Camp Clique

by Eileen Moskowitz-Palma

  I grabbed the zipline bar. “We’re going to jump together.”

  “Is it even meant for two people to go at once? What if we weigh too much and the zipline breaks?” She put a hand on her heaving chest. “Let me catch my breath.”

  I had learned over the years that you have to move quick with her. Extra time just makes her think of a hundred more reasons to be anxious.

  I tried to hand her the bar, but she grabbed my legs and I could see how people got drowned by the person they were trying to save.

  “This isn’t going to work if you don’t trust me.” I kept my voice calm and measured.

  Her voice was muffled with her face crammed against my legs. “It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s the zipline, and the helmet, and the rope harness, and Isa, the girl who hates me but is supposed to save my life if I fall.”

  I pulled her up and grabbed her by the shoulders. I wanted to slap her across the face like you always see people do in the movies when someone acts insane, but Maisy bruises too easily. “Enough of this craziness.”

  I shoved the zipline bar at her and pressed her fingers around it. I wrapped my left hand over hers and my right hand over the bar and jumped.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MAISY

  DON’T TELL BEA, BUT ZIPLINING WASN’T AS SCARY AS I THOUGHT. It felt kind of good to be soaring through the trees, far away from the drama back home.

  We flew into the platform on the other side of the field super hard, then bounced back. It was scary to have my feet dangling in the air, but Bea kept her hands wrapped around mine super tight. That’s the thing with Bea, I still felt safe with her, even though we weren’t friends anymore.

  The girls below were yelling and cheering, and it felt so much better than when they were hating on me yesterday.

  Bea’s voice was calm, like when she used to help me study for math. “Now all you have to do is get back on the platform. I’m going to have to let go of your hand for a second to get up there first. Then I can help you.”

  The last thing I wanted was for Bea to let go of me.

  “Okay, on the count of three I’m letting go. Nod if that’s okay,” she said.

  It took everything I had to nod slowly, up and down.

  “One… two… three.” Bea lifted her hand and reached for the platform.

  Don’t look down, don’t look down, I repeated in my head, while Bea pulled herself up. She reached for me, then I realized reaching out for her would mean letting go of the bar, which was the one thing keeping me from falling to my death, okay, besides the rope harness and Isa belaying me. But still, you could see how scary this would be, right?

  “Come on, Maisy! You can do it!” yelled Poppy.

  “You’re doing great, Maisy!” cheered Hannah.

  Bea’s voice cut through my fear. “I’ve got you, Maisy.” She sounded just like she did that time she tried to teach me how to ride my bike. That didn’t work out so well, but at least she never said she was holding on to the back and then let go like Dad did.

  I let go of the bar with my right hand and reached out to Bea. She wrapped her hand around mine. “Now gimme the other hand.”

  I don’t know what got into me, but instead of freaking out and crying, I let go with the other hand and grabbed on to Bea. Before I knew it, she had pulled me up onto the platform.

  It felt so good to have my feet on something solid.

  “This platform is so much bigger than the other one,” I said.

  Bea shook her head. “Nope. They’re the exact same size.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Her red curls were flying out of her helmet in all sorts of crazy directions. “You just feel safe, so you’re realizing it’s not as small as you thought it was.”

  Hannah, Isa, and Poppy were all waiting down at the bottom with high fives and cheers. A few hours in and Bea was already holding up her end of the pact. I was going to have to start figuring out how I would hold my end up when we got back to Mapleton. I didn’t have anywhere near as much power over the M & Ms as Bea had with the Sunflower girls.

  “There you guys are!” shouted Ainsley. “It’s swim time. You girls go to the usual spot and wait for me. I’m going to walk Maisy to Minnow Pond for her lesson.”

  “Make sure you bring your water wings,” said Hannah.

  I swallowed hard, certain that Ainsley’s announcement had taken away whatever street cred I had just earned. But then I looked at Hannah and she was smiling at me, letting me in on the joke, so I could laugh at myself with the other girls. I made sure to laugh in a nice way, which was the smart thing to do because Bea gave me a tiny nod.

  As I followed Ainsley down the dirt path toward Minnow Pond, I noticed one thing: I was taller than every other single camper who ran past us—by a lot. When you’re short like me, you always notice anyone else who is smaller.

  “What’s with all the little kids?” I asked.

  “Minnow Pond is at the other end of camp, where all the mini campers stay,” Ainsley said.

  I groaned. “I thought it was humiliating when I failed the swim test, but it just keeps getting worse.”

  She cracked her gum as she walked. “You think this is bad? When I was your age, I begged my mom to sign me up for gymnastics. The class was seven hundred bucks nonrefundable. So, my mom and step-dad made me promise I would go to every single class, no matter what.”

  I nodded. “I get it. My dad says he could’ve bought a brand-new Porsche with the money he’s spent at my sister’s gym.”

  Ainsley blew a super big bubble and popped it between her lips. “I didn’t really think it through before I promised. First of all, I didn’t think about the dress code. Who wants to walk around in a leotard when you’re going through puberty?”

  “That sucks.”

  The rocky path led straight to Minnow Pond. “There was no beginner class for kids my age. So, there I was, this five-foot-ten sixth grader in a class full of super tiny kids who had been doing gymnastics since preschool, but just weren’t quite good enough for the team. You should’ve seen me towering over them all on the tumble track while they were flipping away.”

  “Let me guess. Your mom wouldn’t let you quit because she already paid for it,” I said.

  Ainsley walked with bare feet and didn’t even cringe when she hit a jagged stone or a bug crawled on her foot. “I knew better than to even ask. I had to spend the next fourteen weeks in class with these kids. I thought I was going to die of embarrassment when my crush showed up on family day to watch his baby sister.”

  I cringed. “Oooh, that’s rough.”

  “It was.” She nodded. “But then the next school year, I made the track team. On the first day, the jumps coach asked if anyone had gymnastics experience. I raised my hand even though his idea of experience probably wasn’t a fourteen-week class with a bunch of little kids. But I was the only one who raised my hand, so he put me on pole vault.”

  “That’s cool.”

  She nodded again. “It was even more cool when I became the pole vault state champ junior year and got a track scholarship to U of Miami.”

  I sighed. “You made your point. I’ll give the swim lessons a chance. Even though I don’t see how learning to swim is ever going to help me later in life. It’s not like I’ll ever get good enough to earn a swimming scholarship.”

  Ainsley looked at me wide-eyed. “Ever thought about going on vacation one day and being able to swim in the ocean? Like Hawaii or the Bahamas or even Miami?”

  “Nope.”

  She shook her head. “You are one strange kid.”

  BEA

  Dear Bea,

  I miss you like crazy already! So does Mr. Pebbles. He keeps forgetting you’re gone and scratches at your bedroom door until I open it and show him you aren’t there. He’s very bossy when you’re away. He’s been demanding ice cubes in his water bowl and back scratches while we watch Netflix.

  I thought Dr. Winters was just trying to make polite conversat
ion about your summer plans when I bumped into him at Stop and Shop. I never thought he would send Maisy to Camp Amelia! Drama camp, I could see—but adventure camp? Not in a million years. I am so sorry!!!

  I know how awful Maisy was to you. BUT there’s a reason why a girl who’s scared of her own shadow got shipped off to adventure camp for the summer. Things aren’t like you remember at Maisy’s house. This is one of those times in life when you are being called on to be the bigger person. A hard feat, but something I know I raised you to do.

  I love you more than anything. I’m counting down the days till you get back home and we have our Gilmore Girls and pepperoni pizza binge-fest!

  Love always,

  Mom

  P.S. You’re the best daughter ever! XOXO

  P.P.S. I am actually going on a blind date this week. Keep your fingers crossed that he doesn’t show up two hours late, floss his teeth at the table, or order filet mignon and stick me with the bill like my last few blind dates.

  Mom is not a cryptic person. In fact, she’s whatever the antonym of cryptic is. She always says it like it is, whether you have kale in your teeth, your haircut didn’t turn out like the magazine picture, or you shouldn’t even attempt the magazine picture haircut in the first place. I had no idea what Mom meant about Maisy’s house being different, but she didn’t need to encourage me to be nice to Maisy. If being nice to Maisy was my ticket to belonging, then it was worth the steep price of admission.

  To her credit, Maisy has put a lot of effort into getting to know the girls over the past few days. She spent hours during the craft block making friendship bracelets with Hannah and teaching Poppy how to do double dutch braids. But these surface niceties were only getting her so far. She was going to have to work harder to become a real Sunflower Bunk girl instead of someone the girls were just being polite to. And if I wanted to be a part of the M & Ms when we got back to Mapleton, I needed to make Maisy a genuine part of our bunk.

  I had figured out how to get around the fact that my name doesn’t start with an M. I was thinking maybe we could say my middle name is Mackenzie or Morgan. If it took changing my name to be seen again, I was all in. It’s not like I even like the M & Ms. But my babysitter Lauren filled me in on how middle school works.

  First of all, there are monthly teen centers, which are basically school dances with different themes. Lauren showed me pictures from the Wild West night and told me all about it. All of her friends texted each other to come up with coordinating outfits. They wore matching bandanas, jean shorts, straw cowgirl hats, and pigtails. They got ready together at one girl’s house so they could help each other get their hair and makeup right. The key to dressing up for a theme night is matching a group of people so you don’t stand out on your own. For example, the last thing you want to do is show up to an Out of This World theme night dressed as a character from L. M. Maverick’s novel of the same name when everyone else is dressed up like aliens. This is definitely something I would do without a group to lead me down the right path.

  Then there’s the four-day trip to Boston the seventh graders take every spring. Students pick their roommates, and Lauren said there’s always one room filled with the random kids who no one wants to room with. Everyone knows who gets put in that room, and according to my current social status, I was sure to end up there, along with Isabelle Barnes, who eats her own ear wax, Lissie Stemple, who still plays with Barbies, and Rachel Gotwinn, who cries every time she gets called on in class.

  Being a part of the M & Ms would guarantee me a place in a group for all of the awkward herd mentality experiences of middle school. Mapleton School’s version of Mean Girls was my only means of survival. I needed to make this pact work.

  Ainsley waited for lights out and sneaked out to the boys’ camp as usual. She was on track to be on her second boyfriend by the second week of camp.

  Maisy sat on the opposite side of the cabin from the other girls. I wasn’t used to her being so quiet. At school, she couldn’t get through a class without being reprimanded for talking with one of the M & Ms.

  I jumped off my bunk and yelled, “Girls’ night!”

  Maisy wrapped a braid around her head like a crown so she looked like a music festival princess and asked, “How is that different from every other night here?”

  Hannah tossed a bag of marshmallows at her. “S’mores!”

  I grabbed a box of cinnamon graham crackers and mini Hershey’s bars from under my bunk. “Grab the hair dryer, Isa.”

  “What do we need a hair dryer for?” Maisy asked.

  Isa plugged the dryer in the outlet above Ainsley’s bunk. “Roasting marshmallows.”

  Hannah used Ainsley’s bunk as a table and set out a paper plate. Next, she broke the graham crackers apart and put them in neat rows on the plate. Then she added one square of chocolate and one marshmallow on top of each one. “We used to roast these over an actual fire in the woods.”

  Poppy jumped in, “But we stopped because Bea’s cousin Teddy became a wildfire fireman and he…”

  Maisy stared at me. “Teddy, who used to play Grand Theft Auto for hours a day, is a fireman? Mind blown.”

  At moments like this, the sting of being left behind was almost too much to bear. If we had been friends for the past year, Maisy would have known this and so many other things about me.

  “For six months now,” I said, trying to keep the edge from my voice.

  Isa pointed the hair dryer at the plate at a diagonal so she could heat up a few s’mores at a time.

  Maisy stood over her and watched. “Can you get cancer from the stuff blowing out of the hair dryer?”

  Hannah laughed. “You are so funny, Maisy.”

  Meanwhile, I gave Maisy a look that said, “Cut the crazy talk.”

  Then I added, “Hannah, you should let Maisy do a side french braid on you. It would look so good with your blue tips.”

  “Can you, Maisy?” Hannah asked.

  Maisy pulled out the only chair inside our bunk. “Sure. Sit here so I can reach.”

  Hannah sat down and Maisy’s fingers flew through her hair as she pulled strands into a complicated pattern.

  Poppy moved the dial and adjusted the antenna on our old purple boom box as she tried to get past the static to actual music. It had been around since Poppy’s mom was in our cabin back in the eighties. We could’ve brought a newer one, but there was something magical about that old purple radio. It always seemed to play the perfect songs.

  Poppy found the local station, the one that played mostly current music. We all sang along to Taylor Swift and talked about how much better her older albums were.

  Isa turned off the hair dryer when the marshmallows had deflated into soft white clouds over the softened Hershey’s squares and walked around the room with the plate.

  Luckily, Maisy was smart enough to know that turning down Isa’s s’mores was not a good move, even if she was creeped out by the hair dryer germs all over her food. She twisted the last strand of Hannah’s hair and wrapped a clear plastic rubber band around it. Then she grabbed a s’more and took a bite.

  A bit of graham cracker flew from Maisy’s mouth. “This is amazing!”

  Isa smiled. “Thanks. I’m making another batch.”

  If Isa could smile at Maisy, maybe there was hope for me with the M & Ms. Maybe all it took was a nudge from someone within the group to make the others more likely to open themselves up to an outsider.

  Hannah stood by the mirror and ran her fingers over her braids, the twisted brown and blue strands of hair. “Maisy, you’re a genius.”

  “It’s so easy,” Maisy said. “I’ll teach you.”

  “Thanks!” Hannah said.

  Maisy turned to me. “OMG! Bea! Remember when I taught your dad how to do your hair?”

  “After he… after he .…” I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t catch my breath.

  Maisy jumped in, “Used sandwich bag ties in your pigtails instead of rubber bands!”

  �
��He didn’t!” shrieked Hannah.

  “Oh, yes, he did,” said Maisy. “On class picture day!”

  The cabin filled with our laughter.

  “Bea doesn’t have to worry about that anymore now that Monica’s there full-time,” said Poppy.

  “Who’s Monica?” Maisy asked.

  “Her dad’s live-in girlfriend,” Isa shouted over the hair dryer.

  Maisy’s eyes widened. “Do you like her?”

  I shrugged. “I can’t tell yet. I don’t know her well enough to have an opinion of her.”

  “She moved in with your dad and she’s practically a stranger to you?” Maisy asked.

  “Bea hasn’t even seen their new house yet,” said Isa, in what sounded like a “we are her real friends so we know these things” tone.

  “And she has two daughters,” added Poppy. “Peyton’s a year older than Bea and Vivi’s a year younger.”

  Maisy looked at me with the same expression she wore when I won the Three Rivers short story contest and Dad mixed up the days and missed the award ceremony. “Oh, Bea. That sucks.”

  I swallowed hard. “He signed up to coach Vivi’s soccer team.”

  “Did you remind him about when we played in the Pee Wee league and he didn’t show up to one single game because he didn’t want to bump into your mother on the sidelines?” Maisy asked.

  “That wouldn’t fit with Bea’s nonconfrontational ways,” Hannah said.

  Isa passed around the second batch of s’mores and everyone grabbed one.

  “Giving my dad a list of all the times he didn’t show up won’t make him feel more inclined to be there for me now,” I said.

  “Yeah, but then you’ll only ever have a surface-level relationship with him,” Maisy said.

  “I realized that’s all some people are capable of,” I said, hoping she would catch my pointed reference.

  The song switched and Maisy shrieked, “OMG!”

  I almost choked on my s’more. The song that at one time had been our best friend anthem was playing. We won the third-grade talent show dancing to this song. Back then, I was so proud to be up on that stage with Maisy. I didn’t care about being popular. I had my best friend and that was all that mattered.