Summer on the Short Bus (3 page)

“You guys suck, you know that?” Quinn shakes his head while a grin starts inching its way across his face. “For the record,” he says, “I don't play basketball, I never sing in public, and I
definitely
don't dance.”

“He's never even seen
High School Musical
,” Pete adds, not wanting to be excluded.

“You're just . . . I mean, you're so . . .” Good God! What is wrong with me? “You look just like him!” I finally squeal.

“Wait until you see the campers with him.” Rainbow sidles up beside Quinn and traps him beneath one of her long giraffe arms. “Last year it took a couple of days for them to stop calling him Zac and start calling him Quinn. They asked him for his autograph for weeks!”

“Can I pleeeease have an autograph, Mr. Efron?” Fantine says with a snort and drops to her knees in front of him. “Just one autograph?”

The entire group, including Quinn, bursts into laughter.

“It's unbelievable,” I say, and realize I'm laughing, too. “But at least you look like a hottie. Can you imagine how much it would suck if you were mistaken for some deformed freak . . . like Quasimodo?”

Rather than the laughter I expect, all I get is an earful of deafening silence. What the hell? I take in the faces of everyone around me—every open jaw and wide eye gaping at me.

“Um . . . right. Okay then, everybody,” Rainbow says and drags a hand across her forehead. I'm not sure how it's possible, but she's paler than she was five seconds ago. “Fantine, why don't you give Cricket the five-dollar tour while we finish getting things ready for the arrivals.”

“With pleasure,” Fantine mumbles. She glances at the rest of the staff before sauntering past me without another word. I look up at Quinn, his face as unreadable as everyone else's, and realize that I've just committed some forbidden camp counselor crime.

“Whatever,” I say, and turn to follow Fantine. It's not like I care what a bunch of dorks in matching white T-shirts think about me anyway. Even if one of them does look like a movie star.

THREE

O
ur first stop on the half-assed tour is the mess hall, aka the needs-to-be-condemned building I saw when we first drove in. All meals are eaten here, which means I can add food poisoning to my growing list of fears. The mess hall is also the location for special activities like movie night and the end-of-summer battle of the bands. It's all so riveting I can hardly stand it.

“The archery range and pool are down that way,” Fantine says while nodding toward a paved trail that cuts through a grassy field and disappears behind what looks like an outhouse. “Over here is where the boys sleep.” She hesitates in front of a large, A-framed cabin with a
BOYS RULE, GIRLS DROOL
sign hanging from the door. “Colin and Quinn stay in there, and that's their bathroom.” I look up the hill and see a tiny building with a bright orange roof and faded red door. From my vantage point I don't think Colin could fit through it, let alone get comfy enough to take a dump.

“Uh . . . where's our bathroom?”

“On the other side of the hill by our cabin. Come on.”

Fantine scurries up the hill with the dexterity of a panther, while I am left to struggle through the sticks in my Marc Jacobs
flip-flops with my thousand-pound bag hanging off my shoulder.

“God, Fantine, this is heavy! Can you just wait a second?”

“You don't do much for yourself, do you?”

“What?” I pause to catch my breath and look up to find her standing a few feet above me, her hands on her hips and a smirk on her face. “I'm carrying the bag myself, in case you haven't noticed.”

“Right,” she says coolly. “That's exactly what I meant. Do you think you can make it another ten feet, or do I need to call for an ambulance?”

“Very funny!” I say before redirecting wisps of blonde hair from my face with a sweaty arm. Fantine sighs and continues up the hill again. I follow along, groaning the entire way.

“This is our place,” she says, pointing to yet another ramshackle building. The sign hanging above the screen door says
GIRLS RULE, BOYS DROOL
. How original.

“Come on, I'll show you where you can put your stuff.”

My tour guide blows through the door as if it were a five star resort, while I'm left slugging my bag up the rickety, wood-rotted steps in the nine-hundred-degree heat.

“You know, you took the hard way.” She pops her head through the doorway just as I reach the landing sweat-soaked and completely out of breath. “I think the ramp would've been a much better choice for you.”

I glance to my right and see a long, wood-planked ramp that
runs the length of the building all the way to the platform where I stand. Now she tells me.

She props the left of two doors open with her Nike-covered foot, inviting me into the dank space with a cold stare. The moment my foot hits the worn floor my stomach drops.

“You're kidding, right?”

“About what?”

“About this!” I say, motioning to the eyesore around me. “You don't actually sleep in here, do you? It smells like wet socks, and there's no carpet on the floor.” I peer down at my dirt-covered feet and nearly burst into tears. My pedicure is totally ruined. “You can't tell me that parents actually
pay
for their children to sleep in accommodations like these.”

“Actually, they do. The ones that can afford to, anyway,” she says with a look that could make puppies cry. “And for the record, their children love it. Our beds are in here.” Sliding a faded yellow curtain from the wall, she reveals a tiny room housing two wood-framed cots, a cracked window no bigger than an economy-fare porthole, and a shelving system made of plywood, cinder blocks, and about two thousand spiderwebs. “You can have the top shelf.”

I seriously consider bolting and running for my life, but I can't move. My feet are cemented to the floor and I'm having trouble breathing.

“Why are you even here?”

“What?” I ask, still trying to catch a breath.

“Why are you here?”
she asks me again, her dark eyes burrowing into my soul. “It's pretty obvious you don't want to be.”

I swallow through a newly formed knot in my throat—I hope she's not violent.

“The way I see it, there are only two kinds of people who show up here at the last minute. There's the last-ditch, need-something-impressive-on-my-college-application people who think they can come here for the summer and skate through without making any real effort. And then there's the stuck-up rich kids who get busted shoplifting and are avoiding their juvy sentence by opting for community service. So tell me, Cricket. Which one are you?”

“Oh my God! Do I look like I belong in juvy?”

She raises a sculpted brow.

“My dad set this whole thing up because he wants me to be more grounded or something,” I say, quickly rethinking my initial strategy of telling her to screw off. “Trust me. There are about a thousand other places I'd rather be than here.”

“Well, aren't we the lucky ones,” she says and takes a slightly less aggressive stance, which does little to pacify my nerves. “All right, here's the deal, Cricket. It goes against my instincts, but I'm willing to assume that you're only acting like a judgmental bitch because this is a new experience for you. I know this isn't your typical summer camp and it takes some getting used to. But what you need to understand is that we love this camp, we love these kids, and we take our jobs seriously. It's a lot more than something
Daddy just arranged to keep us out of trouble. So if you think I'm going to let beach-blanket Barbie with her Fendi bag roll in here and ruin my summer, you got another think coming. You feel me?”

I suddenly feel like I'm playing the lead in a bad ABC Family movie where I'm the pretty rich girl whose parents die and is forced to live with foster parents in the inner city. Their biological daughter hates me because her gangster boyfriend, who's actually smart and misunderstood, likes me more than her, so she challenges me to a dance-off or cheer competition.

“Yeah,” I say in a near whisper, “I feel you.”

“Great,” she says with an unconvincing smile. “Now, you've got about fifteen minutes to unpack before the campers arrive. There are three T-shirts under your pillow. You're expected to wear one whenever you're on duty. The towels are up at the bathroom, bug spray's on the windowsill. You'll figure out the rest as you go.”

And just like that, J. Lo's evil twin disappears through the plastic curtain, and I'm left wondering how the hell I'm going to get myself out of here before she kills me.

Despite my fear of contracting a skin-eating disease, I plop down on the rickety cot and try to gather my thoughts. It's obvious that Dad isn't going to cave on this horrific wilderness experiment, but I'm practically an adult. Surely they can't keep me here against my will. I pop another peppermint into my mouth and chomp down on it. I need to talk to Katie. Her dad is a big-shot lawyer—if anyone will know how to get me out of here it's him.

I pull my phone from my bag, only to fall back into the pit of despair when I see there's absolutely no cell coverage. Freaking perfect.

Too pissed to cry, I start unloading my stuff before Fantine comes back and puts a cap in my ass. I'll figure out where AT&T lives later.

Using the strap of my bag to dust off the top shelf of the makeshift dresser, I lay my shorts, tanks, bras, and undies in neat piles on the wood, promising myself I'll burn them the second I get home. I swap my YSL tank for one of the standard-issue Hanes T-shirts, and finally trade out my flip-flops for the Asics trainers that have never set foot outside of a gym.

Looking like a walking yard sale, I return to the front entrance and find Fantine standing alongside Pete the doctor and Sam the gnome chef.

“All set?” Fantine asks. She's wearing a smile that I can't determine is of the sincere or I'm-going-to-kill-you-in-your-sleep variety.

“Yeah,” I say cautiously. “Thanks.”

I fall in line beside her and return a wave to Colin and Quinn, who are standing on the steps of the mess hall. Apparently my Quasimodo faux pas has been forgiven.

“Okay, gang.” Rainbow approaches with a clipboard in hand and sunglasses stationed on her carrot-colored head. “The buses just radioed in. They're pulling off the highway and will be here in a couple of minutes.”

“Finally,” Fantine says. “I feel like we've been waiting forever.”

“I know!” says Rainbow. She's so excited she's practically bouncing.

I'm just about to ask what the big deal is, when I notice Pete and Colin in an all-out hug, giggling like kids on Christmas morning. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm starring on a hidden camera reality show, because an eternity passes before two streaks of yellow finally appear through the thick of trees.

“Oh my God!” Fantine says while pressing her hands against her mouth. “They're here! They're here!”

“Don't you just love this?” Rainbow adds, squeezing her hand. “I cannot wait to see Meredith!”

Several minutes and a ridiculous amount of anticipation later, the buses roll to a stop in front of us. I squint behind my glasses, covering my nose and mouth from the dirt rising from the ground. Then the already too-familiar
CAMP I CAN
logo comes into view on the side of the bus.

A short bus.

I station myself at an equally safe distance from the squatty vehicles, watching as Rainbow waves wildly to the driver of the first bus, who responds with a heavy-handed honk. “I love it when he does that,” she says. The engine goes silent and the dual glass doors at the front groan before squeaking open.

Fantine, Sam, and Pete have all wandered toward the other bus and are exchanging hellos with the driver, when a loud clanging
noise draws my attention back to bus number one. A square door slowly opens from the side of the bus, creating an open-air lift. Seconds later a pigtailed redhead appears in the world's tiniest wheelchair.

“Hello, Raaaaaaainbow,” the girl calls over in a voice that makes me think her tongue is too big for her mouth. “Did youuu miss meeee?”