There was no point reminding her that Blake Jones had admitted to the prank in the end. His mom couldn’t get over the shock of getting a call from the police, even if they hadn’t charged him.
“A whole year of trouble and misbehavior at school. Then you topped it all off with a fist fight…” She shook her head as she trailed off, something she’d been doing a lot lately.
Aw, the fight. That almost brought a smile to his face. “That was justif—”
In a show of mock anger, she drew back the camp brochure in her hand like she wanted to smack him with it. “Don’t you even! No fight is ever justified. Ever. I don’t know what has gotten into you.” She shook her head. “The guys you’ve been hanging around with are…I hate it to say this about kids, but they’re rotten. And all that trouble at school. I never, ever want to get a call from the police again.” She took a breath and continued in a calmer voice. “I just want you to get away from everything for a while.”
“They’re my friends, Mom. And I’ve told you a million times. I didn’t do anything at school. It was that girl. Blake.” Not counting the fight. He’d started that. He’d called Blake a bitch, but in his defense, she was. Everyone knew it. Luke Culpepper only stepped up to the plate and punched him because he wanted in Blake’s pants. And really, they both needed to blow off some steam. It’s just too bad the principal walked in.
Giving him a disbelieving look, his mom said, “Ben, you have the world on a platter. You have a scholarship to a fancy private high school. Grades come easy. You’re a star athlete. The world is yours for the taking. I can’t watch you throw that away. I think you just need a little time to reflect.”
Ever since he transferred to Bellevue, Blake Jones had been cramping his style. He was always getting called to the principal’s office for something she said he did. Then, one fight at home, and his mom had snapped. Off to camp, like that would fix him if he had a problem, which he didn’t. He was pretty sure, Davis, the guy she was dating, suggested it. He’d been going on and on about how he’d sent some delinquent to camp instead of jail recently, like he deserved a Nobel Prize for justice reform in North Carolina. Ben thought he got the idea from The Huffington Post. Ever since reading that article about the “miracle of forest bathing,” he’d been all—stressed: take a walk. Sick: take a walk. In trouble with the principal: take a walk for six weeks at the closest outdoor camp. Too bad his mom thought Davis was a genius.
“I know you don’t see it, Ben. That’s why I’ve made the decision to remove you from the situation.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “I can hang out here and go canoeing for six weeks. I just think it’s too much money.”
She didn’t have a response to that because he was right. It was too much money.
Out of steam from arguing, his mom wandered off, probably to find Chelsea. Ben used his last few minutes of freedom to sit on the tailgate and take in the scene. A bunch of kids and their parents meandered around aimlessly. One mom within earshot was working herself into a lather talking to a counselor about food allergies. “I thought this was a peanut-free camp,” she said, a frantic look on her face.
The counselor made a show of writing something down, emphasis on show. “Yeah, most of the kids here can’t really eat anything. It’s okay, though. We serve hot dogs at every meal.” The counselor snapped his fingers and gave a slow nod like he’d just answered all her prayers. “Hot dogs, ma’am. They might even be all beef.”
The woman’s eyes grew silver dollar big. She looked pretty sure her kid would die at Camp Pine Ridge.
Next to the food-intolerant family was a Luna Lovegood look-alike. Spacey, no nametag, flyaway blonde hair. Ben liked her. A kid all dressed in black wearing a slouchy beanie lurked in the background. Then, there was a hoard of what looked to be kindergartners.
When Jack joined him on the tailgate, Ben said, “If you break me out in a few days, I can stay at T-Bone’s place for a month. Mom’ll never know the difference.” T-Bone lived in a trailer on his family’s land. It would be like Camp Bachelor Pad.
“No way.” Jack scoffed. “It’d come out eventually, and then Mom would blame me every time you screwed up for the rest of our lives. You could knock up some girl and she’d still find a way to pin it on me.”
Ben looked at his brother. “I bet these idiots don’t even know Pine Ridge is the name of an actual Indian Reservation.” The very reservation their dad grew up near as a matter of fact.
Jack snorted. “Yeah, they totally don’t know they named themselves after the poorest county in the country. Might as well call themselves Camp Bend Over and Take It.”
Ten minutes and a bunch of hugs later, they left. Chelsea’s parting words were, “Can I have your room for the rest of summer?”
Ben watched his family pile onto the front bench of the family pickup. Chelsea should probably be sitting in the back, but his mom liked to cuddle her and read celebrity magazines in the front seat while Jack drove. It wasn’t Charlotte’s Web or anything but all those Kardashian stories must count for something. Chelsea was already reading at a level N, which was apparently good for an eight-year-old, good enough for his mom to brag about anyway. As Jack gunned it out of the parking lot, Ben could practically hear his mom yelling at him to slow down. He kicked the dusty gravel parking lot with the toe of his shoe and watched them drive off until the pickup had completely disappeared. They were annoying, but he’d miss them.
Reluctantly, he wandered over to the registration table. When he made it to the front of the line, a counselor informed him he was in cabin B7A.
Still perplexed by the presence of so many tiny people, Ben asked, “What’s with all the little kids?”
“Junior campers.”
As Ben hefted his bag onto his shoulder, the counselor whistled and said, “Whoa! Check out that suh-weet ride!”
Ben had never seen a Bentley in person. All shiny black with a hint of Rolls Royce, it looked like Bruce Wayne’s daytime ride. When the chauffeur unpacked the trunk, it became obvious that Bruce Wayne was not the passenger. The mountain of matched luggage had to contain more crap than Ben’s entire closet. Several bags looked like makeup kits or something. He looked at his own duffel bag patched with duct tape.
He shouldn’t have been surprised when the chauffeur pulled out an oversized hard-backed wheelie bag that said “BLAKE” in giant glittery letters. That’s when it hit him—Blake was the delinquent Davis had sent to summer camp instead of jail. What a traitor.
Blake Jones—the reason he was at camp instead of enjoying a lazy summer at home. With her long, blonde hair and even longer legs, Blake was the perfect all-American beauty, except the sparkle in her sea-green eyes came from evil, not sugar and spice.
He had too much dignity to ever accuse a girl of bullying him—the jokes would haunt him until his dying day. His tombstone would read: “Beloved husband and father. Beat up by a girl in high school.” No one would ever believe a guy didn’t love getting picked on by a hot girl. It even sounded crazy to him. When being harassed by a hot chick, there was nothing to do but take it like a man. It was a code of honor thing.
Ben rocked back on his heels and waited for his beautiful bully to emerge from her chariot. He knew other guys were into her, but he’d do anything not to see her. Mean girls weren’t his type. If only his mom understood that she’d just signed him up to spend six weeks with the number one bad influence in his life. T-Bone had nothing on Blake.
He had two choices: avoid her all summer or stand his ground and let her know he wasn’t going to put up with any more bullshit. As she emerged from the car, he decided he might as well try door number two. Avoiding her and being polite is what landed him here in the first place.
Chapter Three
The Accidental Duchess Goes to Camp
Mallory
Mallory had briefly looked up from The Accidental Duchess when gravel crunched under the car’s tires and Ed, the family driver, announced, “We’re here, Miss Bl
ake.”
Then she had stuck her nose back in the book. She was reading the whole Duchesses in Love series like it was made of crack. One more page was never enough. The black-hearted yet undeniably handsome Duke of Blackmore had just laid eyes on the feisty American, Lydia Farrow. The duke was picking up his fiancée at the docks. He’d never met her before, and he was about to pick up the wrong woman—Lydia. The whole scene made Mallory smile inside.
She was having pretty much the same day as Lydia, except for the part about the duke. Also, she was riding in a Bentley, not an ocean liner. Mostly, there was no duke.
Sitting in the back of the car, trussed up in her sister’s clothes with side-swept bangs that kept falling in her face and a pair of brand-new contacts that felt like sand in her eyes—Mallory wasn’t sure if she was up to playing Blake. It seemed impossible to be graceful and confident, especially with hair in her eyes. She sat up straight, though, and took a deep breath.
If she wanted to open a new chapter in her own life, a chapter where she didn’t play the wallflower, she needed to do this. Blake had confidence, charisma, and most of all, everyone knew she mattered. Still, Mallory was starting to feel an asthma attack coming on. She clutched her inhaler with a death grip and marked her page in The Accidental Duchess. The duke would be waiting for her after registration.
Ed turned the car off and looked over his shoulder. “You ready, Miss?”
Mallory slunk down lower in her seat. “Ugh.” In her head she repeated: Hi, my name is Blake. I’m smart, pretty, confident, and people like me. She took a puff off her inhaler. As long as she didn’t see anyone Blake knew, Mallory could pull this off… If it did work, she might figure out the key to, well, not happiness, but maybe she’d figure out how to walk into a room like she owned it. So far, being herself had been a huge disappointment. Stepping into Blake’s shoes and being forced to play the part of someone else—it was just what she needed.
Ed came around and opened her door. “I know it’s court-ordered, Miss, but you’re going to enjoy yourself. I know you will. It’s time you got out of that fishbowl you live in and hang out with some decent folks.” Mallory gave Ed a funny look. He never talked to her. Maybe Blake confided in their driver, which was kind of cute. Ed made a much better best friend than her sister’s actual bestie.
“Oh, come on out, Blake. I’ve never known you to back down from a challenge. You’re going to be just fine.”
Weird as it was, Mallory wasn’t that close to her twin, but apparently Blake was BFFs with their chauffeur. Maybe there was more to her sister than she knew. Either that, or she was more desperate for a functional father figure than Mallory realized.
She gave him an awkward hug. “Thanks, Ed. I appreciate it.”
“See you in six weeks, Miss. Have a good time.”
With that, he sped off, giving one last honk. When the dust settled, she found herself standing in a dirt parking lot next to a pile of luggage she had no way of carrying all by herself, dressed in an outfit Blake had picked out. The dress grazed her thighs in the front and swooped down to her ankles in the back. As she walked across the parking lot, the lightweight fabric billowed out like a royal robe. Wedge platform sandals Blake had insisted she wear finished the look. Mallory wished fervently for her well-worn T-shirt and jeans.
Thinking of how Lydia Farrow navigated her meeting with the duke with nothing but confidence and wit, she calmed the butterflies and walked up to the registration table. A guy in a Camp Pine Ridge shirt said, “Miss Jones, I presume.”
With a gulp, she nodded. It wasn’t quite a lie…yet. As he flipped through papers, she glanced around at the other campers. It was a hodgepodge—little kids, teenagers, a few counselors, a lot of hovering parents. Without anyone she knew to ground her in reality, Mallory felt like she was watching footage from a summer camp movie. There was so much noise and excitement. With a bolstering breath, she held her purse tighter and straightened her back. Then the crowd shifted to reveal someone she never would have expected to see.
Benjamin Iron Cloud stood just past the sign-in table, all shiny black hair, dark soulful eyes, and straining pec muscles against a too-tight T-shirt. His hair was a little longer than it was at the end of the school year. If possible, it made him even cuter.
Mallory hadn’t seen him since “the Incident.” She was pretty sure Blake hadn’t, either. Principal Danvers had suspended Blake and Ben for the rest of the school year. Their dad had finished Blake’s punishment with an epic grounding.
The Incident… All information about the prank was hearsay because it went down behind the closed doors of a faculty meeting. The day in question, the same day she and Jill had absconded for the town library, had been Principal Danver’s birthday. When a woman arrived in the front office claiming to be a singing telegram, the secretary must not have thought much of it. She buzzed her in, stuck a “Visitor” badge on her barely-there top, and the Marilyn Monroe look-alike marched down the hallway to the principal’s office. Most girls at Bellevue dressed pretty skimpy, so no one blamed the secretary for not putting two and two together.
Presumably she sang “Happy Birthday” to Mr. Danvers at the meeting. It didn’t take a genius to figure out how she triggered the alarm. During the evacuation she was naked, except for Mr. Danver’s suit jacket and a pair of still-smoking nipple sparklers. It seemed likely that she must have been standing right under the smoke alarm when she set off her sparklers.
Principal Danvers, who knew the building was not actually on fire, must have tried his best to keep Marilyn in the building, but the sprinklers forced them out. In the end, the principal ran out of the building, his business suit soaked from the sprinklers, with a mostly naked stripper by his side. Some kids sold the video to the local news for pretty good money.
When police questioned the stripper later, she stated that someone named Benjamin Iron Cloud had paid her ten times her normal rate to perform the stunt. Ben was arrested and charged with: 1) setting off fireworks within city limits without a permit (the nipple sparklers fell under the statutory definition of firework), 2) corruption of youth, and 3) attempted arson—or as Blake described it: attempted fun.
It didn’t take long for the cops to figure out it was Blake’s fault. The smoking gun—Blake had used their dad’s credit card to buy a strip-o-gram. Not her smartest moment.
Now, here they were. In the parking lot of Camp Pine Ridge. Ben was looking right at her. Normally, Mallory would have been thrilled. He was the kind of guy who left a trail of swooning girls in his wake. Mallory had the tiniest crush on him, a crush she tried to deny—what was the point? But Ben wasn’t staring at her because she was cute. He was staring because he hated Blake, for totally understandable reasons. If Mallory wasn’t masquerading as her sister, she would sidle up to him and say, “I know how you feel! Can you believe the stuff she gets away with?” Unfortunately, she was stuck on the receiving end of Ben’s angry glare. If the director found out that she and Blake had pulled a switcheroo, Blake would be off to an actual prison. Who knows—Mallory might end up joining her. Their masquerade probably qualified as obstruction of justice.
“What are you doing here?” he said, his voice acid.
Her breathing kind of cramped up, and she took a puff off her inhaler. You’re Blake, remember. “I’m here…because of what happened.” When he didn’t answer right away, she went on. “I hope you didn’t get in too much trouble because of the stripper thing. I mean, I thought it was…funny. It wasn’t supposed to turn into a big thing about bringing explosives to school. They were just sparklers.”
His expression remained unreadable.
With a glance around, she said, “It looks really nice here, though.” She was full-on running at the mouth. “Maybe it’ll be fun.”
“Are you on something?” he asked.
With an unwavering, deer-in-the-headlights smile, she shook her head. “No, I’m good.” She was high on something, but it wasn’t illicit. It was just nervous energ
y mixed with some social anxiety.
“Why are you here?” she asked Ben.
He stared back without answering.
She wasn’t sure about the particulars of Blake and Ben’s history, but he clearly needed an apology. “I’m sorry,” she said. In a confident and loud voice (her nod to Blake) she repeated, “I’m sorry. I hope we can start over this summer.” She wanted to learn to be more like Blake, but she didn’t want to spend the whole summer carrying on a feud she hadn’t started. Really, she was on Ben’s side. She couldn’t tell him that, but maybe they could just leave the past where it belonged and move on to enjoy a conflict-free summer.
Ben scrunched up his face in disbelief. “What?”
“I don’t know what else to say but I’m sorry.”
Ben blurted out a laugh.
This was not going to-plan at all. Mallory wanted to learn how to be confident and well-liked. Period. That was it. Her only conflict management strategy was “Run! Hide!” She was the girl who apologized for taking up space and breathing other people’s air.
Ben looked at her closer. “You’re kidding. You must be kidding.”
Her hopes sank. “No. I’m really sorry. I want to start fresh.” She hated when people didn’t like her. Ben didn’t look like he was going to let this blow over with an apology, though.
The angry expression on his face made her want to cower and hide behind her horrible shaggy bangs.
“Sociopaths can’t feel sorry. Good effort, though,” he said.
Mallory’s jaw dropped as she watched him turn and walk away from her like she didn’t matter. Note taken: she had an enemy at camp. Operation Be Blake for the Summer was not off to a good start.
Standing around feeling shocked in the parking lot wasn’t going to do any good, though. She pulled herself together and went to the registration table. After she figured out where her cabin was, she asked the counselor in charge, “Can I leave my bags here? I have too much to carry.”
He agreed, so she headed toward her bunk. Thankfully, the counselor was busy and her bunkmate hadn’t arrived, so she had a minute to think. She plopped down on her bed to collect her thoughts. The only person she’d ever fought with was Blake and that was just sister stuff. The stakes were never higher than a sweater or which restaurant to eat at. And for all their fighting—they were still family at the end of the day. They could count on each other for the important stuff, like taking your sister’s place at summer camp.
Breaking the Rules of Revenge Page 2
