Never Cry Werewolf (7 page)

“No. I mean, I just met him. He seems interesting.”

Ariel raised her eyebrows. “Well, actually, I don’t know Austin all that well. His dad tours without him usually.”

“Oh. That’s too bad. Austin probably misses him.”

“Nah, he’s probably fine. I mean, I hardly ever see my parentals.” Ariel shrugged. “I’m doing okay. Well, except for being sent to brat camp every summer. Why are you so worried about him, anyway?”

I didn’t want to say anything about what had happened in the woods. And I really didn’t want to gossip about Austin’s problem. “He seems sad,” I said, and let the subject drop.

Ariel and I dragged my suitcase into the cabin and threw it onto my bed. My bunkmates gathered around as Cynthia picked through my suitcase with pleasure.

“Contraband can be hidden anywhere,” she said, separating my underwear with a pencil. Yeah, contraband—as in my stash of gummy worms (for those extra-bad days), lip gloss, and my favorite glitter eye shadow.

She pitched those remnants of civilization into a plastic bag. “And I’ll be taking this Wonderbra,”

she said, hooking her pencil in a strap. “You’re supposed to be concentrating on bettering yourself, not trying to attract male attention.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” I said.

Cynthia smoothed a strand of her gray-blond bobbed hair back behind one ear. “Not in the least,”

she said in a bored voice. “Push-up bras are strictly prohibited.”

The other girl campers murmured to each other.

“C’mon, guys,” I said. “I can’t be the only one who brought along a little cleavage enhancement.”

A skinny blond girl in braces nodded her head sadly. “I’m really gonna miss my La Perla T-shirt bra.”

Cynthia continued her inspection, now pawing through my backpack. Scowling, she picked up my
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romance paperback and then tucked it under her arm.

“Hold it,” I complained. “Reading can’t be a distraction. You’d think camp would try to enhance our education.”

Cynthia tied a knot at the top of her bag of my goodies and swung it over her shoulder like a true Grinch. “Shelby, everyone knows those books are trashy.”

My mouth dropped open.

A pretty dark-haired girl in the bunk above me said, “No they’re not! My mom’s made a million writing those kinds of books.”

Cynthia shot her a death glare and then stomped to the front of the cabin. “I’m going to have Mr.

Winters lock this stuff up. When I get back it’s lights out,” she said, closing the door behind her.

“Hey, don’t feel bad. She took all of my prototypes for the DeVoisier spring line,” Ariel told me.

“Five shades of lavender shadow, two plum lip glosses, and a pot of peachy cheek stain.”

“You wear that much makeup?”

Ariel shook her head. “Sympathy present from my mother for sending me away.”

“We’re all supposed to look like crap,” said the romance girl from the top bunk. “They say it’s therapeutic.”

“Great.” I started refolding my violated stuff, feeling as low as I had since I’d first boarded the plane back in LA. No push-up bra, no eye shadow, no candy. I couldn’t imagine that things could get worse. But of course they did.

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C
laaaannnnnggg!
Someone’s alarm clock really needed to die. I sat up in bed, covering my ears with my hands. Even then I could still hear it loud and clear. It wasn’t coming from our cabin at all.

“Oh, crap!” shrieked the romance girl. “Are we on fire?” She threw herself over the side of her top bunk, managing to kick me in the head on the way down.

“Ahh!” I screamed, now fully awake. “Watch it, Sara!”

Ariel peeked out from under her pillow. “Stupid camp!” she moaned. “Why don’t they let us sleep?”

“Don’t ask me. I’ve probably got brain damage.” I rubbed my forehead.

“Let’s go, let’s go, Spotted Owl!” shouted Cynthia Crumb. The bell had been ringing for two minutes already, the cabin was in panic mode, and she just now shot out of bed. After swatting at her tangled hair, she threw jeans on over her dorky flannel nightgown and then ran around the cabin like some kind of goat herder or something. “Put a shirt over that tank,” she told a tiny blond girl, and then moved on to the next slowpoke. “Brenna, get your butt out of bed! Let’s go! It’s a drill! We’re being timed!” she squawked in my ear. “Report to the flagpole! Move it! Move it!”

“Man, she scares me,” whispered Ariel after Cynthia marched away.

We were the last ones out of the cabin since I had to find a missing sandal and Ariel had to pee.

We hustled up to the lawn in front of the dining hall only to find all the other campers loosely bunched in a circle.

I saw Austin on the fringe of the Sapsucker crowd. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt and had an incredibly bored look on his face. As Ariel and I approached, Austin raised his eyebrows slightly and gave me a little nod.

I gave him a half smile as Ariel tugged my hand and pulled me toward Cynthia and the girls.

“Well, campers…” Up near the flagpole, Mr. Winters spoke into a microphone. “It seems Spotted Owl is bringing up the rear this morning. We’ll need to work on that emergency response system for next time.”

Red-faced, Ariel and I slipped in behind the rest of our group. Cynthia turned to give us a disapproving look.

“So, as I was saying,” Mr. Winters said, “we have a number of wonderful projects planned for you folks in the weeks ahead: horseback riding, trail building, square dancing, and the ever-popular talent show, to name a few. Today some of you will summit Crescent Rock for the first time.”

Ariel gasped. “I so don’t do heights,” she said in a zombie-like tone.

I gave her a pat on the back.

“And, campers, one of the highlights of Camp Crescent is our Transformation Ceremony, which will happen at the end of this week. You’ll be doing an art project, a representation of the person you used to be, of the things you’d like to change about yourself, and releasing it into the fire under the full moon. With that vision of yourself gone, you’ll be able to find the real you, the authentic person you’d like to become.”

I grimaced. That sounded a little more woo-woo than the brochure. I was all for transforming, but burning an effigy in a campfire? That was pretty out there. Still, I listened to him describe the daily routine, and looked at all the faces of the campers around the clumpy circle we formed on the lawn. I thought maybe it wouldn’t be all that different from regular camp. Maybe it’d almost be fun. But maybe is never a sure thing.

“Let’s talk about your stepmother,” Mr. Winters said, handing me a pair of gardening gloves later that morning.

I braced myself against the rock wall surrounding the flower bed. It was one thing to be paying a penalty for running off, but did it have to come with extra therapy? Just an hour ago, I’d been to a “girls’

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group,” where a chubby psychologist named Dr. Wanda had asked each of us to describe how we felt when we had our first period. Ugh. Listening to that was torture enough.

“Mr. Winters, could you just show me what you want weeded?” I said. I shaded my eyes against the bright morning sun and gave him my best shut-it look. Of course, he kept standing there, his belly making some impressive shade.

I really hoped he wasn’t one of those annoying adults who think that silence is the guaranteed way to make kids talk. I’d seen enough counselors fail with that old tactic.

When my mom died, there were things I couldn’t talk about—especially to the therapists Dad had set me up with. I didn’t even know how I was feeling then, and I really didn’t want to talk to strangers. I mean, I couldn’t even talk about stuff to my own dad. And so those random professionals had wasted Dad’s money staring at me across a desk, appointment after appointment. And eventually my dad gave up on the counselor idea. Then he found Honey Bun and forgot about it, and everything else, completely.

Yeah, I’d seen Mr. Winters’s type before.

After a moment of my silence, Mr. Winters gave in and said, “Let’s talk some more about your running away from camp.”

I blinked at him. Hadn’t we been over this already? “I was worried about the guys and you. I thought I could help.”

“Helping is a good thing—when you can do it safely.”

“Yeah,” I said, bracing myself for the rest of the lecture.

From the nearby field, another wave of laughing and talking rose from the kids enjoying archery. I glanced in that direction and noticed Austin and Charles across the gravel road, stacking rocks to form another landscaping wall. Already sweating, both the boys had their shirts off. Austin’s muscular chest gleamed in the sunlight. Mmm.

Mr. Winters tracked my gaze and said, “What does Austin represent to you? A dangerous male?

A way to rebel?”

Oh, geez, my bad. For a second I’d forgotten the old guy was there with me. “Do we have to talk, Mr. Winters? See, I’m pulling a weed,” I said, ripping at something green. “I can totally do this on my own.”

Mr. Winters dropped to his knees. “That’s a sunflower sprout,” he said, stilling my hand.

“Fine.” I dropped the torn leaves and sat back on my heels. “Show me what to pull then.”

“Shelby,” Mr. Winters said, adjusting the straw gardening hat that covered his balding head.

“Attraction to boys is part of growing up.”

“Attraction? Who said anything about that?”

Mr. Winters waved away a bee that circled the bright red band on his hat. “Why else would you have gone into the woods after Austin?”

“I didn’t mean to go after him, but no one was doing anything, and I’m probably the only one here who’s actually been in the woods for real,” I said. “Besides—he’s British. What do they know about camping and wilderness survival and all that?” I said, exasperated. “They’re too busy drinking tea and playing cricket. He would have been lost without me.” Okay, so that was a little thick, but I wanted Mr.

Winters to let me pull my weeds in peace.

“Hm…interesting.” He gave me a small smile. “Responsibility is a powerful draw, but not as powerful as sexual attraction.”

“What? Can we just pull some weeds now? Please?” My skin felt all scratchy and prickly, and I didn’t think it was from the plants. Mr. Winters mentioning sex was even worse than the birds-and-bees talk my dad had tried to give me last year. At least then I could explain that the schools had already taught me all I needed to know in fifth grade. “Tell me, is there a weed anywhere in this flower bed?”

Mr. Winters pointed at a clump of ugly-looking green fronds, and I yanked them out of the dirt.

“Let’s go back to your stepmother,” he said in a smooth voice.

“Her again?”

Mr. Winters took the weed from my hand and set it in the small pile by his fat knees. “She said this kind of problem with the opposite sex is what got you into trouble in the past.”

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“She said that?” I scratched at my elbow with one of my gloved hands, in the process smearing dirt on my arm.

“She told me a lot of things,” Mr. Winters said.

“My problem is not boys,” I said, dabbing at my arm with the hem of my baby T.

“Oh no?” he replied. “It’s not boys?”

“No. But she would say that.”

“Tell me why you think you’re here.”

“Because Priscilla is evil?” I muttered.

Mr. Winters smiled sadly. “Unless you open up, you’ll have trouble here at Camp Crescent, Shelby.”

“Maybe I don’t want to open up,” I said, searching the ground around me for more weeds.

“Your stepmother seemed very concerned about you when we spoke this morning,” Mr. Winters said.

I glanced up sharply. “She mentioned Red Canyon, didn’t she?”

He nodded. “How does that make you feel?”

What? Was he serious? “Uh, I’m not a fan.”

“I can assure you, you’ll enjoy Camp Crescent much better. You don’t want to jeopardize your time here.”

Despite the warm sun overhead, I felt a chill, as if Priscilla stood behind me, blocking the rays. “I’ll try,” I said in a small voice. “You know, to open up and stuff.”

“Good.” Mr. Winters hoisted himself to his feet, dusting his hands off on his jeans. “And I want to suggest that you think about putting yourself first, instead of worrying about other people. Austin has his own problems to deal with. And you are the most important person in your life. You can’t help other people if you don’t help yourself first.”

“Yeah.” I grubbed around in the dirt for another weed to pull. “Sure, that’s probably good advice.”

“We’ll talk more tomorrow,” Mr. Winters said. He reached down to pat my shoulder and added,

“When you hear the lunch bell, you can stop weeding for today.”

Hours later, I looked up from my patch of dirt, which was now nearly weed-free. Surprisingly, that tiny accomplishment actually made me feel a little good. It’d been a long, long time since I’d pulled weeds.

Back in Wisconsin, before Re-Gen, I’d helped my parents with all kinds of yard work. Mom had especially loved planting and watching things grow.

I sat back on my heels and glanced over at the guys. Apparently, Mr. Winters had told them to put their shirts back on. In his black T, Austin must have been sweating big-time, but he looked like it didn’t bother him. Charles, on the other hand, appeared about ready to wilt like a daisy. He plunked down on the grass while Austin heaved another rock onto the decorative wall.

Austin saw me watching him. He gazed back at me, his eyes glinting golden in the sunlight. A little shiver traveled down the back of my neck. Those eyes were dangerous.

He waved, as if he expected me to come over, but I didn’t. I looked down at the dirt patch in front of me, pretending to look for more weeds. I didn’t want to get involved with anyone who might get me sent to Red Canyon. Not that the old guy was right or anything, but I did need to concentrate on helping myself at the moment.