Page 19 of Lady and the Camp
Sure enough, Amy visibly cringed. Not exactly subtle. “That’s what my parents said. It’s why they wanted me to be a counselor here. Camp Junebuggets back to the basics.” She made a gagging sound and the little girls around us laughed but declared it gross.
“The boys’ camp lets them have phones,” one camper stated as she wound yarn around her popsicle sticks.
Amy scoffed. “The boys get all kinds of stuff.”
I rifled through the yarn box and pulled out a knot of sparkly pink. “What’s the boys’ camp?”
“You don’t know?” Bianca, the teen counselor I’d run into earlier, sauntered over and sat across from me. “The Trail Blazers? Across the lake?”
I shrugged. “Never heard of them.”
“Youareoff the grid,” Amy remarked.
Definitely. “That’s the plan. So, tell me about these Trail Blazers.”
“We used to be one big camp,” Bianca stated, clearly the expert on camp history. “Us here, and them across the lake. The old folks who owned it started it here, but built on after a waterfall.”
“That’s awindfall.” Maggie appeared behind us. “A sudden influx of cash they received from an inheritance.”
Bianca flitted a hand in the air. “Sure, okay. Anyway, they built the new lodge and new cabins and a new dock and all that. But one of them got sick with Old Timer’s—”
“Alzheimer’s,” Maggie corrected.
“That’s what I meant,” Bianca went on. “And they gave the camp to their evil son.”
Maggietsked. “Bianca. That’s unkind.”
“’S true.” She didn’t appear the least bit remorseful. “The son is one of those earthy guys but like, has all the expensive gear. He acts like the guys you see in those romance movies at Christmas time where the bad guy from the city goes to the small town and says, ‘we’re gonna tear this all down.’”
“A scrooge,” one of the younger campers added.
“Well, that’s accurate,” Maggie said.
Riveting. “Then what happened?” I pressed.
“Evil guy—er, the owner’s son—he said he wanted to tear down the old camp and make everything modern. Build a big sports building and bring in all these rich kids with trainers and junk, and make everything really expensive. See, my parents used to come here as kids, and now I’m here as a teen counselor, which was always my dream since I was little, but we wouldn’t have been able to afford the new camp, so a bunch of us were totally against it. And the staff and the parents and everybody all argued and got lawyers involved—”
“Careful,” Maggie warned. “There are legal aspects we aren’t at liberty to discuss.”
“Right, right,” Bianca plowed ahead. “So anyway, they struck a deal—the old folks, the son, and the staff—had to split up. So the old camp, that’s us, Camp Junebug, would stay going like we used to, and the new camp the son bought out so he could run it himself the way he wanted. He doesn’t eventalkto his parents anymore. My parents would kill me if I ever stopped talking to them.” She sighed with emphasized drama. “And evil son made a contract with all the scouting groups for boys in the state so they’d all use his camp. The only girls over there come later in the summer to train with sports teams.”
That left the option for girls as Camp Junebug, thebeforein this makeover scenario. How wonderfully equal.
“The rich girls go to other camps,” Amy said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with not having money.”
“Not everyone gets to go to summer camp,” Maggie added. “Camp Junebug offers a simpler alternative to slick and modern. The way camps ought to be.”
Amy grumbled while Bianca beamed at Maggie. So many fascinating dynamics here.
I tapped at the table with a pink nail. “With all this camp splitting, that divided the staff. Your top bunk,” I said to Maggie.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“She was your friend.” I wished I could take back the comment after seeing hurt flash across her face. “Sorry. That must be hard.”
And Lucas. Grouchy Lucas who I’d assumed handled the maintenance around camp, when it turned out he ran the place. Seemingly unwillingly. There sure must be a story there. Probably real clickable content in the camp world.
“I could have left too,” Maggie said. “But then I’d miss all this.” She squished herself between two campers, making oinking sounds, which sent the younger girls into a giggle frenzy. Must be an inside joke.
