Jenna's Dilemma Page 8

  Suddenly Tyler pushed himself away from the lifeguard’s chair. Jenna’s heart hit her throat. Across the fire her eyes met Regina’s, then Marta’s. They were watching, too. They were all dying to know what was going to happen.

  Stephanie saw Tyler coming. She stood up a little straighter, tossed her hair behind one shoulder, and smiled slyly at Marissa.

  “Her gnarled old fingers shook with fear as she reached for the doorknob . . .”

  Tyler’s hand went to his pocket. He pulled something out. The envelope! The pink envelope!

  “Her hand grasped the cool brass handle. She closed her eyes and said a prayer . . .”

  Stephanie blinked in confusion. She took the envelope and opened it. Her face went white as she saw the picture. The envelope fluttered to the sand. Jenna looked at Regina and slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Marta already had her face buried in Regina’s back, her shoulders shaking.

  “The little old lady opened the door and—”

  “What is this!?” Stephanie shrieked at the top of her lungs.

  All the campers around the fire jumped. Jenna saw Natalie grab Simon out of fear, then flush and look away. Even Adam looked like he had just seen a ghost.

  “Who did this!?” Stephanie shouted, kicking up sand as she stalked toward the fire.

  “Stephanie, come on,” Tyler pleaded, following her. “It’s no big deal. I mean, I knew it was a joke.”

  It seemed like Stephanie hadn’t even heard him. She stepped into the center of the circle and glared at the girls in her cabin, holding the photo up.

  “I know it had to be one of you!” she shouted. “You’re the only ones who know when I use my mask. So who did it, huh? Who took this picture?”

  Still barely containing her laughter, Jenna glanced at Regina and Marta again. But now, neither one of them was laughing. They both looked upset and guilty. Regina turned accusing eyes toward Jenna, and Jenna knew what she was thinking. She had promised Regina that Stephanie would think the prank was funny. And from the way Stephanie was reacting, it was clear that that was not the case.

  “No one has the guts to confess?” Stephanie asked.

  There was total silence aside from the crackling of the fire.

  “Fine,” Stephanie said, clenching her jaw. “I’m outta here.”

  Then she turned and stalked through the circle and headed back for the bunks. Marissa got up and ran after her, and Tyler shrugged. “Well, I thought it was funny,” he said, causing a quick round of laugher and breaking the tension.

  Jenna leaned back on her elbows and sighed happily. Forget Regina and Marta. It wasn’t her fault they didn’t have the stomach for a good joke. As far as she was concerned, it was another successful prank. At least Jenna Bloom was still good at something.

  chapter NINE

  Jenna could not believe her luck. She was sitting at the social planning committee meeting after dinner on Monday and there were more than a dozen kids sitting around her, boys and girls from every age group. But not one of them was a brother or sister. Stephanie and Adam were both absent. She was actually the only Bloom on the committee.

  “What’s with the freaky big smile?” Chelsea asked her.

  “Just happy to be here,” Jenna said with a shrug as Shira, the camp’s events coordinator, welcomed them.

  Shira was an ever-peppy college student who always wore shirts with Greek letters on them. She had curly black hair, a huge smile, and could talk faster than anyone Jenna had ever met. Just then she was babbling on about how they should all be honored to be part of such an important event.

  “Okay, the first thing we need to decide on is a theme for the event,” Shira said, once she was done with her welcome speech. Her crazy black curls framed her face as she looked up at the table. Her pink-ink pen was poised above a bright green clipboard, ready to take

  suggestions. “Any ideas? I know you kids are just bursting with creativity!”

  “How about The Lord of the Rings?” a boy from 3E suggested. He had a cowlick the size of New Jersey and wore a faded Frodo T-shirt.

  “Nice!” Pete cheered. He, Nate, and a couple of other counselors were hanging out by the wall, listening in on the meeting.

  “Um . . . interesting, but not exactly appropriate for a social,” Shira said, shooting Pete a look. “Good start, though. Anyone else?”

  “Hey, I liked it, buddy,” Pete said, leaning over to slap the Frodo kid on the back. The Frodo kid turned fire-engine red and slumped a little bit, crossing his arms on the table.

  “We could do Hollywood,” Chelsea put in, sitting up straight. “We could have a red carpet, and stars hanging from the ceiling and stuff like that.”

  “Ooh! That could be so glam and romantic,” an older girl said with a grin.

  “I like it!” Shira said. “Anyone else?”

  Romantic? Yuck! Jenna thought, looking around as some of the younger kids squirmed. Who wants romance? Well, besides all my crazy friends who are going with dates.

  “What about a square dance?” a fifth-year girl named Gwendolyn suggested. “We could learn all the different dances and maybe we could have a competition for the best dancers.”

  Jenna sat up a little straighter at this idea. A square dance competition sounded like a lot more fun, and a lot less “romantic” than Chelsea’s Hollywood idea.

  “A square dance! How fun!” Shira trilled, scribbling on her clipboard. “We could get bales of hay and horseshoes and cowboy hats. Great idea, Gwen!”

  “A square dance? That’s so third grade,” Chelsea said, brushing the idea off.

  The third-graders at the table sank lower in their chairs, and Jenna elbowed Chelsea in the ribs. Jenna still remembered how annoying it was when older kids had brushed her ideas off just because she was younger.

  “Ow!” Chelsea said.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” Jenna put in, covering up Chelsea’s complaints. “It would be a lot of fun. Like, all bright and happy and stuff.”

  “Yeah, and learning the dances would be cool,” another girl put in.

  “Would we have to dance?” the Frodo boy asked.

  “Not if you don’t want to,” Jenna said. “But if you wanted to, you would be matched up with someone as your partner. You know, for the contest. Right?”

  Frodo Boy actually brightened. “So I could actually dance without having to go up to a girl and ask her? I like that idea.”

  “Jenna’s got a good point,” Nate said. “A square dance is actually perfect.”

  Jenna felt a little flutter in her heart as she beamed. Nate was agreeing with her! One of the coolest counselors at camp!

  “Come on!” one of the older girls said. “A square dance is silly.”

  “Hey!” Gwen replied.

  “Everyone calm down and listen to what Nate has to say,” Shira suggested. “Nate?”

  “Well, whenever we have one of these things, all the girls stand on one side of the room, and all the boys stand on the other side, and it takes half the night for anyone to get up the guts to ask anyone else to dance,” Nate said. “If we do the square dance, everyone will be dancing all night. I think it would be much more relaxed.”

  Exactly what I was thinking, Jenna thought with a smile. “Plus, lately everyone has felt all this pressure to come with a date,” Jenna said, thinking of how serious Grace had been when she had made Jenna promise to go solo. “If everyone knows they’re going to get to dance with someone even if they don’t already have a date, then everyone could, you know, chill about it.”

  “Well put,” Shira said. “Well, we have two theme ideas. Let’s put it to a vote. All for the Hollywood theme?”

  Chelsea and a bunch of the older girls and guys raised their hands. Shira counted quickly and made a note on her board.

  “And all for the square-dance theme?” she asked.

  Jenna, Gwen, Frodo Boy, and all the younger kids, plus Nate and the rest of the counselors raised their hands. Shira counted
again, but it was already clear which idea had won.

  “Square dance it is!”

  Yes! Jenna thought as a few kids cheered and clapped. Nate grinned at her, and she felt as if she were on top of the world. This was going to be the coolest camp dance-social-thingie ever.

  “I can’t believe you actually voted for that square-dance idea,” Chelsea grumbled as they headed back to their bunk later that night, a few paces behind the group of older girls. “Why don’t we just have a diaper theme?”

  “Come on, Chelsea! It’ll be fun!” Jenna said.

  Jenna knew Chelsea was just upset that her idea had been outvoted, but the square dance was such a better idea. It was more important that the entire camp have a fun social than it was to keep Chelsea happy.

  “Yeah, bales of hay, cornbread and beans, and a bunch of uncoordinated boys bouncing up and down,” Chelsea said, pausing in front of the nature shack. “Yee-ha.”

  “Chelsea . . .”

  “It’s my first date ever, and now I’m always going to remember that Eric took me to a hoedown,” she said.

  “What’s the big deal? You still get to dance with him,” Jenna said. “Even thought I still can’t figure out why you want to.”

  “Whatever, Jenna. You just don’t get it yet,” Chelsea said. “But one day you’re gonna want to go out with a boy. I swear.”

  “Not unless somebody sucks my brain out and replaces it with yours,” Jenna said.

  Chelsea scoffed. She glanced behind her at the nature shack, then looked at Jenna with a sly smile.

  “You know what? It’s too bad there aren’t any animals for our Old McDonald’s farm dance,” she said. “That would just make the whole thing perfect.”

  With that, Chelsea walked off, huffily stomping along the pathway toward the bunks. Jenna, however, couldn’t make herself move. Was Chelsea suggesting what Jenna thought she was suggesting? Whether or not Chelsea had realized it, she had started a brilliant idea forming in Jenna’s mind. She stared at the nature shack, her wicked brain already putting together the details.

  Animals for Old McDonald’s Farm . . .

  She couldn’t. She shouldn’t. Especially not after the way Stephanie had reacted to the last prank. She should be hanging up her thinking cap for the rest of the summer and leaving the pranks to the other kids. Besides, if she kept it up, sooner or later she was going to get caught. And if she got caught, her parents would wig out—not to mention her brother Matt, who had made her promise to be good.

  But it would just be so totally amazing! It would be the biggest, most creative, most legendary prank ever pulled in the history of Camp Lakeview. Jenna would be talked about for years. Everyone would know her name. If she could pull it off, she would be Jenna the Champion Prankster, not just another Bloom.

  It really is a good idea, Jenna thought, smiling. A really good, bad idea ...

  “Okay, I’m totally bored,” Jenna said, slumping back in her chair at the newspaper.

  She looked at Natalie and Alyssa, who were busy going through a stack of photographs for the next issue. All around the room, campers huddled over desks, tapped away at the two ancient computers or flipped through old issues of the camp paper—The Acorn—for ideas. Various bulletin boards hung on the walls displayed unused pictures of campers from every age group, eating lunch, playing volleyball, smiling for the camera. But even with all the activity inside the cabin, it still felt stifling just to be there. Jenna could hear the squeals and shouts of the kids playing soccer on the field outside and was practically green with jealousy.

  “Do we really need to print a list of all the competitions and who’s won them?” Jenna asked, tossing her pen down and stretching out her aching fingers. The fan in the corner swung slowly in their direction, and she lifted her ponytail to feel the cool air on the back of her neck. It actually seemed hotter in here than it was outside. Why wasn’t she out in the sun kicking a soccer ball around right now instead of being cooped up inside doing busy work?

  Natalie stopped tapping her red pencil against the edge of the long wooden table and smirked at Jenna. “I thought you would love doing that list. Your name is on it, like, at least five times.”

  “Yeah. You’re like Queen of Camp Lakeview,” Alyssa put in.

  Jenna couldn’t help smiling at the compliment and almost wished Alex were there to hear it. She did have to admit, her name and her bunk appeared very often on the rundown she was working on. Bunk 3C had not only won the scavenger hunt, but they were in the semifinals of the summerlong capture-the-flag-tournament and had won the girls’ kickball competition. Jenna herself had taken home the blue ribbon in the obstacle course in her age division and second place in the cross-country race (just behind Sarah). It was kind of cool getting so much recognition. Maybe putting this list together wasn’t as boring as she had thought.

  “Okay, but when I’m done with this, I get to do something fun,” Jenna said, sitting up again. She sifted through the stack of slips on which the counselors had written their campers’ many triumphs. Even though Julie’s slip had Jenna’s name all over it, the list couldn’t record Jenna’s biggest news of the summer. She had pulled two huge pranks, and no one had figured out it was her! That should have been front-page news.

  “Hey! Maybe I’ll write a story about all the pranks that have been going on!” Jenna suggested.

  Natalie and Alyssa exchanged a look as the newspaper supervisor, Keith, walked by. Keith was Nate’s older brother and had been a counselor at Lakeview until a couple of years ago. He worked on a computer magazine in South Jersey and was going to be some big reporter one day. He looked just like Nate, only taller, skinnier, and nerdier.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Jenna,” Keith said, pausing by their table. His thick glasses hung on the edge of his nose, making him look like an owl.

  “Why not?” Jenna asked. “It’s an interesting story. And funny. I mean, you guys think those pranks were funny . . . right?” she asked her friends.

  “Yeah . . . sure,” Alyssa responded slowly, looking away.

  “I understand why you think it would be a fun story, Jenna, but this issue is for parents’ day,” Keith said. “I don’t think the parents really want to hear about pranks being pulled on their kids, do you?”

  Jenna flushed slightly. The only parents who would be reading about pranks pulled on their kids would be her own. After all, the only pranks so far this year had been pulled on Adam and Stephanie. And Keith was right. Her parents would not want to hear about those jokes. Not this summer, especially.

  “All right,” Jenna grumbled, never too willing to give up, even when she knew she should. “But I think you should check the Constitution. I know there’s something about the press being able to write whatever they want.”

  Keith smiled. “Well, not whatever they want, but that’s a lesson for another day.”

  Jenna sighed and returned to her repetitive task, wincing when she heard a huge cheer from outside. Someone had clearly scored a goal. Jenna was missing all the fun.

  “Oooh! I love this one,” Alyssa said, holding up a picture across the way. “It’s so artistic.”

  “Totally,” Natalie agreed. “Who took it?”

  Alyssa flipped the photo over. “Adam Bloom,” she read, sounding surprised. “Hey, Jenna, your brother’s a great photographer.”

  Jenna looked up from her work. “Let me see,” she said, sure it was going to be some random picture of Adam’s friends making faces or something.

  Alyssa turned the photo around and held it up for Jenna to see. It was a shot of the lake at sunset with the light reflecting all the trees in the water. Even Jenna had to admit it was totally gorgeous. It was like something a person could frame and hang on the wall.

  “Wow,” she said, burning with jealousy. “That is good. But you can’t use that for the paper, right? I mean, there are no campers in it and it doesn’t show an activity, so what’s the point?”

  “Oh, well, Keith
said we could print some of the more artsy shots in the parents’ day edition,” Natalie said, placing Adam’s photo aside. “You know, to show off to the parents what we’re doing at camp.”

  “Yeah. We’re picking out the best ones,” Alyssa said.

  Jenna shifted in her seat, staring at Adam’s photo. “Oh. So you’re picking that one?”

  “Definitely,” Alyssa said. “That’s the best one yet.”

  “Hey! You’re in photography now, right?” Natalie said, her eyes bright. “Why don’t you hand in some of your pictures?”

  Jenna pressed her pen into the page in front of her, scowling. “I don’t think so,” she said. Natalie and Alyssa had no idea that Jenna had basically underexposed, blurred, or blackened out almost all of her pictures when she’d tried to print them. She just couldn’t seem to get that machine to work right.

  “Why not?” Alyssa asked. “If Adam’s are this good, yours are probably awesome. I mean, he is your brother.”

  “Yeah! Maybe it’s in your blood!” Natalie added with a grin.

  “My pictures stink, all right?” Jenna said flatly. “Can we please talk about something else?”

  Natalie and Alyssa fell silent for a moment. A long moment that seemed to drag out forever. Jenna couldn’t believe she had snapped at her friends again. What was she doing—turning into an even jerkier version of Chelsea or something?

  “Hey! I know what we can talk about!” Alyssa said finally, glancing around the room as if to check if anyone was watching. Jenna leaned forward, curious, as Alyssa bent down and rummaged through her black messenger bag. “Check it out,” she said, lifting a small box just into view at the end of the table. Jenna’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. It was a box of hair dye. Red hair dye.

  “Who is that for?” Jenna asked as Alyssa slipped the box out of sight again.

  “For me,” Alyssa said, grinning wildly.

  Jenna stared at Alyssa’s long black locks. She couldn’t believe she was actually thinking about dyeing her hair! Alyssa had always been a little . . . different, what with her wardrobe of ripped jeans, paint-spattered cargo shorts, and black T-shirts. But this? This was totally off the deep end!