Camp Clique

by Eileen Moskowitz-Palma

  “Mom!” I yelled into the phone.

  “I miss you sooooo much!” Mom squealed.

  “Me too! Have you been feeding Mr. Pebbles twice a day?”

  Mom was quiet for a second. “I knew I was forgetting something.”

  “Very funny,” I said.

  She lowered her voice. “How’s it going with Maisy?”

  “You don’t have to whisper.”

  But she kept her voice low. “I know she can’t hear us through the phone, but it still feels weird talking about someone who is inches away from you.”

  “She skipped the phone block,” I said.

  “Oh,” said Mom in a normal volume voice.

  “Remember when I first went to camp and Mrs. Winters acted like you were handing me off to a pack of wolves? Then she emailed you all those child development articles about how shipping me off to camp could cause abandonment issues into adulthood.”

  Mom laughed. “I forgot about the intensity of Mrs. Winters and her emails. I used to get anxious just reading the subject lines.”

  “When did Maisy’s mom suddenly decide camp was a good parenting strategy? And when did Dr. Winters start taking care of things like camp registration?” I asked.

  Mom sighed. “The Winters family’s really going through it right now.”

  “Going through what exactly?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say they’re in a transitional period,” Mom said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Maisy said her parents weren’t getting a divorce. I should’ve known she was lying.”

  I could hear Mr. Pebbles purring. He does that when he hears my voice through the phone.

  “Some things are more complicated than divorce,” Mom said.

  I thought about when Dad first left and I felt an ache in my chest every time I looked at his empty dining room chair. He forgot his Yankees T-shirt and I slept in it every single night for two years straight. I thought about how he missed the Girl Scouts Father-Daughter dance because he was fighting with Mom about child support. Dr. Winters let me tag along with him and Maisy. He even bought me a pink rose corsage. But it did little to take away the sting of being stood up by my own father.

  “More complicated than divorce?” I asked.

  “Oh, honey, there are far worse things.” Mom sighed. “Be kind to Maisy.”

  “You’re not gonna tell me what’s going on?”

  I wondered if Mrs. Winters was sick. The last time I saw her she looked emaciated, but I thought she was juice cleansing too much and doubling up on spin and barre classes like the other Mapleton stay-at-home moms. I didn’t have to worry about Mom doing that because the only exercise she had time for was her Saturday morning spin class with the Single Squad.

  “I just heard a great quote on my spiritual fulfillment blog.” Mom paused for dramatic effect before continuing. “Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. You get what that means, right?”

  I knew from experience this conversation wasn’t going anywhere until I gave into Mom’s quote of the day lesson. For someone so Zen, she gets quite agitated when I don’t participate in her little chats. “It means holding on to my anger and not forgiving someone only hurts me.”

  I could feel Mom smiling through the phone. “Exactly. I feel bad, like I didn’t steer you in the right direction. I never discouraged you from staying angry at Maisy. But maybe you were meant to forgive her and move on. I mean, what’re the odds that she would end up in the same cabin as you?”

  In case you haven’t figured it out, Mom’s a big believer in “signs.” When I was a baby, she hated her website design job. One morning, she was supposed to be working on a project, but she kept getting distracted by the falling snow outside the window. A real estate agent came along and stuck a For Sale sign up in the yard across the street and Mom took that as a literal and figurative sign to sell houses. The next day, she resigned from her job and signed up for an online realtor course. Thirteen years later, she still loves selling homes.

  “Maybe it’s time to let go of the past,” Mom continued.

  I desperately wanted to tell her about the pact. I wasn’t exaggerating when I called her my best friend. Not telling her about the pact made me feel like a liar.

  But Isa, Poppy, and Hannah were all within earshot, and the pact would be over if they knew about it. Deep down, though, I knew that wasn’t the only reason. Because if I really wanted Mom to know about the pact, I could write about it in her next letter. The truth was, I didn’t want Mom to talk me out of it.

  “Maybe just try to have fun together,” she said.

  I thought of the dance party in our cabin. “We’re actually kind of having fun. Like we used to.”

  “Try focusing on her good qualities that made you guys friends the first time around. Come at this with an open heart,” Mom said.

  But if Maisy didn’t follow through with the pact, then this whole summer would be a waste. I didn’t know how I would make it through another school year being invisible. “Okay, but if you’re wrong about her…”

  “If I’m wrong, then at least you’ll know you did the right thing,” Mom said.

  I swallowed hard. “Yeah, I’m doing the right thing. Now tell me what’s going on with you. What happened with the blind date?”

  This time it sounded like Mom was the one swallowing hard. “Well, it turns out the date wasn’t as blind as I thought it was.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I knew my date and it turns out you do, too,” said Mom.

  “OMG! Was it the coffee guy from Caffeine Addict? The one with all the tattoos?” I asked. “You guys would look so cute together.”

  Mom laughed. “Not even close.”

  I wracked my brain for another guy we both knew. “The mechanic from the gas station who always cleans your windows when we gas up?”

  “Oh, he is just the sweetest. But, no. This is going to be a little weird for you.”

  “Oh, no. Who is he?” I asked.

  “Gavin Pembrook, your—”

  “My fourth-grade math teacher,” I finished for her. “I’m guessing the date was a flop since he wears a bowtie and gives detention to people who chew gum. I can’t believe someone set you up with him. How gross!”

  I waited for Mom to laugh with me, but she was strangely quiet for almost a full minute. Then she said, “Bea, I like him. Quite a bit.”

  “But he teaches math. He’s all about rigidness and conformity and you get tarot readings and Reiki when life gets crazy.”

  “What can I say?” she said. “Sometimes opposites attract.”

  “Polar opposites, in this case,” I said.

  “I’m sure when you get to know him outside of the classroom, you’ll see he’s not that rigid when he doesn’t have to keep thirty kids under control.”

  I felt a weird buzzing in my head. “You must really like him. I’ve never met one of your boyfriends.”

  “That’s because I’ve never really gotten past a date or two with anyone,” she said. “We still have quite a while until you’re back home from camp. If I’m still dating him, then I would love for you to get to know him better. But I didn’t want to keep anything from you in the meantime, since we always tell each other everything.”

  “Um, okay,” I said. “Phone block’s over.”

  “Love you!” said Mom.

  “Love you, too!” I hung up the phone and joined the other girls. We stepped out of the phone cabin and saw the sun shine through the spaces between the dripping branches. The storm had passed.

  Ainsley stayed behind to call her boyfriend because having multiple camp boyfriends wasn’t enough, she had to have one back home, too.

  I didn’t tell the girls about Mom’s date because they would ask me a million questions that I wasn’t ready to think about yet. As happy as I was for Mom, I wasn’t sure I was ready for my old math teacher to be hanging out at my house on a regular basis.

  “What if we p
ut Crystal Light Fruit Punch mix in the Dandelion Bunk’s showerhead? It would look like the scene in Carrie when they dump blood on her head,” I said.

  “I need a minute to recover from talking to my mom before I can think about pranks. My mom is obsessed with soccer,” said Isa.

  “What else is new?” said Hannah. “Your mom’s been talking about you becoming a professional soccer player for as long as we’ve known you.”

  Isa kicked little pebbles on the path as she walked. “She was harassing me about keeping my skills up while I’m here.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “Did you tell your mom you wake up an hour early every day to train?”

  “And that you spend every quiet time block and every free block conditioning and doing training drills from the list your coach sent you with?” I added.

  “I did. But you know how crazy she gets. We better win this Cup. She’s already planning to put it on my college application,” Isa said. “You know, to show I haven’t been wasting my summers just having fun or anything.”

  Poppy cleared her throat like she always does when she has a big announcement.

  “I talked to my mom about the Maisy situation,” she said.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Poppy waited for the Buttercup Bunk girls to walk past, then lowered her voice. “I know this is drastic, but Mom said she could get Maisy switched out of our bunk if we want.”

  “What?” I said. “How?”

  “Mom and Nana Mary are big donors,” said Poppy.

  I suddenly had a really weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. If this was the first day of camp, I would’ve jumped at the chance to get Maisy out of my bunk. But that was before the pact.

  “I don’t know.” Hannah stopped walking. “Maisy’s really not that bad. We’ve been making friendship bracelets together.”

  “Is having someone to make bracelets with worth losing the Cup over?” Isa asked.

  I felt another twinge in my stomach.

  “Dr. Beth will definitely cure Maisy of her fear of the ropes course,” I said. “Remember how she helped Hannah when she was scared of the dark when we were junior campers?”

  Hannah laughed. “Thank God for Dr. Beth. I was driving you guys crazy every night when you wanted to turn the lights out. If anyone can help Maisy, it’s her.”

  “Do you really think Dr. Beth can get Maisy over her fear in time? She’s terrified of the easiest part of the course. How are we gonna get her to cross the spider web?” asked Isa.

  “Trust me, if anyone can get Maisy across the ropes, I can. I’ve known her practically my whole life. I get how she thinks, and I always know what to say to calm her down,” I said.

  “I can’t stop thinking about what Bea said about us not being the Mean Girls we hate back home,” said Hannah.

  Meanwhile, all I wanted was for Maisy to make me friends with those Mean Girls back home. I suddenly felt like a hypocrite of epic proportions.

  “What did you tell your mother?” asked Isa.

  Poppy sighed. “I told her to wait ’til we all talked about it. I have special permission to use the camp office phone whenever I want. So, I can call her anytime with the answer.” She took a deep breath. “Uh, there’s one more thing. We can switch Maisy to whatever bunk we want.”

  “Are your mom and Nana Mary in some Camp Amelia mafia we don’t know about?” Isa asked.

  Poppy looked down at the ground, which she always did when she was embarrassed about how rich she was. “Nana Mary just donated money to renovate all the cabins.”

  Isa smirked. “You’re not talking about just a new paint job, are you?”

  “New roofs, porches, and furniture,” Poppy mumbled.

  “That means we could stick Maisy in the Dandelion Bunk and be guaranteed a win,” I said half to myself.

  “This is our fifth summer working toward the Cup. Why give it up for one person?” Isa asked.

  “Who says we’re giving it up?” asked Hannah. “We might be giving up a definite win, but keeping Maisy doesn’t necessarily mean a definite loss either.”

  “What do you think, Bea?” Poppy asked.

  All the girls turned to me and waited for my answer.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MAISY

  I OPENED DR. BETH’S DOOR AND SAW THE RAIN HAD STOPPED. THE sun was shining, and, for the first time, I felt like maybe things might be okay when I got home at the end of the summer.

  Technically, Ainsley was supposed to walk me back from these sessions, but I think she was using the time to meet up with a counselor from the boys’ camp across the lake. I was glad to have some time by myself. Dr. Beth asked lots of questions. She said they’re the type of questions you don’t have to answer right away. She gave me lots to think about.

  I cut through the haunted woods on my way back because I knew no one else would be there. It looked exactly like the regular woods except the path was a mess of weeds and really long grass. I pulled my athletic socks high because—ticks. I might not be scared of ghosts, but ticks are gross and carry Lyme disease.

  When I got back to the bunk, the girls were hanging out on the porch making friendship bracelets—the one camp thing I’m good at.

  Hannah jumped to her feet. She didn’t even care that she just dropped her friendship bracelet in the middle of a crazy hard stitch. “Did Dr. Beth make you better?”

  I stopped with one foot on the porch step and one still on the grass. How did Hannah know what Dr. Beth and I talked about? I thought therapy sessions were confidential. I should’ve known better than to trust a therapist who lives on food that comes in a paper bag.

  “Are you still scared of the ropes course?” asked Isa.

  I am the only person who would forget her own cover story. I smiled and used my most “I’m sorry” sounding voice. “Dr. Beth said it’s going to take more than one session.”

  Isa groaned. “Is it going to take more than five weeks?”

  “Does Dr. Beth know how to hypnotize people?” asked Poppy. “That’s how Father quit smoking.”

  I blinked hard and fast, trying to hold back my tears. I might as well give up fitting in with these girls.

  All of a sudden, Bea grabbed my hand and pulled me up the porch steps. “Maisy figured out our revenge prank. Right, Mais?”

  Bea squeezed my hand and gave me a look that said, “Make something up.”

  “Maisy comes up with the best pranks. One time she…” Bea started. Then she went on and on about a prank I pulled on our third-grade math tutor to get us out of learning long division. I could tell she was stretching the story out to give me time to come up with a plan. I was beginning to realize that not speaking to Bea for a year wasn’t going to take away the fact that I knew her better than my own sister.

  I ran ideas through my mind while Bea hyped up my pranking skills. But her playing me up as the best prankster ever was really putting the pressure on.

  When she stopped talking, I opened the cabin door and waved the girls toward me. “Come on, so no one hears.”

  I walked as slowly as I could to give myself an extra second or two to come up with a plan. Then I paced back and forth to get the creative juices flowing while the girls grabbed Pop Tarts and Capri Suns from under Hannah’s bunk.

  Finally, when everyone was all settled and the only sounds were the crinkling of drink pouches, I clapped my hands together. Maybe making friendship bracelets wasn’t the only camp thing I was good at. Some of my best plans come to me when I am the most desperate.

  “We’re gonna need three tape recorders and an old Camp Amelia uniform,” I said. “Like the ones in those really old black-and-white pictures hanging in the dining hall.”

  “You may as well add backstage passes to Taylor Swift while you’re at it,” said Isa, balancing a soccer ball on her knee.

  “Seriously. It’s not like we have Amazon Prime here,” added Poppy.

  “Or a time machine,” mumbled Hannah through her straw.

 
; “Obviously, you guys used to have art here since there’s an art cabin. There must be an old drama or music cabin somewhere,” I said.

  “OMG!” shouted Hannah. “Yes, there is one.”

  “Yeah, we just forgot all about it since none of us are musically inclined,” Bea added.

  “I bet there are tape recorders in there,” I said. “Don’t just grab the tape recorders. Make sure there are tapes in them. And working batteries.”

  “There are ancient camp uniforms stacked away in the storage cabin behind the square. What size do we need?” asked Bea.

  I looked at my bunkmates’ curious faces. “Small enough to fit me. I am going to play my best role yet.” I paused for dramatic effect. “The ghost of Camp Amelia.”

  BEA

  I should’ve offered to play the ghost. After all, I had been the resident ghost of Mapleton Elementary School for the past year. But Maisy was perfect for the part, which she had to be, because pulling off this prank was the only way to convince the girls to keep her in our bunk. There was no way I could hold up my end of the pact if they kicked her out.

  I was becoming obsessed with the idea of having a friend group at school like I had at camp. I don’t consider myself an anxious person, especially not compared to someone like Maisy. But I woke up every school day with a pit in my stomach, the kind of pit that couldn’t be cured by antacid, a good breakfast, or even one of Mom’s pep talks. The more invisible I became to the other kids, the more I felt like I had lost my place in the world. There is nothing worse than waking up every morning and feeling like you don’t matter to anybody but your mom. Being invisible in elementary school was bad enough, but I imagined being a nobody in middle school would be a fresh new hell. I needed to make this work, so I ran around with the girls until we came up with all of the items on Maisy’s scavenger hunt list.

  Years starring in plays and musicals had turned Maisy into a highly skilled makeup artist. Her tan face was transformed to a sickly white—close to my shade, but minus the freckles. She had swooped dark circles under her eyes and contoured her makeup to create a perfect hollow in each cheek. She had also shaded her lips with dark gray eyeliner to add to the corpse-like effect.