Oak and Strider exchanged a look.
"Okay, Camp Morgan counselors, stand up!" Strider boomed. The young people did as they were told, some hesitantly, others with real pep. The room filled with the noise of scraping chairs.
Nell was happy to stretch.
"So you're going to introduce yourself with a little gesture, and we're all going to repeat it," Oak said.
"I'll go first," Strider said. "I'll say, 'Hi, I'm Strider,' then you guys'll say, 'Hi, Strider!' And repeat my movement.
"Hi, I'm Strider!" He waved and played an air guitar.
"Hi, Strider!" Everyone waved back and played their own air guitars.
After the resident camp staff was done introducing themselves, it was time for the program staffers. The aquatics team introductions went off just as they had rehearsed them, everyone a little stiff and embarrassed, probably the least cool of the teams. Or maybe they were too cool because they had not tried to be completely goofy, as the wranglers had done. The Horse Team had put on ten-gallon hats, chaps, and cowboy boots, and sang a song to the tune of "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" in heavy "western" accents to introduce themselves. Very uncool. Yet, very camp. So: cool.
For their intros, the naturalists sprayed each other with bug spray and took swigs from canteens, dabbing their foreheads with bandanas, which they also wore Rambo-style around their foreheads and on their wrists like cuffs. Nell was surprised to see how uninhibited Cash was, making faces and hamming it up for laughs. And he got big ones. She glanced at Izzy, who guffawed like everyone else—no special twinkle in her eye at Cash's goofball antics. Maybe they were just friends.
No surprise, everyone cheered when Cash stood up again to join the arts and crafts team. He was wearing a tie-dyed Camp Morgan t-shirt, and Nell noticed for the first time that the rest of the arts and crafts team was also dressed in tie-dye. Of course they were. Tie-dye was one of those arts and crafts that every camper loved and stressed over: would their spiral be tight like the ones in stores?
The A-n-Cs got into various quick costumes before slinging their arms overs each other's shoulders. They sang a song that was probably titled, "Camp Morgan Staffers," with the refrain:
We are Camp Morgan staaaaaffers,
Nothing else we'd rather beeeee!
If I weren't a Morgan staaaaaffer,
And then one of them would jump forward from the lineup and announce:
A _______ I would be!
Filling in the blanks with things like hippie, firefighter, stewardess, waiter, carpenter, birdwatcher. Cash played the firefighter, and he was very dashing. Nell could almost imagine he was putting out a fire, even though he was just miming holding a life net and still wearing tie-dye. The firefighter helmet and coat seemed genuine, though.
After the introductory skits, which had been incredibly entertaining, the Morgan summer staff spent the next half hour playing ice breakers. Then it was time for some of the boring, trying stuff. They broke up into small groups to discuss their "feels," each led by one of the directors and randomly picked out by calling out numbers. Nell was not in an earnest, sharing type of mood, but she tried to be polite, and that was saying a lot for her.
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Wattpad friends! Who likes to tie dye? I always enjoy seeing what I might create, and it never ever comes out the way I hoped it would. The above was not made by yours truly, although I have tried my hand at spirals. I usually don't get enough dye on it, or muddle the colors up. Oh, well, maybe some day, I'll be satisfied with my tie dye.
YOU ARE READING
Family + Camp (working title)
Teen FictionIt's 1990, and Penelope Annabelle Min-Yi Harte, known to her friends and family as Nell, is not at all thrilled to be starting over. It's the summer before her senior year-at a new camp. That's right: nearly all of her life, Nell's dad has run a sum...
