Fearless (18 page)

Her voice was so, so soft. It reminded me of Mama.

And so I couldn't help it. I started to cry again. “It does matter. I told everyone I would do it, and I didn't. I couldn't do it,” I said, choking on the words.

“But you can do it. I know you can. We all know you can. You don't have to prove anything to any of us. We all know what a good rider you are.”

I shook my head. “I'm not a good rider. I'll never be as good as you.”

“Jordan, I'm four years older than you are. You have to stop comparing yourself to me. And you know what, you're better now than I was when I was your age.”

“You're just saying that.
You
jumped when you were twelve! I didn't!” I sobbed.

“You could've done that jump today. You could do it tomorrow if you really wanted to. But you know what? Nobody cares! Not me, or Mama, or anybody. We don't care if you jump or don't jump, if you do cartwheels off the diving board, or if you learn to whistle out of your belly button! The only thing we care about is that you feel good about yourself.”

I was really crying now. Maddy was being so sweet and acting so worried about me. It just made me even more emotional.

“But how can I feel good about myself? I'm such a failure.” My nose was really snotty, and I needed a
Kleenex, but I didn't have one. So I just had to sniff a lot.

“Oh, Babykins, that just breaks my heart to hear you say that. How can you say that?”

“It's true!” I wailed. I gave in and wiped my runny nose on my sleeve. It was gross. But I had to do something. It was either that or the nurse's clean sheets.

“No, you're not. I think you're perfect. You'll always be my perfect little baby doll,” Madison said, her voice cracking a little.

“Don't call me that!” I yelled, because that was a family story that always made me laugh, but always choked me up at the same time.

“But you are. When they brought you home from the hospital, I couldn't believe how perfect you were. You looked just like my dolls, but you were
real
.” Now Maddy was getting teary. “You've seen the video.”

I laughed and nodded. On the day our parents brought me home from the hospital, we have a video of Maddy and me together. In it, she's not quite four years old, and she runs to the door to let our grandparents in, and she's bouncing up and down, and she says, “Come see my perfect little baby doll!”

“We had on those matching T-shirts,” said Madison. “Mine said ‘I'm the Big Sister,' and you were wearing that teeny tiny one that said ‘I'm the Little Sister.'”

I laughed because I could see it all so clearly. We've watched that video so many times. “I looked like a red raisin. I don't know why you were so excited about me.”

Madison shook her head and smiled. “No, you were perfect. I thought Mama and Daddy had brought me a real live baby doll.”

“You don't really remember that day,” I said accusingly. “You just think you do because you've seen the video so many times.”

“No, I do remember it. I loved you so much.” She stroked my hair. “I still do.”

“Maddy!” I said, leaning forward and burying my gross, disgusting, teary face in her hair. “This was the worst day of my life!” I breathed in the smell of her shampoo while she patted my back and rocked me back and forth.

“I know, Babykins. I know. I just want you to feel better.”

“I do,” said. “I do feel better. Now.”

Nicole Grimsley had been right. The nurse would let you fake it for one night in the infirmary, but after that, if you weren't running a fever or regurgitating or something, you had to leave.

“I've been so worried about you!” said Molly when I came back to the cabin right after breakfast.

“We've been practicing for the talent show,” said Brittany, waving her toothbrush around excitedly. “I think what you and Molly came up with is great! Do you feel like singing tonight? Does your throat hurt or anything?”

“Molly said you had the song down perfectly,” said Erin, sitting on her top bunk with her legs dangling over the side. “So we're glad you're back.”

Oh, the talent show! That was tonight. I'd almost
forgotten about it in the middle of my meltdown.

I cleared my throat. “Actually, I'm not sure I can do it,” I told them. “My throat does hurt a little.”

Molly gave me a quick look but kept quiet.

“Oh, no!” wailed Brittany. “That's what I was afraid of! When I heard you were in the infirmary, I said, ‘I hope it's not her throat.'”

I shrugged. “Sorry about that. But Molly knows the song. She can sing it,” I suggested.

“Yeah, good idea. I sound like Kermit the Frog when I sing,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me.

I coughed a few times to show Brittany and Erin how weak I was. “Well, that'll just make it funny, won't it?”

“I wish you could do it, Jordan! It's all your idea,” said Brittany.

“I know. But I'll have fun just being in the audience and watching y'all do it.”

Brittany left to brush her teeth, and Molly insisted that we go to crafts together for our first morning activity. “That shouldn't strain your
sore throat
too much,” she told me. So we said good-bye to Erin and left the cabin.

As we walked down Middler Line together, Molly said, “First of all, I'm really glad you're back. I was so worried about you. I wanted to come see you yesterday, but I wasn't sure if you'd even want to talk to me.”

I sighed. “I would've talked to you. I know you think I totally wimped out on the jump, right?”

“No, I don't! You were just having a bad day.”

“Molly, how many times this summer have I had a bad day? And how come nobody else ever has a bad day?” We were walking down the hill toward Crafts Cabin when I saw Eda off in the distance, talking to a couple of Senior girls. Hopefully, she wouldn't see me. I didn't feel like talking to her now.

“What makes you think I wasn't nervous out there too? Everybody was watching, and Eda had the video camera. That was all my fault. I never should've asked her in the first place. I'm sorry.”

I noticed with relief that Eda had walked off toward the lake without seeing us coming down the hill.

“Don't be. You looked great out there. Now you're in the Pine Haven movies. And your parents have a really cool video of you making your first jump. And my parents have a video of me having my nineteenth meltdown.”

Molly clutched her head in frustration. “You didn't have a meltdown! Listen, Jordan. I've already asked Wayward if you could try your jump again, and she said yes. We don't even have to wait for our lesson time. We
could do it today, after rest hour. Just you and me. No cameras, no Madison, no Whitney. I'll even stand in the stables if you don't want me to watch.”

“No, I'm not going to do it.”

“I can't believe you'd come so close and not do it! It's just like Madison said. It's all mental with you. You can do it. You've just psyched yourself out about it.”

I turned and glared at her. “Yeah, and why is that? You saw what happened yesterday. It was a disaster. A disaster! And don't you dare bring up that stupid shipwreck, or I'll never speak to you again!”

Molly kicked up a tuft of grass with her foot. “I just think you'd feel so much better if you could say you
did it.”

“I don't have to prove anything to anyone now,” I said, thinking about the conversation I'd had with Madison.

We were at Crafts Cabin, so we went inside. Gloria, the crafts counselor, was glad at least a couple of campers had showed up today. Since camp was almost over, lots of people had stopped going to activities and were just hanging out in their cabins. The counselors didn't even mind anymore.

“We're making lanyards,” said Gloria, smiling at us both and pointing to the different-colored plastic strings
lying around on the tables, along with metal clips so we could turn them into key chains.

“Good, you can never have too many lanyards,” said Molly. We picked up a handful of plastic strings and went out on the porch so we could talk in private.

“Okay, so you're not going to jump,” Molly went on. “But what about the talent show? You do not have a sore throat. So why are you backing out of doing it?”

She straddled the porch rail like she was on the back of a horse. “The talent show was something you really and truly wanted to do. You were so excited about it!”

I sat on a bench across from her, totally focused on braiding together two pink and purple strings.

“I'll tell you why. I broke down out there yesterday. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life. It was horrible! So if you think I'm about to get up onstage tonight and have another breakdown in front of the entire camp, you're out of your mind.”

A low, grumbling sound was coming out of Molly's throat. “Okay, then. Forget the talent show. It's not like it matters. Some stupid camp talent show.” She paused, and I could feel her staring at me. I looked up from my lanyard.

“But what about auditioning for the play? Are you
backing out of that, too?”

I didn't answer her. I thought about what I did and didn't want to do.

I really had wanted to audition for the play. And for a brief moment there, I had actually believed I might be brave enough to do it.

But not anymore. Molly was always asking,
What's the worst that could happen?

I'd seen the worst. I'd lived through it. I didn't want the talent show and the audition to be the scenes of my next meltdowns.

“Well?” Molly asked impatiently. “Are you still planning on auditioning for the play? Or not?”

I shrugged. “I don't know yet.”

Molly shook her head and sighed. “You know, the whole jumping thing . . . I knew you were mostly doing that to prove something to Madison. So no big deal if you don't do it. But Jordan. You should see how excited you are about skits and stuff like that. I really think you should do the talent show tonight. And then you'll feel better about auditioning for the play.”

“Not if I get up on stage tonight and fall on my face. That won't make me feel any better. I don't think I could stand another meltdown right now.” I'd gotten to
the ends of my strings, so I tied them together. I held up the finished lanyard for Molly to see.

“Look, it's okay to be scared. I totally understand that. But don't let that keep you from doing something you really, really want to do.”

I didn't answer her. What did I really, really want to do? A few days ago, I knew exactly what I wanted.

Now I wasn't so sure.

I finished drawing on Melissa's eyebrows and stepped back to see how she looked. I couldn't keep from smiling. We were in the cabin, and I was helping everyone get into costume.

“You guys make really cute monkeys,” I told them. Melissa was dressed all in brown, and Brittany was in black. With makeup, I'd done something like a Curious George face for both of them, and then we'd used a bunch of dark socks tied together for their tails.

“I'm glad you and Molly planned this for us,” said Erin. “It's going to be funny.” She was dressed as a lion, in a tan shirt and pants. We decided to use the Raggedy Ann hair we'd found in the costume box for the lion's mane, and I'd already drawn on whiskers and a nose for her.

Molly was wearing the Jane costume and holding a bottle of deodorant that she was going to sing into, like a microphone. They'd decided to cut out Tarzan's part, since Molly had to take over my role.

There they all were, dressed in the costumes that I'd come up with, about to perform the musical number that I'd planned and rehearsed. I really felt okay about the fact that I was going to watch it instead of be in it.

“Just let me take a couple of pictures first,” I said, grabbing my camera from the shelf by my bed. Of course, that made everyone else remember that they wanted pictures too, so I took about ten different pictures with everyone's camera.