Team Spirit

Prologue: Sam Is Swept Away

TEAM SPIRIT

"Sam! Lars!" Andy poured red cups full of rum and Coke, sloshing it out of the 2-litre bottle as we came down the path.

Well, as I came down the path, Lars piggybacking, her arms draped around my shoulders. She reached out for a cup.

"Come on, Sam." Before she could spill half her drink over me, she tapped my shoulders to be let down, free to strut around in her impractical shoes. I couldn't understand why she packed heels to work at a camp for half the summer.

Because they help me pretend I have an ass, she told me before. It didn't matter if she did or not, Andy gave her his smirky smile anyway while she tucked her red, red hair behind her ear. She didn't flash her smile yet. She wasn't drunk enough to forget about the little gap between her two front teeth.

"Why do we never talk, Sam?" Andy thrust a cup into my hand too, swaying a little from the quarter of the 2-litre he probably already drank by himself. Who would've stopped him? Andy got to run to town to pick up fresh produce, a couple bags of produce, and smuggle back a couple bottles of rum. The keeper of the booze got to drink as much of it as he wanted.

"'Cause you don't come by the stables," I replied. It was always hard to tell whether drunk people would accept my short answers, but Lars saved me instead.

"Why do we never talk?" She flicked her hair, eyeing Andy.

Lars never needed me to entertain her. She did a good job of it herself, amusing herself playing mind games with alcohol dizzied boys like it was a sport. Eventually she'd get bored of Andy, but she left me to navigate the impromptu fire on my own.

Jared and Owen sat on stumps and nursed cups, the boys who were supposed to be my cabinmates. Instead, I dragged my sleeping bag up to the stable loft after about the fifth night of them finally falling asleep at 2am and complaining that I woke them up at 4:30 when I got up to start my day.

Sadie and Kara stretched across the dock in their bikinis like they were tanning in the 10pm twilight. Both of them already earned their tan lines canoeing in life jackets. And Leo bobbed in the water, arms folded across the pallet so he could listen to whatever Sadie and Kara talked about. His perma-smile shone extra blinding white in dim light.

I sipped at my cup, trying to figure out exactly where I belonged among these kids. It wasn't exactly the company that sold me on the job in the first place. It was a summer of half-decent pay away from the farm for a little, doing the same stall mucking, horse brushing stuff I'd be doing at home, but there was different scenery. And, by some miracle, I convinced Lars to apply too.

"Sam! Me and Kara had a bet whether or not you would come out of the barn. Guess who won!" Sadie called, half-sitting up.

Without thinking, I glanced at Lars first, like she might have some opinion about who I spoke

"You really should talk to people other than me," Lars said, a mind reader. Not really. She could only read me.

"Cheers, then." I tapped my Solo cup against hers and downed the rest of the rum and Coke and threw the cup in the little fire Nate tended.

I peeled off my my t-shirt, yanked off one boot at a time and left it all on the shore. A rope dangled off an overhanging branch and about the first week into camp, I figured out that I couldn't get into the lake unless I did it all at once. The options were taking a running jump or swinging in. Of the two, the rope was the better choice: I could always stop running half-way through and rethink the whole idea, but once my hands were around the rope and I let myself swing, just the air against my skin and the water below... well, the only thing to do was let go and drop, remembering to take a breath before hitting the water.