Missi cocked her chin. “I don’t know who or what that is.” Then she made MOON EYES AT CHICO.
Wiener wanted Missi to make moon eyes at him, angry eyes, any eyes. “The hot girl I danced with and the brand of her dress.”
“Oh, that’s great,” she said quickly, then smiled at Chico. “So, um, who’s this?”
Clearly Wiener and Missi were not an item. She couldn’t care less about him. And if she didn’t care, then why should he? He’d had enough embarrassment for one day. “Oh, right,” he said, trying to play it as cool as possible. “Missi, this is Chico. He thinks you’re cute, like he told you. And yeah. He wanted to meet you.” Then he excused himself with the tip of an invisible hat, like a moron.
“Hey, wait!” Missi called after him. But Wiener knew he had nothing to wait for. Chico liked Missi. Missi liked Chico. The only real choice Wiener had now was to give the blooming lovers their space, before he embarrassed himself further. He hung his head and went inside to play air hockey by himself, thinking about how, on top of everything, he’d have to admit to Max that Play Dough was right—he had no girlfriend. He had nothing-sauce at all.
At the booth to his left, Play Dough and Jenny sat opposite Jamie and Dover. “What’s he even doing here?” he overheard Play Dough ask. “Shouldn’t he be pursuing that record deal or shooting a blue-jeans commercial?”
“Being a celebrity is hard,” Jenny said. “I bet he wanted one summer to be a normal kid in America.”
Wiener wondered if that was true. The kid was a walking Levi’s ad. It would be so sick to star in one of their commercials. He bet they let their models keep the jeans.
Wiener felt his butt get flogged. It was Jenny, whipping her zip-up sweatshirt at him. “Wiener, come here.”
With the spotlight on him, Wiener smacked the puck toward the goal, but it bounced back and he scored on himself. “Boom,” he said, as if he’d done it on purpose. Then he walked over to the booth. Jenny squeezed closer to Play Dough and patted the tiny space next to her. Wiener was sure only one butt cheek would fit, but somehow both butt cheeks fit comfortably. He must be smaller than he thought.
“So, what do you think about Chico?” she asked him.
Before Wiener could mention his impeccable hygiene, Play Dough cut in. “Wiener’s in love with the dude. He was practically drooling on the air hockey table, dreaming of him.” Dover, Jamie, and Jenny laughed. Then Jenny tousled Wiener’s perfectly gelled hair, which was his biggest pet peeve after dirty fingernails.
“Oh, please,” Wiener snorted. “You’re just jealous, PD. Chico is super-cool, and the two of us are going to take this summer by storm.”
“Right after he steals your girlfriend,” Play Dough scoffed.
“So now Missi’s my girlfriend?” Wiener fired back. He glanced over his shoulder to the window. Chico was tucking a loose strand of hair behind Missi’s ear, which he couldn’t help but admit was a baller move.
“Wait, isn’t she your girlfriend?” Jenny asked.
“Nope,” Wiener replied. “The flashlight wants who the flashlight wants, and I, Jenny, am no flashlight.”
“Huh?” Jenny said.
“We kissed for a stupid game and that’s it.” Wiener exhaled.
“Well, Missi thinks you’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” Jamie said.
Wiener’s heart began to thud like mad. Regret, pain, and excitement—he was feeling all of it. “Oh. Well, I—” Wiener cut himself off. Missi might have thought she was his girlfriend, but that was before she’d met Chico. They had each other now and all Wiener could do was watch and learn the European ways to a woman’s heart.
Just then, the double doors of the Canteen swung open and in walked the Captain and TJ. “Hello, Wawel and Notting Hillers!” the Captain said. “Pardon the interruption, but we’ve got a carnival to plan!”
The campers clapped and “woo”-ed at a medium-crazy volume.
“We’ve got three days and three days only to revive all the original booths from the nineteen sixties,” the Captain continued. “Tonight we’re making our rounds so that each cabin can choose the booth that they will design, build, and run . . . from this hat.”
TJ revealed a giant sunhat that he was “hiding” behind his back.
“Arman and Cookie?” the Captain called. “We need one representative from each cabin.”
“We’ll do it,” Chico jumped in, entering the Canteen holding Missi’s hand in the air.
“Already off to a good start, young man,” the Captain said to Chico. “Your father will be proud to hear you’re taking initiative.”
Chico rolled his eyes. “Proud—yeah right.”
The Captain gave him one of her “watch it” looks, which sent his gaze to the Canteen floor. Then he bowed with an outstretched hand toward the sunhat. “Ladies first.” Missi closed her eyes, felt around inside the hat, and pulled out a piece of paper. She read aloud: “The Love Shack.”
The girls flipped out. Well, the J-squad shrieked, then broke into song: “Love shack, baby, love shack,” while Sophie and Slimey hugged. Melman twirled her finger in the air and let out a sarcastic “Whoop whoop.”
Now it was Chico’s turn. The guys collectively held their breath as he fished around for a piece of paper. Wiener hoped for henna tattoos—he thought they were cool since his friend Meera wore them at her Basmati Bat Mitzvah. That, or sand art! He’d even be happy with a good old ring toss.
Chico lifted a slip of paper from the sunhat and read: “Dunk Tank.”
Dunk Tank? Wiener wondered. What got dunked and how?
Play Dough and Dover high-fived. Either they knew exactly how the game worked and it was awesome, or they were following camp’s unspoken rule of unconditional excitement.
“You’ll teach me what a Dunk Tank is, my Wiener?” Chico asked, rejoining the guys.
“You know it,” Wiener replied, making a mental note to ask Dover about it later. “Wanna play?” Chico asked, picking up an air hockey mallet.
“Sure!”
As they played, Wiener soaked up Chico’s cool vibes. Missi or no Missi, this was all about the long game.
“Omigod, the wind is insane,” Jamie said, pointing at Missi’s thrashing ponytail. The Notting Hillers were chilling on the new wraparound porch of the Arts & Crafts shack, and its nearness to Harold Hill produced a wind-tunnel effect. It felt awesome on a hot day like today, but it made creating their Love Shack very tricky. The plastic cups of pink paint kept blowing over. There was as much glitter on their clothes as on their banner. And the scrap paper had to be weighted by three flip-flops at all times.
“Do you think your babies will have red hair?” Jenny asked Missi out of nowhere.
“It depends. Why?” Missi replied, thinking of her red-haired mom and red-haired grandma. Her grandpa was blond-turned-gray, but apparently his mom had been a redhead, too. As far as her father and his parents, she’d never met them and didn’t know what they looked like.
“There’s only one way to know,” Sophie said, snatching a cut-out heart from under a flip-flop. She quickly sketched four squares inside a larger square.
“What is that?” Missi asked, a little nervous. Knowing Sophie, she was about to compose a Shakespeare-style survey and then poll everyone over the PA, like, “To be ginger, or not to be ginger: that is the question!” Missi wasn’t sure she wanted to bring more attention to her hair anyway—her middle-school nickname was Raggedy Ann, and that red-yarn-for-hair doll haunted her dreams.
“Yeah, Sophie, why are there big Rs and little rs?” Slimey asked.
“Is that a relationship quiz for redheads?” Jenny asked.
“It’s a Punnett square!” Jamie said. “A diagram to find the probability that Missi’s babies will have genetic traits like red hair and green eyes.”
Missi dropped her paintbrush. Slimey stopped gluing feathers. Jenny froze while sanding wood. Melman quit drilling. Sophie looked in Jamie’s line of vision, probably to see if Steinberg, the science w
hiz of the group, had fed her the answer. He hadn’t.
“Aw! You are so smart-sauce,” Jenny said, squeezing Jamie’s cheeks.
“Thank you,” Jamie said through fish lips. “DNA is fun times.”
“Are we breeding Missi with Chico or Wiener?” Sophie asked, labeling the top of her Punnett square with two little rs.
“Wiener,” Slimey and Melman said.
“Chico,” Jenny and Jamie overlapped.
Then they all looked at Missi. Her heart started beating fast like a rabbit’s. She should have seen this coming. “Well, let’s see . . .” she started. Last night’s Canteen was bizarre. She’d run up to Wiener, thinking they’d share this big hug and catch up over Twix bars, but then he’d thrown her all this shade. Didn’t he like her? Had she done something wrong? “It’s complicated,” she finally replied.
Jenny put her pointer finger up—she’d address Missi’s non-answer in a minute. “Why did you pick Wiener over Chico?” she challenged Melman and Slimey. “That makes zero sense.”
“Aw, because it’s Wiener,” Slimey said. “It’s sweet how hard he tries to be cool. Like when he starts his pushup count at one hundred. It’s endearing. Right, Mel?”
“Uh, sure.”
Jenny raised an eyebrow at Melman. “You just like that when Wiener’s wrapped up in Missi, he leaves you alone.”
Melman tapped her nose—ding, ding, ding!
Great. On top of everything, she didn’t need a reminder that she would always be Wiener’s number-two crush.
“But, hey,” Melman said to Missi, “if you go for Chico, I can handle Wiener’s moves.” She demonstrated the yawn-over-shoulder move, full-body yawning and then casually dropping her arm around Missi’s shoulders. “Seriously, I’ll just tickle his pits.” She revved the drill.
“Ewww!” Jamie cried.
“At least his pits don’t stink,” Melman replied. “The guy reapplies deodorant after every activity period. The bugle sounds and he’s all swipe left, swipe right.”
Missi smiled. “That’s true. See, that’s why it’s hard. Wiener’s not like other guys.”
Jenny gave her a skeptical look. “Yeah, no other Wawel Hiller would suffer separation anxiety over a travel stick of deodorant. What a turn-on.” She handed a paintbrush to Jamie, who dropped it in a cup of pink paint. The Love Shack was never going to get done. “Okay, so, take us through your emotional journey.”
“Huh?” Missi said.
“Like, what were you feeling when you saw Wiener last night?”
“Oh.” Jenny was now in relationship-therapist mode, and Missi had no choice but to play patient. “So. It was weird when we hugged.”
“Yes, he acted like he was allergic to you. Go on.”
“And when I asked him about his prom, he talked about dancing with another girl.”
“So he was trying to spark some jealousy?”
“Well, I dunno. He said she was wearing a Brandy Melville dress.”
“Then yes,” Jenny said, eyeing Missi’s T-shirt, which was from Goodwill. “Now tell me how you feel about Chico.” She bumped her eyebrows. “Other than the fact that he’s fresh, hot, well-dressed meat.”
“You literally just described a hamburger,” Melman said, rubbing her stomach.
Jenny ignored her. “Look, Chico’s obsessed with you, Miss, and Wiener’s a weenie. What is there to debate?”
“I don’t know,” Missi said. Jenny was right. The one person who thought she was special had just dissed her. Plus, a foreign fling with Chico could be fun. He was just as handsome as all the centerfolds in J-14 magazine. He had the easy confidence of an ox. He didn’t play hard to get. His accent made every word adorable. It would be like one of her mom’s adventures! Who needed a serious boyfriend anyway?!
“Missi?” Jenny nudged.
“You know what? Sure. I choose Chico.”
“HOORAY! MISS CHICO!” Jenny shouted, just as Chico’s face appeared between two railings of the porch. Wiener was standing on his tippy toes beside him, which brought him up to Chico’s shoulder.
“Hello, ladies,” Chico said with a dazzling smile. “How is the making of the Love Shack?”
Not even Slimey had the maturity to answer him. Instead, the girls burst into giggles. Missi joined them, even though she was absolutely mortified.
“We were definitely not talking about you,” Jamie said to Chico and Wiener.
“Omigod, Jamie!” Jenny playfully shoved Jamie, who tipped over the pink paint. Then Jamie, laughing hysterically, tried to scoop the paint back inside. It wasn’t working so well. Everyone was kind of just watching the J-squad. Well, not everyone. Missi could feel Chico’s eyes on her. Not knowing what to do, except not lock eyes with Chico in front of Wiener and all of her cabinmates, she tucked some escaped strands of hair back into her ponytail.
Finally, Jenny turned her attention back to the guys. “So, um, what are you doing here anyway?”
“We’ve been hard at work on our Dunk Tank,” Wiener said. “It’s gonna be sweet.”
“Not as sweet as the Love Shack,” Chico said.
“No, like sweet-sauce,” Wiener said.
“Right,” Chico said, winking at Missi. “Everything here is a sauce.”
Wiener winked at no one in particular. Maybe it was a tic. Missi wasn’t sure.
“Alright, my Wiener friend,” Chico said, throwing on his sunglasses, “let’s get a move on. We need our supplies.” He held up a list of items and read it aloud. “A spatula, two hockey pucks, and a buttload of floss.” It screamed Steinberg.
The guys walked along the wraparound porch and up into the Arts & Crafts shack. When they were out of sight, Missi sighed with relief through the gap in her two front teeth—it whistled. She was glad Chico was too far to hear it.
“I just realized it doesn’t matter!” Sophie cried suddenly, throwing her cut-out heart in the air.
“Love? Yeah, it does,” Jenny said.
“Not that,” Sophie said. “Wiener and Chico might not look alike, but they both have brown hair, and I doubt their parents have red hair.”
“Dominant genes!” Jamie squealed. “Red hair is a recessive trait, so if Missi gets with a guy who has no redheads in his family, only brownheads, then their baby’s hair will have to be brown!” She rubbed her brown hair against Sophie’s brown braids. It was the most bonding Missi had ever seen Jamie and Sophie do in five full summers.
“Ugh, there’s a reason this is camp, not school,” Jenny said with a sunken face. Then she gasped and her eyes lit up. “MASH time!”
Jamie squealed again and hugged Jenny around the neck. Within seconds, they were pummeling Missi with questions to determine her future.
“Say four potential hubbies.”
“Say their potential jobs.”
“Where would you and your hubby have your first kiss?”
“How many children would you have?”
“What pets would you adopt?”
Jenny finished scribbling Missi’s answers, and then took a deep, dramatic breath. “Are you ready to find out your destiny?”
Missi smiled. Even though she didn’t really believe in games like MASH determining anything, she let all her doubts go. Right now, this was far easier and more fun than figuring it all out for herself. “Ready Freddy,” she said.
Jenny flipped the paper over and began to draw spirals. Missi closed her eyes and counted for five . . . ten . . . fifteen . . . eighteen Mississippi. “STOP!” Missi cried. She opened her eyes. Jenny counted the spirals—fourteen! Then she began to cross off parts of Missi’s future, every fourteenth option, until there was only one of every category left.
Oh, boy, Missi thought, holding the MASH game in her trembling hands. My fate is officially sealed.
“Shout it with me.” Play Dough prompted the Wawel Hillers. “D-U-N-K, DUNK THE PUNK! D-U-N-K, DUNK THE PUNK!”
Wiener stood twenty feet from the Dunk Tank, softball in hand, honored that Steinberg had gifted him
the privilege of testing his cabin’s creation. He guessed it made sense, since he was the one who’d gone “shopping” around camp, trading travel-size toiletries for scraps of wood and metal so that Steinberg could work his magic. There were some supplies Wiener couldn’t find, but Chico had found genius substitutes. Like a go-cart wheel for a bike wheel and a bungee chair for a bike seat. That guy, is there anything he can’t do?! Wiener thought, glancing at Chico. It was no wonder the Wawels had started borrowing his clothes and gel and international stamps—everything about Chico was Cool with a capital C.
“C’mon, Smellsky,” Play Dough called. “If you don’t heckle Wiener, he’s got no motivation to dunk you.”
“Hey, I’ve got motivation,” Wiener said, popping his left bicep and giving it a gentle kiss. “The glory.”
“Dude-a-cris. Heckle him. Now.”
Smelly took a shaky breath. Putting their panic-prone cabinmate in the tank was not the most sensitive choice. “Yo mamma’s so Social she’s got a . . . she’s got a Hall,” he stumbled. “Get it? Social Hall.”
“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Play Dough said. He tossed a handful of gummy bears at Smelly, smacking him on the forehead. “Pretend these are tomatoes.”
All of a sudden, Wiener heard mic feedback. He turned around to face the fourth hole of the Golf Course, where TJ and the Captain were standing on a platform stage. Behind them were blue and white balloons and a banner that read: Carnival Fun.
TJ: ATTENTION, ALL YOU CARNIE ANIMALS! Please have your booths ready to rock and roll in five minutes.
Captain: And remember to follow your carnival schedule. At least two campers have got to man or woman your booth at all times.
TJ: Be a good sport and hold down the fort.
Captain: Please see TJ for prizes to distribute to the winners of your activity. You can also distribute tickets to trade in for cotton candy, popcorn, or ice cream!
TJ: And be sure to smile wide with Rolling Hills pride—the film crew is in da hoouuuuuse!
Captain: They’ll be capturing the carnival for our new recruitment video.
TJ: We’ll be tricking families into believing we do this every summer.
Freefall Page 4
