Camp Payback

by J. K. Rock

  “What?” I mumbled around a mouthful of melty cheese.

  “Have you spoken to Javier about what happened yet?” Yasmine asked. It was a serious mystery how she could seem to look down her nose at me when we were the same height.

  “To say what? I’m sorry my ex-boyfriend is a jerk? I can’t help it that Vijay has turned psycho this year.” Everyone but the counselors knew about the incident on the Fourth of July because Vijay had made a huge deal about it, calling me out as some kind of two-timer for kissing Javier under the same tree as him. While I hated embarrassing Javier, who’d been nothing short of incredible, I also didn’t see why it was such a big deal. A private tree was a rare thing at camp. Could I help it if my options for kissing were limited?

  Luckily his friends had kept him from reporting us to Gollum.

  “No.” Trinity opened up the sketchpad and smoothed her hand over a new page. “But I think it’s hard for Javier being new here. Vijay might be a jerk, but he still has a lot of friends because he’s been coming to camp forever. Javier really keeps to himself.”

  I didn’t know what she was getting at and had no clue how to fix things with Javier when I didn’t do anything wrong. He’d laid low since the incident, but I hoped it was because he avoided trouble and not me. Or was there a difference?

  “Believe me, I’ve gone out of my way to welcome Javier to camp.” I liked him more all the time.

  Jackie let out a wolf-whistle at that comment.

  “But it might help to let Javier know that you kissed him under the tree because you like him and not because you were still trying to make Vijay jealous,” Yasmine pointed out.

  “I already told him that the first time…” I trailed off, thinking more about how things had gone down on the Fourth of July. “You think that’s how Javier sees it? That I kissed him just to piss off someone else?”

  Yasmine didn’t even bother answering me. She turned to Piper and asked, “Is this girl for real?”

  I debated ignoring Yasmine. Taking the high road. But when did she ever opt for that route?

  “Think fast,” I warned, right before I threw one of those squishy balls with floating eyes—Trinity’s most recent Secret Camp Angel gift—at her.

  I would have pegged Yasmine in the shoulder, too, if Jackie hadn’t been sitting right next to her. She caught it with typical Jackie reflexes while everyone frowned at me.

  “Real mature, Alex.”

  Siobhan straightened her glasses. “Did you bring your new book with you?”

  Piper winked. “Maybe you should read a chapter on the bus.”

  “I forgot the Girl’s Dumb Guide to Growing Up.” I faked a yawn to show their comments didn’t bother me in the least. “But I do have a copy of a little volume I like to call, Mind Your Own Business.” I stuck out my tongue at them.

  Yasmine rolled her eyes and turned around again, facing forward so she wouldn’t have to see me. Jackie hit me in the ear with the ball. Trinity tilted her head sideways, studying me, her drawing charcoal hovering over her sketchpad.

  “Can you stick your tongue out again, Alex?” she asked. “I’m having a hard time getting the lines right.”

  I didn’t mind obliging.

  ……………….

  “Supporting artists report to the tent,” Emily announced with uncharacteristic quietness. Her bullhorn had been confiscated ten minutes into our trip to the film set. Apparently her first announcement over the horn—“We’ve arrived!”—had spoiled a scene in progress two blocks away.

  A set assistant had personally sought out Emily to let her know that bullhorns weren’t allowed by visitors to the filming. On the plus side, he’d also been able to show us where to go for our work as extras.

  He scurried away now, the contraband bullhorn under one arm while he waved for us to follow him through the crush of people trying to get near Waynesville’s Main Street for today’s filming. I don’t think we would have gotten far if not for Bam-Bam parting the crowds.

  “Are we supporting artists?” I asked whoever might be listening as I spun in a slow circle on the brick sidewalk, awestruck.

  Catering trucks, RVs and Airstream trailers parked along all the side streets that led to Main. There was a small city of Porta Potties, but then I guess they needed a lot to accommodate all these people milling around in period costumes. Everywhere I looked, there were people adjusting makeup in handheld mirrors or fixing elaborate hairstyles from another era. Were these people already hired for the day? If so, there had to be two hundred extras at least. But then, it seemed there were multiple shoots set up. A handful of cameras surrounded a shop front where a group of well-dressed women in full skirts burst through the doors and walked down the steps to the street. Another set of cameras were focused on a group of children playing old-fashioned hoops and sticks, rolling the big iron hoops down the sidewalk. I tried to see everything at once, and it was tough to keep pace with Emily when I wanted to see what everyone else was doing.

  “Coming through!” shouted a woman pushing a rolling rack full of clothes. “Make way!”

  Piper put an arm around my waist and yanked me out of the way. Brown and gray skirts brushed my bare calf on the way past.

  “I need to start sketching!” Trinity wailed, holding her paper tightly. “There’s so much to see!”

  The atmosphere felt so surreal. It was lights, movement, color, and chaos. I’d never seen anything like it, and yet I felt…home.

  “I love it,” I announced, wishing Javier was here with me, holding my hand. I was so happy I thought I might float right away.

  “Hurry, girls!” Emily called from up ahead, her voice back to normal full volume, which wasn’t much quieter than the bullhorn. “The assistant director says we can get in a street scene if we dress fast.”

  Putting my head down, I pumped my arms and sprinted through the crowd, my eye on the closing gap left by the rolling rack that had just gone by me. For the first time in my life, I beat Jackie.

  “Whoa!” she shouted as I streaked by. “Where was that energy during the cabin sack races?”

  Sack races? Like that compared with this? The incentive of a free bottle of Gatorade for being first to hop over the finish line didn’t compare to the possibility of being on the big screen.

  “Are the clothes up for grabs?” I tried to ask the woman who’d been pushing the rack when I caught up to her. Unfortunately, she was on a cell phone in a heated conversation about a problem with the wardrobe budget.

  I hung back but not by much, hoping to pounce when she disconnected the call. The huge canvas tent was divided with a large side for women and smaller portion for the guys. We parted from the Wander Inn boys and followed the rolling rack over to our side, where at least twenty other women and teenage girls were in the tent in various states of dress. Most had on old-fashioned clothes already, but a couple of girls were in jeans and tees like us. The inside smelled like new vinyl and sweat, but I was too excited about the movie to care.

  The woman with the rolling rack, Cassandra Pierce according to her VIP name tag, didn’t spare me a glance as she disconnected her call, while other wannabe-extras swarmed the rack. She was a skinny brunette whose jet-black curls were styled like a forties movie star.

  “I need twelve energetic girls ranging from ten to twenty years old, but younger looking is better,” she announced, reading off an open document on her digital tablet. “Wardrobe is…” Her finger tracked down the screen “…dark skirts and homespun blouses.”

  “Alex!” I could hear Emily’s voice calling me from the doorway of the tent, but I didn’t answer as I dove for anything “homespun.” “Are you in there?”

  After a small tug of war for a skirt, I had a set of clothes for me and a second set I’d managed to snag before all the dresses were gone. I noticed a few of the die-hard extras had small suitcases with them, however, and had brought similar items from home. Who had old time prairie gear sitting in their closet in the twenty-first century? />
  Hugging my loot, I called over the other girls. Even Hannah and Kayla were with them.

  “Here.” I shoved the bonus set of clothes at Siobhan. “They need people from ten to twenty years old, with preference going to younger people. You look the youngest of any of us.”

  I didn’t really know what was going on, but I didn’t mind going with the flow. And my instincts said the best way to get in a scene was to be dressed and ready when Cassandra Pierce said it was time to go.

  Siobhan clutched the skirt to her chest while Trinity fussed over her.

  “Cool!” Trinity squealed, taking off Siobhan’s glasses. “You need to lose the watch and the jewelry, too, so you look historically accurate.”

  “Smart.” I appreciated Trinity’s artistic eye as I pocketed my watch as well and shrugged into the blouse. I didn’t even bother taking off my tank-top. It hid under the coarse gray fabric of the stark shirt I’d grabbed off the rolling rack.

  “Are there any more clothes?” Emily inched toward the rack, sidestepping women bent over open suitcases or seated in small folding chairs while they read a book or checked their phones.

  Huge fans moved the stifling summer air, the electrical cords taped down on top of the green AstroTurf floor that had been laid down for the occasion.

  “No.” I tugged Siobhan forward even as I still pulled my own skirt into place. “I tried, but it was a madhouse over there and I don’t want to miss when they call us.”

  “Wait!” Siobhan tripped behind me. “Go slow. I can’t see.”

  “Sorry.” My heart pumped hard, hoping to get picked from the crowd gathering around Cassandra.

  I hadn’t wanted anything this badly since last summer when I’d wanted Vijay to notice me. And even that didn’t compare to the new anxiety level hitting DEFCON 4.

  Quickly, I helped Siobhan button the small fastenings on the long shirt sleeves she wore while I backed us into the group lobbying for a place in the street scene.

  “We’re ready!” I called, waving one hand over my head until I remembered I couldn’t button with only one set of fingers.

  Cassandra stood nearby, running a critical eye over us while I finished the last fastening.

  “Shoes?” she barked, making me look down at my navy blue Keds.

  “I don’t have any,” I blurted, panicking, as I looked frantically around the room. Then, tugging my waistband lower on my hips, I hid them under the dark skirt. “I can keep them under the hem. No one will ever know.”

  But Cassandra was already shaking her head and moving on to the next extra, a pig-tailed girl who looked all of twelve, wearing scuffed brown suede boots. Heart breaking with the ironic realization that I would have been better off wearing my eBay hand-me-down wardrobe to the set after all, I felt tears of frustration sting my eyes when Siobhan shouted “excuse me!” in that authoritative, adult way of speaking the Munchies’ Manor resident genius sometimes had.

  When Cassandra turned, Siobhan held up a brown magic marker. “We can color the shoes. As long as we’re in the background, no one should see.”

  I held my breath. The woman ran an impatient hand through her stylized waves.

  “Fine. Fine.” She waved us off toward five other girls who’d already been approved for the scene.

  “Ohmigod!” I hugged Siobhan so hard she dropped the marker. “You’re my real Camp Angel.”

  “Congratulations, home girls.” Emily bounded over to sling an arm around each of us. “Represent for the Munchies out there, okay? I’m not sure what scene the rest of us will be in, but look for us in the tent when you’re done. If it gets past five o’clock and we haven’t met up, head to the bus.”

  We nodded, and I hugged Emily, too. My emotions were a runaway mess.

  “I’m so excited,” I squealed like a preteen after her first kiss. “Thank you for bringing us.”

  “Sistas before mistas, am I right? It was good for you to take a day away from camp.” She held up her hand for a high five. “Sometimes, a girl just has to ditch the boy drama.”

  And the family drama, I thought. It felt good not to be judged or criticized. To be somewhere I fit in. Belonged. Maybe here, I could be good enough.

  “Come on.” It was Siobhan dragging me now. “I’ve still got to color your shoes into brown oblivion. You sure about this?”

  It was no secret in my cabin that my parents were massively cheap as a method for teaching gratitude. No doubt Siobhan knew I went clothes shopping once a year. Anything I ripped, lost, or grew out of wouldn’t be replaced. My sewing skills wouldn’t save the tennis shoes.

  “Totally sure.” I had to stop myself from dancing in place while she applied the marker. “My acting debut is worth crappy sneakers.”

  Although attending a new school in the fall meant people wouldn’t know me and I’d be judged by what I wore. Ink-covered shoes were never a ticket to popularity. Javier’s work boots came to mind, and I felt a pang for everything he’d been through.

  “So what do we do?” Siobhan asked a few minutes later, slipping her glasses on to peer around the set before the cameras started to roll.

  We’d followed Cassandra out to Main Street, which had been turned into an old-time town, complete with spongy foam covering the road to make it look more like a dirt street. The director—or whoever it was filming this scene—paced in front of a camera on a dolly, talking to three people at once. Mic booms ringed the small section of street that had been altered to look historically accurate. The signs had been taken out of the shop windows. Trash barrels and mailboxes removed from against the storefronts. Old-fashioned dark green awnings had been installed over a bunch of windows. But for the most part, downtown Waynesville had already looked pretty historic, with the brick sidewalks and low buildings.

  “I don’t know.” I couldn’t take it all in fast enough. I’d left my normal life and stepped back in time. “Do I look okay?”

  “Um.” Siobhan studied my face. My hair. “Yes. How about me?”

  My eye went to her bracelet—the Secret Camp Angel lanyard Emily had made.

  “We have to take these off.” I started unknotting mine while she slid hers off her child-sized wrist.

  “Good catch.”

  “And your glasses have to go.”

  Siobhan smiled at me, her heavy frames lifting higher on her cheekbones. “You’ve got a knack for this.”

  “Ready, girls?” Cassandra walked over in her high-heeled boots, careful on the spongy material covering the street. “This should be a fairly straight forward shot. The director is going to film one of our principals walking out of a storefront with a crowd following behind her. You’re part of the crowd.”

  “Why are we following her?” For the first time, I noticed a young woman with a small entourage off to one side of the set. She wore nicer clothes than us—as if she was a richer woman in the 1800s. She had leather boots with her skirt, the buttons showing when she moved. A white petticoat beneath made the clothes hang better. A wide-brimmed hat shielded her face as a makeup artist dusted powder over her nose.

  “She has convinced you all to join her in protesting the conditions in the gold mine,” Cassandra explained, moving extras around by the shoulders as if they were oversized chess pieces. “We just need a couple of quick shots to suggest the building momentum of the movement.”

  “Is this a true story?” I asked when Cassandra moved me where she wanted me—on the top step of a storefront.

  “No.” She seemed to see me for the first time, her eyes meeting mine. “It’s historical fiction but very plausible for the time. When lode mining started, it was extremely dangerous.”

  “Thanks for choosing me.” I was a gratitude machine today, feeling the love for Emily, for Siobhan, and now this total stranger who’d given me the chance to be someone else for a day.

  Cassandra smiled at me, her lip piercing winking in the sunlight.

  “Sure thing. Just remember to look sort of grim and determined, all right?”
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  “Got it.” I would use the same expression I wore whenever Vijay headed my way.

  My game face. My “payback is hell” look. At least, that’s what I was going for.

  “Places!” The pacing director stood still now, his attention on us.

  A thrill shot through me. I looked across the store steps toward Siobhan and winked at her, though I wasn’t sure if she could see me with her glasses off.

  The blonde actress with the big-brimmed hat came our way and took her place in front of us as if she’d done this a million times. Another girl walked into our little scene with her. She had a hat on, too, but no petticoat.

  “Quiet on the set!” the director yelled.

  I thought I might hyperventilate. Not that I was nervous. I just loved the idea of becoming someone else. Of creating art in this massive joint effort.

  “Action!”

  I strode forward with my group, elbows swinging. Jaw set.

  The camera moved with us. I could sense it in my peripheral vision, but I didn’t look that way. I stormed up that sidewalk like my life depended on my grim determination. I was going to be the best extra in movie history.

  And then I did it again and again and again. Siobhan and I marched up that street at least twenty times before the shot was declared finished and everyone took a break for lunch.

  “So fun, right?” Emily greeted us later at the extras tent, her beret gone and a dirty straw sun hat in its place. “We haven’t done our scene yet, and you can be in it, too. We just have to rush toward a saloon in a big group because we’ve all heard someone found gold.”

  “See what I’ve been working on?” Trinity stood next to Emily in the buffet line, still wearing her camp clothes—denim cut-offs and a purple T-shirt. She flipped her sketchpad toward me. “I’ve got a lot of touchup work to do…”

  “Oh, wow,” I breathed, reaching out to touch the paper where she’d drawn the scene outside the storefront. Both Siobhan and I were in it, right behind the two actresses. The other extras were less distinct. “That’s incredible.”

  Siobhan joined me, her glasses back in place. “You must have had a good angle.”