Camp Rules! (2 page)

“Your name is
Rainbow
?” Katie blurted out, surprised. Then she blushed. She hadn’t meant to hurt the girl’s feelings.

But Rainbow didn’t seem the least bit upset. “My parents say a rainbow is the most beautiful thing in the whole world,” she explained calmly. “That’s why they gave me the name.”

A tall girl with short dark hair snorted. Then Katie saw her make a face. Katie stared at her in amazement.

“Oh, just ignore her,” a girl with curly brown ringlets and silver braces on her teeth said to Rainbow and Katie. “Alicia’s always in a bad mood.”

Katie nodded.
Okay, so the mean girl’s name must be Alicia.

“I’m Gianna,” the girl with the braces introduced herself.

“Did you and Alicia go to camp together before?” Katie asked, wondering how Gianna knew all about her.

Gianna nodded. “We were both here last summer. This is my third year at Camp Cedar Hill. It’s only Alicia’s second.”

“And last,” Alicia groaned. “I told my mother if I got stuck in the baby Bumblebee bunk, I wasn’t coming back here ever again. And here I am.”

“
We’re
babies?” Gianna argued. “
You’re
younger than I am.”

“Whatever,” Alicia said as she continued to unpack her trunk.

“You can have the top bunk,” a girl with long beaded earrings and straight strawberry blond hair called to Katie from across the bunk.

“Okay,” Katie replied. She stepped over the open trunks and duffel bags until she reached the bed.

“I’m Chelsea,” the girl with the earrings told her. “I took that side of the cubby. I hope you don’t mind.”

Katie looked over toward the double cubby beside her new bed. Chelsea had already unpacked most of her clothes, her shampoo, soap, and . . . wow!

“You have your own blow-dryer?” Katie asked her in amazement.

“Of course,” Chelsea told her. “I never go anywhere without it. My hair gets all crazy and wild if I don’t blow-dry it.”

Katie smiled at Chelsea. “Your hair does look nice,” she told her.

“Thanks,” Chelsea replied. “You can use my dryer sometimes if you like.”

“Wow!” Katie exclaimed. “Thanks.”

Katie pulled her sheets and blankets from her duffel bag and began making her bed. She looked across the way at Rainbow, who also had a top bunk. She was busy tying something to the rafters above her bed.

“What’s that?” Katie asked her.

“It’s a quartz crystal,” Rainbow said, moving to the side so Katie could get a better look at the small clear rock she was hanging above her head. “If you hang it above you, it’s supposed to give you positive energy.”

“Oh please,” Alicia groaned.

“Ignore her,” Gianna reminded Rainbow.

“Don’t worry. I’m fine,” Rainbow said. “Nothing is going to ruin my summer. I can’t wait to get out there and be around all this nature. I sure hope we get to camp out one night and sleep under the stars.”

“With all these bugs?” Chelsea gasped. “Not me. I’ll sleep in here—behind all the screened-in windows.”

Katie giggled. “You remind me of my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Derkman,” she told Chelsea. “She’s really afraid of bugs. You should have seen her when we went on our science-camp trip. She had a million cans of bug spray with her.”

“Did it help?” Gianna asked.

Katie nodded. “The bugs stayed away. But she got poison ivy instead!”

Gianna, Chelsea, and Rainbow all laughed, hearing that.

“I hate to break up the gabfest, girls,” Shannon said with a smile. “But it’s time to head over to the mess hall for some lunch.”

“I hope it’s something good,” Rainbow said.

“You wish!” Alicia groaned.

Katie gulped. “No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t wish anything!” she shouted out.

The girls in the bunk all stared at her.

“What’s wrong with wishes?” Rainbow asked her, looking puzzled.

Katie frowned. What was wrong with wishes?

Chapter 3

It all started one horrible day back in third grade. Katie had lost the football game for her team. Then she’d splashed mud all over her favorite jeans. But the worst part of the day came when Katie let out a loud burp—right in front of the whole class. It had been so embarrassing!

That night, Katie wished to be anyone but herself. There must have been a shooting star overhead when she made the wish, because the very next day the magic wind came.

The magic wind was like a really powerful tornado that blew only around Katie. It was so strong, it could blow her right out of her body . . .
and into someone else’s
!

The first time the magic wind appeared, it turned Katie into Speedy, the hamster in her third-grade class. Katie spent the whole morning going round and round on a hamster wheel and chewing on Speedy’s wooden chew sticks. They tasted terrible, but Katie couldn’t help herself. That’s what hamsters did.

The magic wind didn’t just turn Katie into animals, though. One time it came and turned her into T-Jon, the rapper in the Bayside Boys. Katie wasn’t very good at writing rap music. She’d almost broken up her favorite music group!

And that wasn’t the only time the magic wind had caused a musical mess. At the beginning of fourth grade, the magic wind had turned Katie into Mr. Starkey, the school music teacher. The school band had never sounded as bad as when Katie was conducting! It was so awful that all the new kids in the band wanted to quit.

And then there was the time the magic wind came to the Cherrydale Mall and—one, two, switcheroo—changed Katie into Cinnamon, the owner of the candy store. Katie had almost ruined Valentine’s Day for everyone by putting the wrong messages on the candy hearts. By the time Cinnamon turned back into herself, everyone was mad at her,
and
at each other. But Cinnamon couldn’t remember why.

That was one of the weird things about the magic wind. The people Katie turned into never really remembered too much about what had happened to them.

But Katie never forgot. Which was why she hated wishes so much.

Right now the kids in the bunk were all staring at her, waiting for some explanation of why she had shouted like that. But Katie couldn’t tell them the truth. They’d never believe her. Katie wouldn’t have believed it, either, if it hadn’t kept happening to her.

“I just meant that we’re all so hungry, we’ll eat anything they put in front of us,” Katie explained to her new bunkmates.

There. That sounded sort of believable.

“It’ll be pizza bagels,” Gianna told her. “It’s always pizza bagels on the first day.”

“What are pizza bagels?” Chelsea asked.

“They put some cheese and tomato on top of a half a bagel and then cook it in the oven,” Gianna explained. “They’re kind of soggy, but not too awful.”

“Oh good,” Rainbow said. “I’m glad it’s just cheese and sauce. I don’t eat meat.”

“Me neither,” Katie told her excitedly. “I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat anything that ever had a face.”

Rainbow grinned. “I think we’re going to be good pals,” she told Katie.

Katie smiled back. She’d been at camp for only a few minutes, and she’d already made a friend. This was going to be an amazing two weeks. She was sure of it.

Chapter 4

“Oh goodie!” Gianna exclaimed as she sat down at the square wooden table marked “Bumblebees” in the mess hall. “Grape bug juice.”

“Bug juice!” Chelsea blurted out, jumping up from the bench. “I’m not drinking anything made with bugs.”

Alicia laughed so hard, she snorted. “Oh, come on,” she said. “Everyone drinks bugs at camp.”

“Stop teasing her,” Katie told Alicia.

“There are no bugs in the juice,” Gianna assured Chelsea. “It’s just called that. It’s really just a sugary fruit punch.”

“Oh, good,” Chelsea said, pouring some of the purple drink into the plastic cup on her tray.

“Hey, girls, you’re awfully quiet,” Shannon said as she sat down on the bench beside Rainbow. “Where’s your Bumblebee spirit?”

“I left it on the bus,” Alicia grumbled. “Along with my candy wrappers.”

Shannon ignored her and smiled at the rest of the girls. “I feel a cheer coming on!” she said suddenly. “We are the Bumblebees, couldn’t be prouder . . .”

“And if you can’t hear us, we’ll shout a little louder!” Gianna added. She obviously knew the cheer from last summer. “We are the Bumblebees . . .”

“Couldn’t be prouder!” Katie said, joining in. “And if you can’t hear us, we’ll shout a little louder!”

Before long, all the girls in the mess hall were cheering. It was so loud, Katie could barely make out the names of the other cabins. She thought she heard names like the Sunflowers, the Stingrays, and the Blue Jays, though.

“WE ARE THE BUMBLEBEES,
COULDN’T BE PROUDER!” Katie shouted.