A/N Charlaine Harris owns the original grown up versions of all these characters. I'm only borrowing the younger, cuter versions for a while.
Ah! The kids are back! Now that I have a better handle on where I'm going with this story, the writing is much smoother. Smooth is good. Thanks to all of you following this simple little story. Because this story doesn't have all the typical ingredients that you see in most of the stories on this site, I knew it wasn't going to receive a massive amount of reviews. So, I wanted to let you know I appreciate every single one of them. Thanks so much!
I think it's safe to say that Boy Bill is completely besotted with Girl Sookie, so let's see what happens...
Bill and Sookie stayed lying on the dock for a while. They talked a little, and Bill pointed out constellations that he knew. Bill would have loved to have stayed all night, but it was getting very late, he realized Sookie was becoming sleepy and needed to go back to her cabin. Getting back seemed to take longer, since Bill was more worried about them being caught by a counselor than he had been going out. Sookie gave him a quick hug and kiss when he safety deposited her on her cabin's doorsteps. He hunkered down and waited for the girl's counselor to pass by, then scrambled back to the boy's cabins.
While he was hesitating next to a large bush, glancing around for the boy's counselor, he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. It appeared to be a figure out in the woods. Had someone seen him? He froze, keeping his sleeping bag draped around him and focused on the spot he'd seen the movement. There was nothing. He must have imagined it. He made one last dash for his cabin door, then he was home free.
Silently, he rearranged himself back in bed. It had been an amazing evening. He had a girlfriend now, a real girlfriend. And she was pretty, and brave, and fun, ..and perfect. He couldn't wait to escort her to the Friday movie night. And he'd introduce her to Eric! Maybe Eric would have hooked up with Amelia by now and they could all hang out like couples and stuff? And even more unbelievable, he'd kissed her and even gotten to first base..or was it second base? He wasn't sure, but at least he was on the bases. And she had seemed to like it. He hoped so anyway. He really wanted to kiss her again and touch her some more, if she'd let him. Maybe she might touch him a little too? He reached under the covers, remembering her hands clawing at his back and her warm breath against his cheek.
Morning came too early, as it usually did, but Bill didn't care. He was in a terrific mood and couldn't wait to see Eric to tell him that he had a girlfriend now. Lafayette eyed him suspiciously, having noticed Bill's improved mood from the day before.
"What's up with you? You steal some happy pills from the nurse or something?"
"Nothing", Bill answered.
"Like Hell, you was acting like your dog died yesterday and now you're all happy. What's up?"
Bill shrugged, as they finished dressing and started walking toward the main building for breakfast. "Well, something has changed", he admitted. Bill was dying to tell someone about Sookie.
"Like what?" Lafayette asked, making a 'go on' gesture.
"I kind of met someone….someone really cool", he said.
"Cool? You mean …like a girl kind of cool?"
"Maybe", Bill muttered, shrugging and striving for a casual look.
"No Fuckin way! You got yourself a girlfriend? How is that possible?" Lafayette laughed, trying to picture shy Bill hitting on a girl.
"I told you. It's no big deal." Bill was becoming a little agitated by Lafayette's devilish smirk and predatory manner. He seemed a little too amused by Bill's news.
"Like the fuck it is! Who is she? Is she hot? Does she have a NICE booottteeaaa?" Lafayette danced around, giving his butt a good shake to demonstrate to Bill what he meant.
Bill felt himself flushing, not sure how to react to Lafayette. He hadn't thought about how other boys might talk about his Sookie. He'd heard the language boys used when talking about girls amongst themselves, it hadn't occurred to him that they might talk about her this way. He needed to buy some time. "Um, I'm not telling you. "
"Uh huh, she ugly ain't she?"
"NO, she is NOT ugly. She's very pretty."
Lafayette nodded sympathetically. Bill had probably found himself some chunky, dorky girl with glasses to hang around with him, that's what he was thinking.
"She and I are gonna hang out at the Friday night movie. You'll see !" Bill declared.
"Whatever you say, Bill. " Lafayette couldn't wait.
They had arrived at the main building, going inside, getting their pancakes and milk and finding seats near other boys that they knew. Sam came running up with his tray, "Hey homies! What's up? Don't we have canoeing together today?"
"Bill has a GIRLFRIEND!"Lafayette announced loudly.
Sam's blue eyes widened to saucer size, "Really? Who?"
"He won't say…it's all hush hush", Lafayette said, covering his mouth with his hand playfully.
"Why? We're your buds, you can tell us. What's the matter with her?" Sam asked.
"There's NOTHING wrong with her", Bill declared, this wasn't going the way he'd pictured.
"There's nothing wrong with who?" Eric asked, walking up with his tray of pancakes and milk.
"BILL HAS A GIRLFRIEND", Sam and Lafayette announced together.
"No way! Why didn't you tell me?" Eric leaned into Bill, staring at him accusingly.
Bill shrank back from the three sets of staring eyes. "I haven't seen you. It just happened yesterday."
"Well who is she? Where is she?" Eric asked, looking around the room while shoveling a big bite of pancakes into his mouth.
"She's on the earlier meal rotation. I'm bringing her to movie night. You'll meet her then", Bill said emphatically. He was hoping he'd have a handle on the situation by then. And Sookie would be there to help.
Eric eyed him curiously, "Okay, well I guess we'll meet her at movie night huh?"
"Oh come on! What the fuck?"
"Leave him alone Lafayette."
There was some grumbling as the boys went back to their pancakes. Bill was relieved.
Changing the subject, Sam said, "Hey, we all have canoeing together today, so we'll get to hang out!" Cheered by this, they quickly finished their breakfast and trooped off to the boat dock.
After sitting not so patiently through Canoeing Safety 101 and putting their bright orange life vests on, they finally got to get out into the canoes. There was much jostling and yelling by the counselors at boys who were jabbing other camper's canoes with their oars. Finally, everyone managed to spread out and with the counselor's voice ringing in their ears to stay within eyeshot of the dock, they made their way across the river. Sam and Lafayette were in one canoe and Eric and Bill were in another. They stayed near each other for a while, yelling insults and jokes back and forth. After laughing at Lafayette leisurely sitting back, letting Sam row the canoe by himself, Bill and Eric struck out on their own.
Eric sat in the back, yelling instructions to Bill so they could synchronize their strokes. The canoe sped smoothly as they pushed their oars through the water and tried to avoid the trees practically hanging into the water. After a few minutes, Bill felt the canoe slow down and it was getting harder to row. He turned around and saw Eric had his oar across his knees.
"Hey! We're supposed to do this together asshole!"Eric sat and stared at Bill quietly for a minute. "Eric? What's up dude?"
"So, tell me about this girl. Who is she?"
"You'll meet on movie ni…"
"Oh come on Bill! I'm your best friend! You can tell me…what the fuck is wrong with her?"
"NOTHING! " Bill yelled. "There's nothing wrong with her! Why is everyone assuming that?" His face was flushed with anger this time. His friends hadn't even met her yet and they were making assumptions that Sookie was a dog or retarded.
"Okay, okay, shit ….Jesus…calm down. You're being all mysterious, what do you expect? " Eric said, trying to sooth Bill.
Bill hunched over, glaring back at Eric. Eric began to realize that Bill was really offended and decided to offer an olive branch. "I'm sorry, really …..you're acting so weird…so …I don't know…I'm sure she's really cool. You don't have to tell me her name if you don't want to, but can't you tell me a little bit? We're best friends. You can tell me stuff….."
Scratching the faded drawing on his old jeans, Bill fell back into his normal demeanor. "Well okay….just don't be blabbing to Lafayette. He can't keep his mouth shut." Eric nodded vigorously in agreement. Bill hesitated, trying to figure out how to start since he wasn't sure about mentioning Malcolm and his partners in crime. Well, he could just omit certain parts of this little narrative, " Well, I was going to my swimming activity and I ran into her in the boathouse. She was crying and …and I walked her back to her cabin."
"Why was she crying?" Eric asked.
Bill shrugged. He had promised Sookie he wouldn't mention it to anyone. "She was upset about something…..I don't know …anyway …that night I snuck out, went to her cabin and woke her up."
"No way! Why didn't you let me know? I could have gone too." Eric exclaimed.
Not knowing how to tell Eric that he hadn't wanted him there without hurting his feelings, Bill skimmed over that part. "I was in a hurry. I wanted to make sure she was okay."
"Oh."
"So, we ended up sneaking out to the boathouse dock."
"Wow! You made it all the way there? Fucking A!" Eric declared, with an approving grin and a pumped fist.
Bill smiled, basking in Eric's admiring gaze. "Yeah, we sat out on the dock, looking at the water for a while."
Eric's eyes narrowed. Bill felt himself being stared at through slits of blue. "So then what happened?"
"Um…not much, we just hung out."
Eric laughed. "You fucking liar…I can see right through you….so did you?"
Bill felt himself flush a little, this time not from anger. Eric laughed even harder, " You did, you did!" He pointed at Bill, holding his stomach as he laughed even harder. Once he calmed down a little he added, " So did she…..?" And he made the appropriate hand gesture.
"No, of course not! Shit…Eric…I just met her. And she's not like that…."he added, feeling it was imperative that he defend his new girlfriend's honor.
"So, you didn't even get to kiss her any? That sucks", Eric stated.
"Oh no, we did…some of…that."
"Uh, huh?" Eric leaned forward, making a come along gesture. "And what else? You get to grab any titties?"
Bill felt his face become hot and he looked back down at his faded jeans, listening to Eric's laughter. "Oh you SO DID!" Eric laughed. "Did you get her bra off?"
Bill thought about that, "Ah, no ..I don't think she was wearing one. Do girls wear them to bed?"
Eric shrugged, "I don't know. So, did you get under her…."
"BOYS!"
They both jumped at the counselor's deep voice next to them and meekly looked over, wondering how much he may have heard.
"It's called CANOEING, not Sit In the Canoe All Day. This is an activity. If you're not going to row, then you can go back to the dock and sit."
"Yes sir!" They both chimed together and then they started rowing with renewed vigor.
Once the counselor had rowed away to yell at a couple boys who were freaking out some girls by threatening to tip their canoe, Eric went back to his previous line of questioning. "So, did you get under her shirt?"
Bill just shook his head," Just outside."
"Were they nice?" Eric asked, waggling his blond brows.
Bill wasn't sure how to respond. He shrugged and nodded, not daring to look at Eric. At this point, Eric stopped asking questions and they continued to row upstream. While they could still clearly see the dock and the other kids, they were on their own. No one liked rowing upstream, but Eric had pointed out if they did it now, they could go downstream on their way back. At that point, they'd be fatigued.
"Hey look at this!" Bill cried, he'd stopped rowing and pointed into the water. Some tree roots were visible under the water's edge and several large fish were there gulping at the mosquitos tiptoeing on the surface of the water. They stopped rowing and coasted closer to the muddy embankment, ducking under low hanging tree branches.
Then Eric noticed something else," Look at the edge, what's that?"
Bill peered more closely,"It looks like footprints….some guy's boots. I thought this was part of the preserve that runs along the Indian reservation?"
Eric nodded. The boot prints were deep, like the man had stood there for some time. There wasn't anything, but crowded forest on that side of the water. The river divided the preserve from the camp. The counselors had explained that no one was allowed over there, except the Native American's who worked for the park service and took biologists and people like that into the preserve. It was protected and no hunting or camping was allowed.
The boys skimmed the edge with their canoe, discussing possibilities. After a few minutes, they heard the counselor on the dock blow his whistle which was the signal to come back. They rowed back downstream towards the dock, now cutting through the water really fast since they were going with the current. Eric yelled at Bill, " Faster! Faster!" They rowed as quickly as possible and passed a couple other kids on the way back, which was quite satisfying.
After lunch, Bill and Eric had a sit down class and a local Native American from the Caddo tribe on the reservation came over to talk to the kids. He explained about the different tribes in Louisiana, how some were no longer there having been pushed out by the early white settlers and the then new US government. He told them about the Kosati which meant "first people" , the Choctaws, and the Atakapa's tribe whose name came from a Choctaw word that meant "man eater". The kids immediately perked up at that little factoid. The tribe had the reputation of eating the flesh of their dead enemies, although after the French settlers and missionaries had dealt with them for some years, this practice had ceased. He thanked all of them for listening and advised that they were all invited to their reservation, where they had a small traditional camp set up to demonstrate native crafts, food processing techniques, tent building and a tribal dance with traditional music and dancers. The counselor stepped forward at this point, thanking the Caddo Tribal representative for coming and advised the kids that there was going to be a field trip to see all this in a few weeks.
Afterward, they split up and there was computer time, so Bill was in his happy place. He helped the camp librarian assist other kids with their access to their email accounts and various network sites.
Then, just like the previous summer, the camp supplied large colorful postcards with postage paid for the campers to send to their families. Each kid received four, so Bill sent one to Ms. Jo, Terry, and Bubba. On the fourth, he sat staring at empty space feeling forlorn that there these were the only people he had to send a card to. It would be nice to send one to his mother, but there would be no point in that.
On impulse, he wrote the address for Fangtasia, which he had memorized when he and Eric had gone there. After thinking for a minute, he decided what to say.
Dear Mr. Northman,
How are you? I am fine. My friend Eric and I are at Driskill Mountain Summer Camp.
Just in case the vampire didn't know what a summer camp was, Bill added ,
A summer camp is a place where kids go to swim, canoe, walk in the woods, and stuff like that. We stay in cabins with other kids and have fun. I hope you and your friend Pam are having a nice summer.
Sincerely,
Bill
Ps. We brought our hoodies to camp and hope to wear them soon.
He stuck all his cards into the big mailbag on the table and went back to the computer to do some more poking around on the internet. Remembering Sookie the previous night and what they had done kept distracting him however and he didn't end up accomplishing much. Then he had to help Mrs. Gongwenger run an antivirus scan on her laptop. Even though he was in his favorite part of the camp, the day seemed to be dragging.
He couldn't wait until Friday night.
Bill wasn't the only one feeling frustrated. Eric was dealing with his own dilemma. Amelia was being coy about whether she would hook up with him or not. The previous summer, they had hung out a bit and they had even emailed a few times over the school year. Eric didn't have the patience to sit down in front of a computer for ages like Bill did.
He had even managed to see her once during Christmas break. Terry Bellefleur had had some job or another he had to do near where she lived and they had arranged for Eric to spend the day at her house. Amelia's Dad made big bucks in contracting jobs, mostly commercial buildings and properties. He was personal friends with the movers and shakers in his community. And they lived very well.
Eric had never been in such a big house before. To his eyes, it looked more like a mansion. Everything was beautiful and expensive and the grounds were huge. Her Dad even had a chauffeur! They had sat down to a lunch made by a cook and served on nice china, not plastic plates. Her father had been polite, but Eric was pretty sure he didn't meet any expectations of who he wanted his daughter to hang around with. Eric had to answer questions about his parents, but Amelia's Dad seemed to know more than he was letting on. Eric had felt out of place in his second hand sweatshirt and jeans with one of Bill's drawings on them.
It had been a relief to go outside. After putting on their jackets, Eric and Amelia had run around outside, exploring the cold garden, the Koi pond, the garage with a couple other expensive cars with foreign names that Eric couldn't pronounce, and a small barn. On the gazebo, next to the Koi pond, they had made out a little. Eric had held her very tightly, crushing her slender body to his until they were both out of breath. Amelia was even going to take him upstairs to her bedroom, but her Dad had said that it wasn't "appropriate" for guests.
That had been the last time he'd seen her. Now they were together again and she wasn't with anyone, so Eric had been hopeful. He didn't care about the pink hair. Amelia was bold, fun, and spoke her mind. He thought they got along great before, so he wasn't sure why she was being so uncertain now.
It didn't help that she had a new friend, Felicia, who seemed to always be around. Felicia's and Amelia's Dad were both in construction, which was how they had met. They kept in contact by computer and constant phone calls. She was as tall as Eric, appearing to be of mixed race, with long beaded braids down her back, high cheekbones and a super wattage smile. She was perfectly nice and Eric liked her well enough, but he couldn't get rid of her. He wanted to be alone with Amelia, so they could pick up from before. This wasn't happening since Amelia and Felicia always seemed to be in a clutch giggling and hugging a lot. He was trying to figure out how to talk to Amelia about this, when Bill dropped his bombshell on him.
He couldn't believe that Bill had managed to get himself a girlfriend, make out with her, complete with touching her tits, all within the span of two days at camp. This was so unfair!
She had to be a dog or a freak of some kind. Bill wouldn't say her name, so that had to be it. She'd have coke bottle glasses, braces with a retainer, or be really ugly. Eric calmed down about the situation, and reminded himself to warn Lafayette not to be a jerk. Bill was really sensitive and would get upset if anyone said anything bad about his new girlfriend, this Eric knew. He would be polite, but he already knew that Bill's new girl wouldn't be anyone he'd be remotely interested in. Hopefully, by movie night, he would have gotten Amelia alone and they'd have their shit worked out.
Everything was going to be fine.
TBC
A/N I spent several hours researching the websites of various Native American tribes of Louisiana, so I could use a few of them for this story. It's hard to get a handle on which ones were/are still in LA since they've spent so much of the past few hundred years being pushed/pulled out of different areas by the US government *sigh* . Anyway, the factoid about the Atakopa was true, and I inserted it into this story because it's part of a minor vampire plot point later. So, to anyone of Native American descent, I meant no disrespect.
