Spells & Sleeping Bags #3 (8 page)

Deb: “Move it, girls, move it!”

Morgan laughs. “Saved by the announthment.”

Unfortunately, since I forgot to ask Miri to stop by my bunk and reverse my clothes, I don't know if I have a bathing suit. And I'm quite sure the camp frowns on skinny-dipping.

I search through my cubby. Here's one! A plain navy suit that looks about my size.

Perfect. Now all I have to do is change into it—which means I have to get
totally
naked in front of everyone. Hello, embarrassing.

My heart starts racing and I try to calm it.

I notice that Carly keeps her shirt on while she changes, and kind of sneaks her bra out. Interesting technique. I pull my suit on and try to do the same, but I somehow end up strangling myself, with my bra tangled around my neck, and then I feel hot and cold and hot and cold and—

Poof.

Ouch! Omigod! I look down at my bare stomach. Then I turn around and get a glimpse of my mostly exposed backside.

My one-piece bathing suit just morphed into a thong bikini.

Why did I do that? And now what am I going to do? I can't have my butt on show for the entire camp!

I grab a towel off the top of my cubby and cover my butt.

Breathe in, breathe out. I need to calm down, or who knows what will happen next?

What if the Lion boys are taking their swim tests too?

Poof!

Holy crap. My thong bikini just lost all its color. In fact, it's completely see-through.

No, no, no! I wrap the towel around me, shower-style. Did anyone see? I peek at the girls still changing, but they don't seem to have noticed.

I need to think of a swimsuit spell. . . .

“I'm counting to ten and whoever is not on the porch is stacking lunch!” screams Deb. “Ten. Nine. Eight—”

Ready, Alison heads for the front of the bunk.

“Seven. Six—”

I can't be creative under all this pressure!

“Five. Four. Three—”

I pull the checkered boxer shorts and a new T-shirt from my cubby and throw them over my practically invisible suit. I'll just have to swim in clothes.

“Two—”

With my towel in hand, I bolt for the door. Here goes nothing. At least I've covered up my see-through bathing suit. If I hadn't I'd have to say here goes, and shows, everything.

6
WHY I HATE DOLPHINS

Help! I'm drowning!

Okay, fine, I'm not really drowning—not yet, anyway—but I'm quite close. My arms and legs and even Bobby are numb with cold, and if I have to stay in the water for one more second, they might all fall off.

I touch the dock, then push off again for my eighth lap.

Campers are allowed to swim only in a designated area, which is marked by three docks that make a square with the beach. The swimming area is divided into three sections, from shallowest to deepest: turtle (up to my knees), dolphin (up to my chest), and whale (way over my head). This place is obsessed with naming things after animals. Anyway. I'm currently in whale, trying not to drown, taking my swim test.

I'm expected to swim twenty laps and tread water for ten minutes to get my whale bracelet. Those who don't get one won't be allowed to go windsurfing or waterskiing and will be able to go up only to dolphin for general swim.

But of course I'm going to get it. And if I can't do it on my own, I'll just whip up a swimming spell.

Almost there, almost there . . . Nine, I think as I touch the other dock and then push off again, careful not to bump into any of the other twenty or so Lion girls still in the water taking their tests. Not an easy feat for someone who never officially learned to swim. I do know how to float, but lying on my back doesn't seem to get me anywhere. I believe what I'm doing is called the doggie paddle. Not much style, but hey, so far it's working.

Eleven more. Groan. Cough. Swallow? I just swallowed a mouthful of water. I hope no one has peed in it. Why did I have to think of that? Now I have to go.

Ten!

This time I hold on to the dock a little longer than necessary. I think my wet shorts and T-shirt are weighing me down.

Eeep! Eeep! Eeep!
Rose, the head of waterfront, is blowing repeatedly into her whistle and glaring at me from her perch on the dock beside the other swim staff (including two cute boy counselors, which no one but me seems to find
mucho
embarrassing). She spits the whistle out of her mouth and lets it dangle around her neck. “Holding! You have to do that last lap over again. Let go immediately.” She is as evil as Alison said she was. She even looks like the devil in her one-piece red suit and matching red sun visor.

“Are you chewing gum?” she shrieked at Poodles when we first went down to the beach and sat in our bunk lines.

Poodles rolled her eyes. “No?”

“Don't lie to me. There is absolutely no food, no gum, no anything down on the beach. Do we understand each other?”

Poodles swallowed her gum.

I don't know why Rose acts like she's forty when she's only, like, twenty, tops. Anyway, I cannot believe she just gave me an extra lap. I think I'll switch over to my back. Maybe if I kick a little, I'll make some progress. Hey, it's working! I'm moving! I might be a little slow, but who cares? I get to look at the sky, which is like a big blue painting with a few clouds that look like marshmallows.

I wonder what's for lunch. I'm kind of hungry. And thirsty. I could use a glass of water.

Why am I thinking about water? (Um, maybe because I'm surrounded by it?) It's making me have to pee even more. I really have to go. Is it gross if I just let out a small drop? It's not like anyone would see—

Smack!

I would say ow, but I just swallowed another gallon of water. And the sky is spinning, since the smack was me knocking my head against someone else's head, bumper car–style, and the crash has sent me flying in another direction.

“Are you crazy?” asks the girl I smacked. “You have to stay in your lane. You were going diagonally.”

Maybe swimming on my back and admiring the sky wasn't my best idea. I struggle to tread water and catch my breath. I turn to the girl, recognizing her immediately. She's that rude black-haired girl from fifteen who practically knocked me over yesterday outside the cabin. “I'm so sorry,” I say. “Are you okay?” I at least have manners. I at least apologize when I nearly take someone out.

She narrows her almond-colored eyes into slits, then shakes her head while continuing to glare at me. “Hardly.”

“I'm just learning how to swim,” I say by way of an explanation.

“Save your excuses for the fish,” she snaps, then kicks off in the other direction. “The entire lake doesn't belong to you.”

Well, excuse me. Annoyance bubbles inside me, and I take a deep breath to steady myself. Must not lose temper . . . must not lose temper . . . As rude as Miss Attitude was, I wouldn't want to accidentally turn her into a minnow.

With my luck, I'd probably turn her into a whale and then she'd swallow me.

Anyway, I shouldn't be wasting my magic on something as insignificant as her. I should be trying to come up with some sort of swimming spell. Something, I think as I swallow another mouthful of lake while still in my treading position, that will keep me above the water. How about:

“It's time to float,

Just like a boat!”

Burst of cold, and . . . my legs are expanding.

More specifically, my knees are blowing up like they're balloons being pumped with helium. My legs look like two snakes that have swallowed television sets. Now my knees are rising out of the water! Sit, legs, sit!

My rising knees are pushing me on my stomach and forcing my head below water. If this spell makes me drown, I'm going to be really pissed off.

“Stop!” I gurgle at my knees. “Get back down!”

Carly, who's now swimming beside me, looks over with concern. “Are you okay? You look like you're having trouble.”

I turn onto my back in an attempt to keep from drowning. “Fine, thanks.” I need my sister. “Miri!” I gasp, arms flailing. “Come here!” She's on the beach, reading. Miri and her bunkmates were the first ones to take the test, and Miri, a super swimmer (she used my dad's pool for something other than cooling off), was the first out of the water.

“Can you focus, please?” Rose snaps from the dock.

“Miri!” I try again. My sister finally spots me, drops her book, and hurries into the water. “What?” she asks, swimming up beside me.

“Please tell me you brought the spell-reversal charm to camp.”

She nods.

“Thank God. Okay. Go get it. I'm having a prob—”

Before I can finish the sentence, my personal floatation devices flip me headfirst upside down and underwater, into a quasi headstand.

Cough! Sputter!

Miri yanks my head out of the water. “Rachel, what did you do?” she asks in amazement.

“Tiny”—cough—“mistake.”

Eeep! Eeep! Eeep!
“Did I give you permission to enter the water?” Rose yells at Miri. “Did I?”

Miri drags me to the side and secures my feet under the dock so that they won't fly up. “I'll go get the reversal crystal from my bunk. And watch how cool this is—I discovered a new transport spell that will work in the lake!” With a dive under the water, she vanishes.

I dip my head under the surface to watch, but it's too murky to see anything.

Eeep!
Rose is anxiously searching the waterfront. “Where did she go?”

“Um . . . who?”

Rose waves her hands over her head. “The girl you were talking to!”

“What girl?”

Eeep! Eeep! Eeep! Eeep!
Rose's whistle sounds like an overeager teakettle. “Campers out of the water!” she screams. “Search and rescue! Human chain, human chain!”

You've got to be kidding.

All the remaining girls, except me of course, because I'm too afraid to move, rush to the shore. Rose whips off her sun visor and dives off the dock, into the lake. Meanwhile, the swim staff all grab hands at the front of the beach and begin combing through the water.

Miri suddenly bobs up beside me with a splash. “Got it,” she says, holding the spell-reversal necklace over her head. She looks around at the chaos. “What's going on?”

“Search and rescue,” I say.

“For who?”

“You.” I grab Miri's hand and wave it in the air. “She's right here!” I yell. “Stop the search!”

A flabbergasted Rose front-crawls over to us. “Where were you?”

“Around?” Miri says. She swims backward, circling me, as the spell reversal requires.

“But I . . . I'm going to be watching you two,” Rose spits. “Search and rescue canceled!” she screams to the rest of the staff, climbing up the ladder, dripping with water.

As Miri finishes the reversal, my knees shrink to their nonengorged size. Ah. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” She starts swimming toward the shore.

“Wait, Mir, can I borrow the crystal?”

“Why?”

“Wardrobe malfunction,” I say sheepishly.

She floats on her back. “I think you should stop using your Glinda until you can control it better.”

“My Glinda is just fine, thank you very much.” The nerve of her. As if my magic isn't on a par with hers. Honestly, my magic isn't that bad. A little rough around the edges, maybe. If you fall off your bike, you don't just sell it on eBay, do you? No, you get back on and practice. I doggie-paddle over to her, grab the crystal necklace from her hand, and place it around my neck. “If you'll excuse me,” I say huffily, “I have some laps to swim.”

Too bad the spell reversals didn't work on my outfit—my wet boxers and T-shirt are not exactly giving me extra speed.

I am unable to finish my laps.

It is beyond embarrassing.

I try one more swimming spell, but it somehow manages to make my legs and arms weigh six thousand pounds, so I can barely move and I end up sinking to the lake's sandy bottom, where I'm forced to reverse my spell.

Since I am now way too exhausted to complete ten laps, I get my dolphin, which means that, unlike all the other Lion girls, I get a chain bracelet with a blue bead. They also get a chain bracelet, but their beads are yellow.

“Could have been worse,” Alison says, back on the beach. “You could have gotten your turtle.”

“Not funny,” I say, fingering my bracelet of shame.

“I'm just teasing. Honestly, it doesn't matter. We still like you.”

The five of us are sprawled on our towels, soaking up the sun. The five of us and Miri, that is. As soon as I dragged myself out of the water, she joined us on the beach. Actually, only three of my bunkmates are sprawling. Carly is doing her stomach crunches. She's the only girl in the bunk (besides me) who went swimming in a pair of shorts, then covered herself with her shirt as soon as she got out of the lake.

“Guys, check out the pair of tits on the new girl!” Morgan says.

There's that word again. I can't stand it! It's like fingernails against a—

“Can you not use the word
tits
?” Poodles asks.

“Tits, tits, tits,” Morgan chants.

“Unlike you, we don't stare at people's chests,” Alison says.

“I'm not staring! But she was walking around the cabin topless. Mine are nearly as gorgeous, but you don't see me parading around like that, showing them off.”

“Cece told me she
was
being super-braggy,” Alison says. “Showing off, talking about all the places she's lived.”

“Where did she live?” Poodles asks.

“Apparently, she goes to boarding school in Switzerland,” Alison says.

“Trishelle told me that she told the whole bunk she shops in Milan, London, and Paris,” Carly says.

“I don't believe it for a second,” Morgan grumbles.

“Well, I believe it,” says Carly, midcrunch. “Did you see that bathing suit?”

“It must have cost a fortune,” Poodles says. “Morgan, you'd better get out of the sun. You're burning already.”

Morgan brushes off the warning. “I need to get some color.”

“You always burn on the second day,” Alison tells her. She turns to me and adds, “She always burns on the second day. She never listens.”

“I don't think they're all that great,” Carly says.

“What's not so great?” Alison asks.

“Her tits,” Morgan answers for Carly.

Cringe.

“Which one is she?” I ask, searching the shaded area of the beach where the group from fifteen are clustered.