Three days after the Barfbag incident, Eel, Gill, and Karate could be found on the porch of the Wreck Room, playing Go Fish.

Since Barfbag had been admitted to the hospital, the boys of Group D had been digging a seventh hole. Somehow, until they got another tentmate, they were responsible for picking up Barfbag's slack.

Upon being told by Gill, Eel forced a snicker as they stared X-Ray down on his way to the showers. It was unfair, Eel had to admit. Group H only had six girls, but they had never been expected to dig a seventh hole. She supposed Mr. Sir was the one who suggested it – everyone knew he hated D-Tent more than all the other groups combined.

Eel sighed, wishing she could hang out with Zigzag. Unfortunately, the D-Tent boys were still out on the lake digging the seventh hole. Without Barfbag it didn't matter anyway.

Though she pretended she didn't care, Barfbag's absence affected Eel greatly. He was one of the few things in the desert that she had to remind her of home. Even if they hadn't been close in school, looking at him brought back memories of less shitty times (especially air-conditioned ones).

Because she had known him for so long, he was the only male in the entire camp that Gill didn't mind her hanging out with. Eel had grown accustomed to their daily encounters, whether they were eating lunch together, or playing pool, or watching TV with Zigzag. Now she didn't have an excuse to avoid Gill during free time, and she couldn't even hang out with Zigzag now.

Which explained how she ended up playing the dumbest card game to ever exist with her.

"Do you have any threes?" Gill asked Eel.

Shuffling through her small collection of cards, Eel shook her head. She was having no luck with this game. Both Karate and Gill had twice as many pairs as she did.

"You can't have any threes! I have four threes!" Karate protested.

Rolling her eyes, Eel glanced across the table and snorted. "And two of them are hearts." The game was even dumber when none of the decks matched.

"Dammit," Gill snarled. "Why can't anyone put these back in the right fucking deck?" All three girls groaned and tossed their cards into the center.

As Eel gathered them into one pile, Karate sat up and pointed to the road. "There's a bus."

Eel turned in her chair, staring into the dust cloud that rose in the distance, barely able to see the disgusting yellow dinosaur. She recalled overhearing Mr. Sir telling Ida the night before that the seventh cot in Tent H needed to be filled soon.

"You think it's Barfbag coming back?" Gill asked, looking across the table at Eel.

Tugging at the button on her bracelet, Eel shrugged. She didn't know what made her stomach squirm worse: the thought of Barfbag being so badly injured that he couldn't return, or the thought of having to face him again. But when the bus finally reached the faculty building, two inmates stepped off, escorted by a cop, and neither of them were Barfbag.

With a red cap covering the top of his curly hair, a tall and wide white boy squinted as he looked around the camp for the first time. A thin black girl with shock of dyed orange hair followed him into the faculty building. Eel grimaced as Gill smirked. No doubt the newcomers were receiving the customary warning about lizards, running away, and sex.

Several minutes later, the cop that accompanied the delinquents climbed back onto the bus and the bus peeled away from Camp Green Lake. Three figures paraded through the risen dust and trooped towards the Wreck Room. Eel recognized the hat leading the pack and groaned when Dr. Pendanski spotted the H-Tent girls.

Waving to catch the girls' attention, he hurried over to the porch with the two new inmates following.

"Just the girls I was looking for," he exclaimed, his grin spreading his sunscreen-slathered nose wide. "Ladies, meet your new tentmate, Alex." He motioned to the girl. "Alex, this is Lily, Sophia, and Ava." He pointed to each girl as he said their real names, disregarding the indignant looks he received. "Ava is the newest member of H-Tent, after you, of course, Alex, so she can be your mentor."

"Please, ignore him," Gill snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. "Those are not our names. I'm Gill. This is Eel and Karate."

Shaking his head, Pendanski motioned for the girls to follow him. "Come, girls, you can help Alex get settled." Eel, Gill, and Karate begrudgingly joined the party as they continued their trek towards the tents.

"You, Stanley, will be in Tent D," Pendanski said, regaining his fake cheerfulness. "D stands for 'diligence'."

"More like 'douchebag'," Gill said, loud enough for Pendanski to hear. Stanley looked uncomfortable to be anywhere near her.

"What does H stand for?" Karate whispered to Eel, who shrugged.

"The girls in Tent H have a bit of a rivalry with Tent D," he explained to Stanley. "Rex! Alan! Come say hello to Stanley and Alex."

Eel wrinkled her nose as X-Ray and Squid approached, still covered in dirt and sweat from digging. Next to her, Gill tapped her foot impatiently.

"What's happenin' with Barfbag?" Squid asked, a toothpick sticking out from his mouth. The shirt wrapped around his head flapped against his neck in the light breeze.

Pendanski's face turned sympathetic as the boys and girls stared at him expectantly. "Lewis is still in the hospital. He won't be returning."

Eel glared at the ground, knowing a few pairs of eyes had fixed on her – the only person Barfbag had really been friends with. She had taken to wearing his hat while she dug. But it was only fabric, and it couldn't replace a human being.

Gesturing to the new kids, Pendanski barreled straight over the awkward silence. "This is Stanley and Alex," he said. "Stanley will be with you boys in Tent D. Alex will be joining your friends in Tent H (X-Ray shot him a withering expression, but Pendanski ignored him). This is Alan and this is Rex." Squid squinted at him.

"My name ain't Alan, it's Squid," he protested. "This is X-Ray."

Pendanski force a smile. "They all have their nicknames. However, I prefer to use the names their parents gave them – the names that society will recognize them by."

The collective grunts of the campers earned them a stern look from Pendanski.

"Good God, I've had enough of this," Gill said. She nudged Alex's shoulder. "C'mon, we'll show you were you'll sleep."

Eel silently elected to stay behind, watching with little interest as X-Ray pushed Stanley into Tent D and Pendanski followed. Only Squid remained, staring at her with a raised eyebrow.

She stepped up to him, her hand shooting up and knocking his hat off. Dust billowed from his head and she noticed the solid line of dirt coating him from the ears down.

A smug smirk curling her mouth, she patted his shoulder. "Enjoy your shower, Alan," she whispered. She shouldn't have called him by his first name, but she just couldn't resist. She liked the way it twisted with her accent and rolled off her tongue as if she'd said it a million times before.

He caught her by the waist, pulling her close enough to press their torsos together. "Careful," he said warningly. "Someone might think you're flirtin' with me."

Snickering, she reached up and rubbed some of the dirt from his mouth, revealing pink lips and freckled skin. "Only in your dreams," she muttered, squirming out of his grasp.

"Wouldn't you know?" he called after her.

She snorted she rounded the corner, giving him a last glimpse of her flipping him off. He was such an asshole.

Karate was busy getting Alex settled and Gill had left to find Hollywood, so Eel, reduced to boredom, sat on the steps of the tent, throwing pebbles across the cracked earth. She felt like a neglected child that no one wanted to play with. With Barfbag gone, there were very little activities to entertain her.

"What are you doing?"

Eel squinted as she looked up, realizing Hollywood and Gill had returned and were staring at her. "Nothin'," she said, scattering the remainder of her pebbles across the ground.

Hollywood sat next to her on the steps while Gill remained standing.

"What d'you want?" Eel said, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. Hollywood was giving her the pout that she only used before she begged her to do something.

"Tomorrow night, some girls from J-Tent want us three to come hang out in the Wreck Room after lights out," Hollywood said. "Will you please come with me and Gill?"

"Who all will be there?" Eel asked, sensing that they wouldn't take no for an answer.

"They said there would be some guys from A and C, and a few more girls," said Hollywood. "I think Bluff, because they wanted to play poker."

Eel hid her surprise by averting her gaze. Gill hated the boys, so why did she want to hang out with them? She stared across the dried lake, her nose scrunching as the sun burned her eyes. "Good luck findin' a complete deck of cards," she said. "I'll go, I guess. What time?"

"One-thirty."

"Do you know how to play poker?" Eel asked as Hollywood got up and walked towards the Wreck Room.

"Nope," Gill grinned.


a/n: Well, there's the third chapter! It's a little short with not much going on because I didn't want the next chapter to be super long. But dear goodness I live for the moments that Squid and Eel are cute together and not trying to beat each other up.

Thank you so much for reading, & please leave me a review; it's really important for me to have feedback!