Just Like Me (7 page)

“Hey, where's my stuff?” Gina asked, rummaging around in her cubby.

Tori had just woken us up, and even though she said we didn't have much time before flag raising, I lay in my bunk one more minute, not wanting to leave the comfort of my sleeping bag.

“How should I know?” Vanessa asked. She looked at Meredith and smiled a sneaky smile.

“Maybe a snake moved your stuff,” Meredith said, laughing.

“Very funny,” Gina said.

“Can't you just find your stuff later?” Avery asked. “We don't want to be late again.”

Becca came out of the bathroom rubbing her head with a towel. She must've gotten up early just so she could get in the shower before Vanessa.

“How much more time do we have?” Becca asked.

“
Less than fifteen!
” Tori yelled from her little counselor room.

“Well, we're not going to make it if somebody doesn't tell me where my stuff is,” Gina said, moving around a small bottle of shampoo and a travel-sized tube of toothpaste. “This stuff isn't mine!”

I slid out of my sleeping bag and jumped down from my bunk.

Gina emptied everything from her cubby and laid it on her bed.

“Hey, that looks like
my
stuff!” I said, as I saw her toss my comb and brush on the bed. “How did it get in there?”

“Let me take a wild guess,” Gina said. “I bet
my
stuff is in your cubby.”

“That must've been one sneaky, smart snake to switch your stuff like that,” Vanessa said laughing.

“You're the snake!” Gina said, rushing across the room toward Vanessa.

“You guys, c'mon,” Avery said, jumping in between them. “We don't have time to fight! Let's just get ready!”

“Julia and I have to straighten out our stuff first,” Gina said.

“Just do it later,” Becca said, pulling on a T-shirt over her wet hair. “We can't be late again.”

“
Let's go, girls!
” Tori said, coming out of her room. “We should be heading down the hill right now.”

“Get dressed quick,” said Avery, digging through a pile of clothes on top of my suitcase and tossing me a shirt.

Then she grabbed a shirt of Gina's that hung over the end of Gina's bed and threw it to her.

Gina and I peeled off our pj's and pulled on the T-shirts, then dug around for some shorts.

“We still have to brush our teeth,” Gina wailed. “I'm not going if I can't brush my teeth.”

“Just go do it!” Avery said. “But hurry up!”

Gina and I grabbed our toothbrushes and headed into the bathroom. We brushed and spit as if we were in a relay race. But we shouldn't have gone quite so fast because as I was tossing my toothbrush back into my cubby I said, “Oh no!”

“What?” Gina asked.

She still had her toothbrush—or what she
thought
was her toothbrush—in her hand, and I pointed to it. That's when she realized what
I
had just realized.

“We used the wrong toothbrushes!” she wailed.

“
Eeeeeeewwww!
” the other girls squealed.

“Less than five minutes, girls!” Tori called to us from the porch where she was putting on her shoes.

There was no time to worry about it.

“
Let's! Go!
” Becca yelled.

And we all headed out the door for the flagpole, hoping we'd make it on time.

Dear Ms. Marcia,

This morning at breakfast, Donnie's Thought for the Day was about being thankful for the people in our lives who mean the most to us. Sometime during the day, we're supposed to say a prayer of thanks for those people.

Donnie's “thought” made me wonder about something I had never wondered about before. If there really is a red thread that connects us to all the people we meet, that must mean there's one that connects me to my birth mom.

Could that really be true?

And if it is, what does that mean?

Julia

“Julia, do you and Gina want to go on a hike with Becca and me?” Avery asked, as we walked down the steps of the mess hall.

All around us, girls were making plans with their cabinmates to canoe or swim or play four square during free time.

“No thanks. We're going down to the arts-and-crafts room to make one of those twig-covered picture frames,” I said.

We'd seen the frames on display in the arts-and-crafts room the day before, and both Gina and I had talked about how cute they were.

“We'll see you guys later,” I said, hurrying to pull Gina toward the woods near the mess hall, so we could collect some twigs for our projects.

I didn't want to give Avery the chance to change her mind about the hike and come with us. Working on a craft might be the perfect time for her to start yakking about the Ms. Marcia project, and that wasn't how I wanted to spend the morning.

By the time Gina and I got downstairs to the arts-and-crafts room, a counselor already sat at the front table helping three younger campers make coin purses with pieces of leather and plastic lacing.

She pointed us to the corner table where the supplies we needed were all laid out, so Gina and I took the twigs we had collected and headed that way.

“I was talking to Avery yesterday, and she told me you and she and Becca all came from the same orphanage in China,” Gina said as we organized our twigs into piles according to their length.

I had a feeling this was only the beginning of a whole bunch of things Gina wanted to ask me. I had ditched Avery so I wouldn't have to talk about stuff like this, but maybe spending time with Gina was going to be just as bad.

“Do you ever want to go back to see it?”

“Not really,” I said.

“It must be sort of cool that you guys were together in China as babies and now you're here together at camp,” Gina said as she glued the first twig onto her picture frame.

“I guess.”

I concentrated on my piles of twigs and hoped Gina would get the hint that I was here for the craft, not for the questions.

“I don't know anyone from when I was a baby,” Gina said, looking up.

Maybe Gina wasn't as interested in talking about me as I thought. It sounded like she wanted
me
to ask
her
questions.

“So you've been in foster care since you were a baby?” I asked.

“No, but my mom and I moved around a lot when I was really young. I guess we never stayed in one place long enough to make any friends, because I don't remember having any.”

“Is that why you're in foster care?”

“No, you don't go to foster care just because you move a lot. My mom got caught shoplifting a couple times. Well, actually more than a couple times, and then there was some other stuff too, but she's working on getting me back now. It just takes a long time sometimes.”

“Have you been with Vanessa's aunt the whole time?”

“Just the last two years,” Gina said, squirting glue onto another twig. “I'm glad. Ms. Lena's really nice.”

“Do you ever see your mom?” I asked, peeling a piece of dried glue off my index finger.

“Sometimes,” Gina answered. Then she stopped gluing and turned to look at me, and I looked at her. “But I wish I got to see her more.”

We kept looking at each other without saying anything else for a few seconds, and then we both turned back to our craft, gluing and pressing twigs to our wooden frames.

We were quiet for a few more minutes, and then Gina asked another question. A question that had been rattling around in my head ever since Mrs. Fillmore had first talked about her famous fifth-grade heritage report.

“Do you ever wonder stuff about your birth mom?”

And maybe once you've used someone's toothbrush you have some special kind of bond with them, because I actually said, “Yes,” to Gina's question and admitted out loud that I really did wonder.

But I didn't go any further than that. I didn't tell her the one thing I wondered about my birth mom that made me ache inside.

Dear Ms. Marcia,

Did my birth mom love me?

All Mrs. Fillmore's “research this” and “research that” didn't answer that question. So because I don't have an answer, I hold on to that baby blanket and pretend—not just that the blanket came from my birth mom, but that before my birth mom brought me to the orphanage, she hugged me and kissed me and then wrapped me in that blanket.

Julia

“
What is wrong with you?
” Vanessa screamed at Becca as she got her third penalty of the game for going out of her lane.

“White Oak, that's a warning!” the ref yelled.

We were in the middle of a huge game of lane soccer with Red Maple.

In lane soccer, painted lines run lengthwise on the field, and players cannot cross the lines of the lane they are assigned to. It's a variation on soccer that makes it impossible for any one player to hog the ball. I was pretty sure White Oak was the reason we were playing lane soccer instead of regular soccer.

I would've preferred regular soccer. What did I care if Vanessa, Meredith, and Becca hogged the ball? At least that way, Vanessa wouldn't yell at me. She had already gotten mad at me for missing a pass, but she was yelling at everyone, even Meredith, so I was beginning not to care.

Becca ran down the field again after her penalty, barely staying in her lane, and blocked the ball as a player from Red Maple kicked it toward the goal.

“
Awesome!
” Vanessa yelled.

“Way to go, Becca!” Meredith wailed.

Becca's block ricocheted the ball off a different Red Maple player, slowing it way down. It rolled toward Gina, who was playing goalie. Gina pretended to run in slow motion, acting like she couldn't get to the ball in time. And while she “pretend ran,” she turned to Vanessa and mouthed
in slow motion
, “
Oooooh noooooo!
” But Gina was looking at Vanessa instead of watching where she was going, so she actually stepped right on the ball and tripped. She fell facedown in the grass. The ball continued to roll toward the goal. And crossed the line.

Red. Maple. Went. Crazy!

They cheered for their team like they'd just won the World Cup.

White Oak went crazy in a different way.

It was pretty much like how I imagine the eruption of the geyser Old Faithful. An explosion coming from somewhere very, very deep inside the Earth. The kind of explosion that could easily blow a house divided against itself into a million pieces.

I ran over to Gina and crouched next to her to make sure she was okay.

Vanessa ran over to Gina and stood looking down at her and yelled, “Why would you goof around like that? In the middle of a game!”

Gina rolled over and lay on her back spitting grass out of her mouth.

Avery, Meredith, and Becca ran over to the goal too.

When I stood up, Vanessa got in my face and said, “And you! How did you miss that perfect pass I kicked right to you?”

All of a sudden I cared again that Vanessa was a yeller.

Gina stood up and put her face even closer to Vanessa. “It's a
game
, Vanessa! It's supposed to be fun!”

“It's competition,” Vanessa snarled. “You're supposed to
try!
”

“Everyone
is
trying,” Gina said. “Why don't you stop acting like you're better than all of us.”

“Yeah, well, I
know
I'm better than
you
!” Vanessa said.

“Stop fighting!” Avery said. “We're going to get in trouble.”

“We gotta get back to the game!” Becca yelled.

“Why, so you can run out of your lane forty-nine more times and get penalized again?” Vanessa said, turning on Becca.

“I told you she thinks she's better than everyone!” Gina said.

“Well, how hard is it to stay in your lane?” Vanessa exclaimed in exasperation.

“Yeah,” Meredith agreed.

That was the first time I realized that Meredith never really had a thought of her own.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Becca yelled.

Then Vanessa, Becca, and Gina all started talking and yelling at each other at once, and the ref blew her whistle.

“White Oak!” she exclaimed. “Your team is benched for poor sportsmanship. You forfeit the game.”

“What?!” Vanessa wailed.

“You heard me!” the ref continued. “And if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouths shut and walk back to your cabin without another word. No free time this afternoon. Instead you're on silent cabin until dinner. Is that clear?”

None of us said anything.

“Is that clear?”

“Yes,” we all said together.

We turned and walked back to the cabin without saying another word.

• • •

Back at the cabin, the room felt loud even though we weren't allowed to talk. The anger from the lane soccer game had followed us to the cabin and just hung in the air. We heard Tori come in, and then we saw her standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. She hadn't been at the soccer game, but we could tell she'd already talked to the counselor who had sent us back to the cabin.

Tori didn't look anything like on the first day of camp when we'd met her in front of the mess hall. No more sweet smile—just thin, tight lips. Even though this was church camp, she probably hated us. She went into her little counselor room and sat at her desk with her back toward us.

We all flopped down on our beds. I was sweaty and sticky from the soccer game and wished Gina and I were walking down to the lake to jump in the deep end instead of lying here in this hot, stuffy cabin. Why did Vanessa have to be such a jerk? Gina could be cannonball splashing DD Jr., and we could be doing tricks on that slide right now.

I looked over at Avery and Becca, who were both fanning themselves with their Chinese fans. A fan like that would feel pretty good right now. I reached down into my cubby to get my washcloth so that I could at least wipe some of the sweat off my forehead, and that's when I realized that Gina and I had never switched our stuff back. My things were still lying at the foot of her bed, and her stuff was still in my cubby.

I jumped down from my bunk and started taking Gina's stuff out of my cubby and handing it to her. She got up to put it away and then handed me my stuff. I took my time organizing my shampoo, conditioner, lotion, bug spray, sunscreen, Band-Aids, and toothpaste. I wasn't really sure what to do about the whole toothbrush thing.

The last thing Gina handed me was my Bible, and as I slid it into the cubby alongside everything else, I realized that the yarn I'd tied to the zipper was gone. The yarn from my baby blanket.

I started to panic. I didn't really know why. It was only a piece of yarn. The story I had been telling myself wasn't really true. I knew that. But even so, the missing yarn somehow
did
matter.

Where was it? I hurried over to Gina's cubby and looked inside to see if the yarn was there.

“It's gone!” I yelled.

Everyone froze because we weren't supposed to be talking.

“What's gone?” Gina whispered.

“The yarn from my Bible!” I yelled. “It's gone!”

“What yarn?” Avery asked, sounding concerned.

My hands started to sweat as I kept moving the bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and suntan lotion around, looking and hoping I'd just missed it, and that it was still there somewhere.

“What's the big deal about a piece of yarn?” Vanessa asked, looking bored.

Then Gina walked across the room to where Vanessa was lying on her bed, propped up on her elbow.

“It's your fault!” Gina yelled. “You're the one who messed with our stuff!”

“Girls!” Tori came in from her counselor room. “You are
not
supposed to be talking, and you certainly aren't supposed to be arguing and yelling after what just happened out on the soccer field.”

“You switched our stuff and now something's missing,” Gina said, ignoring Tori's warning. “So what are you going to do about it?”

My head throbbed. I had been pretending that the blanket was from my birth mom for so long that losing it while I was here at camp made me feel almost homesick.

“It was a joke,” Vanessa said. “You can't take a joke?”

“What's going on, girls?” Tori asked. “Someone explain this to me.”

I crossed to the other side of the cabin and stood right next to Vanessa's bunk.

Instead of that homesick feeling making me want to cry, it turned to anger and gave me the courage to yell at Vanessa, “
You're
the joke!”

“Ooooooh, quiet little Julia's turning out to be not so quiet,” Vanessa chided.

I felt my ears get hot and turn red with embarrassment and anger at my outburst.

“That's
enough
!” Tori scolded. “All of you!”

“Julia, don't worry. We'll find it,” Gina said, putting her hand on my shoulder.

“Well, if it's only a piece of yarn, can't you just get another one?” Becca yelled.

This time I spoke quietly because my courage had transformed into a lump in my throat and was now turning to tears. “It's not just a piece of yarn,” I said.

“Whatever,” Vanessa said.

“Don't you even care that it's
your
fault?” Gina asked, turning to Vanessa.

“Don't you even care that it's
your
fault we lost that soccer game?” Vanessa yelled.

Then everyone started talking and yelling at once. None of us even realized that Tori had left. We only realized she was gone when the camp bullhorn blew
inside
our cabin. The noise was so loud that it felt like it had blasted inside my head.

While my hot, red ears were still ringing with that sound, Sarge Marge from the mess hall took each of us by the shoulders, lined us up by the door in a straight line—one behind the other—and marched us down to the mess hall.

We weren't sure what was happening, but we knew it couldn't be good.

Dear Ms. Marcia,

What do you think of your handpicked cabin now?

Camp Little Big Woods is not turning out as I expected.

It's turning out much, much worse.

Julia