“Okay, yeah!” Jamie said, offering her hand.
But Jenny got to Jamie’s hand first. And then instead of Jenny leading Jamie to the front of the court, she pulled Jamie onto her lap. “Bungee butt dance! Bungee butt dance!” Jenny sang, as they bounced to the beat on the bungee chair.
Missi kept dancing like a champ, thinking of the Oldwick Hoedown motto: “Go BIG or GO TO BED, seniors!” She shimmied like crazy over the back of Jenny’s chair and sang, “Boogie woogie woogie!”
“Omigod, personal bubble,” Jenny mumbled. She didn’t ask Jamie to get up off her lap—in fact, her arm was around Jamie’s waist like a seatbelt—so it was clear that, once again, Jenny didn’t want Missi to share in their J-squad moment.
Missi shrunk her sashay to small backward shuffles until she was on her sleeping bag, alone. She switched her focus to the gnats and fist-size moths buzzing around the night lamps and wondered if she was nothing but a winged pest.
Keep step-touching, Missi told herself. Be your own individual. It’s what Rebecca Joy would do. She looked out at the Wawels, who were still dancing, and suddenly she noticed something unusual—and familiar—about their styles. Dover’s collar was popped. Totle was wearing jean shorts. Smelly wore sunglasses on the top of his head. Steinberg wore an argyle belt. Play Dough’s hair was spiked up with gel. Chico, like normal, was sporting all of it: a popped collar, jean shorts, sunglasses, an argyle belt, and gel. And Wiener . . . Wait, where was Wiener?
The guys formed a semicircle and waved up a Bunker Hiller to join them. It was Max Meyer! He jumped in front of the Wawels, dancing better than anyone Missi had ever met at Oldwick. In fact, he was performing a breakdance solo that was so sharp and original, he could be hired tomorrow as a professional bar mitzvah dancer.
“SLIDE, LI’L WIENER, SLIDE!” the Wawel Hillers cheered. “HE’S ELECTRIC!”
Suddenly Play Dough stepped center stage to throw Max onto his shoulders, and the mystery was solved. A pale Wiener had been standing behind Play Dough, snail-paced Electric Sliding with a bag of frozen tater tots to his head. Poor guy. Missi guessed he was still healing from today’s Dunk Tank accident.
Steinberg started singing new lyrics to “Moves Like Jagger”: “HE’S GOT THE MOVES LIKE SWAGGER! HE’S GOT THE MOVES LIKE SWAGGER!” Quickly, the entire camp caught on and joined in: “HE’S GOT THE MOO-OO-OO-OO-OOVES LIKE SWAGGER!”
Except Wiener. He was definitely not singing.
Missi wanted to call out to him, “It’s okay! Just sit out and enjoy your brother’s amazing moves! No one’s gonna judge!” But then the song ended, and the Wawel Hillers boogie-woogied to their sleeping bags. Suddenly, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Sophie. “On a scale from repugnantly dull to stunningly electric, how would you rate Dover?”
“As a dancer?”
“As a lover.”
“Um.” Clearly Sophie had decided on her crush of the summer. “Stunningly electric?”
“Yes. I knew it. Thank you, Missi. Though you be but little, you are fierce.”
Flattered and a little surprised to have her opinion matter—on boys, of all subjects—Missi smiled a wholehearted Thanks and you’re welcome. Then, just as she sat down, she spotted Chico wandering onto the girls’ side of the court. He had his hand on his forehead like a visor and his eyes were running through the rows of upper campers. He was looking for someone. Me? Missi thought. No way. But, just in case, she’d have to show her eye-catching red hair. She pulled down her sweatshirt hood and yanked out her scrunchie. Her hair spilled out of a bun. Well, not spilled. More like fluffed. She’d forgotten to use Frizz Ease tonight.
Still, it worked. Chico spotted her. He dropped his hand visor, and his face lit up like a Christmas tree. Translation: You’re not a winged pest. You’re special, even when your head looks like a cotton ball dipped in fruit punch.
He headed to her side and said, “Hi, Missi.”
She liked how adorably he said her name: Mee-see.
“May I sit?” he asked gently.
Clearly Chico wasn’t aware that for activities like this one, the girls always sat on the right and the boys always sat on the left. It’s just how it worked. But Missi didn’t want to get weighed down by rules. She wanted to think about Chico’s perfectly crooked smile and all the bonding stuff they’d gone through today: a proposal, a film crew, and vomit-y shoes.
“Missi?” he repeated.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Missi said, flustered. “Of course, I mean!” She turned around to get Cookie’s permission, but her counselor was busy braiding together Sophie’s seven braids. That’s a yes, I guess! Missi jumped up and began to reposition her sleeping bag horizontally to make room for Chico, but with the court being so packed, she had to fold it in half. Now the bag took up the perfect amount of space for two butts.
As Chico sat beside her, his jeans against her leggings, Missi’s heart began to pound. He definitely had space to sit a little farther from her.
“Where is your Pop Ring?” he asked.
“Huh? Oh! Ring Pop!” she said, laughing. “Jamie ate it off my finger.”
Jamie glanced over at the mention of her name, and then, seeing Chico, moved Jenny’s face to stare at them, too.
“Um, this is the girls’ side,” Jenny blurted.
“Yes, you are girls,” Chico said.
“Yes, we know we’re girls,” Jenny said.
“Yes, that is good,” Chico said.
Jenny huffed and began to wave Play Dough over—probably not to start trouble, but because if Missi had a boy sitting with her, then she should, too. But Play Dough was sitting on Dover’s lap while Dover laugh-howled in pain, and neither of them seemed to notice Jenny’s flailing arms.
Chico paid Jenny no mind. He just looked at Missi while conversation starters frantically blew around in her head like balls in a Powerball machine. “I loved your cabin’s dance,” she said at random. “I love dancing. I dance a lot with my grandparents and my cats.”
“With your cats?” Chico asked.
“She’s joking,” Jenny said, jumping into rescue mode. “Right, Missi, you were joking?”
“No,” Missi said. She wasn’t joking, and even though what she’d just said required more explanation, that’s what conversation starters were for. “Do you have a cat?” she asked Chico, crossing her toes that he’d say yes and they’d have infinite kitty stories to bond over.
“I’m allergic,” Chico said.
Missi uncrossed her toes, disappointed. “Oh, that stinks.” Then she swept her eyes over the sleeping bag for furballs and spotted two of them at her toe-socked feet. She pretended to stretch and brushed them away. “But you like dancing?” Missi asked.
“In teen clubs,” Chico said. “I’m a trained Flamenco dancer. I’ve also studied Sevillana, which is a lively dance of Seville, and like Flamenco, but has four parts.”
“I used to think Flamenco was called ‘Flamingo,’” Missi said, giggling. “You know, the pink bird?”
“So you dance Flamenco, too?”
“Oh. No.”
“Missi could totally dance Flamingo,” Jenny cut in. “I dance Hip-hop, Lyrical, and Jazz, so I know a dancer when I see one. One summer, she did the talent show dance with Jamie and me, and as she body-rolled, I was thinking, like, Omigod she’s a natural.” She smiled at Missi, then pointed at Chico’s face. “Also, I’m just going to say it: Your black eye is hot.”
Chico dabbed his bumpy bluish-black eye. “Uh, okay,” he said.
“So!” Missi burst out, by way of subject change. “Do you play an instrument?”
“For a while I played the oboe, but then I got bored, so I learned the upright bass, but that thing is big and not easy to travel with, so now I—how do you say—compose electronic.”
“Wait, what do you compose?”
“Electronic. At home, I have my own keyboard, synth, and software.”
“Cool! I play the flute.”
“Oh, man. That’s too bad.�
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“Wait, what is?”
“If you have to practice hours each night, then you should be able to choose your sound, not play whatever your family chooses for you. What did you want to play?”
The flute. “Oh, um.” She looked at Jenny.
“The harp,” Jenny said.
“You should look into the electric harp. That is an instrument worth playing.”
“ALL RIGHT, ROLLING HILLS,” TJ shouted. Then he brought his voice down to a spooky whisper. “The show is about to sliiiiiiiide!”
The Captain took the mic and spoke totally normally. “Usually we bring you here to watch the end-of-summer slideshow, a tear-jerking chronicle of the past eight weeks. But since we welcomed the film crew today, we wanted to give you a taste of their work, shown alongside similar camp pictures from the last five decades. In another few weeks, just before Visiting Day, we will show you the . . .”
“NEW CAMPER RECRUITMENT VIDEO!” the Captain and TJ shouted together.
Suddenly the night lamps went out. The song “Forever Young” erupted from giant speakers, and Now and Then pictures of campers flew across the screen. Missi joined in on the “ooh”-s and “aww”-s, relieved to get a break. After all, she knew as much about electric harps as she did about Shawn Mendes.
“IT’S US!” the J-squad squealed at the top of their lungs. “GO NOTTING HILLERS—WHAT-WHAT!”
The picture vanished only two seconds later, but when Missi closed her eyes, she could see it clear as day: A split screen of two groups of upper camp girls. The one on the right was a high-quality shot of her cabinmates in front of the Love Shack booth. Missi was on the end, hovering over Jamie, whose arms were tightly wrapped around Jenny’s waist. Missi wasn’t surrounded by her friends. She was invading their space.
The picture on the left looked like it had a Slumber Instagram filter on. The girls’ styles were noticeably old school—off-the-shoulder T-shirts, butterfly barrettes, and blue eye shadow. Smack in the middle was what looked like her graceful, popular twin. It was Rebecca Joy Snyder.
Missi opened her eyes to watch the slideshow, but she got lost in all the recent memories she’d shared with her mom: doing hot yoga, and baking Irish soda bread, and painting the farm at sunrise. Missi loved every second they’d spent together. She hadn’t cared that her grades had slipped or that her bandmates had stopped inviting her to pizza after rehearsal because she’d cancelled on them so many times. In fact, Missi had only agreed to return to camp because Rebecca Joy had assured her that it would bring her matru-prema (aka motherly love) to see her daughter in her element.
Suddenly, Missi missed her mom so much it hurt. All she wanted was to talk about her. “Hey, Jamie?” she whispered. “Did you see the old picture next to the one of us?”
“Not really. I was looking at myself.” Jamie squinted into the darkness at Missi’s unsmiling face. “Wait, are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just that in the old picture, the other redhead—she’s my—”
“Omigod, cheer up, Missi!” Jenny cut in, leaning over and kissing the top of Missi’s frizz. “Slideshow time is happy time! Chico, tickle her.”
“I don’t, uh, tickle,” he replied.
Just then the screen went black. Then, in turquoise, one letter appeared at a time as if being typed by a literal ghost-writer: MYSTERY TRIPS LEAVE TOMORROW AT SUNRISE. There was a suspended breath of anticipation in the crowd as the cursor on the screen blinked in thought. The typing continued: BUT TO WHERE? The crowd started muttering in excited confusion, and then scrambled words like OPRTWNCESOO and ISX GSLAF and SEHEYRHKAPR spiraled smaller and smaller into the middle of the screen like a tornado.
“SLOW DOWN! SLOW DOWN!” the campers cried. But the clues spiraled faster and faster until the screen went white. The night lamps turned back on.
Missi swallowed her homesickness and watched Jenny turn to Jamie: “Bus Buddy?” they asked each other. “Jinx! Double jinx!”
Determined, Missi turned to her left. “Hey, Sl—” but Slimey was tickling Melman.
“Ugh, fine,” Melman said. “I’ll sit with you as long as you don’t draw me while I’m sleeping.”
Missi turned around. “Hey, Soph—” But Sophie was already playing thumb war with Cookie for the window seat.
Missi sighed and then stood, rolling up her spine, vertebra by vertebra, like her mom had taught her. It’s just a silly bus ride, she told herself. If her mom could travel solo around the world, then surely she could handle an empty seat beside her for an hour or two.
When Missi lifted her head, her eyes met Chico’s. He looked more gorgeous than ever. He took his hood down from his head, and his hair didn’t even fluff like hers had. It was waved and spiked to perfection.
“Need help?” he asked.
“With what?”
“The body bag.”
“You mean the sleeping bag?” she asked, her lips unexpectedly curling into a smile. Sometimes morbid stuff made her laugh. “Sure, that’s nice of you.”
As Chico held up the other end of the sleeping bag and rolled it toward her, Missi tried to think of something impressive to say. Something that would really wow him. But what was she supposed to talk about? Farm life with seven cats and a nonelectric flute? Nope. What would Rebecca Joy share with a foreign fling? she asked herself. Her mom had so many wild stories: Sailing the Mediterranean. Singing backup for a German rock opera. Painting an abandoned ship from INSIDE THE OCEAN.
But then Chico reached her, making a Chico-Sleeping Bag-Missi sandwich. “We can sit together on the bus, yes?” he asked sweetly.
And then, too wowed to wow him back, she replied with a simple nod.
“ALL ABOARD,” Arman bellowed from the door of the mini yellow bus.
“Wait up!” Wiener cried. He was sprinting from Wawel Hill Cabin, where he’d returned to grab his Sea-Band, a motion-sickness sweat bracelet that looked like it belonged on the wrist of a tennis pro. At least that’s how his mom had pitched it to him the first time she’d made him wear it. With the carnival disaster still fresh in everyone’s mind, he figured he was better safe than sick.
Wiener was about to pummel up the bus steps when Cookie stopped him. “Spin,” she said, waving a silver spray can. “You need protection from the nasty rays you’ll be encountering.”
Nasty rays, huh? So this Fiftieth Anniversary trip is science-themed! Wiener shut his eyes and mouth and spun as Cookie doused him in sticky solution. “Nice gag,” he said with a wink. “Are we headed to a science museum? Is it zombie laser tag? Wait, don’t tell me: a screening of an old sci-fi flick!”
Steinberg peered out the bus door at Wiener like he was clinging to his last brain cell. “Dude. She sprayed you with sun-screen.”
“Psh, I know,” Wiener said, the coconut-lotion smell kicking in twenty seconds too late. He climbed up the steps. “Maybe you didn’t hear, but I also guessed that we’re going tubing down the Delaware River.”
“No, you didn’t,” Play Dough said, two rows deep.
“I was thinking it.” Just find Chico and take a seat, Wiener told himself as he swaggered down the aisle. Stop opening your big, lying mouth. He spotted Chico’s head bobbing over the green leathery seat in the very back, except the spot beside him wasn’t empty. Missi’s red braid was peeking out into the aisle. It’s cool, totally cool. He swaggered backward, his eyes darting from row to row for another spot to sit.
Suddenly he felt something hard poke him under his shoulder blade. “Hey, buddy,” he heard Arman say behind him. Wiener whipped around to meet his counselor’s robot finger. “You’re in the three-seater with Chico and Missi.”
“Niiice,” Wiener said, not budging and hoping that Arman would be the one to explain to the Couple of the Summer that they’d have to make room for the very person who, just yesterday, puked zucchini bread onto their shoes. But Arman was suddenly busy sorting through a bag of individual cereal containers to distribute for breakfast.
Wiener shame-swagge
red back down the aisle to their row. First step: small talk. “Waaaz up?” he asked them.
“Nothing really,” Missi said, yawning into a smile. “It’s early, but we’re excited.”
So they were officially a “we” now. Wiener pretended to blink tired-style but really gave Missi a once-over. She was dressed differently than usual in feather earrings and a teal flowing dress. Why the costume? Oh! She knows where we’re headed! “So, we’re going to the thee-ay-ter?” he prodded in a mild British accent.
“Huh?” Missi asked, tugging her dress so that it draped over her knees.
He was making her uncomfortable. He should make her less uncomfortable.
“Wiener, my man!” Arman called from the front. “You’ve gotta take a seat.”
“On it!” Step two: break the news. He looked pleadingly at Chico and then at Missi, hoping they’d make room without him having to ask outright, but they still seemed to be grappling with his spontaneous British accent. “There’s nowhere else to sit,” he finally admitted, pathetic as ever.
“Oh!” Missi said, scooting over. “I mean, I just didn’t—that’s totally fine.”
“My butt’s small,” Wiener let slip. Then he sat down, debating whether he should try to take up more space to show his butt’s bigness or if he should cramp himself onto the edge to be polite. He went with the latter.
As the bus took off down the dirt road, and through the camp gates, and along the windy farm roads, Wiener munched on dry Cheerios. Out the window, the orange sun rays danced on a herd of cows, their heads dipping down to the hay. For a second, Wiener imagined the cows eating the hay with milk, which was funny, because cows, like, made milk, and then he thought about that one time he’d visited Missi’s farm, and he’d milked her cow named Franc. Play Dough had milked Franc, too, but he’d stunk at it—the milk had squirted all over his face!
Freefall Page 6
