Just Like Me (13 page)

After DD Jr. rescued us in the motorboat, Donnie took us up to the mess hall to yell at us.

Apparently he had seen the whole fight through the binoculars he kept in the boathouse, and even though he had only
seen
what happened and hadn't
heard
what happened, he could tell that White Oak had lost their peace big-time. So we got yelled at big-time.

Once Donnie finished his lengthy lecture about how dangerous our fighting had become, Tori showed up. She looked about as mad as a Christian camp counselor could look. I bet she wished she'd never even met the six of us. She marched us up to the cabin and told us to stay put, so there we all were, lying in our bunks and staring at the ceiling.

We knew the rest of the campers were down at the waterfront finishing the race. The race
we
were supposed to win. The race that would've given us enough points to win the camp competition. But now we didn't even get to be there. Red Maple and Silver Birch would be duking it out for first place, since they were tied with each other for second.

Soon we heard “We Are the Champions” coming through the trees outside our cabin. We knew that meant Donnie had just announced which cabin had won the rowboat relay race, and once he announced that, one lucky cabin would become the Camp Little Big Woods first-place champions.

It should've been us. Instead, the six of us were stuck in our hot, stuffy cabin just watching the minutes tick by until camp was over. After all we'd been through together, it was hard to imagine that this was how the week was going to end.

I leaned over the edge of my bunk and peeked at Gina. She looked up at me, and after what seemed like a long time, she smiled. And then she did something else. We could still hear “We Are the Champions” playing, so Gina grabbed her brush—the one she used to scratch her mosquito bites—and lip synched the song, dancing around in her bed.

I smiled at her. I think it was the first time I'd smiled all afternoon.

Once Gina saw me smile, she bounced around in her bed as if she were the queen of rock and roll.

I giggled. I loved Gina's craziness.

Vanessa, Meredith, Avery, and Becca all looked over at Gina, but they didn't find her all that funny. They didn't laugh. They didn't even smile. So I picked up my journal, which was lying on my bed, ripped out one of the blank pages near the back, crunched it into a tight ball, and threw it across the room—right at Vanessa.

Everyone froze when the paper hit Vanessa in the chest. We all knew this was it. We were either going to find a fun, funny way to get out of the mess we'd gotten ourselves into, like we had done that day in the dish room, or we were going to let our fighting be the thing we remembered most about camp.

Thankfully, the air filled with scrunched-up paper bullets and balled-up socks as we threw whatever we could find that would fly. Becca even found the ping-pong ball we'd used when we practiced for Egg Emergency, and that ball was whipping back and forth across the room faster than a world-class ping-pong match.

Every hit from a paper bullet or a pair of socks or the ping-pong ball seemed to help us forgive each other for all the things that had happened. All the things that were said that we didn't mean—and even the things that were said that we did mean.

The throwing, ducking, and giggling felt so good. Finally, even though we weren't supposed to get out of our bunks, we headed to the middle of the room with our pillows. And we let each other have it.

I don't know what tired us out more, the pillow fighting or the laughing, but the six of us finally fell in a huge heap on the floor.

We lay in the pile of pillows trying to catch our breath.

“I'm really sorry I messed everything up for us,” I said.

“We know,” Gina said. “But it isn't all your fault. We're all sorry about stuff.”

“Yeah,” Vanessa said. “I'm sorry I yelled at everyone so much.”

“Ditto,” Becca said.

We were all quiet for a few seconds, still lying in a heap on the floor.

“Julia?” Vanessa said.

“Yeah.”

“You shouldn't feel weird about what you were pretending. I've saved all my dad's phone messages, and now that he doesn't call very much anymore, I play the old messages and pretend they're new ones.”

Next Gina spoke up, “Once when my mom canceled her visit with me, I taped a photo of her on my computer screen and talked to her like we were Skyping.”

“I write letters to my grandma,” Meredith said. “Even though she died last year just before Christmas.”

“Sometimes I pretend the hostess at the Chinese restaurant is my sister,” Avery said.

“Sometimes I wish I had a sister,” Becca said. “Or even a brother.”

Maybe there were things about their adoption that bothered Avery and Becca after all. Maybe there were things that bothered everyone. Really important things. Things that were really hard to understand.

We were all quiet again for a few long seconds.

“You know what two things we should all be the most sorry about?” Gina asked.

“What?” I asked.

“That we waited until now to talk about all this stuff,” Gina answered. “
And
that there wasn't a camp award for having really big fights, getting into huge trouble, and then making up. Because White Oak would be the champions of that!”

And we all laughed until tears streamed down our faces.

• • •

When Tori came back to the cabin after the rowboat race to check on us and found us in the middle of the sandy concrete floor with tears streaming down our faces, she didn't know what to think. But when she realized our tears were from laughing and not from fighting, she was so happy I thought she might cry.

“Donnie had his doubts, but I knew you guys would figure it out,” she said, grabbing all of us and squeezing tight.

But when she let go, she looked around the cabin. Socks and clothes and scrunched-up paper littered the floor.

“Looks like you chose an interesting method to work things out,” Tori said, laughing.

We all laughed too.

She looked at her watch and said, “If you guys hurry, you might be able to get this cleaned up before dinner.”

So we scooped up all the paper and tossed it into the garbage. We collected our flying socks, which were in every nook and cranny of the cabin, and we brushed the sand off our pillows and put them back on our beds.

As I set my pillow at the head of my bed and straightened out my sleeping bag, I saw my “Ms. Marcia” journal lying at the foot of the bed. I picked it up to put it underneath my pillow, which was where I kept it now instead of leaving it out in the open. Avery saw me with my journal and said, “We don't have to talk about any of the Ms. Marcia stuff if you don't want to.”

Becca looked up at me from her bunk to see what I would say.

“Thanks for saying that,” I said. “And I know I've already said it, but I'm really sorry I read your journal.”

“I know,” Avery said. “I forgive you.”

As I slid my journal underneath my pillow, I said to Avery and Becca, “Do you guys ever wonder about your birth mom?”

Neither Avery or Becca answered.

“Like, do you wonder if she loved you?”

Vanessa, Meredith, and Gina stood on the other side of the room, staying really quiet.

“Sometimes,” Avery finally said.

And in the quietest voice I'd ever heard Becca use, she said, “Me too.”

“Me three,” I said.

“Wouldn't it be nice if those blankets we all got from the orphanage really
were
from our birth moms?” Avery asked.

Becca and I didn't answer, but Avery knew even without us answering that we agreed with her.

Just knowing that Avery and Becca wondered and wished for some of the same things I did made me feel a lot better. And feeling a lot better made me see things in a way I never had before.

“You know what?” I said. “In a way, the blankets really were from our birth moms. The three of us each have one of those blankets because we were in a place that took good care of us. When our birth moms knew they couldn't keep us, they made sure we were somewhere where we'd be okay.

“They also knew our adoptive moms and dads would come for us. And our adoptive parents did come for us. And now we not only have those families, but because of where we started out, we also have each other.

“So I think, in a way, the blankets really
are
from our birth moms, and they do let us know that our birth moms really
did
love us. That's a much stronger connection than any piece of yarn from a blanket could ever be.”

This was our story, and it was the truth, and no one could ever take that from us.

Dear Ms. Marcia,

Well, I've finally realized why Mom knew that going to camp with Avery and Becca was such a good idea.

Mom's not from China. She's not adopted. And she was never, ever an orphan. But Avery and Becca are all those things. And that's why we're good for each other. And yes, Ms. Marcia, I'll say what you've been waiting to hear me say. It's why the three of us have a special connection—one we'll never have with anyone else.

Julia

PS I know you didn't really handpick this cabin, but it's kind of funny how all six of us ended up being good for each other.

During dinner, I ran up to the cabin by myself to get a clean T-shirt. Becca had decided to propose another toast to White Oak, this time for working everything out. She had gotten a little too enthusiastic, so I'd ended up with a cupful of milk all over my shirt.

Back at the cabin I dug in my suitcase. A week of camp had left my clothes dirty and damp, but I hoped to find one more clean shirt. I lucked out and found one way at the bottom of my bag. I pulled it out, and with it came an envelope. I opened it and found a note from my mom.

Dear Julia,

We'll miss you while you're gone.

Can't wait 'til you get home!

Don't ever forget you're my one in a million.

Love,

Mom

Mom had probably planned on me finding this note earlier in the week, but with all that had gone on, I felt like I was finding it at just the right time.

Reading the note gave me the same strange homesick feeling I'd had when I lost the yarn, but this time it felt good. I was homesick for my mom, and that was the best kind of homesick feeling you could have.

As I headed into the bathroom to change my shirt, I noticed the life collages hanging on the wall. I stopped and looked at mine. Had it really only been five days ago that we'd made them? So much had happened since then, and now when I looked at the photos on my poster, I felt like one was missing.

I went over to my suitcase and dug out the baby photo of me in the orphanage. The one I hadn't wanted to include on my collage. I had hidden it in the inside pocket of my suitcase that day after our cabin's time in the arts-and-crafts room. But now I walked over to the wall by the bathroom and added it to my collage. Now my life collage was complete.

When I looked more closely at that photo of me in the orphanage—ignoring the hair that stuck straight up, the bug bites on my cheeks, and those puffy clothes—I realized that I
did
look just like me in that photo. Just like I was supposed to look. My life story had begun exactly the way it was always meant to begin—in an orphanage in China right next to Avery and Becca. And yes, the three of us would probably never know our birth moms, but we knew each other and our connection to one another was really something special.

All the other photos on my collage showed how my life story was supposed to continue—with an Irish mom and an Italian dad.

So no matter how many other baby girls from China had an orphanage photo just like mine, there was no one just like me.

Dear Ms. Marcia,

If my mom knew what I had been pretending about the baby blanket, would she wonder if I loved her as much as she loved me?

No way!

She wouldn't wonder that at all!

My mom thinks I am one in a million. One in a million in a good way. One in a million in the BEST way. And because of that I'm sure she knows just how much I love her, no matter what I pretend and no matter what I have to do to figure things out in my life.

Julia

PS Maybe in your adoption article, one thing you could say is that sometimes people don't want to look back because they are afraid of facing the truth. But sometimes, facing the truth we're afraid of is what makes us who we're really supposed to be.

Later that night we stayed so long at the bonfire—talking and laughing and singing—that by the time we got back to the cabin, we were too tired to even change into our pj's. All we could do was collapse in our bunks.

Within seconds of us sliding into our sleeping bags, heavy breathing sounds of sleep filled our cabin. But even so, I lay awake in the dark. My body hummed with exhaustion, while my mind raced with thoughts of all that had gone on that day.

I knew there was something I had to do before I'd be able to put my thoughts to sleep. Actually two things, so I reached for my flashlight and my “Ms. Marcia” journal and headed under my covers.

Dear Mom,

You've always told me I was never really an orphan, and now I know why—I've always been your one in a million, and you've always been mine. My mom.

Love,

Julia

Ms. Marcia had suggested that we write a letter to our adoptive moms, but I knew there was one more letter I needed to write.

Dear Birth Mom,

I'll probably never meet you, but I know who you are. You're my Chinese birth mom. You loved me enough to let me be someone else's one in a million. And I hope that somehow you know I love you too.

Love,

Julia