Just Like Me (6 page)

“Hey, Julia,” Gina said, coming into the cabin. “Wanna go down to free swim?”

“Um…” I hesitated, stalling.

Vanessa and Meredith had left a few minutes ago to go canoeing, Avery was down at the nature hut with the rabbits, and Becca was over at the archery pit. Avery and Becca had both asked me to go with them, but my hope had been to just chill out in the cabin by myself until dinner, maybe even work on Madison's friendship bracelet. I had kind of forgotten about Gina.

“C'mon,” Gina begged. “I wanna go down that slide in the deep end.”

“You know you have to wear a life jacket, right?” I asked.

I wasn't going to be like Vanessa and make fun of Gina for not knowing how to swim, but even so, I wasn't sure I wanted to go to free swim with the only eleven-year-old camper who still had to wear a life jacket in the deep end. I knew that made me even shallower than the shallow end of the Camp Little Big Woods swim area, but it was the truth.

“So what?” Gina said, digging in her suitcase. She pulled out her swimsuit and kicked off her flip-flops. “Nobody here at camp knows me except for Vanessa, and she already can't stand me. So who cares?”

Gina had a point. Who cared if I was Gina's swim buddy, and she had to wear a life jacket? Nobody knew me either, except for Avery and Becca.

“Okay,” I said, putting my journal back in my cubby and digging around my suitcase for my swimsuit. “That slide does look fun.”

“Besides, both of us could use some exercise after that Newcomb game we
didn't
play,” Gina said, smiling.

I laughed.

We changed and headed down the hill toward the lake.

“So this is your first time at camp?” Gina asked as we passed the flagpole.

“Yeah, but Avery and Becca come every year.”

“So why haven't
you
ever come?”

“They do a lot of stuff together that I don't do because they live in the same neighborhood and go to the same school.”

Swimming with Gina in a life jacket was one thing, but telling her the whole story of Avery, Becca, and me was another—and it wasn't going to happen.

Once we got down to the beach, we found our swim tags on the board, threw our towels on a log bench, and ditched our flip-flops.

Lots of campers were already playing around in the shallow water, and even more were out swimming in the deep end. The scent of suntan lotion and the sounds of camper chaos filled the air.

“So what about you?” I asked, changing the subject. “How come you've never come to camp with your cousin before?”

“Are you kidding?” Gina asked. “You're really asking me that? Vanessa doesn't even like to breathe the same air as me.”

“Why does she hate you so much?” I asked.

“Because I'm not ‘officially'”—Gina used her fingers to do air quotes—“her cousin.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“I'm really a foster cousin,” Gina said. “Vanessa's aunt, Ms. Lena, is my foster parent.”

What? Gina was a foster kid?

Now it made sense why Gina didn't have any baby pictures when we were making our life collages.

“I'll be right back. I've gotta go get a life jacket.”

Gina jogged over to the boathouse and grabbed an orange life jacket off one of the hooks. She put her head through the opening, attached the strap around her waist, and tied the strings.

“C'mon, let's hit that slide,” Gina said, jogging toward me and grabbing my arm.

We passed the younger campers goofing around in the shallow water with small inner tubes and rafts, and we headed for the dock. We ran for the deep end, where the older campers swam and splashed, dove and jumped.

Tweet! Tweet!

The lifeguard whistle stopped us.

“No running, girls!” a deep voice yelled.

We both looked up to see DD Jr. standing guard at the end of the dock. He looked even better in his swimsuit and sunglasses than he had at the mess hall on the first day of camp.

Gina tiptoed the rest of the way out to the end of dock, pretending like she was trying to sneak past DD Jr., but it was obvious she was trying especially hard to
be
noticed. Since she was still holding on to my arm, I ended up kind of tiptoeing and sneaking too. DD Jr. watched us and smiled and sort of even laughed, and I didn't know how it was possible, but that made him look even cuter. I wasn't sure if I should be excited or embarrassed that he was paying attention to us.

When we got to the end of the dock, Gina jumped. And even though she pulled me into the deep end with her, she somehow managed to tuck her knees so that she cannonballed into the water. Just before I went under, I saw a tidal wave of lake water splash DD Jr.

We both came up sputtering and saw DD Jr. dripping wet.

Gina laughed her head off. I couldn't believe she had just done that. On purpose. But it didn't seem to bother her at all, and DD Jr. laughed.

“You know you're crazy, right?” I said, giggling.

“And proud of it,” Gina said, swishing some lake water in her mouth, tipping her head back, and spitting out the water as if she were a fountain.

I kicked my legs hard, trying to warm up in the icy water. The sun was so hot and the lake so cold that the combination made my head hurt.

“This water's freezing!” I said.

“I think it feels good!” Gina said. “Let's go!”

And we headed toward the slide.

We climbed the ladder of the raft, and while we waited our turn, water dripped down our legs onto the faded wooden raft. The hose attached to the yellow slide pumped lake water down its surface, making it super slippery and ice-cold. We flew down the curved plastic as if we were sledding down a snow-packed luge run, screaming the whole way.

A few kids gave Gina weird looks about the life jacket, but she ignored them, so I did too. We just kept climbing the raft and shooting down the slide over and over until the bullhorn blasted to end free swim.

As we climbed the ladder onto the dock to get out of the lake, I wished everything at camp could be as much fun as this free swim had just been, but more than a few things stood in the way of that happening.

“So does it ever bother you that Vanessa's so mean?” I asked Gina.

“Yeah,” Gina said. “But I try to remember she's mean because of
her
, not because of me.”

“So you think she's just a mean person?” I asked as we walked toward the shore.

The sun beat on our backs and dried the water as it ran in rivers down our skin. Campers all around us hurried toward the swim tag board and then rushed to the warmth of their dry towels.

“No, just that she's mean because she's worried.”

“Worried about what?” I asked.

“About her dad.”

“Why?” I asked. “Is he sick?”

“No, he left about a year ago. Her parents got into a huge fight, and Vanessa's mom had to call the police on him and everything,” Gina explained as she hung up her life jacket.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don't really know the whole story. All I know is that Vanessa never really liked me much, but after her dad left, it was almost as if she started to hate me.”

“Why would her dad leaving make her hate you?” I asked, hanging my swim tag on the board.

“I don't know,” Gina said as she hung her tag next to mine. “I guess she just feels so crummy about everything in her own life that she takes it out on whoever she can. And since she doesn't really like me anyway, I'm an easy target.”

We grabbed our towels and wrapped them around our waists as we slid our feet into our flip-flops.

“Doesn't it make
you
mad?” I asked.

“What can I do about it? It doesn't really have anything to do with me,” Gina answered. “It's her problem, not mine. I got enough other stuff to worry about.”

Just then, “Walking on Sunshine” blasted through the woods, letting us know free time was over.

“Let's go!” Gina said. “I'm freezing!”

And we danced and sang, “Walking on sunshine, yeah, yeah,” as we hurried back up the hill toward the cabin.

Dear Ms. Marcia,

I wonder what other stuff Gina has to worry about.

And I wonder where her mom is.

I don't think she'd mind if I asked her about it, but if I did ask her, she might start asking more questions about me.

I know you might like that, Ms. Marcia, but I wouldn't.

Julia

PS Wondering about Gina makes me think even more about all the things I've been wondering about.

“Or what?” Gina said. “You won't hang out with me? You won't tell people we're cousins? You won't be my friend? You don't scare me.”

“
I
don't scare you, but a piece of craft gimp does?” Vanessa yelled.

We had all just been sent back to the cabin during the obstacle course competition, because when Gina was crawling through the tube, she thought there was a snake in her hair. She went crazy—rolling around on the ground, flailing her arms, and yelling, “It's a snake. A snake! It's got me! It's got me!”

Because of that, we lost the relay—and then
Vanessa
went crazy.

Avery tried to calm her down. But then Becca started yelling at Avery for getting mad at Vanessa, and finally Tori sent us all back to the cabin.

“Would you guys just
be quiet
!” Avery yelled. “We're already in trouble!”

“Yeah, we're in trouble all right,” Vanessa said. “Because we have the
worst
cabin at camp!”

“
That's it, girls!
”

It was Tori.

“No more talking. At all. And I want you in your bunks in five minutes for cabin devotions.”

All of us started getting ready for bed, kicking off our shoes, changing into our pj's, and brushing our teeth. In about three minutes, we were lying in our bunks waiting to hear what Tori had to say to us.

When she came back into the cabin, she read some verse in the Bible about a house divided amongst itself falling down. We didn't have to be Bible scholars to know that she was talking about us. I thought that if all the girls in White Oak were actually a house, we wouldn't just fall down; we'd probably explode into a million pieces.

While Tori lectured us about getting along, I played with the piece of yarn from my baby blanket that was tied to the zipper on my Bible case, wrapping and unwrapping it around my index finger. Avery and Becca waved their Chinese fans at their faces to stay cool. Gina scratched at her mosquito bites with a brush, while Vanessa glared at her. And Meredith looked bored while she examined the tips of her hair for split ends.

Tori didn't ask a lot of questions and try to make us talk like she usually did. I don't think she
wanted
us to talk, but Avery spoke up anyway.

“Though I see the point of this verse, I can think of a few instances in which it really would not be true.”

“I bet you can,” Vanessa muttered to Meredith.

And that's when Tori demonstrated the expression “the last straw.” She didn't scream. She didn't scold. She just closed her Bible so slowly and carefully that we heard the pages flutter. She got up from the edge of Becca's bunk where she'd been sitting and walked toward the door of the cabin.

Before she walked out, she flipped off the lights and said, “Good night, girls,” so quietly that I wasn't sure if I'd only imagined hearing her voice.

The screen door banged behind her, and we all lay in the dark. Tori hadn't even given us a chance to put our Bibles away. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the night all around me as the quiet cabin filled with the sound of chirping crickets from outside.

“What is
her
problem?” Vanessa whispered as soon as she knew Tori was far enough away that she wouldn't hear her.

“
You're
her problem!” Gina hissed.

“Just shut up!” Vanessa growled back.

“Just stop it, you guys,” Avery whispered. “We're going to get into even more trouble.”

“Oh, we should be fine now,” Vanessa said. “We have the snake charmer on our team.”

Meredith muffled a giggle in her pillow.

“Vanessa, stop being a jerk,” Gina said.

“
You
stop being a jerk!” Vanessa said, almost sounding like she was spitting.

Next thing I knew, I heard snoring. It was Becca.

“How could she fall asleep in the middle of this?” I asked.

“Technically, the body at rest can fall asleep quite quickly when one's mind is no longer interested in its surroundings,” Avery said. “Which means…”

“Which means she fell asleep because she got tired of hearing you talk like you're a walking website of worthless information.”

Meredith laughed out loud and then smashed her face into her pillow, but it was too late.

“
White Oak, quiet down in there!
First warning!”

And now, besides everything else, we were in trouble with the bulldog—the counselor assigned to sit outside by the picnic tables in the middle of the cabins to make sure all the campers kept quiet and stayed in bed after lights-out. One more warning, and we'd lose three points for our cabin.

Vanessa let out a huge sigh and whispered, “This cabin is hopeless.”

No one else talked or laughed or made any kind of noise. There was nothing left to say. Vanessa was right. White Oak
was
hopeless.

Dear Ms. Marcia,

If there's really a red thread that's supposed to connect us to everyone we meet, this cabin's red thread is in a big, fat knot—and every day that knot is getting tighter and tighter and tighter, and that thread is getting thinner and thinner and thinner.

Actually, I think it might be just about ready to break.

Julia