unless she was talking about school.
“Is this about Tori?” Natalie asked.
“Sort of,” Alex said, pulling her knee up toward her chin and hugging her leg. “But really, it’s about all of us. We’ve all sort of noticed you haven’t been around much lately.”
“Because you’ve been hanging out with Lainie,” Grace put in.
“Yeah . . . ?” Natalie said.
Grace and Alex glanced at each other. “Well, we miss you for one,” Alex said.
Natalie’s heart squeezed a bit and she smiled. That was sweet.
“And we don’t like Lainie, for another,” Grace said.
“What?” Natalie blurted.
Okay. Forget sweet.
Alex whacked Grace’s arm. “Ow!” Grace protested, holding the spot. “What did you want me to say?”
“You weren’t supposed to put it like that!” Alex told her, rolling her dark eyes.
“You guys, why don’t you like Lainie?” Natalie asked, feeling defensive. “So we’re hanging out. So what? Big deal. I can have other friends, can’t I?”
“Sure you can, Nat. It’s just that we’re not totally sure Lainie’s really your friend,” Alex said.
Natalie scoffed and leaned back on her pillows, crossing her arms over her chest. It was so clear what was going on here. They were just jealous of her. Jealous that she had a new, older, cooler friend.
“We’re serious!” Grace said. “We’ve been here a lot longer than you, Natalie. We’ve known Lainie practically our entire lives.”
“Yeah, and every year she does the same thing,” Alex said, growing animated. “There’s always someone who ends up getting dumped by her. Used and then dumped. She does it all the time. Every summer.”
“You are so wrong,” Natalie said, shaking her head. “Lainie’s not like that.”
“How do you know?” Alex asked. “I’m telling you. I’ve seen it happen. A bunch of times.”
“I know because we’re friends,” Natalie told them firmly. “Real friends. She’s not using me for anything. She tells me stuff. Stuff you wouldn’t tell someone you were just planning on dumping.”
“Okay, if you say so,” Alex said doubtfully.
“I say so,” Natalie told them. She swung her legs over the side of her bunk and headed for the bathroom. “But thanks for the warning,” she said over her shoulder.
She saw the two of them exchange another look and she almost felt sorry for them. They were so clueless. Lainie was a cool girl. And no one was going to convince Natalie otherwise.
“Are you nervous?” Natalie asked Lainie, watching her friend’s foot tap-tap-tap against the floor.
Instantly, Lainie stopped tapping and stood up straight. “Nervous? Me? Why should I be nervous?”
“No reason,” Natalie said with a smirk.
They were standing against the wall in the mess hall during the Color War Scrabble tournament. In the center of the room, six tables were set up with one Scrabble board on each. Four competitors played at each board—two guys and two girls from each division. Alex was representing the fifth-division Blue team along with Simon, Natalie’s former boyfriend. At the same board were Alyssa and David from the Red team. They all looked very intense, but Natalie couldn’t tell who was winning or losing. She had better things to concentrate on, anyway. Namely, helping Lainie land this Christopher guy.
“Are you sure the skirt looks okay?” Lainie asked, smoothing down the front of the blue cotton drawstring skirt she had borrowed from Trish.
“Yes. And it totally matches the NY on your shirt,” Natalie said. “It’s you, just dressier.”
Lainie glanced down at the glittery interlocking NY on her white tank top. She was a big Yankees fan and when she had told Nat that this was her favorite shirt, Natalie had insisted that Lainie wear it for the big night. That way, she would be comfortable and confident. Then, right after dinner, they had met up outside the main hall so that Nat could brush out Lainie’s long hair and add a little extra makeup to her eyes and cheeks. The result? Lainie looked like an utterly fabulous girly-tomboy. Boys loved utterly fabulous girly-tomboys. It was like the best of both worlds for them. A pretty girl they could hang out with at ballgames? Boy heaven.
“Okay, I’m gonna do it,” Lainie said suddenly. “I’m going over there and I’m going to talk to him.”
“Good! You are so ready!” Natalie said.
Lainie lifted her eyebrows. “You think?”
“I know!” Natalie said with a giggle. “Just be yourself. Talk about Color War. Talk about sports. Ask him questions about him. Boys love to talk about themselves.”
“Got it,” Lainie said with a nod, already looking over Natalie’s shoulder. “Thanks, Nat. I really owe you one.”
Natalie’s heart warmed. She wished Alex and Grace could have heard that. Those were not the words of a person who was using someone else.
“Good luck,” Natalie said, giddily.
Lainie shook her long hair back over h
er shoulders and strode confidently across the room. Natalie watched her, feeling almost like a proud parent. No one ever would have known how nervous Lainie was. She as going to knock this Christopher kid right out of his flip-flops.
If he was wearing flip-flops, of course. Actually, Natalie couldn’t wait to see what he was wearing, and what he looked like for that matter. Lainie’s ultimate crush was about to be revealed.
“What’s she up to?” Liliko asked, stepping up next to Natalie, along with Patty. They had been off flirting with their own set of cute boys, but had apparently noticed Lainie’s cross-room journey.
“She’s gonna talk to Christopher,” Natalie whispered. “Which one is he?”
Just then, Lainie paused on the other side of the room, right in front of a group of guys who were all chatting and laughing. She said a few words to one of them and he moved away from the wall to hear her better. At first, Natalie couldn’t see him because Lainie was blocking him from sight. Natalie stood on her toes and craned her neck just as Lainie shifted her feet. Just like that, there he was. The boy of Lainie’s dreams.
Logan.
Natalie’s heart clenched. Lainie was talking to Logan. Blond, surferboy Logan. Natalie’s potential BF, Logan.
“Wait a minute, that’s not—” Natalie started.
“Omigod! Look at his face!” Patty exclaimed, grabbing Liliko’s arm. “Chris is totally smitten.”
Natalie’s mouth snapped shut as she watched Lainie touch Logan’s shoulder and tilt her head flirtatiously . Apparently Lainie’s Christopher really was Logan. But how? How could this be happening? Natalie had no idea what was going on here, but whatever it was, it was not good.
chapter NINE
Natalie barely slept at all that night. She lay awake, staring at the bottom of Chelsea’s bunk above her and toying with her platinum Tiffany ring. She just could not figure out how it was possible that her Logan was also Lainie’s Christopher. Were there two of him? Twins? It just didn’t make any sense. Lainie had said Christopher had green eyes, but Logan’s were definitely blue. And she’d said he had light blond hair, but Logan’s was more dark blond. Plus she’d said he was short, but Logan was definitely tall.
Camp Confidential 16: Golden Girls Page 7
