Love, Lose, And Repeat

Camp Drizzledown

        I'm locked up in cabin three – lights out, no talking, cardio in the quad at one. Stop smiling, stop gawking, "find someplace to be." The last five weeks that is all that has been said to me. I suffer soggy, green meals and slop, gray, on Sundays.

        Windows are on lock down while Camp Counselor Brown patrols outside. She does a circle around each cabin and when branches fall under her feet, she shushes herself. My blanket is pulled to my neck and I listen to the mixes of snores that slip into my ears and play on repeat until I fall asleep, but I can't fall asleep, because there is a letter in my hand and a place I need to sneak to tonight.

        I'm here because dad can't say no and mom doesn't know how to spank me or send me to my room. They tried their no timeout, no punishment parenting. In third grade, they let me wear a dinosaur costume. When I was ten, I cut off all my hair with dad's razor. They wanted me to express myself. Still, at the first sign of an offset onto sneakiness they don't know what to do with me. They decided to let someone else figure it out. The girl in the bunk above me spit gum in her sister's hair. The girl whose snoring sounds like the engine of an eighteen wheeler filled her little brother's teddy bear with weed.. They just don't know how to deal with us, luckily Camp Counselor Brown does.

        Camp Counselor Brown wears khaki's that fall down her tree trunk thighs. Thighs that ripple and jiggle like the jelly they don't serve in the mess hall. She wears a mosquito-net hat over a tight brown bun on the back of her neck. Her hands are always behind her back and holding a brown baton that she named Crunch. She smacks children's hands with it when they try to sneak food from the mess hall.

        We aren't allowed phones at Camp Drizzledown or any electronics, or jewelry, or cigarettes, or any fun. Camp Counselor Brown saw Meggie with a phone at the beginning of camp, she stepped on it right in front of us. Then, she made Meggie pretend to dial her number--she spelled it out, right there in front of everyone. She made Meggie apologize to her (and repeat the apology until it sounded sweet enough), until the poor girl cried, still holding the falling apart phone to her ear.

        I found out last week if I kept my eyes on the ground and I didn't make noise with my sneakers, Camp Counselor Brown wouldn't snap my back with Crunch and call me, "girl with bad posture."
    It was around that time I got my first letter from outside. It was addressed to me with scratchy blue handwriting on a wrinkled envelope. I looked at it and I knew it wasn't from my parents (they think the government reads their mail). I knew that this letter, the person who wrote this letter, was the reason I was here.

        I open my letter. Manning doesn't cross his t's so I knew after the first five words it was him and he was coming to see me, and this I why I got in trouble, and this is why I am not chasing the Sunday morning ice cream truck or watching cartoons with my little brother. But, if Manning wanted to meet me, I'd skip out at midnight and slip by patrolling Camp Counselor Brown.

        I've been holding this letter every night since I got it. He will be here tonight. I keep checking my calendar to make sure I'm right. I loose the itchy blue blanket from my neck and let my feet fall over the floor. It creaks. I check the other girls. They all sleep and toss and I get to the door. Camp Counselor Brown is circling and sees me swinging open the door.  She throws herself towards me, Crunch is in her hand, and she swings at me like I am a home run pitch. I bust down through a row of  trees wearing my flannel pants. I'm shoeless, sockless, only a tank top, only sweat stains. My hair is thin and blonde and running to catch up to me too.

        "Manning?" I'm out of breath when I reach the top of the hill. The sign for Camp Drizzledown is painted in the colors of the rainbow in arched wood. Camp Counselor Brown is probably running and whistling and still swinging at me. My chest is trying to pump air into me and Manning is still sitting in his silver car, only inches off the ground. I swing open the car door, check behind me, and he carries us away.