If there was one thing that got Ruby excited more than anything else combined, then it would have to be when summer rolled around Beach City every year. Seeing as the town was a huge hit with tourists, summer always seemed to come early. More often than not, the schools in the district let out early because the town's population was significantly smaller than the other small cities in towns in the area, which meant the summer always seemed to last longer than it actually was for her.

Today was the last day of school for the year. Ruby sat at her desk, staring intensely at the clock while tapping her fingers on her desk. The day still had a while to go, but even in second period Ruby was ready to bail as soon as the bell rung. Most of her classes today would either consist of watching a movie or having the class to herself, but Ruby's math teacher wanted them to make sure they had their final lesson of the year drilled into their heads so they don't forget it over the summer. He was rambling on about something that had to do with triangles, but Ruby wasn't really paying attention. Nobody was. Ruby knew everyone in this class personally, and she knew for a fact that every kid in this class, herself included, was only pretending to pay attention. One kid was on his phone, one girl was fixing her hair and makeup, and the rest of the class, like Ruby, was anxiously staring at the clock. By the time the class only had a minute or two left in it, nobody was even bothering to pretend anymore. Half the kids had gathered at the door, and the other half gathered in a group to talk about their plans for the summer. As soon as the bell that indicated the end of second period and the start of third, kids were stampeding out of that room like there was no tomorrow.

Ruby ran behind them, and nearly collided with her friend Jade in the hallway.

"Was Mr. A trying to drill a lesson into you guys like the ancient legend of the upperclassmen said he would?" Jade asks, and Ruby rolls her eyes.

"Yeah. He didn't even bother teaching us a new lesson, either. He just kind of rambled on about triangles for an hour straight like he's been doing for the past few months."

Jade paused in her steps. "Interesting; I always thought those were rumors."

"Yeah, I guess not." Ruby shrugged. "So, super boring stuff aside, what are your plans for the summer?"

Jade shrugged. "Meh, not much. I'll probably have to stay home for most of the summer, though, because neither my mom nor dad is allowed much time off in the summer."

"What? That's horrible! Summer time is meant to be exciting" Ruby says, shaking her head. "I think me and my parents are headed to that rad amusement park sometime in July, probably. Want me to ask if you can come with us?" she asks, and Jade pauses, as if thinking something over.

"Which one?"

"I'm not sure it has an official name but it's still really cool."

"Where is it?"

"I'd say it's probably about half an hour from here if you drove. It's really cool. I think you'd really like it."

"Yeah? What do they have there?" Ruby could tell she was beginning to convince her, and smiled.

"Oh man, it's so cool. There are about a thousand rollercoasters, a really tall swing ride that lights up and flashes at night, the Ferris wheel, the water park, I could go on for hours. Please? It'll be so much more fun if you go with me."

"Alright, yeah. Sounds like a lot of fun. Do you have any plans today after school? Maybe we can figure out when we can go then. I'm sure my parents won't mind, they're usually cool with stuff like this".

"Yeah, I should be fine, but I need to go home and ask my mom first."

"Cool."

Ruby smiled. This is exactly what she meant. The summer always brought her social side out, and that meant she had more time for her friends. She was a very isolated person during the school year, mostly due to the fact that her schedule was always so packed. But once it was empty, or school gets out for the summer, she becomes the most social person out of everyone in her friend group. Sure, it was small, but that was still saying a lot.

Ruby's suspicion about her other classes being nothing but movies or the teacher going around asking about summer plans were correct, so every chance she got, she'd try to come in contact with her friends to make plans. By the start of last period, she had already met up with all of her friends and made sure to make plans with them individually with a few random group plans thrown in there as well. Since the last period was always significantly shorter on the last day of school, she packed up her things early and snuck out her classroom door to wander the empty halls. Not before long, however, the final bell of the day ran, and Ruby sprinted for it to make sure she was the first one out of the building. This was her second year in a row doing this, and since it cut off a lot of her time and wasn't caught last year, she saw no reason in doing it again this year. Since Ruby walked home every day, the last thing she wanted was to get stuck in the crowd of people getting rides home. Small population or no, there are still a lot more kids than you'd expect. Especially since she goes to a public high school.

Ruby walked slowly, trying to think of what she would ask her mom about all of her plans. The one that would be the hardest for her mom to say yes to would be Jade tagging along to the amusement park, since that was more of a tradition within her family. She also walked slowly to get a good view of her hometown. Beach City, although beautiful in the winter, was even more so in the summer. The ocean can be seen from just about anywhere, and with the sun reflecting off of it, it always looks like it's sparkling.

She turned down her street, and reached into her short pockets to grab her house key. She unlocked the door and swung it open.

"Hey mom, can I ask you something?" Ruby says, closing the door behind her and tossing her keys and backpack onto the table. "Me and my friends were talking about getting together over the summer, and Jade especially was wondering if she could go to the amusement park with us" she said, but got no response.

"Mom?" she asks, wandering around the house and checking the rooms her mom is most commonly found in. After giving up, she decides to head back to the living room to see if her mom was outside and headed there when she heard Ruby calling her. On her way, however, he tripped over something and fell over, crashing to the ground. She looked behind her and was confused to see two of her suitcases sitting in the middle of the room. "What the-" she starts, but stands up as soon as she heard the door opening. Her mom stepped in.

"Oh, Ruby, you're home." She says, walking over to her and moving Ruby's suitcases aside.

"Mom? Why are my suitcases here?" Ruby asks, heading over to where her mom had put them. "And why are they full?" she asks, and her mother looks at her with confusion.

"I didn't tell you before?" Her mother asks, and Ruby's confused expression gives her mom the answer she was looking for.

"Your father and I have to go away for a month on business, and since we can't leave you home alone for a moth, we decided to try to send you away to summer camp."

"WHAT?" Ruby's shock at her mother's response caused her to yell louder than she intended. "A whole month? But that ruins almost all of my plans with my friends!"

"Oh, Ruby. It won't be so bad. Most people who go end up loving it."

"But not me! I've always hated the idea of it, you know that!"

"I know, but like I said, we can't leave you home alone for a month. Who knows, maybe you'll even change your mind once you get there."

"But what if I don't? Then what?"

"Then you wait patiently until the day you can come back. Trust me, Ruby; you'll have a lot of fun. I promise we'll still go to the amusement park in July."

Ruby grumbled. As much as she hated the idea of being forced to go to summer camp, the possibility of going to the amusement park with Jade was enough to force herself to tolerate it. Ruby sighed in an over exaggerated manner. "Fine. But only if you promise we'll go as soon as I get back."

"I promise"

Ruby was awakened early one morning when somebody shook her lightly. She sat up slowly and rubbed her eyes. When she looked out the window and noticed it was still dark out, the realization of what today was hit her all at once.

It was the day she was leaving for camp, and her mom's voice was an affirmation of this.

"Ruby, you have to get up now. The bus is leaving from just outside of town in an hour and a half" her mom says, and Ruby groans from both exhaustion and frustration as she stands up. She heads into the other room and plops down on a chair. Her mom places a bowl of cereal in front of her, and she eats it quickly before heading into her room to throw some clothes on. She brushes her hair into a bow, and throws on a random T-shirt and pair of shorts. After she finished getting ready, she walks out the door and they drive to the bus stop where they should be picking her up for summer camp.

"I promise you're going to have a great time" her mom says when Ruby opens the car door. "I'll see you at the end of the month. I love you." she says, and Ruby reaches over her seat and hugs her.

"I love you too, mom" she says, and hops out of the car. There's only about 10 other kids waiting at the station, but Ruby knows they'll be picking up more kids at other stops. She walks over to them, placing her headphones in and leaning against the sign. The last thing she wants is the same lecture from these kids that her mom had been giving her all week. She notices a few more kids get dropped off from the corner of her eyes, and shortly afterwards, the bus arrives. She takes her headphones out and gets on the bus, sitting herself down on the first seat she sees and looks out the window absentmindedly. A moment later, as the bus doors are closing, she notices another person hop out of a car and run towards the bus. It's a girl her age with long blonde hair with bangs that cover both of her eyes, and she's wearing a light blue sundress that flows behind her as she runs.

"Wait for me!" She yells, waving her hands, but the bus driver doesn't seem to notice. The doors are closed and the engine is starting to run. Ruby glances at her nervously, and when she sees him start to pull away, she stands up.

"Wait! Someone's trying to get on!" she flails her hands around, and the bus driver looks out the window and comes to a screeching halt when he sees her. He opens the door, and Ruby can see her sigh with relief as she gets on.

"Thank you" she breaths to Ruby when she gets on, and sits down a few seats behind Ruby. After the bus driver checks to make sure nobody else is trying to hop on at the last minute, he pulls away. He stops about 4 more times, and after that heads right for the summer camp.

Ruby can tell what it looks like from about a mile away, because it has the most ridiculous looking entrance she has ever seen. As soon as they get in, she notices a few things right away that make her wish she could take back her promise to her mom and ask her to go next year. The first is a huge flagpole in the middle of the campground, then the two lines of cabins, the mess hall, even the tiny excuse for a boardwalk that ends at a lake. When she looks down and sees people with unnaturally bright smiles waving at her, he shrinks back down in her chair and grumbles to herself. The bus stops suddenly, catching her by surprise and throwing her against the seat.

"Alright, we're here, everybody out" the bust driver says, and like before, Ruby jumps up quickly so she can be the first one out of the bus. Everyone else followed her more slowly.

"Welcome, campers!" One of the counselors says. "We're so glad to have you here at our wonderful little campground. My name is Kate. I'm one of the camp counselors here. You'll be spending the next 8 weeks having the time of your life here. We have a schedule of events that we follow every day, and you must show up to the first one on time every day for attendance. We eat lunch in the mess hall every day at 1, and during the last week we'll be eating at 12 so we can have an ice cream party the last night at 9!" it sickened Ruby how sweet her voice sounded. "Registration and distribution of keys will be at the mess hall. Got it? Good! See you there!" She says, and heads off in a different direction. Half the kids head over to the mess hall and half of them stay where they are and chat. Ruby heads over to the mess hall. She wants to get this over with ASAP.

"Hello!" a different camp counselor says when she approaches them at the table. "Could I have your name please?"

Ruby cringed. "Ruby". She hated how ridiculous her name sounded.

The camp counselor flipped through his clip board for a little bit. "Ah, here you are. Cabin 6A" He hands her a key. "Have a nice day!" he says, and she leaves the mess hall to look for her cabin. After walking for a while, she finds it's the one closest to the lake on the left side.

"At least one good thing came out of this dumb camp" she mumbles as she opens her cabin door. She rolls her suitcase over to one of the beds and lies it down next to it. She lies there for a while, not bothering to get unpacked. When she looks down and sees a huge stain, however, she stands up, unzips her suitcase, grabs a new shirt, shampoo, and conditioner, and a towel, and heads for the showers.

She walks into the bathroom, turns on the shower, locks the stall and closes the curtain before getting undressed and turning on the water. Just as she steps under water, she hears the girl in the next stall begin to sing. Ruby rolls her eyes in amusement. I guess she kind of forgot where she was, she thought, but even though the other girl should be able to her Ruby running her shower, she continues to sing, and it's the most beautiful thing Ruby's ever heard. Since the other girl's not singing any lyrics, Ruby fights the urge to sing with her. So Ruby lets the girl do her thing, and she stops after a short while to shut off her water. She listens to see if the girl would start again, but only hears the sound of the bathroom door closing. So Ruby washes off the rest of her body, and then her hair. She shuts off the water shortly after that, and dries herself off. She picks up the shirt she had picked up in her suitcase. It was her white jersey, and it said 17 on it in red with her last name printed on the back. She threw it on, and then put her dark red shorts back on. After gathering her things, she headed back to her cabin.

About halfway there, she begins to hear the girl's singing voice again. At first she believes she's just hearing things, until she realizes that it's coming from her cabin. She looks inside the window when she gets there, but can't see much of the girl. What she can see, however, is that she dumped her suitcase out on the bed next to hers. Ruby used her key, which startles the girl, causing her to stop. Ruby still can't seem to tell where she is, until she stands up from beside her bed. It's the girl she had stopped the bus for back at Beach City. She's now wearing a dark blue crop top with loose straps and a light blue skirt that almost touches the ground.

"Oh, hello!" she says cheerfully, as if she recognized her from earlier. "Sorry about the mess…and the singing. I guess it's just a habit of mine"

"What? Oh no it's fine. I think you sing really well, actually." Ruby says, placing her shampoo and conditioner bottles on her nightstand so she can dump her suitcase on her bed.

"Really? Thank you!" she says, and she smiles at Ruby, and she smiles back.

"Yeah, no problem. You're really good." Ruby says, and then pauses for a moment before continuing. "Are you from Beach City, too?"

"What? Oh, no. That stop was just the closest one to my own hometown."

"Oh."

"I went there a lot over the summer as a kid though. Do you live there?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't it annoying having thousands of tourists come into your hometown over the summer?" the girl asks, and Ruby laughs.

"A little bit, but you grow to get used to it. Plus, school does get out pretty early every year because of it, so there are also some advantages to it as well."

"Lucky" The girl says, and Ruby laughs.

"Yeah, but there aren't much people living there, so it can get kind of lonely in the winter and stuff"

"Hmm." the other girl says. "That's interesting. There's so many people where I live it seems like you can never see the same person more than once. I'd love to trade with you." She says.

"Okay, but don't come crying to me later when you get sick of seeing the same 15 people every day" Ruby says with a smile, and the other girl laughs.

"Hah, you're a riot" the other girl says, closing her drawers and shoving her suitcase under her bed before going over to help Ruby with her stuff. "What's your name?" She asks, and again, Ruby cringes.

"Uh… it's Rachel. Yeah. Rachel" She says, and the other girl frowns.

"Oh come on, don't be shy."

"I already told you that it's Rachel" Ruby says, looking away.

"You don't like your name?" she asks, and Ruby sighs and shakes her head.

"No. I hate it because it's so ridiculous." She says, and the other girl smiles.

"Try me. I don't think mine could be any worse" she says with a hint of laughter in her tone.

"Alright" Ruby says. "I'm Ruby. Nice to meet you."

The other girl laughs and holds out her hand. "Hey, I'm Sapphire."