One S'more Summer

by Beth Merlin

  Chapter Three

  As head counselor, I had to sit on duty—OD—the first night with one of the other counselors. Every night, the camp required two counselors be staked outside each division to make sure the campers behaved and to be available in case of an emergency. It was a necessary part of the job, but a task none of the counselors ever wanted. To keep it fair, I’d set up a rotation schedule that had each counselor on duty only once a week.

  Traditionally, the first night of camp, all the counselors hung out at The Canteen, where a lot of the flirtations that dominated the rest of the summer would be put into motion. Jordana had made a pretty big sacrifice when she offered to sit with me instead of going. I wondered which counselor would stake her claim for Perry until I remembered that as head counselor for the Birch boys, he’d be sitting OD as well.

  As the girls were settling in for the night, Jordana and I lit a campfire and made ourselves comfortable on the old rotting picnic table next it. After a few hours, we walked to each of the cabins and told the girls it was lights out. Although a few of them were asleep, worn out from the long day, most were wide awake, unhappy that we were cutting into their good time by turning off the lights. When I got to Bunk Fourteen, I was surprised to see most of them were in their pajamas settling into bed.

  “Well, girls,” I said, turning off the light, “hope you had a great first day.”

  “Night, Gigi,” a few of them said in unison.

  “Night,” I said, closing the door behind me.

  Jordana was building up the fire when I got back to our post.

  “How were the little terrors?” she asked.

  “Surprisingly well behaved.”

  “Really? I thought they’d be bouncing off the walls or at least hanging from the rafters.”

  “Me too, but they were quieting down, getting ready to go to bed.”

  “Great. Maybe tonight won’t be so bad. You and I can sit here, gossip, and stuff ourselves with marshmallows,” she said, pushing one into her mouth.

  We were so wrapped up in our gossip session that I jumped at least two feet in the air when I heard, “OD, Bunk Eleven!” being screamed across the field. I looked at Jordana, who was also startled by the shriek. She started to get up from the bench.

  “I got this one,” I said.

  “You sure?”

  “Totally. You were nice enough to sit with me the first night. Don’t worry, I got it,” I answered.

  I turned my flashlight on and aimed it at the rocky, uneven ground that led to Bunk Eleven. I followed the slightly carved-out path, and when I got to the door a small girl with strawberry blonde hair opened it.

  “You yelled for OD. What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “That,” she said, pointing up at the rafters.

  I shined my flashlight in the direction she was pointing but didn’t see a thing.

  “There’s a bat up there,” she said.

  “Did you see it?” I asked.

  “No, but we heard rustling,” a girl chimed in from where the rest of the girls were huddled together.

  “So nobody actually saw a bat?” I asked.

  “No,” they replied together.

  “Girls, these cabins are empty ten months out of the year. It’s completely likely there’s a mouse or squirrel up there.” The girls started shrieking before I could even finish my sentence.

  I rolled my eyes. “As I was saying, there might be a squirrel or mouse in the rafters, but I really doubt there’s a bat. Whatever it is, it’s harmless and very high up. So, why don’t you all get back to your beds, and I’ll make sure maintenance comes here tomorrow and does a thorough sweep of the bunk for creatures of all kinds, okay?”

  “Absolutely not,” said a very tall and thin girl from behind the rest of the bodies on the bed.

  “What’s your name?” I asked. She looked a lot like a younger version of the model we’d booked in the last Diane von Furstenberg campaign. I would have told her that, only I had the feeling she didn’t need her self-esteem inflated any more than it already was.

  “Candice,” she answered.

  “Candice, I guarantee it isn’t a bat. But I promise we’ll do a full investigation into this in the morning.”

  She crossed her arms. “There’s absolutely no way I’m going to sleep on the top bunk with rodents only inches from my head.”

  “The rafters are way higher than any of your beds, so unless whatever’s up there is a performer in Cirque du Soleil, there’s no way it’s getting anywhere close to where your head will be.”

  “You can’t know that for sure,” she said. “I’m not going to sleep until you get a maintenance person in here. Do you know how much my parents pay for me to go to this camp? Do you know what they’d say if I told them that I was subjected to sleeping with bats my first night?”

  “Now there’s more than one bat? Don’t you think you’re being a little overly dramatic?”

  “No, I don’t,” she answered. “If you don’t want to call a maintenance person, that’s fine. We’ll just keep calling you in here all night to check for it with your flashlight.”

  I took a deep breath and walked out. These girls were impossible. When I got back to the table, I saw Jordana had finished almost all of the marshmallows. She looked a little bit queasy.

  “You don’t look so hot,” I said.

  “I don’t feel great,” she replied. “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna go back to the bunk for a few minutes.”

  “Sure. I have to go over to the main office and see if any of the maintenance crew are around. There appears to be a bat or a rat or a something in Bunk Eleven, and the girls have declared mutiny until it’s removed.”

  She nodded and then hurried back to our bunk. I hiked through the camp’s grounds, and by the time I got to the office, I was absolutely fuming. Worse, as anticipated, nobody was around. The office was empty and dark. I took my time walking back, trying to calm down and regroup. It was only the first night, and already, these girls were getting the best of me. I’d just taken orders from a thirteen-year-old who was using a two-hundred-dollar James Perse outfit as pajamas.

  I was twice their age, with twice their life experience. I was in charge of them, not the other way around. I was going to march back into that bunk and let those girls know I was no pushover and that we were handling the situation my way, end of story. I was so fired up by the time I got back to the table that I almost walked right past Jordana. She was standing waiting for me, her hands on her hips, shaking her head. I rushed over.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I went back to our cabin to get some Pepto-Bismol, and when I walked in, all but three of the girls were gone.”

  “What do you mean gone? “I asked.

  “Gone, nowhere to be found. Gone,” she answered.

  “Who stayed behind?”

  “Alana, Madison, and Abby,” she answered.

  “Where are they now?”

  She shook her head. “They’re in the cabin, but they’re not talking.”

  “Oh, yes, they are,” I said.

  “I didn’t know when you’d be back. I didn’t want to leave the rest of the girls unattended to go look for them,” she said frantically.

  “You did the right thing,” I reassured her. “They aren’t missing. I’m sure they’re sneaking over to the boys’ side. I’ll go talk to the three of them and confirm.”

  When I opened the door, the three girls were sitting together on a bottom bunk bed, whispering to one another. All three of their heads turned to look at me when I came in.

  “So, Jordana tells me you aren’t giving up the location of the rest of your bunkmates,” I said as calmly as I could. “I respect that. But you should know a few things. If they tried to sneak over to the boys’ side and Gordy catches them before I do, they’ll get kicked out of camp. So I hope the three of you really do like each other and stick together, because you may be all each other has this summer when the other girls get sent ho
me.”

  I was bluffing. Gordy wouldn’t kick the girls out for their first offense, but it certainly wouldn’t do much for my reputation and job if, on the very first night of camp, girls from my group—let alone my cabin—got caught bunk hopping.

  “So, who wants to tell me how long ago they left?” I asked, looking at each of them.

  Abby spoke up first. “They left about a fifteen minutes ago when Bunk Eleven called OD.”

  “Okay, so how’d they do it? Did they sneak out the window in the bathroom?” I asked, remembering how Alicia and I used to sneak out of our bunk.

  “No, they went out the front door,” Alana answered.

  I looked over to the door. “How’d they do that without us seeing them?” I asked.

  “They waited for Bunk Eleven to call OD and walked out the front door when Jordana was turned the other way.”

  “So let me understand, they waited for Bunk Eleven to call OD, meaning they knew it was going to happen ahead of time?” I asked.

  The girls didn’t respond and instead looked at each other for permission to tattle. Madison broke the silence.

  “Bunk Eleven was in on it. They were supposed to distract you by saying they saw a bat in their rafters so the girls from our bunk could sneak out. If it worked for us they were planning to try it next week.”

  I balled my hand into a fist. “Stay here and don’t give Jordana any more trouble tonight. I’ll deal with you all when I get back.”

  “Us? What’d we do?” Alana whined.

  Madison shot Alana the same look I’d just given her, and she didn’t say another word. I slammed the bunk door behind me.

  I didn’t bother filling Jordana in on what was going on. The most important thing was finding the girls before anyone else did. I had one huge advantage. I’d been in their shoes. Having been a camper at Chinooka, I was pretty sure how they were going to get to the boys’ side. There was only one way they could do it without being seen—the hidden trail in the woods around the lake. Alicia and I had used it half a dozen times to sneak over and meet Joshua. I grabbed my flashlight off the picnic table and set out after them.

  The girls had a bit of a head start on me, so there was no point in trying to catch up. I’d be better off waiting for them to emerge from the woods on the boys’ side. Unfortunately, in order to do that, I had to walk straight through Perry’s division. There was no way around it. I decided to play it cool. I’d walk over like I was dropping by to casually say hello.

  When I got there, Perry was playing the guitar while the other counselor was throwing small branches into the dying fire. I stepped on some dry leaves, and they both turned to look at me.

  “Announce yourself,” Perry said, jokingly squinting past the fire to make out who I was.

  “It’s Gigi, from Cedar,” I said, approaching them slowly.

  “You may enter Birch, Miss Gigi,” he said in a deep, bellowing voice. The two guys were laughing. “What can I do for you?” Perry asked.

  “I’m just on rounds, making sure things are okay over here,” I said as confidently as I could.

  “We’ve got things under control. Right, Eric?” he asked, turning to the younger guy on his left.

  “Right,” Eric answered.

  “Okay, good,” I said, unsure how to get past them to the clearing where the girls were sure to appear. I needed to kill some more time. “You know, I don’t think we got off to a great start this morning. Maybe we should start fresh?”

  Perry forcefully zipped up his sweatshirt. “That’s not necessary.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that I don’t need any further introduction. I know all I need to about you.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I said.

  He jumped off the bench so he was face-to-face with me.

  “Let’s see,” he said, using his fingers to count. “You’re a city girl, born and bred. You took this gig as way to escape real life for a few months. You have a boyfriend at home, but you needed your space and are hoping absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

  “I grew up in New York City, so I guess you’re right about that.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “And the rest?”

  “None of your business.” His arrogance was really beginning to irritate me.

  He circled me like a hawk. “So why did you really come over here, especially so late? Miss me?”

  I crossed my arms. “Hardly.”

  He narrowed his eyes and stepped even closer to me. “It’s not in our job description to make rounds.”

  “I wanted to apologize if you thought I was stepping on your turf this afternoon. I wanted to get the girls excited and thought a friendly competition would get them fired up. But if you’re gonna be an ass about it…”

  He shrugged his shoulders and backed away. “Whatever you say,” he said, mocking me, as he’d done earlier in the dining hall.

  “You know what? I take back my apology. I’m not sorry, and I hope my girls wipe the floor with your boys this summer.”

  “Which girls?”

  “My girls. The Cedar girls,” I answered.

  He pointed to the clearing, where all of them had come into view. “Oh, I thought you meant those girls?”

  I pushed past him and trudged over to where they stood. Dressed from head to toe in black, they looked shocked that they’d been caught.

  “Hi, ladies,” I said, approaching them. Perry followed up behind me.

  “Wandered a little far from home tonight, didn’t we, girls?” he said, smiling and waving at them.

  “I got this. Thanks for your help,” I said.

  “Really? ‘Cause if you had this, they probably wouldn’t be standing here. They’d be back in their own bunk, sleeping.”

  “Girls, let’s get back to the bunk. We’ll discuss this back on our side,” I yelled.

  “Good idea. Why don’t you follow Gigi back the way you came, and I’ll pretend I never saw you.” His accent almost made him sound sincere. I could see all the girls gazing at him.

  “And why, pray tell, would you do that?” I asked.

  “Cause I’m a hell of a nice guy,” he said, flashing a smile and two dimples.

  “No, really, what’s your angle?”

  “It might be fun to have something to hold over your head,” he said smugly.

  “Come on, girls!” I yelled. “Let’s go. NOW!”

  I took the lead, and they followed me back the way they’d just come. I could hear them whispering to each other behind me. I turned to face them.

  “Enough talking, let’s just get back to the bunk.”

  They nodded, and we walked the rest of the way in silence. When we got back to our side, I could see Jordana pacing nervously by the fire. She ran over to us. I motioned for the girls to get inside the bunk and told them to wait for me there.

  “What happened?” Jordana asked.

  “I caught them. Well, actually, Perry caught them trying to sneak into his division.”

  “Did he rat us out?” she asked.

  “No,” I said through a huge yawn, “but he was definitely happy to have something he could hold over me. I’ll read the girls the riot act before they start plotting their next great escape.”

  It was only midnight, but I was totally exhausted. In my New York City life, I’d be getting ready to go out at this time of night. Now, I was counting down the hours until I could go to sleep. When I got into the bunk, I noticed that the girls were smart enough to have changed out of their camouflage and into pajamas. I sat down on my bed and waited for them to quiet down before I spoke.

  “Look, I was a camper here once upon a time. I know your tricks and the secret paths and passages. You should know that the woods you crept through tonight aren’t completely safe. Chinooka owns a lot of those grounds, but there’s no way to patrol them all or keep local campers or drifters out of the area. Long story short, do not try it again. If you do, I’ll walk you straight
to Gordy and turn you in myself, got it?”

  They nodded back at me. “The rest of you should thank Madison, Alana, and Abby. Even under unrelenting torture and questioning, they didn’t give up your whereabouts. I had to figure it out without their help.”

  I heard Maddy let out the deep breath she’d been holding. “I’m content to pretend this never happened, if I get your unconditional promise it won’t happen again.”

  Emily B spoke up first. “We’re really sorry, Gigi, it won’t happen again. We just wanted to see if we could make it to the boys’ side.”

  “Congratulations, you made it. Now, if no one else has anything to say for themselves, it’s time for bed.”

  I shut off the lights in the bunk and went to join Jordana outside. She was anxious to hear how it went and told me she thought I’d handled the situation well. I was glad to hear it. After how completely reckless I’d been the last year, suddenly being accountable for not only my own decisions but also for the choices and actions of impressionable teenage girls was a pretty daunting task.

  About an hour later, the rest of the counselors from our division came staggering back to their respective cabins, and Jordana and I decided we could abandon our OD post and call it a night. When we returned to the bunk, we were grateful to find all the girls asleep, including Tara, who’d already passed out on her bed in her clothes. Jordana and I washed our faces in the bathroom and changed into pajamas, trying not to stir anyone.

  “We did okay tonight, partner,” Jordana whispered as we crawled into our beds. I wrestled with the sheets for a few seconds before noticing that Jordana was struggling to get into her bed, too.

  “They short-sheeted our beds,” I said, on the verge of hysterical laughter.

  “What does that mean?” Jordana asked, trying her best to continue to whisper.

  “It’s a prank. They folded the sheets so that we can’t stretch out our legs.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, wrestling with her comforter.