Breakout! Page 3

  Jenny thought it was strange that Jamie had chosen to snuggle with Missi tonight. She told herself that it wasn’t personal—Jamie probably wanted to give Missi some extra love to make up for the gummy bear prank. But whatever the reason, this could not, would not, bccome habit.

  Scottie released three thunderous snores, and no one budged or threw socks at her face to quiet her. Finally, Jenny was safe! She whipped out her diary from inside her pillowcase, switched her book lamp on, and reviewed her most recent entry.

  Jenny’s Breakout Predictions

  August 8th – At BBQ dinner

  August 9th – At reveille

  August 10th – During afternoon snack

  August 11th – At breakfast

  August 11th – At Evening Activity (TBD)

  She crossed out the last prediction and added:

  August 12th — ANYTIME — I DON’T KNOW!!!

  With camp coming to a close, every second that passed was cutting into serious Color War time. When the when was it going to break?! Jenny flipped backward to her “Faith Hillers—Strengths and Weaknesses” page. She’d folded the page over, which everyone knew was code for “TOP SECRET: GET OUT OF MY HEAD.” (Just in case, she’d also written it on the flap.) She hadn’t told Jamie, but she’d observed all of her cab-inmates during last summer’s Color War and this summer’s activities, and had ranked them—1 being sucky, 5 being amazing. It wasn’t personal. It was for war.

  You can’t argue with numbers, Jenny thought, gazing at her perfect score. I’ve reinvented myself to be a shining star. She thought about how Lieutenant Nolan and her arm candy, Christopher, would make the best celebrity couple. Then Jenny’s night-dream was interrupted by a flashlight beaming in her face from the bed next to her.

  “Omigosh, Jenny, are you up, too?” Missi asked.

  Jenny was clearly up, shielding her face from blindness with her diary. “Can you stop with the flashlight, please? I’m going to have an eye seizure.”

  “That sounds dangerous, sorry,” Missi said, lowering the flashlight to her comforter. It cast a creepy shadow across the cabin that kind of looked like witch fingers.

  Jenny didn’t feel like pointing that out. She didn’t want to deal with Missi bringing it up tomorrow, like it was some amazing inside joke they’d shared because they were both insomniacs or whatever. “I’m going to sleep now,” Jenny said. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow. Probably.”

  “Definitely probably!” Missi squealed. “The biggest day since the very first day of camp all those summers ago. Everything’s been building to this Color War. We’re finally old enough to be Lieutenants! Do you remember when Jamie and I first became friends with you?” Jenny did remember, but Missi rambled on before Jenny could even nod. “You knew nothing about camp. The word ‘Breakout’ might as well have been Portuguese! Good times. Oh, man, I’m so hyper right now, it’s hard to get my brain to chillax.”

  “Well, try.”

  “Ugh. I guess I’ll just count a bazillion more sheep. Once, I actually did count a bazillion sheep. It took six hours and twenty—”

  “OK, night!” Jenny said. She turned off her book lamp, collapsed her diary, shoved it into her pillowcase, and closed her eyes. Then she listened to Missi whisper-count sheep up to ninety-two, at which point Missi erupted into whistles through the gap in her front teeth.

  Amid the orchestra of breathing, snoring, and whistling, Jenny fell into her very first memories of Camp Rolling Hills, four summers ago, on the bus ride up to camp. Jamie had been sitting all alone, her eyes bleary from saying good-bye to her parents in the Roosevelt Field mall parking lot. Jenny, who’d been sort of relieved to part from Willamena for eight weeks, but nervous about keeping up the cool facade in order to make new friends, had sat beside Jamie and told her that she cried like a Disney princess—dramatic, but still really pretty. That made Jamie laugh, and then she didn’t cry again the rest of the ride.

  Within days, they had become so attached at the hip that they’d sometimes climb inside Sophie’s oversize Annie T-shirt and tell the rest of Two Tree Hill Cabin that they were Siamese twins separated at birth. Sophie would then launch into why that was medically impossible, while the two of them giggled until their stomachs ached. Their counselor always got them confused—would call each by the other’s name—until they suggested she call both of them “J.” One late night the “J”s were in the bathroom testing lipstick colors on toilet paper and Missi complained: “The J-squad is keeping me awake!” And the name stuck! Ah, memories!

  Jenny fast-forwarded to that first summer’s Color War, and the next summer’s, and the next, letting all of her sizzling anticipation about tomorrow simmer into a deep, colorful, Color War Eve sleep.

  In what felt like zero minutes later, she shot up to screaming sirens. Her heart was racing. Her breath was stale. Her mind was moving in slow motion.

  “What time is it?” Jamie mumbled, holding Missi’s mooshi pillow over her ears.

  Jenny went to check her alarm clock, but then remembered that she didn’t have an alarm clock at camp. She only had a backup celly, which was dead inside a shoe box under her bed. “Um, um.” She could see the tiniest bit of twilight peek through the window by the front door, so it was definitely not the middle of the night, but nowhere near normal 7:45 reveille wake-up, either. “Like, really early,” Jenny told Jamie.

  “Omigod, WHHHHHHYYYYY?”

  And that’s when the morning fog defogged from Jenny’s head. Could it have been that there was an emergency? An explosion? Dead people? Maybe. But the timing was too coincidental. There was only one real reason sirens would be sounding: COLOR WAR BREAKOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Jenny screamed louder than the sirens and ran out of Faith Hill Cabin in her pink onesie. She didn’t know where she was running to. But then Melman quickly caught up and passed her, heading in the direction of Forest Hill, which overlooked the lake. Jenny wasn’t interested in following anyone, let alone Melman. But at least if Melman was wrong and they missed everything because Breakout was actually at the Social Hall or something, no one would blame Jenny for misleading them.

  “Jenny, wait!” she heard Jamie cry from far, far away. Stopping short, Jenny glanced over her shoulder. Slimey and Missi were holding hands and running behind Jenny. Behind them was Scottie. Behind her was Sophie. And then, all the way in the back, tripping on her ratty pajama pants and drowning in Jenny’s sweatshirt, was Jamie.

  Jenny thought about running back to Jamie so they could experience Breakout together, but then what kind of first impression would she be making as Lieutenant? She was expected to lead, not wait forever for her uncoordinated bestie. Color War wasn’t the time to be charitable to one person. It was the time to be a spirit-crazy role model for the whole camp. So Jenny kept running, faster and faster, until she was so out of breath that she made a mental list of everyone she knew with an inhaler (just Steinberg) in case she arrived a wheezing, asthmatic mess.

  As Jenny approached the valley of Forest Hill, a blur of bodies stampeded toward her from all cabin directions. The wailing sirens were coming from the other side of the hill. She could see Melman halfway up the hill already, and behind her, she caught a glimpse of Missi’s red frizz and Sophie’s octopus head of braids, but it was hard to spot anyone else. Especially someone as short as Jamie.

  For a moment, Jenny worried that Jamie had gotten trampled. But then she assured herself that Jamie was so slow, she was probably all the way in the back with the One Tree Hillers. If no one was behind her, then there’d be no way she could get trampled! Jenny sighed with relief and kept shoving upward through the masses.

  Just when she thought her legs might give out, she reached the peak of Forest Hill. And it was . . . wow. The insanely pretty view was the only thing keeping her jello legs from collapsing. The sunrise peeked up from behind Harold Hill and cast pink streaks across the sky. It reflected onto the lake like a mirror. The air smelled like dew and dandelions. It would have been the most peaceful experi
ence ever if not for the stampede of screaming people. And the sirens. But Jenny didn’t actually wish for peace at this moment. She wished for war. So it was all perfect just the way it was.

  And then, as if the Color War Gods had heard Jenny’s thoughts, there was a thump-thump-thump in the air. Jenny gazed up as a helicopter flew over Anita Hill . . . Faith Hill . . . Harold Hill, and then hovered right above Forest Hill. Her mouth hung open in disbelief. Her bangs thrashed around her forehead from the whipping blades. Her eyes teared up with anticipation and joy and sensitivity to gusts of dirty wind.

  Just when Jenny thought the Breakout couldn’t get any more surreal, buckets of blue and white ping-pong balls were dumped from the helicopter. She threw her arms in the air and opened and closed her fingers like crab claws, hoping to catch them raining from the sky. In the winter, she’d play Hanukkah ping-pong with all of her cousins. No! She’d display the balls beside her dance trophies. No! She’d store them in her camp memorabilia box for her future grandkids!

  But Jenny quickly forgot about the balls when hundreds of scrolls wrapped in blue ribbons began dropping instead. One smacked her right between the eyes and fell to the ground. She clawed at the other clawing fingers around her, grabbed a scroll and clutched it tight. She slid off the ribbon and unrolled a paper packet with the Color War teams and themes and officers!

  “Omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod,” she uttered in her head, but maybe also out loud. She was so excited and anxious and excited she couldn’t tell! First, she noted the themes: Blue Psychedelic Sixties versus White Awesome Eighties. Amazing. Next, she noted the Blue Generals: counselors Ashanti Power and Jill McCarville, and the White Generals: counselors Jon Silver and Nicole Ferrara. Quadruple amazing. Third, she noted the Blue Lieutenants in her age group: Brian “Play Dough” Garfink and Bethany Melman. OK, fine, whatever. No big surprise. Fourth, she noted the White Lieutenants in her age group: Justin “Totle” Peterson and Jamie Nederbauer.

  NOT OK, NOT FINE, NOT WHATEVER. Jamie? Her Jamie? Where was Jenny’s name? She scanned the Lieutenant names under Notting Hill and Sherri Hill. Her name wasn’t there, either. This has got to be a joke. Or the world’s worst mistake. She flipped through the packet and found her name on the fourth page, on the Blue side, sandwiched between Melman and Sophie. No star. No title. Nothing. On the White side, Missi was sandwiched between Jamie and Slimey. Missi would be Jamie’s second-in-command.

  Jenny took a breath, but no air made it inside. The morning dew seemed to latch on to her skin. The sunrise felt like fire on her face. The camp erupted into a blur of cheers and screams and blues and whites, and Jenny couldn’t move. She was on the brink of a breakdown.

  COLOR WAR SCHEDULE

  7:45 a.m.

  Reveille

  8:05 a.m.

  Lineup

  8:15 a.m.

  Breakfast

  8:45–9:25 a.m.

  Cleanup/Inspection

  9:30 a.m.

  Team Lineup

  9:35–10:45 a.m.

  Activity Period A

  10:55 a.m.–12:15 p.m.

  Activity Period B

  12:25 p.m.

  Lunch Lineup

  12:25–1:10 p.m.

  Lunch

  1:15–1:55 a.m.

  Rest Hour

  2:00 p.m.

  Team Lineup

  2:00–3:10 p.m.

  Activity Period C

  3:10 p.m.

  Snack

  3:30–4:45 p.m.

  Activity Period D

  4:45–6:00 p.m.

  Dinner Prep

  6:00 p.m.

  Lineup

  6:15–7:00 p.m.

  Dinner

  7:00–8:00 p.m.

  Team Time

  8:00 p.m.

  Evening Activity

  9:45 p.m.

  Taps

  10:00 p.m.–midnight

  Officer meetings, SING prep

  SPECIAL ACTIVITIES

  DAY ONE

  Breakout, Tug-o-War, Novelty Relays

  DAY TWO

  Bucket Brigade, Hatchet Hunt Introduction

  DAY THREE

  Apache Relay

  DAY FOUR

  Rope Burn

  DAY FIVE

  Mass Kickball, Marathon, Boating Regatta, Color Bowl

  DAY SIX

  Sealed Envelope Ceremony, SING

  Tug-o-War

  “PSYCHO DELI!” Play Dough cheered. He stood at the base of Tennis Hill with his fellow Blue officers, facing his team for their first-ever meeting. He clapped twice at normal speed and then three times really fast. “PSYCHO DELI!” He was dressed in Wiener’s blue basketball shorts and blue T-shirt. It was all so tight on him that his thighs pushed against the mesh shorts, and his arms ripped the shirt at the seams. He felt like the Hulk. Meanwhile, thirty feet away on Tennis Hill, where his opponents were assembled, Wiener was drowning in Play Dough’s white stuff. They’d swapped clothes as soon as the war broke out, because Play Dough had assumed he’d be on White and Wiener had assumed he’d be on Blue, and they had both been dead wrong.

  “PSYCHO DEL—”

  “Lieutenant Play Dough!” General Ashanti Power stepped in front of Play Dough, halting him mid-cheer. He hovered over him like any counselor might, except that Ashanti Power was the opposite of most counselors, personality-wise. He wasn’t chill or goofy; he’d graduated from JROTC, was going into his first year at the United States Merchant Marine Academy, and acted like a legit soldier even when it wasn’t Color Wartime. A few weeks back, he’d sat On Duty for Hamburger Hill when Yoshi had his night off, and every time Play Dough farted, he’d made the whole bunk drop and give him twenty. Play Dough gave him twenty Pringles instead of push-ups, and Ashanti Power had crushed them all in his hand. The guy did not mess around. “What are you chanting, Lieutenant Play Dough?” he now barked.

  “Uhhhh.” General Power’s intensity made Play Dough’s mind go blank. Then his stomach rumbled and he remembered. “Psycho Deli, sir.” He kicked his legs together military-style and smacked his inside anklebones. “Ow!”

  “What is ‘Psycho Deli’?” General Power asked.

  Play Dough smiled. He wondered if General Power’s saliva glands could handle his answer. “It’s also known as the ‘Psycho Chicken,’” he explained. “They sell it at Dheli’s Deli on my corner at home. Fried chicken cutlet, bacon, avocado, pastrami—”

  “Psy-che-del-ic,” General Power annunciated. “Psychedelic.”

  “Ohhhhhhh,” Play Dough said, as if “psychedelic” were a part of his everyday vocabulary, like, for example, the word “Muenster.” “Sounds like a sandwich, but it’s not!” He laughed it off.

  “No, it’s not a sandwich,” General Power said with distaste, which Play Dough thought was pretty weird considering how tasty sandwiches are. “Psychedelic is mind-bending, tripping, out of this world.”

  So was a Psycho Chicken, but Play Dough wasn’t about to say that. “Yeah, I know,” he said instead, embarrassed.

  “All righty then.” General Power saluted and Play Dough saluted back. “It’s time for the introductions. Can you get yourself together?”

  Play Dough thought he was already together. But he followed General Power’s eyes to his bare belly hanging out over the tight elastic of Wiener’s shorts. Stupid Wiener and his stupid muscle shirts, Play Dough silently cursed. He stopped feeling like the Hulk. And he didn’t feel smart like the Hulk’s alter ego, Bruce Banner, either. Play Dough wished he hadn’t exclusively worn all of his blue clothes last week to save up his white ones. He wished the Blue theme didn’t remind him of a sandwich and mean something he still didn’t understand. He wished Ashanti Power wasn’t his General. He wished he was Lieutenant on White like the rest of his family had been.

  Play Dough swallowed, stretched Wiener’s shirt over his belly, and tried to put on a brave face. You can do this, he told himself. You’re Lieutenant! That’s huge! Now all you have to do is lead your team to victory.


  General Power and General McCarville threw their fingers into a peace sign and swept the peace sign across their foreheads. “Yodel, yodel, yodel, yodel, yodel, yodel-oo!”

  Play Dough and the other Lieutenants shouted back with the same peace sign move. “Yodel, yodel, yodel, yodel, yodel, yodel-oo!”

  The Generals finished the chant: “Groovy, hippie, Psychedelic Blue!” They waved their arms in a fast motion like an umpire might to say, “Safe!” It cued silence.

  “Hello, Blue team!” General Power shouted. He ran a hand over his stubbly head and adjusted the blue leather bands he wore around his wrists. “I am Ashanti Power, Bunker Hill counselor and your General!” Everyone cheered, especially the Bunker Hillers. Play Dough had almost forgotten that the strictest staff member was in charge of the littlest kids. Apparently, they were all alive and well, so that was reassuring. “Together, we will accomplish one thing in this war: We will psychedelically slay the White! Please give it up for my co-General, the mighty flower child, hippie chick Jill McCarville!”

  General McCarville spun around in a circle, tossing flower petals in the air. Her jeans flared over her Birks. A little dizzy, she put her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. “I am a Notting Hill counselor and your General, and together, my hippie tribe, we are going to obliterate the not-so-Awesome Eighties!” The Notting Hillers “woo”-ed the loudest of all the woo-ers.

  Initiated by Lieutenant Melman, the Blue team did the wave. And then, led by the Wawel Hill Lieutenants, everyone did a “hippie dance,” which involved moving around like each of your limbs was its own rubber snake. Play Dough noted it was pretty weird. But, being the leader he was, he rubber-snake danced. Until his shorts split.