Read Camp Confidential 03 - Grace's Twist Online

Authors: Melissa J Morgan

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BOOK: Camp Confidential 03 - Grace's Twist
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“I guess I’m just in a bad mood,” Grace finally said.
They had reached the clearing in the woods where all the bunks were. Grace slowed down, automatically taking a step or two away from Gaby. She came from their rival bunk, after all. A few of Grace’s friends had already commented on the fact that she was consorting with the enemy. She didn’t feel like having to defend herself to 3C right now. She knew they were only teasing, but the situation with her parents had her mega-stressed-out. So stressed that even joking around with her bunkmates seemed hard. “Um, I’ll see you in drama,” she muttered, speeding up.
“Wait!” Gaby called.
Grace turned back.
“Do you want to hang out during siesta this afternoon?” Gaby asked. “We can practice scenes or something.”
Hang out during siesta?
Grace could hardly believe her ears. Girls from 3A and 3C did not hang out together. It was an unspoken rule. And Gaby wanted to break it.
How can I say no without offending her?
Grace wondered. Should
I say no?
“Come on, we’ll have fun,” Gaby prodded.
Grace glanced over at her bunk. Most of her bunkmates were lounging around on the steps or at the one dilapidated picnic table out front. Natalie was doing Alyssa’s nails. Alex was reading lines with Brynn. Candace and Jessie were laughing over a magazine. Valerie and Sarah were practicing some kind of backflip. And Karen was French-braiding Chelsea’s hair. They were all paired up, happy in their best-friend twosomes. There was nowhere for Grace to fit in.
How come she had never noticed this before?
“Earth to Grace. Please return to Camp Lakeview,” Gaby said in a fake deep voice. “Are we hanging later or not?”
“Why not?” Grace said. It wasn’t like her bunkmates would care. They already had their camp best friends. Obviously it was time for Grace to get one, too. And Gaby was the only one who seemed interested, even if she was a little hard to figure out sometimes. “I’ll meet you here.”
“Cool.” Gaby started walking backward toward bunk 3A. “Later.”
“Later,” Grace answered happily.
Grace’s happiness didn’t last long. As soon as the bunk sat down for lunch in the mess hall, Chelsea turned to her. “You never told us what Julie wanted this morning,” she said loudly. “Or was it Kathleen who wanted to talk to you?”
Grace froze with a forkful of bright orange mac and cheese halfway to her mouth. She really didn’t want to talk about that, especially not with the whole bunk listening. In fact, all she wanted to do was forget about this morning.
Natalie and Alyssa exchanged a look. “Who cares what they wanted?” Natalie said. “Let’s talk about the field trip to WetWorld. I say we go on all the rides together. You know, to show our bunk 3C spirit!”
“Yeah, let’s show our spirit,” Candace agreed. Grace couldn’t help smiling. You could always count on Candace for support. She never had much to say on her own, so she usually just repeated what everyone else said—as long as it was something nice.
“But then what’s Grace going to do?” Chelsea asked. “Her new best friend is from 3A. She’ll have to be in two places at once!”
A few of the girls laughed, and even Brynn and Alex smiled.
Grace felt her face get hot. She knew her friends weren’t really mad at her for hanging out with Gaby. But Chelsea wasn’t just teasing—she was being snotty. She was always rude, and everyone in 3C knew it. So why were they laughing along with her as if she was just making a joke?
Grace dropped her fork back down to her plate. She’d had enough of Chelsea’s nosiness and her attitude. If her other friends weren’t going to defend her, she’d just have to defend herself. “Maybe if my bunkmates acted more like friends are supposed to, I wouldn’t have to look for a best friend in 3A,” she snapped.
Then she got up and stormed out of the mess hall, ignoring Nat and Brynn calling after her. How dare Chelsea try to tell her who to be friends with!
Once she got outside, though, her stomach did a little flip. Had she really just yelled at all her bunkmates? They hadn’t meant to upset her, and she knew it. She’d probably even been too harsh to Chelsea.
Grace sighed. She wasn’t mad at them. She was mad at herself, and she’d taken it out on them. How had she gotten herself into this mess?
chapter FOUR
“But I don’t understand,” Grace said the next day in drama class. She was using a thick British accent and a deep voice. “How could a mouse have unlocked the door?”
“Maybe he had a key,” Brynn answered shrilly. She stood on top of one of the black boxes, pretending it was a chair.
“A mouse with a key? Preposterous!” Grace bellowed. “Everybody knows mice never use keys. They prefer to ring the doorbell!” She saw a tiny smile flicker across Brynn’s face, but Brynn quickly squelched it. Even though the improvisation exercise they were doing was silly, they both had to take it seriously in order to stay in character. It was hard, though, considering that all their classmates were laughing out loud.
“All I know is that a horrible little mouse came in and stole all the cheese from my kitchen,” Brynn cried in her best imitation of a frightened old lady.
Grace’s character was supposed to be a gruff police detective. Making him British was a little addition of her own. She loved the improv part of drama because they were allowed to add personal touches like that to spice things up. Picturing a burly English inspector in her mind, she pretended to pull a notebook from her pocket. “Can you describe the mouse?” she asked in her fake voice.
“It was small and gray with a twitchy nose,” Brynn said. She added a shudder for effect.
“I see.” Grace pretended to write that down. “And can you describe the cheese?”
One of the boys laughed loudly. Grace caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. He was very tan, with short blond hair and a friendly smile. His green eyes gleamed with amusement as he watched her.
“Ahem!” Brynn said loudly. Grace jumped. Brynn was staring at her, obviously expecting an answer. But Grace hadn’t even heard a word Brynn said.
“Oh!” Grace cried. “I’m sorry. I was distracted by . . .”
Think fast,
she told herself.
I can’t say I was distracted by a boy.
“. . . by that mouse. I think it’s your culprit!” She pointed to a spot on the floor near Brynn’s black box.
Brynn gave a little scream and stood up on her tiptoes to get even farther away from the “mouse.”
Grace swooped down and pretended to pick it up by its tail. She squinted into thin air and nodded wisely. “This mouse is the thief.”
“How can you tell?” Brynn asked.
How can I tell?
Grace wondered. She thought fast. “It has cheese breath,” she announced.
Everybody laughed again, and most of the other campers applauded. Bethany joined in the applause as she walked toward Grace and Brynn at the front of the room. “Well done,” she said. “That was an excellent improvisation.”
Grace glanced over at Brynn, who was beaming. She could feel the huge smile on her own face, too. Bethany had assigned each of them a character—the old lady and the detective—and given them the word “mouse.” Everything else they made up on the spot.
“If you try out and get a role in the play, this is the kind of applause you’ll get,” Brynn murmured. “And it will be even more fun than the scene we just did.” She’d been trying to convince Grace to audition ever since Grace had said she wasn’t going to try out. Grace couldn’t tell Brynn the real reason she had to skip auditions, so she’d found herself avoiding her friend outside of drama class. It was awful.
Grace pretended she hadn’t heard Brynn’s comment. “We’re a good team,” she said as they took their seats with their classmates.
“Yeah, too bad you decided not to be my partner,” Brynn teased her. Grace knew her bunkmate had been annoyed at first, but Brynn seemed to like her new partner just fine. His name was Peter, and Grace had to admit that he was pretty cute.
Her gaze wandered over to the blond boy who’d been laughing so loudly during their scene. To her surprise, he was looking right back at her. He gave her a smile and a thumbs-up. Shocked, Grace sat back so that she was hidden by Brynn. She leaned over to Gaby, who sat on the other side of her.
“Who’s that boy with the blond hair?” she asked.
Gaby immediately craned her neck to look over at him. “Devon Something,” she said. “He’s in 3F. Why?”
“He really liked our improv. He was laughing the whole time.”
“Well, it was pretty ridiculous,” Gaby said.
Grace didn’t answer. She still had a hard time figuring out whether or not Gaby was kidding sometimes.
“That’s it for today,” Bethany said. “Next time we’ll be doing movie scenes.” As everybody got up and began heading for the door, Bethany pulled Grace aside.
“Your scene was really funny,” she said. “Have you done improv exercises before?”
“Only once. In Drama Club at school,” Grace said.
“Well, you’re a natural.” Bethany smiled. “I hope you’re planning to audition for the play.”
Grace hesitated. “I don’t know. I’m only in the third division.”
“I meant what I said, Grace. Anyone from any division can audition.” Bethany raised an eyebrow. “Just because a third-level camper has never gotten a lead before doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
Grace wasn’t sure how to answer. Had Julie and Kathleen talked to Bethany? It didn’t seem like it. For a brief moment Grace considered trying to lie to the drama teacher. Maybe if Bethany didn’t know . . .
But Grace was no liar. She knew she couldn’t do that.
“Just think about it,” Bethany added. “Someone as talented as you are should really try out.”
“Okay,” Grace said. She forced a smile onto her face and left. If only people would stop telling her how talented she was! It only made her feel worse that she couldn’t audition for the play.
By the time Grace got into her bathing suit and made it to the lake, free swim had already started. Talking to Bethany had made her late, and she’d had to stop at the camp office on the way back to the bunk.
To her surprise, she spotted Natalie in the water with Alyssa. Natalie almost never went in during free swim, but it was unusually hot today. Obviously her latest fashion magazine could wait until after she’d cooled down. Jenna was swimming laps with her brother Adam, and Brynn and Alex were hanging out in a pair of inner tubes, talking. Well, Brynn was talking. Alex just bobbed in the water, listening intently and nodding. She wasn’t saying a word.
Brynn must be practicing her audition scene with Alex as the audience,
Grace thought.
I wish Emily was here. She’d let me practice with her like that, too.
A flicker of guilt stabbed at her. She still hadn’t finished that letter to her best friend. Grace kicked the sand in frustration. She didn’t seem able to do anything right this summer!
She tossed her towel onto the ground and stuck her toe in the water. Camp Lakeview rules stated that no one could go in the lake without a swimming buddy, even for free swim. The counselors were pretty flexible about that rule, though. As long as campers didn’t swim alone, the counselors didn’t care how many buddies they had. Which was good when you were best-friendless. Grace squinted across the sparkling water toward her friends. Maybe she’d ask Nat and Alyssa if she could triple with them.
“Hey, Gracie,” Gaby said from behind her. “You’re late. I was waiting for you to be my swim buddy.”
“Oh.”
Gracie?
Grace thought.
Why is she calling me that?
She noticed that Gaby had already dumped her own towel right next to Grace’s.
“Let’s go,” Gaby prodded. “I’m dying from this heat.” She waded into the shallow end of the lake without a backward glance. Grace almost yelled after her—Gaby would be in trouble if she swam without a partner. But obviously Gaby was assuming Grace would follow her.
It was kind of weird. Gaby hadn’t even asked Grace if she
wanted
to be swim buddies. She’d just decided that they would be, and she expected Grace to go along with that. It was sort of rude. But again, it was also sort of flattering. Maybe Gaby simply figured that they were good enough friends that she didn’t have to ask. That’s how Grace acted with Emily at home. It was the sort of thing that best friends did.
BOOK: Camp Confidential 03 - Grace's Twist
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