Acting Out (20 page)

“What if I said that before I came to camp, I had a completely different personality?”

“What if I said that my biological parents were from outer space, and they sent me to this planet because our home planet was about to be destroyed? And here on Earth, I have special powers,” said Mei.

“Like what?” asked Courtney.

“I can do this!” Then Mei started doing all the steps from the dance routine, which made Courtney and Lauren crack up.

“Hey, you stole
my
special powers!” Lauren yelled, and bumped Mei out of the way with her hip so she could do the dance.

“I'm trying to tell you guys something!” I cried. They all stopped and looked at me. “If you'd met me before camp, you wouldn't even recognize me.”

“Why? Did you used to be four-six instead of five-six?” asked Courtney.

“No. I just act very different at home than I do here. That's all.”

Lauren shrugged. “Well, we all do.”

“Do any of you even know that my real name is Judith?” I asked.

“Judith?” Mei covered her mouth with her hand and snickered.
“Judith?
I've never heard that one before!”

“Well, it is,” I said firmly. “And I want you all to start calling me that.”

They burst out laughing. “Okay, Judith. Whatever you say,” Mei agreed.

Not one of them even acted surprised. They didn't seem to get what I'd just told them. “I'm not joking about this, you guys! At home I'm this quiet, boring girl named Judith Duckworth. But when I came to camp I decided to change that, and so I told everyone to call me JD. But I'm not JD. I'm Judith. Tomorrow we all go home, and I have to go back to being myself.”

Lauren pretended to smack my back with the tennis racket. “Look, JD—or Judith. Or John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. We're your friends, no matter what we call you.”

“Yeah, but . . .” How could I explain it so they'd understand?

Courtney solemnly put her hand on my forehead. “Do you feel okay, Schmitty?”

“Problem solved! Let's call her Schmitty from now on!” said Mei.

I felt pretty silly. Maybe my whole personality makeover wasn't such a big deal after all. They didn't even care! “Stop calling me Schmitty! Call me . . . whatever. I guess it doesn't matter.”

Courtney shook her head and whispered to Mei and Lauren, “I'm really worried about Schmitty. She's not herself today.”

“I am myself! I think. Let's just go play tennis and have fun, okay? It's our last full day together.”

I did feel like myself. And maybe Lauren was right. Maybe it didn't matter what they called me. Whatever name I went by, somehow I would manage to be me.

I hated the way the cabin looked exactly like it had on the first day we got here. All the mattresses were bare, and everybody's stuff was packed away. That day I'd been so excited. Now I was just depressed.

But I had one last thing to do in the cabin before leaving. I took a pen out of my backpack and climbed up on my top bunk. It didn't seem like my bed anymore, because now my sheets and blanket were packed. I found the spot on the wall where I'd written
JD WAS HERE.
Under it, I wrote
JUDITH WAS TOO
! I tried to make my handwriting look different. I thought about how maybe years from now, some camper would read those two messages and not even realize they were written by the same person.

Then I capped my pen and stuck it into my backpack. My trunk had already been carried out by some Crockett counselors. I took one last look at everything before I walked out of the cabin for the last time.

Everyone was waiting for me on the hill. I'd told them I needed to go to Solitary. Courtney had said she'd come with me, but I'd told her to stick around with the others in case she missed saying good-bye to someone. I wanted to be alone when I signed the wall.

“Katherine just left,” Courtney announced when I walked up to them.

“Oh, darn, I wanted to give her a big hug!” I joked.

“She said she'd e-mail you the second she got home,” Mei assured me.

Michelle and Alex walked up. “They're starting to load the bus,” said Michelle, and my heart dropped all the way down to my toes. That meant I had to leave now.

“I hate this!” Courtney said, burying her face in her hands. “I'm going to cry all day today!”

Last night had been bad enough. We'd all cried our eyes out at the Circle Fire. How could camp be over already?

Everyone walked with me to the bus. A big crowd of people was standing around, and everyone was hugging and crying and saying good-bye. I hated all the goodbyes. But I was glad that my parents weren't coming to pick me up. I'd watched Isabel's mom when she was saying good-bye to all of us. Isabel had cried, and that made us cry. Her mom looked so upset that her daughter was reacting to going home by bursting into tears.

One by one everyone stepped up to say good-bye to me. Alex hugged me—Alex the slave driver, who was always frowning at me. “I'm really proud of you,” she said.

“Oh, shut up!” I blubbered at her. I could take her being strict. I couldn't take her being proud of me.

“Take care, sweetie,” said Michelle, giving me a big, long hug. “I'll be thinking about you. Everything will be fine. Write me or call me if you ever need to talk.” Her eyes were all teary when she let go of me.

Then Mei, Lauren, and Courtney said their goodbyes. It was all a big blur. We hugged and cried and promised to keep in touch. I felt like my heart was breaking. These guys had seen me through my JD experiment, without ever really knowing it.

“I'm going to miss you so much!” sobbed Courtney.

“Maybe we can visit each other during the school year. All four of us,” I said, wiping away tears.

Just as I was about to go up the steps, Amber ran up and gave me a hug. “Thank you. You're my favorite poet,” I told her.

“I'm so glad you were in my cabin this year,” said Amber. “You made it the most fun summer I've ever had here.” That should've made me feel good, but I wished we'd gotten to know each other better. At least we'd had fun together with the talent show. I was glad about that.

Finally I walked up the steps. All of the bus windows were down, and girls were hanging out of the windows, still waving good-bye. I took an empty seat in the middle on the left side, so I could still look out the window and see everyone.

Then I saw Natasha getting on the bus, and I waved at her to come to my seat. “You can sit here. I promise I'll behave myself, and I won't sing any songs.”

Natasha grinned as she put her stuff in the overhead bin and sat down. “I was hoping you'd sing ‘Camp Days' for me!”

“Oh, that! I meant I wouldn't sing ‘A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.' ”

“Well, I never got a chance to tell you what a great job you did in the talent show. I told everyone you were my first friend!”

“Really? Cool. I'm glad everyone liked it. But it was really a group effort.”

The driver closed the doors and started the engine. Natasha and I both stood up and waved to everyone one more time. Courtney, Mei, and Lauren did a few dance steps for me before the bus started pulling away. All three of them were still crying.

“I had a great summer,” I said to Natasha.

“Yeah, me too,” she agreed.

Now that camp was over, who should I be when I got home? Should I go back to being Judith like nothing had ever happened? Or maybe be somebody else? When would I know for sure who I was?

The bus rumbled down the gravel road and then turned onto the highway. We still had a long trip ahead of us. But I knew my family would be waiting for me at the bus station, and they'd all be so happy to see me. Maybe even Justin would come with them this time.

“You think you'll come back next summer?” Natasha asked me.

“I hope so,” I said. “But I don't know for sure.” There were lots of things I didn't know for sure. I sat back in the seat and looked out the window.

Maybe someday I'd know all the answers. Maybe someday I'd know exactly who I was.

I'd just have to wait and see.

Don't miss a single camper's story—here's a sneak peek at Kelly's, in
Summer Camp Secrets: Pranked!

This was definitely going to be the worst summer of my life.

I got out of the car and looked at all the people swarming around. It was mostly parents, but there were some other girls too, and even some brothers who looked as thrilled as I was to be here. Everyone was carrying something, and everyone seemed to know what to do and where to go. Except for us.

I just stood there holding my pillow. Then this woman who seemed to be in charge walked up. She had on a green polo shirt with a little pine tree on it. “I'm Eda Thompson, the camp director. Welcome to Pine Haven!”

My mom smiled with relief, and the two of them started talking. Dad tried to wink at me, but I acted like I had to scratch my knee.

“This is our daughter, Kelly,” my mom said.

“Hi, Kelly.” The director smiled at me, then checked her clipboard. “Kelly Hedges, right? And you're twelve?”

I said yes, but it came out all croaky. I cleared my throat. “That's right.”

She probably thought I didn't look twelve because I'm so vertically challenged. The director walked over to a group of people wearing green polos just like hers and motioned one of them to follow her back to us.

“This is Rachel Hoffstedder, and she's your counselor.” Rachel shook hands with Mom and Dad, and then she shook my hand. She looked okay. She had really short dark brown hair, and she seemed friendly. And she was pretty vertically challenged herself. “Rachel will take you to your cabin.” Then the director left to say hello to some other unhappy campers.

“Our cabin's that way.” Rachel pointed up a steep hill. I could kind of see some cabins at the top of the hill, hidden in a bunch of trees. My dad was trying to wrestle my new metallic blue trunk out of the back of the car. The website had said we needed trunks to keep all our stuff in because there wasn't any place to store luggage.

“Why don't I get this end?” Rachel grabbed one of the trunk handles before my dad made a complete idiot of himself. Mom had my sleeping bag and tennis racket. I didn't have anything to carry but my pillow, which was better than nothing. At least it gave me something to hold on to.

We passed a bunch of other campers and parents going up the hill. I could tell some of them were really nervous. But then a lot of them acted like old friends. Girls kept shrieking at each other and hugging. It was beyond stupid to watch. I tried to relax my face and look casual, but my heart was pounding so hard I could feel the pulse in my throat.

What was I thinking when I agreed to this? Did they hypnotize me? Was it one of those weird parental mind control things? How had my parents ever talked me into spending a month at summer camp?

They started talking about camp back in March. They showed me the brochure and the website, and at that time it looked pretty cool.
Camp Pine Haven for Girls, located in the scenic mountains of North Carolina. A camping tradition since 1921.
Anyway, my best friend, Amanda, was going to be in Hawaii for two weeks, lying on a beach surrounded by a hundred gorgeous surfers. I figured she could miss me for two weeks after she got back from her dream vacation. In March camp seemed like a good idea. But that was March.

We walked up a dirt path and came to this big stone building with a porch. “That's Middler Lodge,” said Rachel, and then we turned up another path and climbed a bunch of stone steps that went up yet another hill. There sure were lots of hills. My dad tried desperately not to pant, because Rachel wasn't breathing hard at all. She'd told us she was on the hiking staff, so she probably walked about thirty miles a day or something.

By now we were finally at the top of the hill where all the cabins were. There was a really wide dirt path, and all down one side was a long row of cabins. “This is Middler Line, and we're in Cabin 1A. You guys are in the middle between the Juniors—the little kids—and the Seniors—the oldest girls.”

Rachel pushed open the screen door of the first cabin we came to, and she and my dad stumbled in and plopped my trunk on the floor. They each took a big breath.

“How many girls in each cabin again?” asked Mom.

“Eight, with two counselors. This is 1A, Kelly, and that's 1B.” She waved to the left side of the cabin.

“You're number one! You're number one!” Dad chanted. I wanted to hit him with my pillow, but I just looked around at everything.

Rachel laughed at his stupid joke, then spread out her arms. “Well, here it is. Your home away from home.”

I'd seen the cabins in pictures on the website, but that didn't really give me an accurate view. I wouldn't be surprised if this cabin was built in 1921. It was all gray wood. The top half of the front and back walls were really just screens. The ceiling had wood beams across it with a couple of bare lightbulbs hanging down from them. But the weirdest thing was that there was graffiti
all
over the walls. Everywhere you looked, you could see where someone had written her name. There wasn't a blank space of wall anywhere. The website had called the cabins “rustic.” “Primitive” was more like it.