Rumors (5 page)

“… some special reason to make phone calls …”

“Yeah, and where is she really from? I mean, she obviously isn't …”

I was pressing my ear against the crack of the door, straining to hear.

Who was it? Boo? Shelby? Betsy? I just couldn't tell. And it didn't help that now their voices were drowned out by other sounds. Someone had turned on the water at one of the faucets. Then there was the sound of the paper towel roller being rotated.

I pictured all seven of the Cabin 4 girls standing around washing their hands. Talking, talking, talking. About me.

Footsteps. They had all walked out, and everything was quiet again.

Everything except for the sound of my pounding heartbeat.

“Lay down your rifles and put your safeties on,” Jamie, the riflery counselor, told us. We put our rifles down and slid the safeties forward. “Okay to retrieve your targets.”

There were about nine of us at the riflery range, and we all climbed off the wooden platform and walked across the clearing to take down our targets. I was thrilled when I got to mine. In the center of the paper target was a black circle with a bunch of little rings inside it. I'd hit one bullet in the eight-point ring, which was just two rings away from the center bull's-eye. Not bad, considering this was the first time I'd ever shot a gun.

The riflery range was hidden in the woods down a little dirt path. There was a wooden platform with a roof over it and a row of mattresses for us to lie on. That had surprised me—that we were supposed to lie down on our stomachs and prop ourselves up on our elbows to fire the rifles.

Jamie had given us some basic instructions on how to load the rifles, aim, and fire, and then we'd spent the rest of the activity period on target practice. It was actually pretty cool.

Off in the distance we could hear the bell ringing to signal the end of activities. As I walked along the dirt path that led back into camp, I was in a good mood. It was sunny and warm, and I passed by a few girls in swimsuits wrapped up in towels who were just leaving the lake. One of them made eye contact with me as I passed by.

“Excuse me! Can I have your—”

“Stop! That's mean.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see what was going on. The tall girl named JD was laughing and trying to say something, but she couldn't because her friend Courtney had covered JD's mouth with her hand.

JD pulled Courtney's hand away and shouted at me, “Can I have your autograph?”

Courtney looked embarrassed. “Just ignore her.” She frowned at JD and shook her head.

I stared at them, trying to figure out what was going on.

“You'll have to excuse her. She's just being a goofball,” another one of her friends said. JD seemed to think something was hysterically funny, but her friends were holding her back. Once they were a few steps ahead of me, they started talking again, but they still gave me looks as they walked away.

What was that all about? There was obviously some kind of inside joke they were all in on. And that joke had something to do with me.

I could feel my stomach tying itself in knots. Why? Why were they talking about me? It seemed like they were making fun of me.

But I barely knew those girls.

It was bad enough that the girls in my own cabin had been talking about me. I'd tried not to think about it because every time I did, I just got upset. I'd been staying away from them as much as possible and going to activities alone.

But now what? Was it starting to spread? Autograph? Why would she say that? Every muscle in my body was starting to tense up as I walked.

Was it my clothes? It seemed like everyone was always talking about how nice and new my clothes were.

I was getting sick of all the attention people around here paid to clothes. Yesterday Devon had made fun of Maggie for wearing the same shirt two days in a row. And during evening program last night, I'd listened to Jennifer and Reb, a couple of girls from Cabin 1, laughing at another girl, Melissa, behind her back because she was wearing a T-shirt with ponies on it.

It seemed like no one's clothes were right. I didn't realize how lucky I'd been at school, having to wear a uniform.

I just wanted to be alone and practice. I knew that would make me feel better. I ran up to the cabin and grabbed my sheet music out of my trunk. Then I went straight to the lodge.

The minute I sat down on the bench, I could feel myself relaxing a little. This piano was old and out of tune. The high B and C didn't work, but it was better than nothing.

I loved having the whole empty lodge to myself. A warm breeze blew in through the open windows, and as I started playing, the sound of the notes filled the high ceiling overhead.

I ran through a few scales and some left-hand arpeggios to warm up. It seemed strange to be practicing without my metronome. My teacher, Ms. Lerman, always wanted me to practice with it, but in the craziness of packing, I'd forgotten to bring it with me.

I loved Ms. Lerman. She was really challenging, but she was also cool. I was going to miss my piano teacher so much. I wondered what my new teacher would be like.

Thinking about Ms. Lerman reminded me of my first piano recital with her, when I'd played the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. So now I started playing that piece from memory.

I loved the way it started off pianissimo. “Soft and still as the night itself,” Ms. Lerman would remind me. It wasn't very hard to play, but there were a couple of places where I had to stretch a ninth, and that was tough to do.

But I really liked this piece, and sometimes when I was playing, I almost felt like I was in a trance.

Until I heard the sound of a board creaking behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Shelby leaning against the open door.

“Don't stop. I like that song,” she told me. “Do you mind if I listen?”

“Of course not,” I said, although I did kind of prefer being alone while I practiced.

Shelby moved quietly across the floor until she was standing by the edge of the piano.

I liked Shelby better than nosy Boo and chatty Laurel-Ann. But I wondered if she'd been one of the girls talking about me in the bathroom the other day. I thought I'd recognized her voice. I just couldn't be sure.

I started over at the beginning. I concentrated on keeping the triplet line flowing and was deep into the movement when I heard Shelby making little sniffling noises.

I glanced up. Was she actually crying? She was. She really was. I looked down at the keyboard and acted like I hadn't noticed.

Should I say something? Stop playing? Try to comfort her?

I didn't really know what to do. So I played to the end of the movement. Then I just sat there quietly with my fingers still resting lightly on the keyboard. Neither one of us said anything at first.

Shelby rubbed her eyes roughly with both hands. She'd stopped sniffling, and I could tell she was trying to get her tears under control. “My mom always played that song on our piano,” she said finally.

“It's one of my favorite songs too,” I said. I fingered the keys delicately so I wouldn't have to look at her. “You know, I feel homesick too. Especially at night.”

There was a long pause. “I'm not homesick. I'll tell you something.” Shelby pushed her bangs out of her eyes and gave me a quick look. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course,” I said, feeling my heartbeat speed up. Was this something I really wanted to hear?

“My mom died last year. Cancer.”

I sat there frozen, my fingers hovering just above the keys. I'd made a little sound when I'd sucked in my breath, but now I was absolutely silent. I had to swallow before I could say anything.

“I'm so sorry,” I said in a scratchy voice that didn't sound like me at all.

It was just so awful. And here I'd been feeling sorry for myself because we were moving and I had to switch piano teachers.

“Please don't tell anyone, okay? I don't like to talk about it. And when people find out, they're like, ‘Oh my God, that's so sad!' That just makes it worse.”

“I promise I won't tell anyone.” I fingered a few chords very softly so I'd at least have something to do with my hands.

Shelby slowly let out her breath. “I think I feel better
now. It was sad hearing that song again, but it reminded me of her. And that's good.”

I cleared my throat. “I try to practice a little every day. I don't mind if you come in and listen.”

She smiled at me. “Thanks. Maybe I will.”

I was glad that she trusted me enough to tell me something so private.

There were already enough gossipy girls in this camp. And one thing I was absolutely sure about: I was never going to be one of them.

“Is this the group going to Angelhair Falls?” I asked. About five or six girls were standing around waiting in a shady spot behind the dining hall. I'd heard this was where we were supposed to meet for the hike to a nearby waterfall.

“Yep, you're in the right place,” said Rachel Hoffstedder, one of the hiking counselors. She had short brown hair, and I was about two or three inches taller than she was, but she gave me a friendly smile. All the counselors seemed nice. Much nicer than the campers.

The girls in the group were talking and laughing together, but I stood a few feet away from them and
kept quiet. I was glad nobody from our cabin was going on this hike.

Things hadn't gotten any better. It seemed like every time I walked into the cabin, everyone would stop talking. I was almost positive they were talking about me. But I still had no idea what they were saying. I tried not to think about it.

This was only temporary. One whole week was almost over. Meanwhile, I kept busy by going to activities.

“Okay, this looks like a pretty good group,” Rachel said. “Everybody stick together and stay on the trail.”

She led us up the hill past the camp office into a patch of woods, where a little dirt trail was visible among the trees. Pretty soon the bright afternoon sunlight was blocked out by all the tree branches overhead as the trail wound deeper and deeper into the forest.

Under our feet was a thick layer of dead leaves that made the ground feel spongy. The trail was so overgrown that twigs and branches were constantly scratching my arms and legs as I pushed past them. I learned to reach out for a branch in front of me and hold on to it as I passed so I didn't get swatted.

“Remember two years ago when we came on this
hike?” a girl named Darcy asked her friend Nicole. They were just behind me on the trail.

“Oh, yeah! Wasn't that the time you slipped in and got your shoes soaking wet as soon as we got to the falls?”

They kept talking, and even though I wasn't the least bit interested in their conversation, it was impossible for me not to overhear them. They seemed like best friends, and of course that made me think of Danielle.

What would it be like if Danielle or one of my other good friends like Maricela or Emily was here with me right now? For a second I imagined all these strange girls replaced with my own friends instead. A tight feeling came into my throat, and I suddenly wished I'd never come on this hike.

It would've been better to spend the afternoon alone in the lodge, playing the piano. Why was it that I never felt lonely when I was alone, only when I was with other people?

It could be worse, I reminded myself. We could get lost out here and have to depend on our own survival skills. And if you were ever lost in the woods, you'd have to eat disgusting things like caterpillars and grubs and tree bark. I knew that for a fact because I'd seen it on TV.

And since I could never eat those things, even if my life depended on it, I'd waste away to nothing. But being the skinniest in the group might be helpful in some cases. Like during a bear attack. But then it would be tough to explain why I was the only one who didn't get eaten.