“When was the last time you guys climbed a tree?” Leigh asked, stepping back so that she could get a full view of the tree house.
I thought about the rough bark on the oak tree in front of my house. Ethan often begged to sit on my shoulders so he could swing himself onto the lower boughs. It wasn’t super comfortable up there in the company of territorial squirrels and falling acorns, but he liked the novelty of it. Dad had repeatedly and firmly denied his request for a tree house. A real one with walls and windows, not like the flimsy structure currently hanging over our heads.
“We have an oak tree in our front yard the perfect height for climbing,” Isaiah said.
I planted my feet firmly in the grass to keep from jumping out of my shoes before I remembered that he and Sidney had picked me up from my house for our family dinner the night I’d run away. I wasn’t used to Isaiah knowing anything about me other than the information relayed between our mothers.
To keep the trial from stretching on to lights out, everyone was given a three-minute time limit to reach the bell in the tree house. Most people didn’t make it up the trunk by the time Lumberjack Beard called “Time!” into his bullhorn. Hunter was the first person to ring the bell, followed closely by Jams, who beat his time by fifteen seconds.
After Jams shimmied down to the ground again, Hunter greeted him at the edge of the field with a whoop. Panting but smiling, Jams threw his arms around Hunter’s neck. They kissed like there was no greater celebration than mashing their faces together. And, really, there probably wasn’t.
Isaiah opened his mouth—undoubtedly to say something shitty that would leave me no choice but to start breaking his bones—but Leigh clasped her hands over her heart.
“Oh, I was hoping they’d get together,” she said. “I was afraid their uneven levels of attractiveness would get in the way.” She scrunched her face and looked up at me. “God, don’t tell anyone I said that. I just mean that Jams is an awkward weirdo like me.”
“You’re not a weirdo,” Isaiah said. “You’re unique.”
Leigh blinked at him, unaware that the line was moving again. “Oh. Um. Thank you?”
I held my tongue through the next few competitors. Once Leigh was stretching against the base of the tree trunk, I hissed at Isaiah, “What in the hell are you doing? Stop flirting with my roommate.”
“What?” he squawked. It was easy to forget how young he was, until he started bugging out his eyes like a cornered animal. “I’m not flirting with her. You let her stand there and talk shit about herself. I was being nice. She’s your friend, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” I said, shoving aside the hiccup of guilt in my throat. Why hadn’t I defended Leigh to herself? She always seemed so comfortable announcing herself as awkward. It hadn’t occurred to me that it might come from a negative place.
“And I’m your brother. Why wouldn’t I be nice to your friends?”
“Why aren’t you making friends of your own?”
“You don’t know my life.”
Just over his shoulder, I watched as Leigh kicked her flip-flops off, barely missing Simone, the Rayevich counselor with the box braids. Hugging the flat, ribbed bark, Leigh pressed her feet flat against the tree trunk, her butt stuck out in full squat before she jumped. Once, twice, three times, each jump propelling her impossibly upwards. When her arm was close enough, she reached up and swung herself in one fluid arc up into the tree house, landing with a resounding ding on the bell.
“Thirty-five seconds,” Lumberjack Beard said, reading from the Perfect Nerd Girl’s phone. He had forgotten the booming announcer voice he usually used into the bullhorn. He turned to face the line of us. “Does anyone think they can beat that?”
As Leigh descended Meg broke into wild applause, which the rest of us picked up. Leigh’s cheeks went livid pink as her bare feet hit the ground.
“That was pretty cute, though,” Isaiah said, clapping his hands loudly. “She’s mixed, right?”
“Shut up, Zay.”
“Never, Ever.”
I couldn’t stop my hand from flying up and slapping him upside the head. As he whined, I rushed out to the sidelines to watch Leigh receive her blue ribbon.
22
To: Elliot L. Gabaroche
From: Lieutenant Colonel Marissa Lawrence
Subject: Hey Stranger
Ellie,
I hope Cross Fit is going well. All that shit looks like too much jumping for my old bones. And in Sacramento summer? Whew. You’re going to be a superhero by the end of all this.
I put a little extra money into your checking account. (Don’t get too excited. It’s not enough money for new shoes.) Do something other than sit around the theater and the gym, okay? Go get a smoothie or an ice cream cone. Oh, and return a phone call sometime. Your voicemail is tired of me.
Loving you,
Mom
My heart gave a painful squeeze as I closed the email. I wasn’t ready to engage with my life outside of camp. I made a mental note to check my bank account and write a thank you text to my mom before bed. I closed the Internet browser, letting my unfinished essay take over the screen again.
“Ever, I need you to learn everyone’s name,” Leigh said, stretching her arms over her head and pointing her toes. She made tiny kicking motions like she was swimming through the grass in the quad.
I turned off my computer’s Wi-Fi surreptitiously. Leigh was distraction enough. “We’re only here for another two weeks. By the time I learn them, I’ll be back in California.”
“Don’t say that.” Her head popped up while her body remained planted against the ground. “I’m not ready to think about the end yet.”
Since everyone at camp was hyperfocused on their binders and the Cheeseman events, the counselors had carved out an extra period for us to work on the essays that were also required for the Melee. We were allowed to use the essays we had submitted with our Onward applications, as long as we padded them out from two pages to ten.
Ten pages. Not including the required footnotes.
Rather than holing up inside while the sun was out, Leigh had agreed to sit with me in the quad. Her notebook and pencil sat forgotten beside her while she contorted her body into a variety of yoga poses that were supposed to get her inspiration flowing. It didn’t appear to be working.
Lumberjack Beard—or Ben, as Leigh had just insisted I call him—had broken down the structure of our theses last week before letting us flounder in our own ideas. It should be a personal statement backed by historical facts and evidence, leading back into personal information. I’d gone through my essay on why I wanted to go to Rayevich and found all of the places where I could easily slip in information about the history of the science fiction I liked. It was harder finding the places where I could talk more about why I liked it.