Chapter 2

For the next two weeks, I was still deciding whether to go or not.

I was lying back in my bed, brochure in my hands. I brought the pamphlet closer to my face and flipped the brochure back to the cover. There was a picture of a boy and a girl who were linking arms and smiling. They both had identical T-shirts, probably the camp uniform, that read: Camp Mellow.

Camp Mellow. I snorted. As if the idea couldn't get any gayer than this.

I opened up the booklet and scanned through it. "Canoeing, tennis, campfire songs, rock climbing.." I mumbled to myself. Not so bad. I didn't like the thought of campfire songs though.

Maybe camp wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.

Mello was storming through the hallways, marching back into his room.

"Hey, Mello!"

Ugh, that annoying voice... Mello spun around to face Matt, who was grinning and waving a piece of paper in the air.

"Watari gave me a brochure of that camp he was talking about," Matt exclaimed.

"Camp... thanks for reminding me," Mello groaned and buried his face in the palm of his hand.

"And guess what?" Matt smirked. "The name of the camp is Camp Mellow! The camp you hate so much is named after you!"

Matt doubled over laughing, laughing so hard that his goggles almost flew right off his face.

Mello twitched and turned around to continue back to his room.

Near was sitting on the floor of the library, quietly enjoying a book. As usual, he was in his regular position, sitting with one leg propped up and with one finger slowly weaving through strands of his snow-white hair.

Olive walked into the library and stopped when she noticed Near. "You still read even after school hours?"

Near glanced up from the book. "Well, what about you? You are in the library too, which means you are probably going to read a book as well."

Olive shook her head. "Nah, I'm just here to relax. The library is the only quiet place in the entire orphanage." She walked towards Near and sat cross-legged next to him.

"Oh," was all Near said, he was deep into his book.

Olive looked up and admired the structure of the chandelier hanging on the ceiling. She then turned to look at Near, who was hunched over, his nose almost touching the book.

"What are you reading?" Olive asked curiously.

Near paused for a moment, then picked up the book to show her, the cover facing Olive.

Lessons for the Antisocial.

Olive smirked. "Near, I don't think you're antisocial."

"Really?" Near replied in a hushed whisper, looking back down at his book.

Olive laughed. "Yeah, you're just quiet. If you were antisocial, you wouldn't be talking to me right now."

Near gave Olive what appeared to be a small smile. "You're a good friend, Olive. I hope we will see each other more at camp."