Stargazing - Complete Novella

We continued chatting quietly about less intense topics. Nothing in particular -- some about her favorite campers, some about trouble kids to look out for, stories about pranks the campers played on each other, things like that. Her voice had a vaguely musical ring to it that made her whispered words seem soothing. She also smelled nice. Maybe it was because I'd spent the last week surrounded by sweaty bodies covered in bug spray and sunscreen, but Jess simply having showered made her seem appealing.

Slowly as we talked, the clouds through the trees opened up, and the tiny crescent moon peeked through. A bat flew over our heads, momentarily visible against the moon before vanishing into the night. Everything around us felt alive and active while Jess and I existed in a little bubble together in the middle of it all.

"I'd love to get the chance to go stargazing sometime," I said, still looking upward in hopes of seeing the bat fly back.

"That's my absolute favorite thing in the world." The way Jess said it, completely serious and earnest, made it clear that she meant it.

"Yeah? Do you think you could you show me a good spot for it one night?"

For some reason, Jess found that hilarious. She gripped my arm and struggled to keep herself quiet. "I'm sorry," she eventually got out between breaths. "It's just that I usually have to beg people to come out on adventures with me. I've got a bit of a reputation for being a little extreme sometimes, and I think it scares people off. Yeah, I know the camp pretty well. You could say I know a spot or two."

I smiled wide. I'd made a friend who I actually really liked, and who seemed excited to do something together! Whatever it might say about me, it made me very happy to have found that.

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Chapter 2

Someone, somewhere, said that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. There's an underlying assumption there -- that you've actually made a plan in the first place. Some things seemed so basic, it didn't even occur to me to plan for them. For example, it never entered my head that kids' shoelaces would be problematic. I'm not positive how old I was when I learned to tie mine, but I'm pretty sure it was younger than my 10 and 11 year old campers.

I'm not a morning person. Before coming to camp, my earliest class was at 11:30, and I had to set an alarm to be up on time for it. 7:00 AM was the stuff of legends to me. Like, it was this mystical world where only the bravest and most hardened of adventurers would dare to go. Waking up at 7:00 and climbing Everest -- roughly the same things. It wasn't even a gentle awakening. Elizabeth, the head counselor who I was convinced didn't ever sleep, got on the loudspeakers and cheerfully dictated sleep was over.

I suppose it could have been worse. Boys Camp played a goddamn bugle, like they were role playing boot camp something.

Add to that that it was really cold in The Adirondacks before the sun had the chance to heat everything up, and you had a very sleepy me with cold fingers trying to figure out to tie a shoelace from the opposite perspective I'd done it my entire life, while eleven other kids dashed around me. If Alexis hadn't seen me struggling and barked order across the cabin, I would have never made it as far as breakfast.

Alexis was one of those small-framed people who surprised everybody by the sheer volume she could produce. "Breakfast in 10 minutes!" Her voice easily overpowered everybody else's. "Everybody who's ready, out on the porch. Now!" She produced an inflatable beach volleyball, the sort that get bounced around in concerts, out of nowhere and she tossed it out the door. In a rush of chaos, they all chased after it, pushing and laughing and acting for all the world like they'd been waiting for hours for something interesting to happen, and weren't fresh out of bed. Kim barely gave me enough time to finish her laces before she raced out with the stampede.

"Did you lace that thing with catnip or something?" I asked, staring at the now closed door disbelievingly.

Alexis started saying something, but was cut off by laughter behind us. We both jumped and turned to see Lilian sitting calmly on her bed.

"They are like a bunch of cats!" She chuckled, grinning at both of us. The way she emphasized 'they' seemed deliberately intended to separate herself away from the group. "Who would have thought herding cats was as simple as throwing a ball?"

Without waiting for an answer, Lilian got up and walked outside. Calmly and evenly, just to make the distinction even more obvious.

Alexis and I exchanged a look. "Her bed is made?" she observed, disbelief at that fact making it sound like a question. "Did you tell her to do that?"

"Nope." Not only did the bed look immaculate, complete with the comforter tucked under and an even line of sheet folded over top, the drawer under her bed was perfectly organized. "Does she have a secret life as a hotel maid or something?"

"Hopefully whatever she's got is infectious," Alexis said, looking around the rest of the cabin.

It hadn't even been 24 entire hours, but already there were clothes, shoes, stuffed animals, towels, and all kinds of junk all over the place. There was even a much-read looking issue of Seventeen. Who the hell had brought that? Who in our camper's generation would ever read a physical paper magazine? Other than Lilian's pristinely ordered bunk, everything was a mess. "And she's supposed to be the evil one?"

"Evil comes in many forms," Alexis said darkly.

Breakfast was mostly a haze to me, but coffee makes everything better. Somebody very smart had realized the connection between coffee and counselor moral, and the camp had invested in a top-notch coffee maker. Unfortunately, that smart somebody must have retired immediately afterwards, because they'd only bought the one machine to fuel forty of us. We must have looked like the line of extras at a filming of The Walking Dead, all queued up waiting for caffeine so we could become human again.

After breakfast, everybody returned to their cabins for 45 minutes of mandatory cabin cleanup. Alexis gave a rousing speech, trying to ignite our camper's competitive spirits to win the cleanest cabin award, which came with a plaque that would hang in the cabin with all our names on it. I hadn't looked very closely at the dozen or so plaques that hung from the rafters, but Alexis took great pride pointing to her name on the newest one.

"I was like all of you when I was younger. Who cares about some dumb award, I came to camp to have fun! Well, let me tell you all, winning is a ton of fun, and I can personally promise that you'll be very happy you won every time you come back into this cabin and see your name up there." She smiled fondly up at it, then clapped her hands and started barking out job assignments. Quickly, the campers scampered into action, trying to look too busy to be enlisted into sweeping or carrying the trash up to the office.

Despite seeming quite roomy before all the kids arrived, the cabin was more than a little chaotic with fourteen people all rushing around. I stood up from my bed where I'd been listening to Alexis speak, watching everybody bustling around and wondering what I was supposed to do now. Was it better to help the campers clean, or would that send the message that they could just sit back and let me do the work?

Well, there had to be some value to leading by example, so I set about bringing order to the mess of clothes I'd stuffed in my locker.

Ally -- who apparently preferred that nickname to Alexis anyway -- was attempting to make her top bunk bed and finding out why all the returning campers had opted for bottom bunks. Kim and Nora, too, seemed to be doing more damage to their top bunks than help. The bunks were high enough up that it was impossible to reach them from the bottom, so they had to climb up into them. But the trouble with that was anywhere you put your weight on the bunks themselves messed up the blankets. The best way to do it was to stand on the wooden frame and straddle the beds, which for somebody as small as Kim involved her nearly doing a split.

Lilian opened the locker next to mine, but she didn't seem focused on it at all. Instead, her eyes were glued to the crowd now trying to balance on top bunks. There was an almost hungry light in her eyes, like a cat watching birds out a window. Just like her bed had been before breakfast, Lilian's locker was immaculately neat.

I remember when we broke up, the first time

Saying, "this is it, I've had enough"

'Cause like, we hadn't seen each other in a month

Reflex took over. Without thinking, I flew across the room and plucked Bonnie's phone out of her hands.

"But Alexis said we could play music during clean up!" Bonnie complained.

"Yeah, I did say that," Alexis agreed. "But I never agreed to T-Swift."

"What do you have against her?"

"Nothing," I said, scrolling through Bonnie's playlists and trying to hide contempt for what I saw. "All of Max Martin's songs are really catchy the first thousand times you hear them." Alexis and Lilian appreciated my sarcasm, but unfortunately it went over everyone else's head.

Bonnie frowned, confused. "But it's not Max -- that guy. It's Taylor Swift."

"You ever wonder why every pop song sounds exactly the same? It's because more than 80 percent of them are written by the same two guys. Max Martin and Lukasz Gottswald."

"But if you said it's really catchy, why are you stopping her song?"

"Because she'd like to hear some music, not Taylor Swift." Lilian's voice oozed sarcasm, which only deepened Bonnie's confused look, but made Alexis and me crack up.

It would really suck if Lilian turned out as bad as her parents seemed to think she was, because in that moment, she became my favorite camper.

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Chapter 3

Surprisingly, the cabin actually looked reasonably good by the time sign-up for first period activities was called on the loudspeakers. It was still a mystery who had brought that issue of Seventeen. Nobody had confessed, but Josselyn had volunteered to take it 'just so it's out of the way'.

I didn't go to sign-ups, but apparently they involved going through the role call of campers and letting them pick what they wanted to do for the morning's two activities. There were some options, each with a cap, and getting to choose first before the best ones got filled up was a big deal. Instead of that, I hurried down to the archery range to get set up for the day.

"Got any plans for next Monday night, Leah?" Blake asked while we set about stringing bows.

"What? A week from now? I've barely got a grasp on what I'm doing today. What's happening Monday?"

"Off nights start up. If nobody's ambushed you yet, my crew would love to ride in your truck."

I chuckled. "Let it never be said you left anybody wondering what you're thinking. You only like me because of my ride."

"I do not!" Blake feigned outrage. "I'll have you know I like you because you're a badass archer... who also happens to have an awesome ride, that would be great for taking friends out for off nights in."

"Jackass!" I attempted to give him a shove, but Blake's massive bulk only resulted in me pushing myself backwards. He couldn't have been shorter than 6 foot 4, and I was convinced his huge unruly beard accounted for a non-trivial proportion of his weight. "Fucking giant," I grumbled. "You guys really plan this stuff out a week away?"

"Rides are very hot commodities. As soon as people realize that big truck is yours, you'll have people begging left and right."

I stroked my chin, pretending to think hard. "I don't know... Sounds like I'll get to pick the highest bidder every off night."

"You won't find a better deal than ours! Jess brings the booze, I bring stuff to start a fire, and Anderson doesn't drink, so he's lifetime designated driver."

Jess, eh? I liked Blake, and after jokingly giving him a hard time, I would have agreed regardless. But after last night, the chance to get in with Jess's circle had me excited. "Alright. Twist my arm, why don't ya."

"Great! Now you've agreed, I should probably mention that we'll probably end up putting a bunch of crap in the back of your truck. And you'll probably have to help us carry stuff to where we have in mind."

I rolled my eyes at him. "You remind me of all my business major friends back at school."

"That's not a compliment, is it?" He laughed.

"Nope." How to find out more about Jess without seeming too interested? "So, speaking of Jess, she's the rugby coach, right? I think I'm with her next period." It had surprised me seeing that on the schedule. The girl with the calming, musical voice who had drawn me out by being a fantastic listener was also a hardcore rugby player? Just going by her vibe last night, if I hadn't been told, I would have lost that bet.

"Yep. The rugby program here is kind of her baby. She's really proud of how popular it is now."

"But I've never played before! How did I end up getting assigned there? How am I supposed to help teach it?"

"Don't worry, Jess will handle all that. She just needs three or four sets of extra eyes. She'll probably ask you to run through the drills along with the campers and help maintain order."

I raised an eyebrow. "Three or four extra counselors are necessary just to maintain order?"

"You clearly have not spent very much time around campers yet," Blake laughed.

All my campers madly dashing after Alexis's beach ball flashed through my mind. "Point taken."

On top of being responsible for a cabin of campers, everybody had an activity area of specialty. Blake and I were both archery, but clearly, it didn't mean it was the only activity we'd do all summer.

It did mean we'd spent most of counselor training week setting up the range. We'd bonded while hauling the enormous straw targets and wooden frames from the winter storage barn all the way across camp, hanging ropes from trees and draping backdrop nets over them, and searching the area for dozens of lost arrows from last year.

On first impression, the camp range left a lot to be desired. For one thing, it was the single most buggy spot I'd ever encountered, and we both came away with tons of mosquito bites before we got the burners running. Even with them and a gallon of bug spray each, we still had to swat mosquitos away every so often.

The more time I spent there, though, the more I liked it. I'd thought it would be annoyingly windy and that would interfere with arrows, but the trees surrounding the clearing blocked almost all of it. Our netting did a good job blocking arrows flying into the forest, and after the bugs had mostly been conquered, it felt like something out of an epic fantasy. There was a cluster of apple trees surrounding the equipment shed that added an array of reds to the backdrop of green pines and white birches. The line of trees along the top of the hill perfectly blocked the worst of the sun, creating a cooler feel that was very welcome.

After getting used to this, going back to the drab indoor range at CMU was going to be so rough.

"Showtime," Blake nodded down the path towards the sounds of excited voices.

Beyond splitting up age groups, the camp kept boys and girls separate for nearly everything. Gender segregation was so much the norm that Blake and I sharing an activity was very unusual. Girls Camp and Boys Camp were almost completely separate entities which happened to share some of the same facilities. That morning, we were with the junior girls. They came in a heard, shepherded by Abigail on her way down to the Climbing Tower. She waved, waiting long enough for them to get to us before disappearing down the path.

A wide smile grew across my face. This was home. Jumping into a new place with an entirely unknown culture of norms, rules and expectations was terrifying. Teaching my passion was like slipping back into my element -- like being back home at the CMU club, standing side by side with Sarah teaching freshman.

"Welcome to the range, everybody. How many of you have been here before?"

We had eight campers total, which we'd expected. That was the maximum cap, and archery was one of the popular choices that would close out quickly. Most were girls I didn't know yet, except for Lilian and Evelyn from my cabin. Five of them raised their hands. "Great! This should be familiar to you already, but as a refresher, we'll go through the rules of the range."

The speech was pretty much autopilot. Explaining what instructions would be given -- groups getting their bows and stepping up to the line, then knocking an arrow, and only then firing -- basically, not doing anything until told to do so. Blake modeled the process while I called out the commands, making an exaggerated show of deliberately messing it up so I could ask the campers what he'd done wrong and what he should have done instead.

I watched them as much as they watched me, keeping track of who wasn't paying attention, who was jittery to grab a bow and start shooting, and who was nervous. Mostly, with the one exception of the girl in the middle who said her name was Tabby, everybody seemed to be paying attention. Surprising. My college groups could learn a thing or two from these pre-teens. Lilian especially. She watched with a focused intensity, taking in every move Blake made as I narrated his slow motion shot demonstration. It was actually a little scary. For a moment, part of me wondered if teaching a kid with that look in her eyes how to use a deadly weapon was the best idea.

With just a few seconds left in the demonstration, Tabby's patience ran out. "Can we shoot yet!"

"Patience, Tabby," Blake admonished.

She bristled. "But I've been waiting all year!"

"We all have," said somebody in the back.

Everybody shared her same enthusiasm now that they sensed the time was here. Every hand shot up when I asked who wanted to be part of the first group of four to shoot, most of them straining to be up the highest. Did they think that's how I'd pick? By height? If that was the system, I would always be last.

I picked three at random, and was about to select the last when I realized I'd been wrong. Not everybody was hopping up and down on the benches desperate to be chosen. Lilian sat as calm as she'd been this morning when she'd surprised Alexis and me. She still had her focused excited look from the demonstration, but unlike everybody else, she held herself back from going crazy.

Well, reward the kind of behavior you want to encourage.

"--And Lilian, you come up too." Tabby glared at me, over to Lilian, and back to me, as if trying to decide where to direct her ire. For whatever reason, she picked Lilian, and glowered at her as she made her way to the rack and selected a bow. There weren't many left, and she tentatively picked up the one on the bottom, which was the 45-pound draw I used myself. "Here, this one will be better for you," I scanned down the bows and plucked one of the 15 pounders out.

"Why that one?" She asked.

"Try to pull the string." She did, barely managing to get it half way drawn. "Don't let the string go!" I added quickly. "If you do that without an arrow, it's really bad for the bow and you can get hurt."

To my absolute astonishment, Lilian nodded slightly. "Makes sense. The energy has nowhere else to go without the arrow."

Behind Lilian, Blake raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you've never done this before?" I asked.

"Yep," Lilian smiled brightly. She traded for the lighter bow with me, then took her spot on the line with the others.

How had she known that? I exchanged another look with Blake, and he was clearly wondering the same thing. Among archers, everybody knew dry-firing was bad, but even amongst my college group, not everybody understood why. Half the kids in my cabin couldn't figure out shoelaces, and apparently Lilian had a firm grasp on potential energy converting to kinetic energy, and kinetic energy needing to find an outlet.