Summer 1984

chapter four

"Oh my god!" The sound of a girl screeching joyfully nearly made Jonathan's eardrums burst as he rubbed his eyes blearily, the harsh morning light shining into his brown eyes painfully as he kicked the blue sheets off of his batman pajama pants.

Whitley's bed was already empty and made up neatly, which Jonathan had slowly come to figure out was a part of her morning routine, which also included an alarm clock that had some sort of bed shaker attached to it. Which also, had given Jonathan the fright of his life when Whitley was testing out the alarm on the first day.

"I love Van Halen!" The sleepy boy's ears perked, hearing the name of the familiar rock band as he opened the door to the camper's part of the cabin. The girls were sitting on the bunk beds, on the floor, and one of them, the Van Halen girl was sitting on a purple suitcase as she chatted excitedly. Jonathan searched his sleepy brain, as he tried to place the names with the girls in the room.

"What's your favorite song by them?" The caramel haired girl asked Janice if Jonathan was guessing right. He still had a long way to go with remembering all the names of the campers as well as a few of the counselors.

"Runnin With The Devil, for sure." The girl on the purple suitcase answered, her voice rising slightly as she nearly tipped off her suitcase. "What about you?" She questioned in return, standing up from the suitcase.

"Hot for Teacher," Janice answered, as she fixed the covers on her bed, "it's not given enough love in my opinion." Thank you! Jonathan agreed with the younger girl internally, surprised that she was versed in Van Halen. Maybe he could forget the sewing thing.

"Mary, I love your bracelets, where did you get them?" Lucy asked, looking down from her top bunk at the girl on the suitcase, Mary. Jonathan now placed her name, she was the one whose name was Mary Anne but preferred to be called Mary.

Mary looked down at the colorful tiny intricately beaded bracelets on her chocolate-colored skin before responding. "My mom makes them and sells them at flea markets every Saturday. She taught me how to make them too." Mary loosened one of the bracelets and held up a yellow one with black beads making an 'M' for Mary, Jonathan presumed as he walked around the girls but not before being seen.

"Hey, Jon!" Lucy greeted, waving. Jonathan gave her a small smile.

"Hey, do you guys know where Whitley went?" He asked, running a finger through his tangled from sleeping hair.

"Whitley went with Emma and Betsy to breakfast just a couple of minutes ago." Jonathan turned around to see the tallest girl Lea, coming out of the bathroom with a toothbrush and hairbrush in hand. "We weren't ready so we said we'd wait for you to get up."

"Oh, ok." Jonathan wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with four thirteen-year-old girls. Jesus Christ, he actually wouldn't mind his little sister popping up about now. "Let me just put on some actual pants. Then we'll go," he stated, a flimsy finger gun appearing in his hand before he turned around, mentally punching himself for being such an idiot.

❂

Ten minutes later, Jonathan was yawning his way through the breakfast line as he dropped a few blueberry pancakes on his paper plate, all of the other counselors had clearly gotten up before him, like Whitley and were all sitting and eating already whilst he was stuck in the line of young girls laughing and squealing.

Making his way to the table where Whitley sat with a few others, Jonathan made a point of not sitting close to Scott, he didn't want to get beaten up by the tall boy so early in the day.

"Morning sleepyhead," Jonathan looked over to Whitley who had a small grin on her face as he sat down next to Rena at the edge of the table. He rolled his eyes at her small grin as he took a bite of the syrup drenched pancake.