Day One, Part Two

The heavy bell in the center of the camp rang loud and multiple times, and at first Racetrack didn't know why. Then he saw an older guy tugging on the rope that hung down under the bell. Skittery, Snitch, Boots, and a pair of other boys that had just walked over snapped to attention and rejoined the now-forming circle. The new blonde boy had introduced himself as Ben, though his nickname was Blink, and the other one, a handsomely tanned brown-haired boy Michael, went by Mush. The two were in Highline as well, and had shown up together. Either they were very, very close friends, or-

"Welcome to Performing Arts Camp 2009, everybody!" The old man, now standing in the center of the circle, shouted. His voice was surprisingly strong, Race thought, for his age. "So, before we go in for dinner, I'd like to introduce our counseling staff for this year. First off, there are Sarah and Becky, the dance captain and co-captain, in charge of Shelby cabin. And Medda, our vocal instructor, with Gabby in Sunset. And of course…" The old man went on to list the other girls' councilors. There were only four boys' councilors: Bryan, Terrence, Morris, and Oscar. Bryan and Terrence were the councilors for Highline. Then he introduced the nurse Darcie, and the cooks. Finally, he told the assembled campers that he was John Kloppman, the camp director.

Next to Race, Skittery, Blink, and Mush were engaged in a whispered conversation. Blink was in the middle, and so Mush had to lean over him to whisper to Skittery. Race noticed that the tanned boy's hand was resting on Blink's shoulder. Normally, Race wouldn't have thought twice about such a display, but the fact that Blink's head was leaning against Mush's was reason enough for him to wonder if they were in fact-

"Remember everyone, after dinner there is evening activity, led tonight by our fine councilors Sarah and Terrence. Then, when the next bell rings, I want everyone to go down into the Rehearsal Hall, that's the one right down the hill from here." The old man pointed at the yellowish building behind the bell tower. "Now, with announcements out of the way," said Kloppman, "Let's head in to dinner!" He glanced down at the clipboard in his hands. "Umm, Sunset girls, you go ahead in."

A relatively small group of older girls cheered loudly and went up the steps into the Dining Hall. It wasn't long until Kloppman called Highline to go in as well, and Race was swept up in the tide of boys rushing for food.

Spot followed his sprinting compatriots more slowly. He wasn't really looking forward to eating camp food, though he supposed that by the end of the two weeks, he would be desperate for any sort of nourishment. Judging by what his cabin-mates had been saying, the food here was not as horrible as it had been in the past few years.

Silently, Spot grabbed his tray of pale spaghetti and sat by the other boys in his cabin. There were many more than he thought there would be, and he was quite glad that they had to wear nametags. Most of the boys had taken the cards out of the plastic holders, flipped them over, and scribbled their nicknames on the back. If Terrence, the councilor, had noticed, he must not be too worried about it.

Spot surveyed the table, picking out faces that were already becoming familiar. There was Skittery, Boots, Snitch, Blink, and Mush. And the others that he had met recently, meaning while they waited for Kloppman to call their cabin, were Erik (known as Swifty), Chris or Dutchy, and Specs, whose real name was Scott. Another boy, who was supposed to be sitting with at the table with his cabin, was instead surrounded by the girls of the Shelby cabin, which included Olive and her gang. It was Itey, the one that the girls had chased earlier.

And, of course, there was Racetrack. Spot had discovered that Race's bunk was the one right next to his own, and he wasn't sure if he liked that or not. The kid seemed likeable enough, if a little bit odd, and though Spot didn't see what the big deal was about making friends with everyone that you met, he wouldn't mind being friends with Race. After all, he needed someone to talk to at this camp.

Skittery waved his hand in front of Spot's face. "Hey!," he said, "Pass the ketchup!"

Spot shook himself out of his thoughts. "What do you want ketchup for? We're eating spaghetti, right?"

"It's not for me. Blink wants it."

"Okay, what does Blink want ketchup for?"

Blink grinned, looking at Spot from the other side of Skittery. "Spaghetti tastes better with ketchup."

Eyebrows raised skeptically, Spot pushed the ketchup bottle towards Blink, and watching with horrific fascination as the blonde boy squeezed a good cups-worth of ketchup onto his plate of noodles.

Mush, sitting on Blink's other side, looked at his friend's plate critically. "You didn't put enough on, Blink," he noted seriously, indicating the pile of ketchup-covered pasta. A smile flickered at the corner of his lips, which blossomed into a full-blown laugh as Blink looked at him with his cheeks puffed out and a noodle hanging from his mouth. Mush's laugh caused Blink to laugh, which forced the mouthful of ketchupy spaghetti onto the poor boys sitting near him. Unfortunately, Spot was one of those boys. He grimaced in disgust as a red noodle hit his face. This is going to be a long two weeks.

Race wolfed down his food as fast as he could without choking. Having five brothers and sisters around at home meant that the faster you ate, the less chance there was of having someone else eat it for you. When he finished, Race looked up to see Spot staring at him. He wrinkled his eyebrows questioningly at the other boy, who quickly glanced away, turning faintly red. Why does he look guilty?

Snitch, sitting next to him, did a double-take when he saw his friend's plate. "Dude!" he said, "Did you even taste that?"

Race shrugged. He hadn't, really. Food was for nourishment, not for taste, in his mind.

"I didn't think so." Snitch chuckled. "Anyway, I was going to ask you if you wanted to go down to waterfront after dinner. The guys and I want to, you know, visit our old haunts and stuff. You in?"

Race nodded. Just then, a tall woman walked through the double doors of the Dining Hall, two more campers in tow. Her brilliantly dyed blonde head stood far above anyone else's; she had to be at least 6' 4". It was obvious to Race that she was a dancer, as her cropped shorts reviled finely chiseled legs. Kloppman, eating with the nurse and some others at their own table, stood up and announced, "Everyone, this is Kaylee. She's a councilor for Rosewater cabin."

There was a polite smatter of applause from, Race assumed, the girls of Rosewater. Some boys in his own cabin applauded too.

Kloppman walked over to Kaylee and began to scan his clipboard, presumably looking for the names of the campers that she had brought it. After a while, he beckoned to the curly-haired man that had been distributing nametags and pointed at the paper. The man nodded and left the room. He came back shortly with two nametags, which the campers took and pinned to their shirts. One, a slightly attractive well-tanned girl with silky black hair, smiled at him. Race looked her over critically. Nice legs, nice body. Cute hair, too. I could do without the skinny jeans, but whatever. The man smiled back and resumed his seat.

Kaylee took the other camper and led her over to the Shelby girls' table, where she was greeted with hugs and squeals. The tanned girl walked behind Kloppman as he started down, unbelievably, Race's table, looking for Terrence. When the camp director found the councilor, who was sitting two people down from Race, he said, "Here's one of your campers. Diego, this is Terrence, your councilor."

Diego? What the hell? Race couldn't help but stare openly. Was I just checking out a dude?!

"Hi!" said Diego brightly, flashing an award-winning smile. Terrence waved and nodded, as did some of the others. Race was still too dumbstruck to do anything.

Swifty, otherwise known as Erik, was not, however, too dumbstruck to do anything. He gaped openly at Diego, and squeaked, "Hey, uh, Diego. There's an open space here." He gestured at the place next to him, which was actually occupied by Specs. When Swifty noticed this, he glared and elbowed his bespectacled friend in the ribs to make him scoot over. Specs glared right back, but moved down the bench anyway. Diego grinned, again, and said, "Yay!" He practically bounced down the row of boys towards Swifty.

Yay? Race shook his head slightly to wake himself up. He caught Snitch's eyes and held back a laugh. Snitch leaned over and whispered, "He's new, but apparently someone knows him from somewhere. He, um, has been known to dress in drag before."

Race's jaw dropped and he clapped his hands over his mouth to stifle his burst of laughter. He glanced quickly in Diego's direction, but the boy was busy… petting Swifty's hair. Yeah, petting Swifty. Wow. Well, it is drama camp. I can't expect everyone to be straight. Just then, Race noticed that Spot was staring at him again.

Spot didn't know why he couldn't stop looking at Race. He wanted to think that it was just because Race was sitting across from him. And a little to the left. And a few people away. In his head, Spot slapped himself in the face. Stop it.

Besides, he had more fascinating things to stare at. Diego was sitting near him, and, if anything, the kid was hilarious to watch. Spot found himself struggling to keep a straight face at some of the dark-haired boy's lewd jokes. Already, though he had been at camp all of three minutes, Diego found himself fitting in nicely with everyone else. Swifty, especially, seemed to be getting along with him rather well. Love-struck fags. Spot rolled his eyes. But there was no amusement in the thought anymore. What about Race and- He cut off the thought severely.

"So can we go now, Terry?" Skittery whined, looking at the clock near the door.

Terrence nodded after checking the time on his own watch. Skittery jumped up, grabbed his dishes, and went to put them near the dish-washing stations where hairnet-wearing assistants took them from him. A wave of other campers followed him, Spot among them. Skittery had asked him if he wanted to go down to the lake with the other boys of Highline. He had shrugged in reply and said, "Whatever." Inside, though, he was excited to see the lake.

The flood of boys raced out of the Dining Hall towards the trail leading to the waterfront area. Usually, the councilors didn't let the campers go down to the water by themselves, but Mush had assured Terrence that he had just finished lifeguard training before he came to camp. Terrence had looked torn, but he finally decided to let them go, just as long as they didn't tell anyone else.

The trail was steep and prickly, but the boys tore down it anyway, ignoring the thorns. Boots, being the fastest, arrived first. The others skidded to a halt behind him before starting cautiously out onto the dock.

Spot rolled his eyes. What, do they think that it's going to break off and float away? He walked onto the creaky wood impatiently, his shoes making loud clomping noises.

"Spot!" Skittery hissed, "Shut up!"

"Why? There's no-one around to hear us."

"The Devil could be watching."

"What the hell?" Spot raised his eyebrows skeptically.

"Pulitzer. He's the director, or at least he was last year. That's his cabin." Skittery pointed across to a ritzy-looking building near the shore. It was surrounded by trees, and looked quite comfortable. "He's supposed to share it with the other staff people that aren't councilors, but only Weasel stays there with him. Kloppman and the cooks have to stay somewhere else."

"And he's the Devil?"

Snitch stopped his creeping and came over to them. "Well, we're not really sure. He sure is a bastard, though."

"Yeah," Skittery said. "We don't really know why he keeps coming back."

Spot shrugged indifferently, yet stopped walking so heavily all the same.

The Highline campers stayed on and near the dock until they heard the bell ringing out. "Come on, guys." Specs called, getting to his feet from where he sat with Dutchy. "Time for auditions!"

"Auditions? Didn't we already do that?" Race was confused.

"Well, yeah, but these are to test you more thoroughly, now that you're here." Snitch said.

"Oh," answered Race.

"I don't get it either. At least we get a taste of what we'll be doing this year, huh?"

"We will?"

"Oh, right, I keep forgetting that this is your first year. So, basically, we go in to the Rehearsal Hall for, like, three hours, learn a song, learn a dance, and perform it in front of everybody else while the councilors take notes on us."

"Um, sounds fun?" Race didn't think that it sounded very fun at all.

Snitch must not have heard the questioning tone in Race's voice. "It totally is! It get's kind of boring near the end, but you get to listen to everyone else go first. After all, you'll probably be in the last set or so, because you're short."

Race almost bristled at that, but then he remembered that Snitch was a nice guy, and that he probably didn't mean it to be condescending. He decided not to say anything. "Oh, great!" Race tried to put some excitement into his voice.

By that time, the group had nearly reached the Rehearsal Hall. Race heard Mush mutter, "Soon, just the sight of this building will make you sore."

Race was going to comment, but before he could, a tall woman with long brown hair pointed at him and said, "Line up, tallest to shortest!"

The others didn't waste any time in following her order. Boots, who was also on the shorter side, followed Race. "That's Sarah," he said. "The dance captain. Her younger brother is a camper here. For some reason, they don't really like each other. Like, they used to, but something happened. Maybe something about her falling for one of his best friends, I'm not really sure."

"No talking!" An obnoxious-looking man walked past them, his skinny moustache barely covering his upper lip.

As soon as the man was gone, Boots said, "Go jump in the lake, Skunk."

"Skunk?" asked Race.

"Morris Delancey. He's one of the councilors of Granite cabin. We call him that because of his 'stache. Looks kind of like a reverse skunk stripe, don't you think?"

Race looked, and laughed. It did. Just then, the room became deadly silent. A tall, skinny bearded man strutted through the doors, followed closely by a shorter, chubbier one. It must be the Devil and Weasel. The tall man barked, "Count off, go!"

Luckily, the first camper in the line had been to camp before. "One!" he shouted.

The yell of 'Two!' didn't come quickly enough from the next person in line. Pulitzer shrieked, "Not good enough! Start over!" He waved his arms madly above his head.

"One!"

"Two!"

"Three!"

The numbers continued strongly until seventeen, who was a mousey girl with glasses. She nearly shrank into the wall as Pulitzer walked menacingly towards her. "Not quick enough! Again!"

So again they began. This time, the count reached forty-two before it fell apart. The campers had to repeat the count-off six more times before Pulitzer was happy with it. Race, who was number one-hundred three of one-hundred twenty-two, wiped sweat off of his brow. God, I'm already sweating and we haven't even been here ten minutes.

Pulitzer, with Weasel in tow, stalked out of the building. Almost immediately, campers began turning to each other and talking. Medda, the vocal teacher, stood in the middle of the room and clapped for attention. "Everyone! Everyone! Settle down!"

Slowly, the voices died. Medda smiled. "That's better. Now, that was our director. He, uh, can be a bit short-tempered, so be on your best behavior when he works with you. Now, since everyone is here, let's begin camp by introducing ourselves. Starting with number one, I want everyone to say their name, first and last, their age, and where they're from, okay? Start!"

A tall boy with a Southern accent began. "I'm R.J. Corrings. I'm sixteen, and I'm from Fairfield, Alabama."

"Sam Tayne, sixteen, Cedarburg, Wisconsin."

"Sylvia Gore, fifteen, Seattle, Washington."

"Zeke Jameson, sixteen, Phoenix, Arizona." There was Skittery.

The names went on for a while after that. Race took note of the boys in his cabin when they introduced themselves, and tried to keep their names straight. When it came to him, Race stepped forward and said, "Antony Higgins, fifteen, New York, New York."

When he stepped back, Boots whispered to him, "That wasn't hard, was it? Next you'll have to say it with more emotion."

And he was right. Medda had them go around again, this time replacing their names with their nicknames and saying it with more gusto and bravado.

When the names were done, Medda and some of the councilors divided the campers into three smaller groups, where they were whisked off to separate areas of the camp and taught a song. Race's group, which included Snitch, Specs, Swifty, Diego, Boots, and Spot, was headed by Medda herself. Their group went up to the registration room, which would double as an extra rehearsal space, as Medda told them, and filtered inside.

Once they were settled, Medda said, "So, we're going to learn 'You're The One I Want' from… can anyone tell me?"

Swifty and Diego looked at each other and screamed, "Grease!" They began to jump up and down with joy, clapping their hands.

The group spent nearly an hour learning and polishing the song before returning to the Rehearsal Hall. They were then arranged in rows and sat down on the stage. If one could call it a stage, Race thought. It was the most uncomfortable, splintery, rough piece of wood that he had ever had to sit on for an extended period of time.

After a few hours, Race could barely keep his eyes open. He had yet to sing what he had learned, as he was in the last row of people, and he had stopped listening to the others about four rows ago. After Spot had sang. Why do I keep thinking about that prick? Race rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands and glanced outside. It was nearly pitch black, and he couldn't see a thing. It had to be nearly ten-thirty, and he had been up since six that morning.

Boots, still sitting next to him, yawned widely. "Only a few more people until it's our turn," he murmured.

"Yeah," answered Race, reply muffled by a yawn of his own.

"Then we get to sleep," Boots said, smiling faintly.

"I can't wait."

"Me neither."

The number of campers left to sing dwindled until it was time for Race to stand up. He dragged himself to his feet with a mixture of regret and excitement. Race was near the middle of the row, so he settled down again until his time to sing came. Medda, leading the song and listening to the campers' voices, got nearer and nearer to him. Then she was right there. She nodded to him.

"You're the one that I want," he sang. "Ooh, ooh, ooh." His voice rang out strongly in the silence of the Rehearsal Hall.

"The one that I want. Ooh, ooh, ooh. The one that I want. Ooh, ooh, ooh. The one I need, oh yes indeed." The last note trailed off. Race waited, he didn't know what for, but Medda said nothing. She just moved on to Boots next to him.

Race felt a little awkward, like someone was staring at him. He scanned the crowd of campers, but mostly people were staring at their hands or feet in front of them, eyes glazed with tiredness. There was only one looking his way.

Spot couldn't help but stare. He had been caught completely off guard by Race's voice. He hadn't been expecting it at all, and he was pleasantly surprised. Then he realized that Race was looking at him. He blushed, and looked away quickly.

Snap out of it. You. Like. Girls. Dumbass. Spot found a splinter of wood near him and picked it up, searching for a distraction. He turned it over absently, and jerked back when it stabbed his finger. Damn wood. He threw it down again.

After Race, there were only four more people to sing. When they were done, Medda consulted briefly with the councilors that had been following her around and taking notes. Then she turned back to the campers and said, "Everybody did great. Wake up bell is at seven tomorrow morning. Get some rest; we have a big day ahead of us!" Everyone roused themselves enough to leap to their feet and run out of the Rehearsal Hall. Spot drifted towards Highline, his path lit by dim lights from the Dining Hall's porch. When he arrived, his legs freshly scratched by the thorny path, he pushed open the door weakly and stumbled towards his room. Dutchy, Specs, and Snitch were already there, silently removing clothing and tossing it onto their suitcases. Without a word, Spot did the same, and crawled into his sleeping bag. He fell asleep without another thought.