The girl in the sharp green wheelchair muttered, “I’m a little scared too. I’m not sure I like it here.” I glanced over and she gave me a small nod. I smiled back, I hoped encouragingly.
Her counselor squatted beside her. “I completely understand. But let us show you around, try out a few activities, okay?”
The girl’s chin trembled, but she didn’t say no.
Her counselor introduced herself next. She was short and muscular and had reddish-orange hair and a face full of freckles. “Hey, everybody! I’m Kim, and I’m from Kalamazoo, Michigan. And you guessed it,” she said with a laugh, “my favorite letter of the alphabet is K! My mom is deaf and my dad is not, so I grew up knowing both spoken as well as sign language. And this lovely lady in the snappy green wheelchair”—she nodded to the girl beside her—“is my camper friend Karyn, spelled with a K, of course!”
Karyn, the girl who was ready to get out of here, managed a smile and a wave. Her wheelchair was really cool—the frame sparkled. She didn’t look like she had cerebral palsy like me, but it was clear she wasn’t gonna walk out of here on her own steam.
“Hi, I’m Karyn with a K”—flashing a shy smile at Kim—“and I’m eleven and three quarters. I’ve never been to camp before.” She paused, then said in a rush, “The upstairs part of my body works fine. The downstairs part—not so much. They call it spina bifida. I call it a pain in the butt. And I really think I want to go home. Can somebody call my mom?”
The other two girls’ eyes went wide, but Kim, all calm, simply said, “I totally get it. Let’s just wait until later this afternoon to call her, okay? We’ve got lunch and swimming coming up. How about we call her after that?”
Karyn said okay, but she didn’t look happy.
The next counselor quickly jumped in. “Hello, fellow Falcons! My name is Sage. And this is just my second time here at camp. I like to fix computers and play online games when I’m not camping in the fresh air. And I love music!”
That drew some claps. I was thinking, Oh, good. Some music kids here.
Sage, who was lanky and totally toned, went on. “I guess my claim to fame is that I once tried out for the Olympics. Swimming; my specialty was breaststroke and back stroke.”
“Ooh! Tell us more about that!” Kim said.
“Well, to be honest, I didn’t make the team,” Sage said with a shrug. “I wasn’t fast enough. The girls who made the team were like sharks. I was more like a sea turtle, comparatively.” She let out a laugh. “But then I was hired to help them train, and I cheered them on, and when one of the girls from my hometown won a bronze medal, man, was I proud!”
Hmm, I never thought about that—you almost never hear about the folks who didn’t make the team. Sportscasters aren’t ever interviewing them. And yet, without someone like Sage, the Olympians might not be able to get where they get. Interesting!
“Introduce me! Introduce me!” the girl wearing the cool pink glasses piped up.
Sage grinned at her. “You betcha! And sitting next to me, with the glossy black hair and infectious smile, is Athena! On the walk over here, she told me she wants to be an artist. She’s going to love Messy Paint Day!”
Athena popped up and took several bows. She was seriously into pink, even neon-pink leggings. She had the best grin, and she seemed ecstatic to be here.
“I am Athena,” she announced, “and I am royalty. I love the color pink. I have probably twenty Barbie princess dolls at home. I don’t play with them—I’m too old for that—I collect and display them. They like pink too!”
She bowed again and added a curtsy before sitting down. Then she popped back up again, reached over to her duffel bag, and pulled something from the top.
“I forgot to tell you!” she said, hugging a well-worn woven pink blanket. “This is Blankie. Blankie sleeps with me and keeps me warm.”
She bowed once more and sat down, but then, a second later, was up again. “And oh, I forgot to tell you—I love horses way more than even Barbies.”
Then she bowed one last time, sat down, and stayed down. So we clapped at last.
I already liked Athena—I hoped she’d like me. I think Athena might have Down syndrome, but I’m no expert.
“Well, Athena,” Sage said. “I’m pretty sure you’ll get to ride a horse while we’re here!”
Athena hugged herself. “Yay!”
The last counselor wore a backward baseball cap and some sleek purple Doc Martens. She must have been at least six feet tall.
“Hi, I’m Lulu. I was this tall by the time I was in the eighth grade. But my mom taught me to be proud of my height and ignore what other kids might say. So that’s what I did. I’ve got serious basketball skills, and, believe it or not, ballet!”
I imagined her leaping for the basket doing a jeté, and grinned.
Lulu then swung her arm toward the girl sitting cross-legged on the floor.
“This here is my camper buddy, Jocelyn. She just turned twelve, and she sometimes likes to keep to herself, but hey, that’s true for all of us, right?”
Jocelyn seemed much more interested on tracing the pattern of curves of the wood grain with her finger than in meeting us.
But just as Lulu finished, Jocelyn tilted her head. “So we just gonna sit here all day? Let’s get this party started! Started. Started.” And she popped up.
All right, then! Everybody laughed.
“We’ve got twenty minutes till lunch—let’s go check out the lake,” Trinity suggested. “It’s just sitting there, waiting to say hello.” She grabbed the camera hanging on a peg by the door and strapped it around her neck, and we headed out into the sunlight.
CHAPTER 13