One Summer

Chapter One

“Clarissa Audrey Johnson!” My mother’s voice booms through the house, stirring my peaceful sleep. I groan in annoyance and she responds with a simple, “Fine then you don’t go to camp.”

I ignore the threat that means nothing to me and leave my eyes shut, slowly letting myself drift back into the dream I was just enjoying. Just as an angelic figure shows up in my dream my door is slammed open, causing me to jump. I look up to see my mom, looking angry in the doorway. I throw myself back down onto the bed pulling the blanket over my head hoping that if I fall back asleep I will wake up from this nightmare, “Clara, get up. I am not kidding. You’re friends will be here in fifteen minutes and you need to be ready.”

I am not sure what it is, why she decided to force me to a camp over the last true summer she could have with me. Next year is my senior year. What if I get early acceptance into a college and don’t have a summer?

But that thought surely did not shift her decision in the slightest bit. Once my friend, Alexis brought it up to me.  I made the dumb decisions of telling my mom about it at dinner, she practically jumped at the idea. She told me I have to go, she tried to convince me that the experience of spending a whole summer with my best friends will be irreplaceable.

It is not the thought of spending the summer with my friends that I dread is the thought of spending on the grounds with a large amount of other strangers. I don’t feel the need to interact with other people I do not know over the summer when I could be at home spending it with my selected friends.

Despite my protests, my friends and parents forced the idea on me. My friends pressured me into believing that I would feel out of place if I didn’t go and my parents made it a point to prove that I have no other friends to hang out with while they’re gone. So, looks like I better gear up for a camp in Bolton, New York.

I peek my head out from under the blanket to meet my mom’s eyes, “Five more minutes?” I plead.  

She glares at me, “Clarissa, get your ass out of bed right this instant.” I decide not to fight with her and trudge into the bathroom. I look at myself in the mirror, I decide against a lot of make up today, partially because it is all packed for camp and partially from the little care I have to look good for this dreadful event.

I put on a few sweeps of mascara and unbraid my hair revealing the long waves of ash brown hair to spill out over my shoulders. The waves cascade to the middle of my back. I quickly brush my teeth and wash my face, regretting that for some reason I chose to put mascara on first right after. I decided against mascara after the first attempt was smeared down my face.

For some reason I seem to be going in slow motion today because the short walk from the bathroom across the hall to my room seems to take me two minutes in and of itself. When I get into my room I trek over to my closet, which is halfway full now due to all of the clothes I packed. I decide quickly on a simple, comfy outfit. My rolling stones t-shirt and high waisted red shorts. I slip on some white sandals, look in the mirror and then walk downstairs to start the summer from hell.

I don’t even know if I should refer to it as the ‘summer from hell’ because there are both positive and negative things that this camp could result in. Let me start with the negative, one thing I know I will hate is being away from my family. Last time I went away from my family, I came back to one less family member.

I lost my grandpa when I was entering high school. My grandpa and I were the best of friends. We did everything together, we made monthly trips up to the city each time making it a point to visit a different restaurant. By the time he passed we had already visited forty-nine different restaurants in NYC. The weekend I got back from my vacation was supposed to be the visit to our fiftieth restaurant, but when I got back he was gone.