Reality Bites #15 Read online

  Reality Bites #15

  Melissa J. Morgan

  PENGUIN group (2010)

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  * * *

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  chapter ONE

  chapter TWO

  chapter THREE

  chapter FOUR

  chapter FIVE

  chapter SIX

  chapter SEVEN

  chapter EIGHT

  chapter NINE

  chapter TEN

  chapter ELEVEN

  chapter TWELVE

  Teaser chapter

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  chapter ONE

  “This is exactly what I needed,” Chelsea said suddenly as she and the rest of bunk 5A floated lazily on inner tubes during free swim. Gaby glanced over at her warily, not sure she wanted to hear the rest. “Peace, quiet, and some nice hot rays to soak up. I mean, after everything I went through on our camping trip.” Chelsea glanced up to make sure her bunkmates were listening, and Gaby could see that she was trying to look upset. “With Cropsy, and being chased . . . I was so scared, guys.”

  “We know,” Val replied.

  “I mean . . . waking up in an abandoned amusement park? Getting chased by some stranger?”

  Tori nodded. “It must have been tough.”

  “It was, like, horror movie material.” Chelsea shuddered.

  Gaby looked away. She was annoyed. For almost a week now, Chelsea had been regaling them with tales of her horrible nightmares and flashbacks—all results of a scary time Chelsea had had on their campout, when she got lost and ended up in an abandoned amusement park tended by someone who was rumored to be a maniac. And Gaby knew it had to have been pretty scary for Chelsea. But she’d come out of it fine—the guy, Cropwell, had turned out to be harmless, and Chelsea was safely returned to her bunkmates. Is she ever going to get over it? Gaby wondered. For the past two years at camp, Gaby and Chelsea had gotten along okay—they’d had their share of arguments, but underneath it all they had an understanding. This year, though, they’d had a huge fight at the beginning of camp—and they still hadn’t gotten over it. Gaby and Chelsea had barely spoken since the first day.

  But now Gaby’s bunkmates were making little sympathetic pouts and noises. “It must have been really hard,” Brynn cooed. “I mean, we all know Cropsy turned out to be harmless. But still, getting lost in the woods by yourself . . . and then getting chased . . .”

  “It’s really scary,” Priya agreed.

  Chelsea stopped shuddering, and Gaby watched her try to hide a secret little smile as she tossed her head and leaned back against her inner tube. “Thanks, guys. I just, you know—it’s still hard for me.”

  Gaby groaned inwardly. To make matters worse, she knew that Chelsea was lying about all the nightmares and flashbacks. She’d seen Chelsea sleeping soundly one night when she claimed she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep because her flashbacks were so bad. And just like now, she’d catch a satisfied expression cross Chelsea’s face each time she was supposedly freaking out about this or that—because she’d gotten what she wanted from her bunkmates. Attention.

  Gaby wasn’t normally one to hold her tongue, and at any other time she would have let Chelsea know exactly what she was thinking. But things were different at Camp Lakeview this year. Not many girls had come back, and Dr. Steve seemed to think it was because Gaby and her friends were “cliquey” and fought too much. That, combined with the totally freaky time they’d had on their overnight (which had gotten weird in just about every way possible, not just where Chelsea was concerned), had led bunk 5A to decide it was time to get along no matter what. Gaby couldn’t say anything to Chelsea—she would just end up getting branded as “The Mean Girl.”

  “Hey,” Gaby said, hoping to channel her annoyance into something useful. “Now that we’re all rested up, you know what would be fun?”

  Priya, who’d been lying back in her inner tube, half asleep, opened one eye. “What, Gaby?”

  Gaby smiled encouragingly. “A relay race. Right?”

  Slowly, the rest of her bunkmates roused from their relaxation. Gaby could tell from their grumbling that they weren’t entirely sold.

  “A race?” asked Chelsea. “I dunno.”

  “I’m not in my athletic mode,” Nat announced in a sleepy voice. “I’m in my meditation mode. Changing modes is really difficult.”

  “Come on,” Gaby coaxed. She turned to the athletes in the group, the ones she knew would love her idea. “Jenna and Alex, don’t you think a race would be fun? We should get some exercise while we’re out here. We can’t just turn into, like, lake potatoes.”

  Alex started to smile. “Good point,” she said. “A race totally sounds fun. I’ll be a team captain!”

  “Me too,” added Jenna.

  Gaby pushed off her inner tube and stood up in the waist-high water. “Guys, it was my idea, so I think I should be a team captain,” she said cheerfully. This was a great idea—she’d get to lead her team to victory, and everyone would be psyched up. Gaby knew that some of the girls thought she could be bossy or harsh, but she also knew she was a great leader—and the more she could let her friends see that side of her, the better. “And the other captain should be . . .” Gaby turned to face her bunkmates and grinned. Half of them—the ones who didn’t want to have the race in the first place—looked bored. But the other half were smiling, nodding, trying to catch Gaby’s eye so she would pick them. Gaby decided to be nice. “Chelsea.”

  Chelsea grinned, looking surprised and pleased, and got off her inner tube. Pretty soon everyone was doing the same, and they all swam back to the dock to dump their tubes there.

  “All right, let’s choose our teams. Alex,” Gaby called.

  “Jenna,” Ch
elsea replied.

  “Val.”

  “Priya.”

  Pretty soon the bunk was split between the two teams, and even the girls who hadn’t really wanted to race seemed to be getting into it. Gaby chose the course of the race.

  “Each person swims from here to the raft and back, then tags the next person,” she announced. “No skipping turns. You have to hit the raft. And once we start, we don’t stop for any reason.” She tried to look each bunkmate in the eye as she surveyed the crowd. “Got it?”

  “Got it,” agreed Jenna shortly. “Can we start now?”

  “Yeah.” Brynn, who’d ended up on Chelsea’s team with Jenna, smiled. “You’re going down! We’re gonna crush you!”

  “Yeah, right!” Alex cried. “You didn’t even wanna get off your inner tube. The real athletes are all on this team!”

  “What?!” Jenna cried.

  “You know what I mean.” Alex looked away and tried to shrug.

  “Whatever,” Chelsea piped up. “At least we’re not all busy meditating—”

  Gaby rushed to interrupt before a full-fledged fight broke out. “Channel that energy into your swimming, ladies! All right. Alex and Jenna swim first. On your mark . . . get set . . . go!”

  “Come on, Jenna!”

  “Go get ’em, Alex!”

  Priya and Val got into position as Alex and Jenna each slapped the raft and headed back—Alex with a very slight lead over Jenna.

  “Come on, come on, come on!” Gaby shouted to Alex. “Keep it moving! We’ve got to beat Ch—the other team!”

  Val took off, followed closely by Priya. Gaby smiled, watching Val gain a small lead. Everything was going perfectly. She’d put herself in the all-important last slot, so that when her team won, she would be the one to actually win it for them. Her teammates would be thrilled. Glancing over at Chelsea, she noticed a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth.

  Chelsea glanced up just in time to see Gaby watching her. “What are you looking at?” she demanded.

  Gaby bristled. She pasted on a fake smile. “Oh, Chelsea,” she said, “let’s not pick fights with each other. We need peace and quiet, remember?”

  Chelsea didn’t say anything, but her glare was strong enough to burn holes through Gaby’s swimsuit.

  Natalie and Tori were swimming back to the dock now. Natalie swam up to the dock, panting, and tagged Gaby’s ankle. Taking a deep breath, Gaby jumped into the lake. She felt the cool water gush over her head, then pushed back up to the surface and started swimming toward the raft.

  Gaby wasn’t actually that strong of a swimmer, but her team already had a nice lead over Chelsea’s team. She was halfway to the raft when she heard the splash of Chelsea jumping into the lake.

  In a few seconds Gaby was at the raft and reached out her hand to slap it. Then she pushed off the raft and started swimming back. She looked back at the dock, expecting to see Chelsea dog-paddling not too far from where she’d just jumped in. But Chelsea was nowhere to be seen. Gaby paused for a second as a horrible thought crossed her mind. Did she sink or something? She knew Chelsea wasn’t the strongest swimmer, but she’d never thought . . .

  WHACK! SPLASH! Gaby heard someone smack the raft right behind her, and was suddenly totally soaked by a wave of water. Right before her head went under, she saw a blur of red swim by—Chelsea’s red bathing suit! Chelsea was now a few feet ahead of her, swimming with a fierce determination. Since when does Chelsea swim like that? Gaby wondered, diving forward to try to catch up. She paddled wildly, really using all of the energy she had this time. Since you made her mad, she realized, kicking like crazy. You provoked Chelsea, and now she’s mad enough to want to win. Way to go.

  Gaby tried to ignore everything that was going on around her and just concentrate on catching up to Chelsea’s red bathing suit. Soon her lungs were burning, and so were the muscles in her arms and legs.

  “Go, Gaby! Come on, come on, come on!”

  “You can still win this!”

  But no matter what Gaby did, Chelsea remained out in front. Gaby realized that Chelsea was actually a pretty good swimmer when she tried. She just usually didn’t. Smack! With one fluid motion, Chelsea brought her arm up and tagged the dock, winning the race for her team, who all erupted in cheers. “Way to go, Chelsea!” Jenna yelled. “I guess we showed them who the real athletes are.”

  “Hey, c’mon,” called Alex, frowning at her friend. “That’s not what I said. I just meant—you know.”

  “Whatever.” Jenna shrugged and looked away. “We won. That’s what matters.”

  Gaby finally reached the dock, panting and totally spent. Her lungs were on fire, and her throat still burned from breathing in water when she’d been submerged by the Chelsea wave. She grabbed the dock and just hung on, looking down into the water, trying to catch her breath.

  “Tough luck, Gaby,” Chelsea said with a little smile, climbing out of the water and onto the dock. “Maybe try a little harder next time.”

  Gaby coughed and pushed her wet hair back off her face. Since when are you an athlete? she thought, but she bit the words back. She took a few deep breaths.

  “It’s cool, Gaby,” Natalie spoke up, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. “You tried hard.”

  “Yeah, totally,” Candace agreed, reaching down a hand to help Gaby climb onto the dock. “You know, we had fun, that’s what matters.”

  Gaby took Candace’s hand and pulled herself up onto the dock, still panting.

  “You know, everyone has a talent,” Chelsea said with a sickly sweet smile. “I guess yours is . . . something other than swimming.”

  Gaby was on her feet now, reaching for her towel. She was still trying to take deep breaths and blow off Chelsea’s poorly concealed insult. But she felt her face reddening.

  “You know what? Can it!” she cried, wagging her towel in Chelsea’s direction. “I don’t need any encouragement from you.”

  “Come on, Gaby,” Natalie said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “Be nice. They won fair and square.”

  Fair and square. Gaby knew it was true, but she still couldn’t believe it. There had to be some way she could have won. She could still imagine herself reaching the dock first, and her whole team erupting in cheers. Instead she had barked at Chelsea, and now everyone thought she was mean again. There had to be a reason her perfect plan had failed. “Natalie! You lost half our lead over Chelsea’s team!” she cried, not pausing to think it through. It was true, Nat had lost a little bit of their lead. But it hadn’t really been enough to make a difference. “If you were a better swimmer, we would have won.”

  Natalie’s face went from concerned to stunned. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “Look, you’re the one who wanted to have this stupid race in the first place. I did my best.”

  “Natalie swam fine,” Alex agreed, and a bunch of the other girls grunted their agreement. “We all did fine. It was a fair race, and we lost.” She walked over to Gaby and stood right in front of her, looking down. Her eyes weren’t angry—that’s what killed Gaby. They were concerned, like her parents’ had been when she’d gotten busted for cheating on a test back home. It was like she’d said something so crazy it wasn’t even worth arguing about, and Alex was more worried about her. “You need to chill out, Gaby. It was just for fun, anyway. Grow up.”

  Gaby felt like she’d been slapped. She felt tears burning her eyes, but she looked down and picked at her towel so the other girls wouldn’t see them. “Whatever,” she muttered.

  In the awkward silence that followed, one of the counselors blew the whistle that meant free swim was over. All the girls grabbed their towels and flip-flops and started wrapping themselves up, strolling off toward the cabin.

  “The funniest thing happened during the nature walk this morning,” Brynn suddenly piped up.

  “What?” Tori asked eagerly, like she was happy to put Gaby’s weird behavior behind them.

  “Well, we came upon this clearing, right? And there�
�s all this . . .”

  Gaby tuned out and blinked a few times, clearing her eyes. She grabbed her towel and stood up, slowly wrapping it around herself. Her bunkmates strolled casually ahead of her, in twos and threes, all now involved in separate conversations. Gaby trailed along behind them, not really part of any group.

  Nobody gives me any attention, she thought, unless it’s the wrong kind. She sighed. Gaby knew she had a harsh edge—but her friends at home also thought she was funny, and they knew that when she liked you, she was totally loyal. At camp, nobody seemed to understand Gaby. She’d say something snarky and funny, but her bunkmates would only pick up on the snarky part. She knew she was being kind of a jerk about the race—but only because she had really hoped to win, and then Chelsea had gone and said something dumb. She couldn’t resist responding—could she?

  Dragging her feet along the trail, Gaby stubbed her toe on a root. “Ow!” she cried, without thinking about it.

  “You okay?” Alyssa asked, turning from her conversation with Jenna.

  “I stubbed my toe,” Gaby said quietly.

  Jenna raised her eyebrows. “Is it okay? Does it still hurt?”

  Gaby looked down at her toe. Honestly, it felt fine now—just one more toe among the millions that had probably been stubbed on that root. But the way Jenna and Alyssa were looking at her, all concerned and friendly—she wanted them to look at her that way more often.

  “It really does,” she replied, reaching down to touch it. “I hope I didn’t break it!”

  Priya, Val, and Tori paused in their conversation now. “What’s up?” Priya asked.

  “Gaby stubbed her toe kind of hard,” Jenna explained. “She thinks it might be broken.”

  Pretty soon all of the bunkmates were circled around Gaby, all looking sympathetic and concerned.

  “It’s kind of numb,” Gaby lied. “I think I’d better go to the infirmary.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Alex offered. “We should go right away, right after we change!”