Cabin Nine [Original]

6

Camp is more interesting this year. It's teen camp. Our first year. It's pretty much just junior camp with a lower bedtime, though. Jack and I are the youngest people in the whole camp. Well, Jack is, really. I like to make fun of him for it.

Both of us make friends with a lot of older kids. Age doesn't seem to matter as much here. A bunch of the seventeen-year-old girls like to talk with Jack about hair care.

I honestly had no idea that he put so much effort into his hair. It looks good all the time, though, so I don't know why I never knew.

You can also bribe people during cabin inspections, so Jack and I spend a collective forty dollars at the snack shack. That, paired with my need for organization, earns us first place in the contest. That's new too. In teen camp whoever has the cleanest cabin eats first at lunch. They didn't do that at junior camp.

We get in the top three places every day. Jack really likes it because he can be weird in front of the entire camp. The first thing he did when we got here was ask Hunter if they still did the Wacky Wednesday contest. They do. Jack says that we'll have more competition.

That's not really a problem, though, because Jack stepped it up for the first year of teen camp.

He's wearing this god-awful red and purple end yellow plaid three-piece suit with a fake flower pinned to the lapel. I can tell he had it tailored to fit him. The pants are tight up top and then they're bell-bottoms. He has a green dress shirt underneath. It's not even a good green. His tie goes halfway to his shoes, and it's decorated with various food splatters.

And he's given me heels.

No wonder he had me practice all year.

I'm wearing ruby red sensible heels and a nun costume. Like, the scary one. He's removed the habit hat thing from the costume and replaced it with a sombrero. And he's attached sixteen worms on a string to the sides of the sombrero. Which is somehow staying up. He must've reinforced it over the year or something. Is that even possible? I don't know.

We win by a lot.

That gains 400 points for our team.

That's another thing teen camp does different. It splits us into two teams of two different colors and we compete. Jack and I are on the red team. I think they like us a lot more now that we've given them a 200 point lead. The blue team used to be winning.

I really can't understand why they don't like us. We cheer the loudest in all the cheers. We win games with them. We get bonus points for being polite to adults. We get in the top three cabins for inspection. We listen during sermons now.

They never like us. Nobody ever does. It's not new. I think it's just now getting to me. Jack, though, is perfectly fine. If he's sad about it, then he doesn't show it. He's really good at hiding his emotions, especially if it could affect me negatively.

Another thing is that we get to stay in costume all day and interrupt the speaker that night. We announce the Saturday schedule for the first time that week.

This is the first year Jack actually hits someone. He sucker punched a sixteen year old guy. Because he heard him badmouthing me. Me. He hit someone for me.

I don't know how I should feel about that. I'm just worried right now. They wouldn't kick Jack out, would they?

They don't. They just give him a warning. Jack says they let him off because we're young. The teenager was sent to the camp director and guest speaker to have a conversation about spreading rumours.

We end the year on a high note. Our team wins by 500 points. We all get red balloons for it. Jack blows his up and lets it fly all over the place. A bunch of people do that. One hits a blue girl in the face and knocks her glasses off.

Jack and I leave camp together for the second time. He sits in the back of the van with me. There's enough room for us to sit there alone. A lot of the youth group is still in junior camp, which gives us about three years of this before a third person is shoved back here with us.

I'm so glad that Jack goes to my church now. He gets to experience it the next day when all of us camp kids sit up in the first pew so Pastor Travis can recognize us. Jack stands and does that stupid, fancy bow that makes him fall over. People laugh and it's all yellow.

The rest of the year is all homework and ice skating. Jack is still kind of horrible, but at least he's not on the wall the whole time this year. He still makes fun of me for taking figure skating lessons, but he's perfectly content to sit there and watch the lesson.

I don't know. I think I really like it when he watches. It makes me want to not mess up. I mess up anyway. That's just how I am. But I really like it when he's there.