First Kiss: The Ghost Bird Series: #10 (The Academy Ghost Bird Series)

by C. L. Stone

  “Oy,” Gabriel said, shrugging. “We did it. We can’t treat her differently.”

  “I don’t like the idea of her being out there alone like that,” Kota said and then turned to me. “I know we’re camping but…”

  “Come on Kota,” Luke said. “We did it. She’ll have one night to herself and then she can join us.”

  Kota frowned. “I don’t like this.”

  Gabriel’s face shifted from joking to serious. “You know what? She set up her tent. She doesn’t have to actually sleep in there, right? Maybe we can just get her to light our campfire and do a few things.”

  Luke walked up to me, nudging my arm. “I guess you don’t get to spend the night alone.”

  “I am, too,” I said, suddenly feeling like they were going easy on me. I turned to Victor, hoping maybe he would help. “How else am I going to fit in with you all? If each of you spent the night in a tent alone, then I have to, too, don’t I? Where’s my pile?”

  Victor glanced at Kota. “I don’t think we should...”

  Kota didn’t say anything for a moment but then waved a hand in the air. “No, it’s okay. If she wants to spend the night alone in her tent, let her. It’s her tent. We got her everything she’ll need and she’ll just be on the other side of the trees.”

  “No,” Gabriel said. “Make her stay with us. You were right before.”

  “She wants to,” Kota said. “We should let her.”

  I considered it a victory, though a bittersweet one. I did want to sleep in their tent with them, but I wanted to fit in, too. It was just sleeping. I grinned, gathering my supplies up in my arms. Before I passed Kota, I stopped, rocking up on my feet to kiss his cheek. I needed to not let the others make me too nervous to do what I needed to do. “Thank you, Kota.”

  Kota looked at me, an eyebrow raised and a surprised smile on his face. “You’re welcome, Sang. Need any help?”

  “No. The guys said I had to do it alone.” I hefted my book bag on my shoulder, heading back to the trail between the campgrounds.

  This time, when I went, Victor followed. It was the first time I noticed he was wearing black jeans instead of slacks, and a light gray jacket over a white V-neck T-shirt of some sort. It was so casual for him.

  He knelt outside my tent, checking out the inside while I crawled inside and unrolled the sleeping bag. “Do you want your cot instead of sleeping on the ground?” he asked.

  “Will it fit in here?” I asked, checking the space. It was a good idea, but it was barely big enough for the sleeping bag to spread out fully. While the tent said it could fit three people, it didn’t seem to be realistic to fit two. Silas wouldn’t be able to sleep in it without curling up.

  “They didn’t have a pink one in a larger size,” he said. “Although I wasn’t really sure you’d use it. I thought you’d want to spend the night with us.”

  “Luke and Gabriel said it was a rite of passage.”

  Victor smirked. He combed his wavy brown hair back off his forehead. “They did, huh?”

  I nodded, then knee-walked to the entrance. Victor held out his hand, and I took it, letting him help me up and out of the tent.

  “You know you don’t have to,” Victor said. “I think I’d prefer if you slept with us in the big tent.”

  I wanted that, too, but I also wanted to be part of the group. “I have to. They said everyone else did. It’s fine,” I said, smiling. “It’s just sleeping, right? I can hang out with you all the rest of the time?”

  Victor smiled but didn’t say anything. He held my hand as we walked back to the other campsite.

  By then, North and Nathan had the big tent spread out. It was so wide that it took up nearly all of the plots meant for tents.

  North stood back. Nathan was in the middle, fiddling with a handle. I looked for poles and rope like I’d had to use to put mine together.

  “What’s this?” I asked, looking at the setup. “Where are your poles?”

  North turned back to me. A dark eyebrow arched over a brown eye. “Huh?”

  “Mine had poles. Where’s yours?”

  North smirked. “Just watch.”

  I stood next to North as Nathan hooked his fingers around a handle and yanked it. He jumped off the top of the mass of plastic sheeting on the ground until he got safely to the grass on the other side.

  The tent unfolded, widening even bigger than before, automatically setting itself up. Nathan ran around the tent, pushing already-attached spikes into the ground. Within a minute, he had the whole thing set up.

  My mouth hung open. Academy boys had automatic pop-up tents.

  North tapped at my chin, reminding me to close my mouth. “You might know a few tricks, Baby, but we’ve got a few, too.”

  “It’s totally cheating,” I said.

  North’s dark eyes lit up and he put an arm around my shoulder, hugging me sideways. “So you approve?”

  I poked him in the side so he’d release me and then I marched off toward the supply piles, pretending to walk away in a huff. I was impressed, though. It had been so easy. Gabriel and Luke had made such a big deal about making me put mine up by hand!

  Kota read from the clipboard, designating different piles for coolers, general equipment, beds, clothes and personal items. He put the clipboard down on the picnic table and pulled off the green jacket, laying it neatly next to a green book bag. It was getting to be mid-day, and while there was still a chill in the shade under the trees, the sun was starting to warm the air.

  Kota picked up his clipboard, flipped a page, and then spoke to Silas, pointing to a stack of cots. “Let’s start filling in those first, putting more toward the back and the sides, to give us room in the middle and front areas for our stuff. We should store the coolers in the cars to keep the bears out.”

  “Stop talking about bears,” North said from the other side of the tent where he was adjusting the pegs.

  The others shared a look and a smile. I was starting to wonder if North was afraid of bears.

  I wasn’t sure what to do, so I stepped beside Silas and awaited instructions.

  Kota finished with Silas and then turned to me. He touched the corner of his glasses with a forefinger. “Are you missing anything? Did you get all your things?”

  “Tell me what to do,” I said. I pointed to the pile of supplies. “My stuff is done. What’s my job?”

  “We’ve got it,” Kota said. “Once you’ve got the tent up and your stuff is inside, there’s not much left to do. Go have fun.”

  I pursed my lips, sliding my eyes to Victor, who was standing by. Victor rubbed my back, but he addressed Kota. “She wants to help,” he said.

  Kota smiled and then reached to my forehead, wiping away a strand of hair blowing in my face, tucking it behind my ear. I beamed at him. I liked it when he did that. “If you want to help, go scout out the area. Go find the latrine.”

  “Latrine?” I asked. I knew what it meant, but it was surprising to hear him say that and not just calling the bathrooms. Was there something different about bathrooms at campgrounds?

  “He wants you to go find the bathrooms,” Victor said.

  I smiled at his effort to be helpful. “I could help organize stuff here.”

  Kota touched me gently on my forehead to get my attention. “We need to know where the closest ones are. This map seems to be old and might not be accurate. Use the map, check the layout. We should all get familiar.” He pointed to some empty jugs. “Fill up some drinking water, too. And a water bucket for the fire for when we need to put it out. You might want to fill one for your own camp area, too.”

  That made sense. “Okay. I’ll find the bath—latrine first and then will come back and fill up the bucket.”

  “I’ll go with her,” Gabriel said, walking up beside me, finding my hand and grabbing it.

  “It doesn’t take two to scout,” Kota said.

  “We’re camping buddies,” he said. “We’re supposed to stick together. Besides, I have to pee.�
� He tugged at my hand. “Come on, Trouble. You’re lucky I’m not making you dig a hole in the ground. That’s in the scout manual. I think you earn a badge for that.”

  I shared a look with Kota. He released a small sigh and shrugged before he picked up his clipboard again and turned toward Victor.

  I was glad Gabriel was coming with me so I could tell him about the plan with Kota.

  “Meanie,” I said to him when we were out of earshot of the others. “You know how Kota’s kind of stressed out?”

  “Because Kota has a system,” Gabriel said, squeezing my hand. “He’s not trying to be fussy and dismissive. And because it’s your first camping trip and he wants you to have a good time. He doesn’t want to weigh you down with a bunch of work.”

  Not what I was talking about, but I appreciated he was defending Kota. “I don’t mind the work...”

  “I wish he’d let me take a break like that. He’s usually on my ass to do more.” He pointed to a wooden sign at a crossroad. “Are these signs faded, or what? That says latrine, right?”

  We had to get closer to figure out it was a latrine sign. We headed in that direction.

  “I just meant to say, I’m trying to get on Kota’s good side.”

  Gabriel looked at me. “Are you kidding? You’re already on Kota’s good side.”

  “I mean about...the plan, sort of. Nathan said I needed to work on him a little. He said Kota’s been distancing himself from me and...”

  Gabriel stopped in the middle of the road and turned to me. “Are you fucking kidding me? Kota’s the one that hasn’t stopped talking about you since you’ve been around.”

  I pressed my free hand to my heart, my mouth hanging open. “Oh...”

  He dropped my hand and made a face like Kota, imitating his voice. “Don’t be so rough on Sang. Why are you always in the bathroom with Sang? Do you think she’d want this pink shit? Fucking ape hamster shit fuck, Sang, Sang, Sang.” He stopped and then smiled, picked up my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I’m not complaining, but that guy bugs me more about making sure you’ve got enough clothes and things than anyone else. I tell him I’ve got it covered. I’m not going to let you walk around naked.”

  I turned my head to hide the blush heating up my face. “Nathan said he talks to Kota about me but Kota wants to talk about other stuff.”

  “Not as far as I know,” he said. He scratched his chin absently. I suddenly noticed he hadn’t shaved and there was a shadow of stubble across his jaw. I liked how it made him look.

  “But we do need to get him in on the plan,” he said, not seeming to notice me admiring his face. “Mr. Blackbourne keeps putting it off. Honestly, I think he’s waiting on Nathan and Silas to come around on the idea more. Maybe he’s worried Nathan could talk Kota out of it.”

  “But we need Kota in on it to convince Nathan,” I said. “Maybe I can do something this week, spend more time with Kota. If I can get him to where he seems like he might be comfortable with it, Mr. Blackbourne can finally tell him about the plan. We can all get on the same page.”

  “That might be a good thing.” He tugged my hand to get us walking again. “I can’t wait to be able to talk to them all about it openly. All this secret keeping is driving me batshit.”

  “Can you let the others know, though? It might be hard for me to pull them all aside right now without Kota noticing now that we’re all here.”

  Gabriel lifted an eyebrow, reached up and touched the pink earring. “No trouble, Trouble.”

  We found the latrine and it wasn’t too far from our campsite. The gray stone building had two sides, with girl and boy sections, thick dark wood support beams, and overhangs on all sides. There were water fountains out front, with spots to plug in hoses, too.

  Gabriel and I stood on the concrete porch just outside the girls’ side. The door was propped open with a rock. We glanced inside, our heads close. It was dark. The tile looked dingy, covered with sand in spots. The stalls had rusty patches flaking from the old green paint. There were initials and words scratched into the walls, some faded, some inappropriate for children.

  And all I could think was that there must be a hundred creepy, crawly things in there.

  “Gabriel?” I asked in a quiet voice, a finger pinching my lower lip. “Will you go in there?”

  “I don’t want to go in there,” he said. “You go in there.”

  “There might be a spider,” I said. “You should go see.”

  “I don’t want to see a spider.”

  I stepped closer, but still held his hand, taking him with me.

  We leaned in the doorway. There were several stalls on one side, sinks on the other. Beyond it was an even darker area, like a back room. I didn’t know what it was for. I kind of didn’t want to know. The area was shadowed, smelling strongly of old soap, rusty water, and dampness.

  I glanced up. Gabriel’s eyes followed mine. The beams of the building were exposed and the windows were wide open above the stalls. There were screens in the windows, but they had holes in them. I couldn’t see the corners of the ceiling because of how dim the building was, but I imagined hundreds of spiders above us, waiting to fall in our hair the moment we stepped inside.

  “What the hell?” Gabriel asked. “Why not just plant a toilet in the ground outside?”

  “There’s spiders in there,” I said. “Go get rid of them.”

  “I’m not going in for a spider,” he said. “I don’t like spiders.”

  “I have to pee,” I said. Now that we were here, I wanted to get that part over with so I wouldn’t have to go for the rest of the day. I couldn’t imagine going in at night. I’d have to make sure not to drink too much. What was I going to do for the rest of the week?

  “I have to pee, too,” Gabriel said. “I’m a second away from using a tree. At least out here in the sunlight I can see if anything is crawling on me.”

  “I can’t pee on a tree. I don’t have a...the...plumbing.”

  “Ha,” Gabriel said with a chuckle. “You almost said penis. That’s so cute.”

  “Who are we going to get to go in and kill the spiders?”

  We stared at each other for a minute. We needed someone who would actually kill spiders and wouldn’t laugh at us. At the same moment, we both turned our heads back toward the campsite and shouted. “Silas!”

  Silas materialized a few moments later, coming up the hill to the latrine. “What?” he asked as he marched toward us. He’d removed his jacket, wearing just a blue baseball shirt. The shirt made him look bulkier around the shoulders. He towered over me as he got close.

  “Will you go in and kill the spiders?” I asked.

  He peered into the girls’ bathroom, squinting into the dark. “You saw spiders?”

  “No,” I said. “Can you go see if there are any?”

  He laughed, and the white of his teeth contrasted against his olive skin. His voice was rich with amusement. “You made me run down here to see if there were spiders?”

  I blushed. Maybe he was laughing, but he hadn’t said no. “Please?”

  Silas glanced at Gabriel. “You wouldn’t go in?”

  “I’m not going in that shit,” he said. “They’ve got those big ones around here. The ones with the furry knees.”

  My mouth fell open. “Furry knees?”

  “Don’t tell her that,” Silas said. “She won’t be able to sleep tonight.” Silas nudged us out of the way, stepping into the bathroom. He tilted his head around and then slapped the wall.

  The bare bulbs overhead flickered to life, but there was little improvement.

  Silas sighed. He marched to the first stall, opened the door, and disappeared into it for a second before he came back out, announcing, “There’s no spiders in here.”

  “Did you look under the toilet?” I asked.

  He grunted and shuffled back into the stall, stepping out a second later. “Aggele,” Silas said. “Will you get in here, please? There’s no bugs. It’s clean. It’s not bad. I
t’s just a little dark because you’re out in the brighter light outside.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was right or if he was just trying to make me happy. I edged forward. Once inside, I wrapped my arms around my stomach, trying to become as small as possible so I wouldn’t risk touching a wall or a sink. I gazed at the painted brick walls, and the concrete floor with an ominous drain on the floor. Why was this so creepy? Maybe I wasn’t a camping sort of person.

  “Good luck, Trouble,” Gabriel said from the door. “I’m going to go find a tree to make friends with.” He dashed off towards the trees where I couldn’t see him.

  “Argh,” I said, making a fist and shaking it, although I didn’t really blame him at all. I wasn’t so sure a tree wouldn’t be better. “So much for having a camping buddy.”

  Silas chuckled and then leaned against the stall wall, folding his arms over his chest. He seemed taller than ever—definitely older than sixteen. “Gabriel thought you’d be the one to squash the spiders. Usually, we make him do it.”

  “He doesn’t like spiders.”

  “We’re probably why he doesn’t. We get him to take care of all the spiders; he complains every time.” He took a step back, took hold of the stall door, and held it open for me. “Go ahead.”

  I peeked in at the toilet. It looked clean, but my skin crawled thinking about touching it. “Silas?”

  “Yes, Aggele Mou?”

  My next thought was that if he went back to camp, some ax murderer would come in and get me while I was in the bathroom. Or a bear. Or spiders. “Will... will you stay? I mean not in here but in this bathroom?”

  He smiled and rolled his eyes. “I’ll be your temporary camping buddy.” He bent down, planting a kiss on my forehead. “Just whistle or something if you see a bug.”

  “I can’t whistle,” I said. I snapped my fingers. “I forgot the whistle they gave me.”

  “You need to take the emergency things out of your kit. This is where you use your whistle.”

  I entered the stall, locking the door behind me. I stared down the toilet. Now that I was here, I had another problem.

  “See a bug?” Silas asked after a few minutes.

  “Can you run the water?”