Family + Camp (working title)

Chapter 14: Turning Tide

Nell wanted more. She wanted the LGBT people to give that little shit the comeuppance she deserved. But they didn't. They were all peace, love, and Gandhi up in there. So after the assembly, Nell had corned the girl as students streamed out of the auditorium into the halls.

Average height—that was Nell. She did not consider herself at all a scary person, nor did she have a reputation for being so. But like the old song said, she didn't give a damn about her bad reputation—or lack of one. In the moment, pumped up on righteous fury, what Nell wanted to say to that freshman twerp was that she was a fucking bitch. What she wanted to do was deliver a throat punch.

Instead, what came out of her mouth by the lockers next to a display of AP Architecture models was this: "You could do so much better."

The girl had stopped, wide eyed. For a moment, Nell had thought she'd gotten through, that the child would hang her head in chagrin. But...no.

The little twat had laughed her ass off before saying, "Whatever, bitch," and sashaying off with her BFF to freshman lunch hour.

Nell could have done better. And the righteous fury had turned inward before dissipating into a thrum of disappointment for a missed opportunity. Len had told her she was too haughty for her own good—of course the girl hadn't understood what a cut she'd been dealt.

"But I felt it," he'd said. "I know what you were getting at."His faint praise did its job by not helping her feel better.

But something did happen that actually helped—and not just Nell's frustrated emotions. Alex Dutton started a club—the Collins High Gay Straight Alliance. Courtney reluctantly agreed to be his vice president. Mr. Abrams, the drama teacher, was the faculty sponsor. Nell and Len were some of the first to sign the petition and they were also founding members. They attended the monthly meetings, which were more about talking shit about popular kids and teachers than getting things done, although they did manage to agree to go to the Portland Gay Rights March in June.

The next month, the freshman girl and some of her friends put out a petition to start their own club. They called it O.W.L.: Other Whites Limited. It got the signatures it needed, but there were no faculty sponsors. Yet no one protested its existence, not even Nell. She knew it was a joke. Was it a dangerous joke? Hell, yes, it was. But that little girl and her friends were on the way out. Nell was sure of it. The tide of hate was turning. Washing away.

And yet, she lived in a world that was mostly white and mostly straight. And mostly men had the power. So what would Camp Morgan's Family Camp be like?

Nell was a feminist. She didn't see why anyone who had a brain would not be. As a child, she'd taken to heart the saying, anything boys can do, girls can do better. And while, now that she was older and wiser, she amended that to anything boys can do girls can do equally well, if not better, she still believed that there was no difference between girls and boys in their potential in general. There was nothing that could not be achieved that was related to a person's sex.

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Wattpad family: Nell's ruminations on the haters continues! No, she doesn't really have a reputation to speak of, or at least, not one that she's aware of. Which is worse: a bad reputation or no reputation at all? Hm...