“We can totally be besties,” I said to Leigh. “I’ve never been to camp before. You can help me not make a total fool out of myself.”
Her mouth quirked to one side, and for a second I thought of my little brother rolling his eyes at me from across the dinner table. “Did you not hear all of the crap I spewed at you? All I can do is make you less awkward by association.” She took the sheets out of my hands, shaking the packaging onto the floor. “And help you unpack. We need to get settled before we can win.”
I let her help me make my bed. Ever Lawrence didn’t care about having hospital corners on her sheets.
4
Forty-eight people hadn’t seemed like a lot when I’d been praying to get a spot on the camp roster, but having everyone jammed onto the lawn outside of the residence hall was overwhelming. I knew from the Onward enrollment packet that only rising seniors were allowed to compete and that there must have been an even number of boys and girls. But all of the faces jumbled together into one mass of new. Tall, short, thin, fat. Some in Tshirts like me and Leigh. Some in ties or dresses.
The counselors formed a single file line at the base of the wide stairs that led to the dining hall. All of them were wearing shirts representing their colleges. Cornell was whispering to a towering guy with a scruffy lumberjack beard and a UC Berkeley shirt. The two of them broke into giggles, and a dark-haired girl from Bryn Mawr shushed them.
There was a single speaker mounted to a tripod at the top of the stairs. It buzzed to life as a bald middle-aged man in a brown Rayevich T-shirt patted a live microphone.
“Welcome, students!” he said, baring a gap-toothed smile at the crowd. “My name is Wendell Cheeseman. I am a professor of American history and an associate dean here at Rayevich College, and I am happy to be the director of this year’s Camp Onward.”
The counselors led a lukewarm applause break, giving Wendell a moment to wipe the sweat off his large forehead with the back of his arm. His pit stains were rapidly traveling toward his belt.
“For those of you who skipped the history portion of your welcome packet,” he said into his microphone, pacing the top stair in long strides, “let me give you a brief lesson. It is, after all, what I do best.” He paused, possibly hoping for a laugh, which didn’t come. “In nineteen seventy-seven, a collection of professors from Rayevich and the University of Oregon decided to turn their attention to secondary education. They opened the Messina Academy for the Gifted, an institution that would go on to foster the brightest minds in Central Oregon.”
I heard someone cough. Glancing around, I spotted the hipster ghost standing alone, his arms folded tightly over his chest. From the look he was giving Wendell Cheeseman, I guessed someone was going to get the crap haunted out of them later.
“Do you see that guy?” I whispered to Leigh. I stretched my neck to the side, using my hair as a pointer.
Leigh tipped her head, scratching her nose in the ghost’s general direction before glancing back up at me. “The one who looks like John Cusack? Or John Lennon. There’s something very John about him.”
I’d never considered what made someone Johnish before. But it suited the hipster ghost. “Kevin” or “Bob” would have clashed with the sharp slant of his nose.
“I saw him using a typewriter outside of one of the closed residence halls,” I said. “I’ve been trying to figure out if he’s a nerd or if he’s straight-up haunting the school.”
“Either would make sense here,” Leigh said, leaning around me again. She sucked in a breath. “He’s gone!”
I turned fully around. The slice of grass where John the Hipster Ghost had been was empty except for a few slices of sunlight.
“Ooky spooky,” Leigh said. She ran her palms over her arms with a shiver. “Unless he just went to the bathroom.”
“It became clear to the founders that only a small number of students could benefit from the Messina,” Wendell Cheeseman’s voice boomed. I turned back to the stairs, pretending to look engaged. “There were other gifted children all over the West Coast who weren’t able to receive the same quality of education. The founders returned home to Rayevich and created a summer seminar program that would bring together both schools’ mission statements. Camp Onward would bring students such as yourselves the best of Rayevich and the Messina Academy.” He wiped at his face again in two quick slaps. “An uncompromising commitment to quality education for the gifted in a small community of liberal arts scholars. This utopia of academia is represented not only by yourselves but by our collection of counselors. Every year, Camp Onward proudly hosts Messina graduates and current Rayevich students to lead our teams for the Tarrasch Melee. They will guide you through each area of study and be your coaches as you enter into the competition phase of our seminar. Each team will have a representative from both schools.”
I looked down the line of bored counselors. One of the girls in Rayevich gear had the most beautiful box braids I’d ever seen. They were impractically long, swishing around her waist in clean, black ropes. I patted my own hair, reminding it that braids that nice meant unending scalp pain and having to sleep in a satin cap.
“Who do you think we’ll get?” I asked Leigh.
“She’s on our floor,” she whispered, giving a low point toward a girl standing between Meg and Lumberjack Beard.
The girl was about a head taller than Meg. Her hair was unnaturally orangey red and cut into a severe bob. The Stanford logo stretched to breaking across her chest. She nudged Lumberjack Beard and I caught a glimpse of a tattoo on her inner elbow, a tiny blue box.
“Jesus,” I giggled to Leigh. “It’s like the Internet took a poll of the perfect nerd girl and wished her into existence. Busty redhead who goes to one of the top schools in the country?”
“Huh. Can we give her a TARDIS tattoo and a Care Bear nose?” Leigh said, tapping her chin in fake thought. “I bet she has a Harry Potter tramp stamp.”
“And is adorkably clumsy.”
“And she thinks that hair color makes her look like Black Widow.”
We both smothered our laughs into our hands as Wendell Cheeseman started listing off our seminar topics. My stomach rumbled. I really hoped that this recitation of the welcome folder would wrap up soon.
“Each of you will receive your study packets after lunch at your first team meetings,” Wendell said. “But remember, there is more to this experience than the Melee. You will also make new friends and expand your horizons. No matter who leaves with the scholarships, all of you will always be Mudders at heart.” He spun on his heel, revealing the bold yellow writing on the back of his T-shirt as he shouted, “Hey, bud! Do you mud?!”
The counselors in Rayevich shirts raised their fists over their heads and shouted, “Muck yes!”