Part 2
The first few days of camp were hard, and Allie missed Hong Kong and Daddy a lot. She worried about Daddy, too; ever since Will had gotten so angry about Things You Would Not Understand, she and Daddy had been the whole family. Who would take care of him?
One of the strangest things about camp was how completely she blended in on the outside even though she felt different on the inside. In Hong Kong, almost everyone was ethnic Chinese. It was not considered rude to stare at the blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl even if she barely remembered living elsewhere. Here, she was one of many dressed in a green and white uniform. No one gave her a second glance; no one knew or cared that half the time she thought in Cantonese.
She wasn't sure whether she liked it or not, but she was sure that she was looking forward to playing Capture the Flag. They were going to play boys against girls, which would be interesting; the boys and the girls had separate cabins and she had barely seen the boys since the crowded, chaotic opening ceremony.
One of the other girls—Kate?—strutted up to Allie and handed her a bright red belt to which a long streamer was Velcroed. "Ready to kick the boys' asses?" she asked as Allie looped the belt around her waist.
"More than ready."
"Good. You're on defense."
Allie hesitated. She didn't want to start an argument with the girls she would be seeing constantly for the next month. But Daddy had taught her that if she didn't ask for something, she didn't get it. Being assertive, Daddy called it.
"I'm really fast. I'm better on offense."
Kate flashed a warm smile. "Offense, then."
Allie smiled back.
The first few days of camp were a relief for Johnny.
He missed Mom and Sydney and the rest of his family; he really did. But it was nice to be away from Mom's tears. She had been on the verge of tears for months, ever since who-knew-what happened with Will. Johnny hadn't noticed at first. Sydney had had to point it out to him. He guessed girls were better at that sort of thing, and Sydney was a damn supergenius to boot.
That was something else he didn't miss—Sydney taking everything apart to see how it worked. It was nice to reach for his videogame and know it would be in one piece. Mom never made much of an effort to stop Sydney's "curiosity;" the only time she had really gotten mad had been the time when Sydney bypassed the security on Mom's laptop to read her email. That would have been the only time that Sydney's explorations would have been really useful. Unfortunately, Mom had caught Sydney before she'd found out what had happened to Will.
Johnny liked the other boys at camp; he made friends easily and always had. He supposed that that was how things balanced out. Sydney got the brains, but he got the charm.
That day's game of Capture the Flag would be his first opportunity to meet the girls at the camp, and he was sure he would like them, too.
Jake, who had the bunk below Johnny's in their cabin, came up behind Johnny and dropped a blue belt around his neck. Johnny laughed and knotted the belt around his stomach.
"We think the girls are going to put their best people on offense," Jake explained. "So..." His explanation of the boys' plans droned on for several minutes.
"Got it," agreed Johnny, even though he wasn't really listening. He never cared about details. He just looked forward to running as hard as he could and capturing as many people as he could. It was all about the moment. Someone else could have the big picture.
The whistle blew, and Johnny and the other boys charged forward. Johnny captured one prisoner after another, and told them jokes as he escorted them to the "jail" the boys had set up in the far corner of their territory. He loved to make people laugh even in the middle of a game. Incidentally, that was the only way he ever beat Sydney at anything; sometimes he made her laugh so hard she forgot to outsmart him.
Allie, Kate, and a handful of other girls gathered together near—but not too near— their hidden flag.
Most of their team had been captured and put in jail on the boys' side of the field. They were terribly outnumbered.
"I think their flag is on top of the hill," one of the girls said.
"They don't have many people up there," another argued.
"They don't have to. None of us went up the hill besides Allie and me."
Allie breathlessly brushed a lock of sweaty hair out of her face. "I think she's right."
Kate, the captain, nodded gravely, as if Allie's opinion had to be taken seriously.
"So five of us make an attack on the hill, like we know it's there. When they're worried about that, one of us sneaks in to free as many of the people in jail as she can."
Allie hated the idea of charging up that hill again. She was already out of breath. But she knew that it was the only plan that stood even the slightest chance of working when they were so few against so many.
Her legs and her lungs burned as she ran. Two girls sprinted behind her on her left, and two on her right, like they were a flock of geese.
The reaction from the boys was fierce and instant, and Allie was sure that she was right; the boys' flag was on top of the hill.
Halfway up the hill, two of the girls were captured.
Further up the hill, a third girl tripped and was promptly stripped of her red belt. Allie envied her. She thought it might be nice to sit in "jail" and catch her breath.
The fourth girl announced her capture with a frustrated shriek followed by a "go Allie!"
Then Allie could see the flag.
She dodged and feinted. At least three sets of hands were reaching for her, but she was reaching for the flag.
Then she saw his face.
She hadn't seen him in person for years, and they rarely even spoke by phone.
He was reaching for her belt, ready to capture her.
The flag slipped through her fingers.
"Johnny?"
Her belt slipped through his fingers.
"Allie?"
She reached out again, but she didn't know whether she was reaching for the flag or for Johnny. It turned out not to matter, though, because she felt one of his teammates racing up behind her. She jumped to the left, but she landed on the side of her foot, and before she knew what had happened she was rolling down the hill faster than she had run up it.
She scrambled back into her own team's territory before any of the boys could take her belt.
Johnny and Jake both winced as they watched Allie roll down the hill.
"I didn't touch her—she fell," Jake preemptively told the nearest counselor, who agreed that Allie's fall had been an accident and told Jake and Johnny not to worry.
"Why didn't you take her belt?" Jake asked after a moment. "You had her! She was right there, and she's one of the best on their team."
"She really is," Johnny said. His voice seemed to echo in his own head. He thought that he had gotten away from the crazy women in his family. Allie was the last person he had expected to see.
"Whatever." Jake was oblivious to Johnny's crisis. "We still outnumber them. We should just send everyone over there to get the flag. It has to be in the edge of the woods or we would have found it by now. Near where they were standing right before they ran up the hill, but not too close, you know?"
Johnny's thoughts were elsewhere, but he must have said something about agreeing, because Jake nodded and slapped his back.
When the game started again—the counselors had fussed over Allie and decided that she was unhurt—Johnny followed Jake as he sprinted for the edge of the woods.
Jake was the one who grabbed the flag (it had been nicely camouflaged, so Johnny had run by it without noticing), but he passed it to Johnny just before the girls tagged him out. Johnny had always been a fast runner; apparently that was something he and his long-lost twin had in common. He tore across the boarder carrying the flag, amid much cheering from his teammates.
"Congratulations to Mr. John Brady," cried one of the counselors, and the boys applauded some more. "Why don't you shake hands with Allie, here. She almost had you, didn't she?" The counselor squeezed Allie's shoulder and pushed her toward Johnny. "Allie Horton, this is John Brady."
Johnny laughed. He was pretty sure no one else had ever been introduced to his own twin quite this way.
The counselor looked sharply at Johnny to make sure he wasn't being a bad winner, or making fun of Allie for falling or something. "Johnny, Allie came here all the way from Hong Kong!" the counselor continued. "She lives 8,000 miles away, but you're good at the same thing. Isn't that interesting?"
"You don't know how interesting," Allie murmured under her breath. Now the counselor gave Allie a concerned look.
"It's almost like we're twins," said Johnny, and he reached out to grab Allie's hand like he had been told to do. Her nails were painted green to match her uniform.
"Yeah, almost," agreed Allie. She dropped Johnny's hand and hugged him instead.
Not knowing quite what to do, the counselors led the campers in more cheering, and then suggested that the boys and girls follow Allie and Johnny's example. "Pair up and get to know each other," they commanded.
Johnny and Allie drifted over to a large rock near the edge of the woods. To Johnny's surprise, Allie deliberately stepped around him to make sure she sat on his right side. There were people Johnny had been around every day for years who hadn't learned to do that. Sometimes he corrected them; sometimes he twisted his head so he could see them; and sometimes he was just as happy not to look at them.
Allie, though, was someone Johnny wanted to see.
"Do you think they sent us to the same camp on purpose?" Johnny asked dubiously. He didn't think Mom would be able to keep a secret like that, but he didn't know much about Dad.
"Daddy didn't decide I was going to come here. I did," said Allie. "I mean, he looked at the choices and made suggestions and agreed, but I asked everyone what they thought." She shrugged. "Did Mom pick this one for you?"
Johnny shook his head adamantly. "She didn't even want me to go." He tapped his finger against his fake eye; Allie cringed. "She was worried there would be a problem with my eye. I had to keep telling her how much Will liked summer camp—she's all upset over Will. Hey! Do you know what happened with him?"
Allie sighed. "No. Daddy keeps telling me it's grown-up stuff I wouldn't understand, and he's never like that with me. Will just told me not to worry about it, but then he must have shipped out again, because he hasn't emailed me in a while."
"Same here. Wish I could join the Merchant Marine and just be like, 'sorry, can't talk to you for three months.'" Johnny grimaced. "I said that to Mom and she cried for two days."
"She cries almost every time we Skype," said Allie. That was one of the reasons she didn't really look forward to her calls with her mother. They always left her feeling sad. "Does she ever stop crying?"
"Of course!" Johnny was offended. It was one thing for him to criticize his mom; she was his mom. Technically, she was Allie's mom, too, but Allie wasn't there every day, dealing with the ups and downs of Salem, so she didn't have any business acting like Sami was some idiot who just sat at home and cried. "She just has a really hard time with Will being mad, and I guess you being in Hong Kong. Usually Mom and Sydney and me laugh all the time. Every Friday night we get burgers at Salem Place and talk about everything. We're like the three musketeers."
"That's nice." Allie couldn't help feeling a little upset, even though she was also relieved. It was good that Mom was happy with her other children, but it was sad that she only missed Allie in those rare moments when they Skyped. After all, Mom had another daughter almost Allie's age.
Johnny waited for Allie to say something else, but she didn't. Mom and Sydney never ran out of things to say, and neither did he. It was strange that Allie, his twin, would be so different.
"What about Dad?" Johnny prompted at last. "What's he like when you live with him?"
Allie smiled. "He's the best. He works a lot, but he always makes sure he's home to help with my homework after school. He came all the way over here to drop me off, and he's coming back next month to pick me up. Sunday's the one day he doesn't work at all, and we always make breakfast together. Then we go out or we watch a movie or something."
"So it's just the two of you?"
"Yeah, except when Will used to stay with us more."
"He never… Dad never dated anyone?"
"Oh, he dated about a thousand people, but I never get to meet them because he's never serious." A thrill of fear laced through Allie. Maybe Johnny was asking because Mom was practically married to a man who had a son and a daughter to replace her and Will. "What about Mom? Has she been serious with anyone?"
"No way. She says her kids are enough. There hasn't been anyone serious since Rafe."
"I liked Rafe." She didn't remember him well, but she was fairly sure he wouldn't try to get rid of her. "Why did they get divorced, anyway?"
"Oh, his first wife was supposed to be dead, and then she wasn't, and EJ was around all the time because of Sydney, and Rafe didn't like it, but EJ didn't die until after Rafe left." That had been the worst few months of Johnny's life. Losing two fathers at once had been awful, and for a long time he hadn't had any interest in having a father at all.
"I guess EJ was the one who broke up Mom and Dad, too."
"That's what Will said. Mom doesn't like to talk about it. She just tells me she'll always love Dad as a friend and that they both love you and me and Will."
"Dad says they same thing." Allie rested her chin in her hands. "Mom must be really special, or Dad never would have married her and had us with her. Women throw themselves at him—right in front of me, it's pathetic—and he barely notices. I wonder what would happen if—" She said up straight again. "We couldn't. We have to."
"We have to what?"
"We have to get them back together! That's why neither one of them got serious about anyone else. They miss each other, and I look like her and you look like him, so they're always thinking about each other…" Allie bounced off the rock and gleefully clapped her hands together. "Wouldn't it be fun?"
TBC