Fearless (15 page)

“Admit it. You don't believe I'll do it,” I told Molly.

She just laughed. She'd been laughing at me all day about this. It was late in the evening, and we were walking down the hill to the dining hall. The second dance with Camp Crockett was about to start as soon as all the boys arrived.

“I'm going to do this. I'm so sure I'm going to do this we should make a bet.”

“What kind of bet?” asked Molly.

She patted her short hair carefully to make sure it was all in place. She looked nice tonight in a loose, hippie-style dress that was the same color as the ocean. I'd decided not to wear anything that would glow in the dark, so I had on a short khaki skirt and a white tank top.

“If I ask a boy to dance tonight, you have to do my
chores all next week,” I said.

“Not for a week! That's too much.”

“Okay, then how about for three days?” I suggested. I loved the idea that for the next three days of inspection, Molly would have to do my cleaning job for me. I hoped at least one of those days she'd have to sweep Side B, because I hated that job more than any of the others.

“Make it two,” said Molly. “And let's shake on it.” So we did.

“If I don't ask a boy to dance tonight, I'll do your job for two days. But if I do, you'll have to do my job for two days.”

“Deal.”

In front of us, Reb, Kelly, and Jennifer were deep in the middle of a conversation, and I couldn't keep from feeling a wee bit jealous, knowing Kelly was going to be dancing with Ethan tonight. He'd written her a letter a couple of days ago, just like he'd written me last summer.

Molly knew it had sort of depressed me, so today she'd been bugging me nonstop about how she didn't want me hiding behind her all night, refusing to dance at all. But she didn't need to worry about that.

I'd made up my mind that tonight's dance was going
to be different. I couldn't stop thinking about what she'd said about how I'd probably back out of auditioning for the play. What if she was right?

What if I talked about doing it, but then backed out at the last minute?

I really needed to practice being fearless. And the dance seemed like a good place to start. It was like Molly had said, what was the worst thing that could happen?

But the second we walked into the dining hall, I started to get nervous. The boys weren't even here yet, and already I was feeling all shaky inside.

“Okay, you've got to let me do this my own way,” I whispered to Molly as we stood around in the crowd of girls. “I get to pick out who I'm going to ask, and how and when I'm going to do it.”

“Whatever. I'm really looking forward to sleeping late next week. Try not to wake me up when you're taking the trash out, okay? Hey, look. Some vans just pulled up.”

Now the boys were coming in through the dining hall doors. I'd been thinking about my strategy for tonight. People were always saying you should be yourself whenever you were meeting new people, but I didn't think that was very good advice for what I was
about to do. I was not the type to be bold and talk to a boy first.

But if I pretended I was someone else, then maybe I could act bold. This would be good practice if I really wanted to get into acting later. That way, Jordan wouldn't have to ask someone to dance. Maybe I'd walk up to a boy and act like I was Molly instead.

Now the music was playing, and people were gradually starting to dance. I noticed a boy who wasn't talking to any other guys at the moment. He was very normal-looking, with brown hair and a friendly face, not too tall, not too short. He had on a gray Old Navy T-shirt, and for whatever reason I decided that he'd be the one. I turned to Molly.

“All right. I'm going to do it. Are you watching?”

She had a really evil grin on her face. “Go ahead. I can't wait to see this.”

So I started walking toward him, but of course, wouldn't you know it, my internal organs started acting up. My heart was racing, and I suddenly realized that I could pretend to be Molly all night long, but I couldn't borrow her heart for the evening. So was this really going to work?

Plus, as I got closer to him, he looked right at me. His eyes got a little wider, like he was wondering what
I was about to do. I looked past his head to make him think I'd just seen someone else I knew. Then I walked by him and slowly made my way through the people lined up around the dining hall.

Okay, that hadn't worked. I was still moving through the crowd when I felt someone grab my arm. “Good job! I'm so proud of you,” said Molly with a laugh.

I turned around and faced her. “Okay, okay. So I didn't ask that guy. I was about to. But then he . . . looked at me.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I started to laugh.

“He looked at you? Oh my gosh, I can't believe he looked at you! Why don't you try blindfolding the next guy?” said Molly.

“Stop making fun of me!” I yelled. But I was still laughing. It was pretty funny. “Why can't I do this, Molly? Why can't I be brave like you and just walk up to a boy?”

She shook her head. “I don't know. Just do it.”

I sighed and looked around for my next victim. I noticed that Kelly and Ethan had found each other again, but I wasn't going to let that get to me. Then I saw the redheaded guy who thought I had blisters on my brain. He was out.

“Okay, I'm going to try this again,” I said, once I'd
picked out a short boy with black hair.

“Good luck,” Molly said as I walked away from her.

Stay calm
, I told myself.
Don't even think about what he might say. Just do it.
This boy was watching all the dancers, so at least he wasn't looking at me as I walked up to him.

But when I was just a few feet away from him, two other boys came over and started talking to him. So I veered away and made a wide circle around all three of them.

When I saw Molly in the crowd again, she was bent over double, laughing at me. Then she held up her hands and pretended to sweep with an imaginary broom.

Why was I always saying I was going to do something, but when the time came, I'd back down? I just had to do this. I had to show Molly that in some situations, I could be fearless.

So I spun around where I was standing and just did it. “Do you want to dance?” I asked a boy next to me. One second I'd just laid eyes on him, and the next second I'd blurted it out. Brown eyes, braces, blue T-shirt. That's all I saw.

“Uh, no thank you.” Then he walked away.

No thank you? No thank you?

I couldn't believe what had just happened! I felt a blush start at the top of my head and seep all the way
down to my toenails. Did I have bad breath? Did I seem desperate? Did he just hate the sight of my face?

Molly must have seen what had happened, because she came right over to me. “You did it! I thought you'd back down, but you did it!”

“He said no!” I whispered hoarsely to her.

“So what? You asked him! That was the bet, and you won!”

“But Molly, he said no! I'm so humiliated!” I covered my face with my hands, and I could feel the heat radiating like a sunburn through my fingers.

“It doesn't matter. You did it, and I'll do your job for two days next week. Now go ask someone else,” she demanded.

“No! Not after what just happened!” I still had my face covered.

“Why not? Was it that bad? How is him turning you down any worse than you turning down that guy at the last dance?”

I lowered my hands from my face and looked at her. “Good point. Okay. Maybe I'll try it again. But after this, I'm done.”

The next boy I picked out had short blond hair and lots of freckles. I slowly walked toward him, glancing at the dancers so he wouldn't know I was headed in his
direction. I planned to act like Molly when I asked him. Friendly, cheerful. Smiley. But then something completely unexpected happened.

When I opened my mouth to talk to him, Wayward's voice came out. “Hey, how's it going? Feel like dancing?” I literally sounded just like her. All I needed was a plaid hat.

I almost laughed out loud over that. Maybe there really was something to this acting thing.

“Um, sure. Okay,” he said.

Oh my God! It worked! It worked!

As we were walking out to the dance floor, I could see Molly smiling at us.

“What's your name?” he asked over the noise of the music.

For a second I almost said “Wayward” until I caught myself. “Jordan. What about you?”

“Sean.”

And then we just started talking. About everything. About Camp Crockett and Pine Haven, and the activities we did. He was really into kayaking, and I told him about riding. He actually sounded interested.

But the whole time we were talking, I just kept thinking one thing.

I did it! I did it! I'm fearless!

“Let's put the costumes on the bench, and then we can sort through them to see what's here,” I suggested.

“Are you sure we're even going to need costumes?” asked Molly, dropping the armload of assorted clothes she was holding.

“Yes, it'll be a lot more fun with costumes,” I told her. I dumped my load beside hers. Melissa and Kelly piled the stuff they were carrying on top.

Rachel and Tis had sent the four of us down to the lodge to plan something for the talent show later in the week. Rachel had told us we could raid the costume box in Junior Lodge to see if we could find anything. So that had been our first stop. Then we'd carried the stuff over to our lodge to begin making plans.

But the problem we were having was the same one
we always had whenever our cabin had to plan something together. Nobody was ever interested in doing it but me. Ordinarily, Erin and Brittany would be willing to get involved, but they were about to leave for a hiking overnight.

Reb and Jennifer weren't around, and even though Kelly had come with us, she obviously wasn't in the mood to do any planning right now. Nobody was really sure what was going on, but she and Reb had had a major fight during the dance on Saturday.

“This is going to be so much fun!” I predicted.

“Yeah, let me know if you want me to do anything,” said Kelly. Then she walked out of the lodge and sat down by herself out on the porch.

“Great. She's going to be a lot of help,” Molly murmured.

“Don't worry about it,” I told her. “The three of us can come up with some ideas.”

“I'll help,” offered Melissa. “I don't want a lot of lines. But I
will
help.”

“I think this is going to be great,” I told the two of them. “Usually when we're planning a skit for evening program, they give us half an hour at the most to come up with something. But we've got till Thursday. And
we've got costumes!”

“You love this kind of thing, don't you?” asked Molly.

I smiled at her. “You know I do.”

Molly, Melissa, and I sat down in a semicircle on the wooden floor of the empty lodge.

“Okay, we know we want to do a skit or a song or something that we can do as a group, right?” I asked.

Every cabin in camp had to enter at least one act. Sometimes one person would volunteer to do something, like play an instrument or do a gymnastics routine. Whitney had told us this morning that she was going to play the violin.

Personally, I thought it was kind of boring to listen to someone playing an instrument, even if they were really good. I wanted to do something fun that would involve as many of our cabinmates as possible.

“Okay, let's look through these costumes and see if they give us any ideas,” I suggested. I grabbed a black top hat out of the pile and put it on. “Do I look presidential?” I asked.

Molly pulled out a pink feather boa and wrapped it around her neck. “I should've worn this to the dance,” she said with a laugh.

We spread out all the assorted pieces and looked
them over. There were lots of old-lady dresses, and some suit coats and hats. We also came across a Batman mask, a black, curly wig, some clown shoes, and some Raggedy Ann hair.

“We're never going to be able to do anything with all this stuff,” said Molly. I had to admit, it was a pretty weird mix.

“Oh, come on, there's a lot we could do. Batman versus a killer clown. Abraham Lincoln and a dance hall girl. With all these dresses and suits, we could even do a scene from
Our Town
.”

I was digging through the pile when I saw some kind of leopard-skin print, so I pulled that out. Then I saw another one. I held them up and looked them over.

Two leopard-skin costumes.

“No, I got it. How about this?” I said, holding them up for the rest of them to see. “What about a jungle theme?”

“You know, you're really good at this,” said Molly. “You can look at all this junk and actually come up with some ideas.”

I laughed. “Okay, so there are a couple of ways we could do this,” I said. “One way would be to do something with these old suits and dresses, like some scene from the past. I'm not sure what. The second would be
to do some kind of jungle theme.”