Cabin Nine [[Revised Edition] Under FURTHER Revision]

Six

Twelve Years Old

Thank God camp is more interesting this year. I mean, it's our first year of teen camp. It's not supposed to be boring like last year. Even though it's pretty much just junior camp with a lower bedtime.

Jack is the youngest person in the whole camp. I like to make fun of him for it. But we both make friends with a lot of older kids. Age doesn't seem to matter as much here.

A bunch of the seventeen-year-old girls like to talk with Jack about hair care. I honestly had no idea he put so much effort into his hair. It looks good all the time, though, so obviously I should've known.

A list of things that are different from junior camp:

You can bribe the cabin inspectors to give you a higher score. They inspect every day and judge on cleanliness and organization, both of which are talents that Jack does not possess. But I'm clean enough for the both of us and that, paired with our bribes, gets us into the top three places every day.

That's another one. It's a contest. The ranking is who gets to eat first at lunch, so Jack is overly competitive in the hopes of getting to eat first every day. He's always hungry, but I think it's more so he can be weird in front of the whole camp, even just for a minute. He thrives off of the attention.

For the Wacky Wednesday contest, you stay in costume all day and announce the Saturday schedule at the formal service via interruption.

The counselors give us bonus points for being good people. I held the door open for Jack once and a girl counselor gave my team an extra ten points.

And the last thing. We have teams now. And point systems. And cheers. All of those are contests and give points for enthusiasm. Which Jack and I are very good at.

The very first thing Jack did when we got here was ask Hunter if they still do the Wacky Wednesday contest. They do, obviously, and Jack says that we'll have more competition this year. That's not really a problem, though, because Jack stepped it up for the first year of teen camp.

He's wearing this god-awful red and purple and yellow plaid three-piece suit with a bright yellow fake flower pinned to the lapel. I can tell he had it tailored to fit him. The pants are tight until it hits his knees and then they flare out like a ballgown. Like blown-up bell-bottoms. His dress shirt is a disgusting green, which perfectly matches his tie. The atrocity that he calls a tie falls down halfway to his shoes and is decorated with various food splatters and smears. One presumably ketchup stain looks suspiciously like blood.

And he's given me heels.

No wonder he had me practice all year.

I'm wearing ruby red sensible heels and a nun costume. Like, the scary one. It ends a few inches below my knees, showing off the hotdog socks I'm wearing. He's removed the hood thing from the costume and replaced it with a "modified" sombrero. Which basically means that he made it weird. He somehow attached sixteen worms on a string. I don't know how the hat hasn't collapsed. He must've reinforced it over the year or something. Is that even a thing? I don't know.

We win the contest by 113 votes.

It gains 400 points for our team.

I don't think I like the team system as much as I could. Jack and I are on the red team. He likes to complain that he doesn't look good in red.

But I think our team tolerates us more now. That's something. We earned ourselves a 200 point lead with the costumes and inspection points. The blue team is bitter about their defeat. I'm sure they thought they made a valiant effort, but no one could outdo Jack's weirdness.

I really don't understand why they don't like us. We cheer the loudest and get points. We win games with them and get points. We get bonus points for being polite to adults. We win a ton of points for cabin inspection every day. We even listen during the sermons now.

They never like us. Nobody ever does. It's not new. I think it's just now getting to me. Jack seems to be perfectly fine. If he's sad about it, he doesn't show it. He's really good at hiding his emotions. Especially when it could affect me negatively. He barely even reacted when I broke my wrist. He just told me I was gonna be okay and apologized for not being there. Apparently, he was busy having his first kiss. For some reason, the idea of it makes my stomach churn.

And the last first.

This is the first year that Jack actually hits someone. He sucker-punched a sixteen-year-old guy because he heard him badmouthing me. Me. He hit someone for me.

I don't know how to feel about that. I'm just worried right now. They wouldn't kick Jack out, would they?

Would they?

He barely gets off with a warning. A really strong one. Jack says it's only because we're so young. The guy he hit was also given a warning about bullying but he had to have a talk with Jason and the guest speaker about spreading rumors. I can't remember his name. I think it might be Tom.

We end the week on a high note. Our team wins by 570 points. We all get red balloons for the celebration. Jack blows his up and lets it fly all over the place. A bunch of people do that. One hits a blue team girl in the face and knocks her glasses off.

Jack and I leave camp together for the second time. He sits in the back of the van with me. There's enough room for us to sit there alone. It's a nice change from Klein and Mark. A lot of the youth group is still going to junior camp, which gives us about three years of this before someone is shoved back here with us.

I'm so glad that Jack goes to my church now. He gets to experience the next Sunday when all of us camp kids sit up in the first few pews so Pastor Travis can "recognize" us. When Jack's name is called, he stands and howls and does that stupid, fancy bow that always makes him fall over. People laugh and it's so yellow.

The rest of the year is all homework and ice skating. Jack is still kind of really horrible, but at least he's not on the wall the whole time this year. He still makes fun of me for taking figure skating lessons and participating in competitions, but he's perfectly content to sit there and watch. The one time he decides to go to the arcade to wait for my turn, I break my wrist. He never leaves the arena again.

I don't know. I think I really like it when he watches. It makes me want to not mess up. I mess up anyway. That's just how I am. But I really like it when he's there.