Six

six

Camp Reynolds is a scam.

And for the record, so is Savvy.

It starts out okay, if awkward. After the ferry lets us off, Leo heads into a van with other staff members, and a counselor helps the rest of us smush ourselves onto a bus. It becomes evident in the first ten seconds of being on said bus that of the actual campers, I might be the oldest one here. While I knew it was going to be rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors, from here it just looks like a bunch of babies.

Like a bunch of painfully smart babies.

Like, “look at this cool thing I just programmed my graphing calculator to do” levels of smart babies, which is a thing happening in the front row of this bus that has attracted so much attention that the driver tells everyone to sit back down before the nerdy mosh pit tilts us into a ditch.

I tell myself to relax. I probably won’t be in sessions with them. There are different tracks in the “Reynolds method”—kids prepping for AP classes next year like these probably are, and kids like me who are prepping for the SATs. With any luck, they’re hiding around here somewhere or ended up on a different, much less math-inclined bus.

Things get marginally better once we get to the camp. The bus starts winding down, down, down to the shore from the main elevation of the island, where we are suddenly surrounded by trees so large that it’ll be a miracle if Leo doesn’t call them Ents by the end of the summer. The air is thick with pine through the bus’s open windows, and rare sunlight is streaming in through the branches, and when I peer out the stretch of trees goes so deep into the ground below the main road that it feels endless in all directions—a bottomless and sideways infinity of green and light.

Eventually we reach the main ground, and it is straight out of a cliché camp dream: wooden cabins all named after constellations, a rocky shore with worn kayaks in bright colors lined up along the edge, a giant signpost with pointers in all directions for the mess hall and firepit and tennis courts. I’ve been so worked up about getting to camp that I didn’t actually let it sink in that I’m going to camp. That for the first time in my life, I’m sort-of-but-not-really, enough-that-it-is-still-embarrassingly-thrilling free.

Mickey’s the first one to spot me when I get off the bus—or at least I think she is, until Rufus barrels his way through the campers with his tongue lapping out of his mouth. He jumps up on me with so much unabashed puppy love that between the force of him and the weight of my backpack on my shoulders, I immediately start to tip over.

Someone deftly grabs my elbow right before I end up introducing my butt to the mud.

“Rufus, manners?” says a voice I don’t know.

I turn around and could almost blow a kiss at the sky with gratitude—a camper who actually seems to be my age, with messy curls and a smirk that he aims at me without an ounce of self-consciousness. He must be a veteran of Camp Whatever It’s Actually Called, too.

Not just a veteran, but the other boy in Leo’s picture.

“Thanks,” I say. “Uh…?”

Instead of giving me his name, he salutes me, leans down to pet Rufus, and then disappears into the throng. By the time I look up to find Mickey, Leo’s beaten me to her.

“Your hair!” she exclaims, reaching up to mess with it.

“Your sleeve,” he says, grabbing her other arm by the wrist and examining it. “I thought you decided you were a Hufflepuff.”

“Yeah, but a Gryffindor rising,” says Mickey, justifying the latest iteration of her temporary tattoo sleeve. “Anyway, my mom made too many of them and let me snag a few before I left for camp, so—Abby! Hey! You should meet Leo.”

Leo turns to me, his eyes bright with mischief. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he says, offering his hand.

I take it, squeezing it hard. “Likewise—Liam, was it?”

“Leo,” says Mickey helpfully.

“Oh, Leon,” I correct myself, without breaking eye contact with Leo. He’s trying to play along, but laughter is starting to creep into his smile.

“Actually, my legal full name is Keep This Up And You Won’t Get A Single Lasagna Ball Out Of Me This Entire Summer—”

“You guys know each other?” Mickey cuts in, delighted.

“Yeah. Leo’s been talking up this camp for years,” I say, turning to her with meaningful eye contact. Well, eye contact I hope is meaningful enough to say, Please for the love of God give Savvy the heads-up about this before she shows up.

Leo wraps an arm around my shoulders and squeezes, displaying me like a kid sister. “Must have said something right, if it finally got her to come.”

Mickey’s eyes widen for a split second, enough for me to know she got the message to not blow my cover loud and clear. “Well—wow—that’s great!” she says. “Well—Leo, you should probably go check in.”

“On it,” he says, saluting us both as he goes and tossing me a wink, one that Mickey definitely doesn’t miss.

She raises her eyebrows at me, looking gleeful. “Okay, I have zero time to yell about how much I ship this, because apparently the whole camp computer system crashed and it’s all hands on deck.”

I dismiss the comment, waffling between her and Leo, feeling like it’s the first day of kindergarten all over again and I’m about to lose both my chaperones. “Should I just … go to orientation then?”

“Yeah,” says Mickey, pointing in the general direction of where the other campers are moving. “Savvy’s down in the pit running the show while we try to un-fuck-up all the class rosters. Never a dull moment!”

I hesitate, looking at the curved, elevated rows of benches around the pit full of unfamiliar faces. Even the boy from before seems to have disappeared into the ether, but thankfully a blond girl in neon colorblock leggings beckons me over to sit with her and a few others on the left side.

“Psst—hey! We’ve got a spare seat!”

The girls on either side of her scoot to make room for me, nodding to acknowledge me as one of them moans, “I can’t believe my parents signed me up for the SAT prep portion. I’m not even going to college. I already have a whole plan!”

“Ugh, same. I have a 1560 and they still enrolled me in those stupid sessions. Like, I’m already set on premed, haven’t I already filled the quota for parental bragging rights?” the other girl groans. “They’re lucky I’m too lazy to incite any kind of legit teenage rebellion, or they’d be screwed.”

They pause, giving me space to do the sociable thing like agree with them or at the very least introduce myself, but I’m struck by sudden and decidedly unwelcome panic at the words “whole plan” and “already set on.” It’s not like senior year is a surprise or anything. I guess it’s just a surprise that I still don’t have any kind of scope for what comes after it.

“Seriously,” says the girl who beckoned me over, “parents are so competitive now, all the school districts here have gotten out of control.”

I’m about to nod in agreement when we all cringe at the crackle and whine of a cheap microphone coming to life.

“Hey, Camp Ev—Reynolds!”

It’s Savvy, standing on the little elevated stage just beyond the middle of the pit. Despite the perpetually damp air, her hair and makeup are as immaculate as ever, but now she’s wearing a tank top with the camp’s name on it tucked into a pair of high-waisted khaki shorts and rocking sleek black sneakers. A hush falls over the campers, save for the group of girls next to me, who all start whispering at once.

“Oh my god, that’s her.”

“Those shorts are so cute.”

“She’s shorter than I expected!”

“But so much prettier in real—”

“Shh,” one of the other junior counselors hushes them as the gears start clicking together in my brain and I realize that I accidentally planted myself next to an entire Savannah Tully fan club. I peer at them out of the corner of my eye and see three high ponytails and three pairs of identical black sneakers and immediately pull out another piece of gum to stress chew.

“As you know, we had a bit of a revamp this year,” says Savvy. “Some of the pieces are still moving, so we appreciate you bearing with us. But we’re proud to announce the first official camp session of Camp Reynolds and thrilled to have you here.”

I’m expecting the unrepentantly half-hearted cheers I’m used to hearing at school, but the volume ramps up all at once—kids whistling and whooping and clapping their hands. When it doesn’t die down, I realize it isn’t only Savvy hype. A lot of the kids have been here before. I’m the unenthused outsider.

I try to make eye contact with Savvy, but she looks away quickly when our eyes meet. Mine dart away too slow, and I feel like a total loser in the aftermath.

“If we could, uh, start with everyone grouping themselves together based on the camp track you’re on?” says Savvy to the group, seeming to go out of her way to point her face in any direction other than mine. “SAT prep here in the middle, AP prep to my left, and general campers on my right.”

The girls start to get up with reluctant sighs, but I grab the elbow of 1560, and the other two pause.

“Hold on,” I whisper. “I heard they messed up the rosters. Maybe if we don’t move they won’t know we were enrolled in the SAT thing.”

“I Already Have a Whole Plan” narrows her eyes. “Wait, seriously?”

“Just—sit tight for a second,” I say. “If we get busted we can pretend we got confused.”

We go silent, letting the crowd of general campers swallow us up until we’re standing in the middle of the pack. I’m so sure we’re going to get caught that I start chewing my gum with violence.

“Oh,” says the girl who beckoned me over in the first place. “We’re really not supposed to—”

The same junior counselor from before shushes us, and we all clap our mouths shut and face front, jumpy that we’re about to get caught playing SAT prep hooky.

“As for what to expect … I really appreciate you reading up on the new rules in advance, and pre-appreciate you respecting them during your session here. It might have seemed like a lot, but it’s all pretty simple really—”

I pop a bubble, and Savvy stops dead at the sound, finally turning to look at me. I’m so stunned that it takes me a second to realize the entire pit of campers has turned, too. I lick the deflated bubble goo off my lips and stare back, wondering if there’s some kind of stray insect climbing up my face and nobody wants to tell me.

“Uh.” It’s Savvy, talking to me. Talking to me. I take a step back, wondering if she’s lost her goddamn mind when she adds, “Sorry, but … I’m going to have to give you a demerit.”

I blink at her, and everyone seems to lean in like they’re passing a fender bender on the road and want to get a better view. “Wait. What?”

The girl next to me brushes my elbow, her voice small and tentative. “Um, the camp banned gum?” she says. To her credit, she sounds every bit as miserable giving the news as I am to receive it.

This has got to be a prank, but when I look around, not a single camper looks fazed. Before whatever part of my brain is responsible for common sense kicks in, I blurt out, “Are you shitting me?”

“Excuse me.”

The voice behind me is way too old to be a junior counselor, or even a head one. It has an authority to it that makes me extremely certain I’m done for before I even turn around.

Sure enough, it’s a woman with a clipboard and a name tag that reads VICTORIA REYNOLDS. She has steely gray hair and matching steely eyes, which are focused on me in a way that makes me want to stare down at myself and make sure I haven’t burst into flames.

“Sorry for the interruption,” she says to the others. And to me: “Young lady, you can follow me.”

I open my mouth to protest, but one subtle, single shake of her head is all I need to think better of it. Instead I turn to Savvy, hoping I might catch some twinge of remorse, some hint of apology on her face, but she won’t even look at me. It’s like I am nobody to her. Like I don’t even exist.

So I turn and leave the firepit, my head held high and my mouth chewing the offending gum hard enough to snap my jaw, and don’t look back.