Camp Confidential 01 - Natalie's Secret (4 page)

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Authors: Melissa J Morgan

BOOK: Camp Confidential 01 - Natalie's Secret
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“Guys! We have extra hot dogs! I repeat, we have extra hot dogs!”
Natalie couldn’t help but laugh to hear Pete shouting to be heard over the noise.
Good luck,
she thought. The entire camp had turned out for the cookout that evening, and campers were seated in clusters across the lawn, breaking off into countless individual conversations. Seeing everyone seated and enthusiastically eating, Natalie felt overwhelmed all over again. There were more campers at Lakeview than there were students in her entire school! Suddenly, Natalie was wondering if she was as social of a person as she had originally thought.
No, don’t think that way
, she scolded herself.
You’re just freaking out because everything is strange and new. But it won’t be this way forever. What would Hannah say if she could talk to you?
She knew what Hannah would say: “Chill out, girl—like it or not, you’re at camp for the summer, so you may as well relax and make the best of it.” Hannah was totally practical and levelheaded that way. It was so annoying.
And anyway, it wasn’t as though Natalie was off in a corner by herself. She and Alyssa had squatted down in a circle with the rest of bunk 3C. Alex and Jenna were big on bunk unity. It was easy to see why they would both be favorites of any counselor.
Natalie felt a finger in her ribs and turned to find Alyssa poking her. “Sure you don’t want another hot dog?” The corners of her mouth were turned up in an impish grin.
“Ugh, I don’t even want to think about what the first one did to me,” Natalie protested. “There must be something wrong with them. You were smart to stick to the side salads.” She waved her paper plate in the direction of a group of boys who had jumped up and made a mad dash for the barbecue pit the minute Pete announced second helpings.
“Oh, my brother and his friends’ll eat anything,” Jenna said. “It’s so gross.”
“Which one’s your brother?” Natalie asked.
“Well, the one who’s standing on line like he hasn’t eaten in weeks—
so
not true, by the way—is Adam. He’s my twin and he’s in 3F. So you’ll meet him when we have electives and stuff. My sister Stephanie is a CIT. She’s good friends with Marissa so you’ll meet her soon, I’m sure.”
“Oh, we have electives with the boys?” Natalie asked. Suddenly, camp was sounding just a little more interesting.
Jenna shuddered. “Unfortunately. For most of the day, you travel with your bunk to different activities, but twice a day you get to go to your electives, and those are a mix of everyone in our age division. Oh, and they have swim sessions and meals with us, too. We’re gonna have to stick together if we want to avoid getting splashed. Although,” Jenna leaned in, a mischievous look on her face, “I’m usually pretty good at pulling pranks on them and stuff. They never know what hit ’em.”
Natalie nodded. “Good to know.” At this point, she was more interested in scoping out the boys than in playing pranks on them. Was that going to be just one more thing that set her apart from her bunkmates? She pushed herself up from the ground and dusted any stray grass off her legs. Nature was turning out to be very . . . well, messy. “I’m gonna toss my trash. Does anyone have anything for me to throw out?” she offered. Jenna and Alyssa shook their heads no.
Natalie fought her way through a swarm of nasty-looking insects and gingerly tossed her plate and utensils into the garbage can. A bit of mayonnaise splashed up onto her arm, making her a prime target of the insects’ interest. “Oh, ick,” she grumbled, and wandered toward the barbecue table to grab a napkin to clean herself up.
“Look, he
said
there are a ton of hot dogs left.”
“But, um, I still have my hamburger, Chelsea.”
Natalie turned to see Chelsea and Karen standing next to the barbecue table, apparently in the midst of some serious negotiations. It was plain to see that Karen definitely did have an entire hamburger sitting untouched on her plate. Which Chelsea definitely had designs on. Natalie watched the exchange with curiosity.
“Come on, Karen, I’m starving. And I’m allergic to hot dogs. Don’t you want to do me a favor?” Chelsea pressed.
“Well, but . . . I mean . . . how can you be allergic to hot dogs? Or, I mean, if you’re allergic to hot dogs, then wouldn’t you also be allergic to hamburgers?”
“Well, okay,” Chelsea said, quickly backtracking, “I’m not exactly allergic. But it’s, like, I really don’t like them and they really make me sick. Ever since I was little. Anyway,” she continued, “my mother is going to send me up a care package next week, and I can totally hook you up. I mean, wouldn’t you want a pack of Twizzlers or something? That’s fair, right?”
Karen looked unconvinced, but she was obviously afraid to stand up to Chelsea. “Um, I guess,” she said. “Yeah, fine.” She pushed her plate at Chelsea and walked away, her head down.
“Wait a minute!” Chelsea called after her, smiling like the cat that had swallowed the canary. “Don’t you even want to get a hot dog?”
Karen rushed off, not bothering to answer. Natalie observed the entire exchange silently, thinking. She didn’t like what she had just seen. Was Chelsea some kind of bully?
 
 
“Where’d you go? We thought you’d, like, fallen into the garbage can or something,” Grace teased when Natalie had made her way back to the bunk. “Or were you having a little last-minute hot-dog-eating contest?”
Before Natalie could answer, she was interrupted by the sound of hoots, whistles, and feet stamping on the ground. She glanced over and saw that Alex and Jenna were the cause of the commotion. They were hissing and booing at a group of girls walking by.
“What’s the sitch?” Natalie asked, turning to Grace, who had also joined in on the shrieking and hollering.
“It’s bunk 3A,” Grace explained between whistles. “They’re our rivals.”
“Based on what?” Natalie asked.
“Oh, gosh, I don’t even remember anymore. They’ve played all kinds of jokes on us over the last few summers. Somehow, it just developed. I mean, it’s all in good fun. You’ll see—just don’t leave your toothbrush out at night, is all I’m saying,” she warned.
Natalie didn’t like the sound of that one bit.
All in good fun? Really?
she wondered.
When was the fun going to start, then?
chapter FOUR
Within five minutes of first waking up, Natalie immediately noticed two things. The first was that it was about thirty degrees below zero in the bunk, and her cute little sleep shorts were really not doing the trick of keeping her warm. She remembered that Julie had tried to warn her the night before of how cold it could get in the mountains, but for some reason, she hadn’t let herself believe it.
Note to self,
she thought, thrusting her hands underneath the covers and rubbing them vigorously across her bare legs in the hopes of warming them up,
for future reference: Julie knows stuff.
The second thing Natalie noticed—and this was going to be an even bigger problem, she decided—was the horrible trumpet blaring through the open windows.
We couldn’t have just set an alarm clock?
she wondered.
Okay, so she wasn’t a morning person.
From across the room, someone groaned. “For Pete’s sake,
please
make that noise stop!” It was Grace. She clearly wasn’t a morning person, either.
“What time is it, even?” Natalie demanded. She had worn her cute pink waterproof sports watch to bed (at last, she’d finally have a chance to make use of all of its “outdoor” settings), but she had no intention of taking her hands out from underneath her blanket to check.
“It’s quarter of,” Julie said brightly, bouncing across the room. She looked as freshly scrubbed and perky as ever. Natalie suspected she even looked that way in her sleep.
“Quarter of
what
?” Natalie pressed. “I don’t believe in getting up before the sevens.”
“Well, my dear, I’m sorry to have to break it to you, but if that’s the case, then you’re going to have to stay in bed for another fifteen minutes. But that would only leave you fifteen minutes to get dressed. Your call.”
Natalie flew up in bed. “We have
half an hour
to be ready for breakfast?”
She looked around the bunk. To every side she could see girls rummaging through their cubbies in various stages of dress. Karen was sitting on the edge of her bed holding a sock up in front of her face, looking confused.
“But, Julie,” Natalie said, careful to keep the edge she was feeling from creeping into her tone, “it takes me at least twenty minutes to shower.”
“Well, then you’d better hurry, Natalie. And tomorrow morning, you’ll just have to try to get up before the bugle. Does your watch have an alarm?” Julie asked. She didn’t sound unsympathetic, just matter-of-fact. But that didn’t make Natalie feel any better.
“Well, I guess I can rush,” Natalie said. “Whatever. I can do makeup when we get back from breakfast.”
“I’m sorry, Nat, but after breakfast we really only have a half an hour or so, and that’s for our bunk chores,” Julie said. “But you don’t need makeup to look gorgeous!”
Speak for yourself,
Natalie thought glumly, hoisting herself reluctantly out of bed, stepping into her flip-flops, and padding off into the bathroom.
As she shuffled into a shower stall, she was nearly mowed over by Alex, who was running a comb through her wet hair.
Of course
, Natalie thought. It only fit that Alex had woken up on time to shower. She was, like, Supercamper.
Natalie stepped into a stall and turned the hot water on full blast. She ducked under the stream—and let out a startled shriek.
“What is it?” Julie asked, rushing in.
“It’s FREEZING!” Natalie shouted. The water was about as cold as the morning air in the bunk had been. Also, a huge clump of wiry hair was poking its way out of the drain.
Gross.
“Sorry,” said a voice from the direction of the sinks. “I might have used up the hot water.” It was Chelsea.
“Are you
allergic
to cold water?” Natalie mumbled sarcastically, surprising herself. She hadn’t meant to be nasty, it had just slipped out.
“Did you say something?” Chelsea asked.
“No, I didn’t say anything,” Natalie replied quickly, covering. “I didn’t say anything at all.”
She ducked back underneath the cold water, resigned to her fate for this morning, at least.
 
 
If Marissa had been around in the morning, she probably would have been able to give Natalie some “quick tips to getting gorgeous FAST.” After all, she had about a million magazines strewn on top of her bed, and that was the gist of most of the headlines Natalie had seen. But Marissa was long gone by the time the girls of 3C had woken up. Julie explained that it was because as a CIT, Marissa had to work as a waitress in the mess hall. So she had to get there early to set up for the morning meal.
Walking to the mess hall, Natalie was actually kind of excited to see Marissa waiting on them. She wondered if all the CITs had cute matching uniforms that they wore when they served. And maybe Marissa would carry a funny notepad in her apron that she would use for taking orders, like in a real restaurant. Natalie wondered what they normally had for breakfast at Lakeview. If the cookout was any indication, the food wouldn’t be any great shakes, but that was no big deal. She could live on scrambled eggs if she had to.
“Oh, and if the bug juice is yellow, don’t drink it,” Alex was saying to a group of girls.
“Um, why?” Karen asked quietly. By now Natalie had gotten used to the fact that Karen did everything quietly.
“Because you don’t know what they put in it,” Alex explained. “I mean, I guess you never can be too sure, but with yellow, it’s like asking for trouble. I wouldn’t put it past them if they peed in it,” she said, lowering her voice.
“Ew,”
Karen said.
“That
can’t
be true,” Natalie interjected, holding out hope that Alex was just being dramatic.
Jenna nodded solemnly. “It is, though. My oldest brother Matt—he’s not here anymore, he’s really old, and this summer he’s going to a summer college program in science, how boring is
that
?—anyway, his friend used to work in the kitchen. You would not
believe
the stuff that goes on in there. I mean, pee in the bug juice is seriously the least of it. I can tell you stories—”
“—Please don’t,” Natalie begged.
“Okay, okay,” Alex said, breaking into the conversation again like a weary referee. “Let’s just put it this way—if we tell you to avoid something, you’ll just have to trust us.”
“Fair enough,” Natalie said.
 
 
“This is our table!” Julie shouted, beckoning the girls to a long, cafeteria-style table and bench set just inside the mess hall.
They’d been inside the mess hall for all of three seconds, and already Natalie’s head was spinning. For starters, the room was enormous, cavernous, with soaring ceilings held in place with long wooden beams and rafters. Which of course made for the kind of acoustics that sent the racket of at least two hundred separate conversations up into the air only to pour loudly back down. Natalie shook her head. So far, everything about camp seemed to be chaotic. Certainly the paint-splattered banners dangling from the walls, hailing color wars of years gone by. Natalie wasn’t sure yet what color war was, and she was almost afraid to ask. It sounded potentially stressful. And there was the clatter of silverware clinking against the surface of the tables. And the laughter coming from her own fellow bunkmates. Was she honestly the only person here who didn’t find camp to be one great big party?

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