Chapter 14
The Crap Hits The Fan
"This Neanderthal's your cousin?" X-Ray asked, looking from the 5'8" blonde Chill to the maybe 5'2 sandy brown-haired Stanley.
Chill shook her head. "Cousins by marriage," she replied. "What are you doing here?"
"Stole a pair of shoes," Stanley muttered.
"Shoes?" Chill quirked an eyebrow.
It was Stanley's turn to roll his eyes. "Look we can't all be glamorous and steal from Tiffany's, can we?"
Chill almost retorted but then stopped. "I suppose you're right," she said haughtily.
"Since you're both related, I'll let you show Stanley around and meet everyone," Pendanski told Chill, too glad to relinquish his duty to someone else. He left and everyone stood around awkwardly.
"I'm X-Ray," he finally said, "and this is Silhouette and Squid. You already know Chill."
"H-her name's Emily," Stanley said, puzzled.
Chill shook her head. "We have nicknames and literally only go by those nicknames. You'll get one too…eventually."
"Well, it's really nice to witness your family reunion but I'm gonna take a shower," Squid said, nodding to Stanley. "Nice to meet ya."
Chill groaned and glared at her cousin. He was getting in the way of her hanging out with her crush. She looked to Silhouette for help, who only smirked at her, and then went into her own tent. Now he'd have to tag along and – "Disney!" she yelled within two seconds of seeing the younger girl. She was coming back towards the tent with Innocence, Magnet, Fox, Dare, Armpit, and Zero. Innocence had her arm around her and seemed to be consoling the crestfallen girl.
"Yeah?" Disney asked, expressionlessly.
"This is my cousin, Stanley. He's the new kid, stole some shoes, and yadda yadda yadda. I gotta go take a shower. Show him around for me. Peace!" Chill flew into their tent to retrieve her shower stuff and bounded down to the showers before Disney could so much as get a word.
Magnet and Armpit sized the new kid up. He seemed like a nice kid and possibly a bit of a pushover. Hopefully, he'd be on board with their escape, but if not, he seemed easy enough to knock out.
"I'm Armpit, and that's Disney, Magnet, Fox, Dare, Innocence, and Zero," he introduced warily.
Stanley smiled at them all. "Hi, guys," he said cheerfully.
"I gotta go to the Warden's cabin and get my shower stuff," Dare moaned. "See you guys later." She nodded to Stanley sullenly and he grinned at her. Surprised by his niceness, it seemed her face went against all of her rules and she grinned back. 'His eyes are pretty,' Dare thought to herself. 'Wait what?' Disney's mood brightened, catching this, and nudged Innocence delightedly.
Disney smiled at Stanley. "Come on, Stan. Let me get you acquainted with this place," she said, dragging him by the wrist to show him "the Warden's cabin" and continue talking to Dare.
Fox shook her head at Disney's resumed matchmaking practices. "If she can get Dare together with that kid, I'll give up stealing forever," she joked to the others. "Well, I'm showering and then going to the Wreck Room. What about you guys?" Magnet nodded that he was doing the same thing. As they all headed in their different directions, Zero reached out and took Innocence's hand. She blushed, but smiled all the same.
"Can I talk to you?" he said awkwardly. Once she nodded, they walked together towards the empty boys' tent. "Look, I…I've never been able to talk to anyone before you came here. I think you're probably the first friend I've ever had and um, y'know, I-I kinda really like you."
"I like you too, Zero," she whispered. Her face could barely contain her smile. Though she knew he also had a crush on her, it was nice to finally hear him tell her aloud. "I've liked you since I got here."
Zero's eyes widened. "Really?"
Innocence nodded her head emphatically.
"I kinda wanted to ask…I mean, you don't have to, but do you…" He looked toward the tent flap, nervously. He almost hoped someone would come through so he could the awkwardness that surrounded his question.
"Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?" Innocence asked sweetly.
Zero grinned at her. "Yeah."
"Then, yes, I will," she answered him. She moved forward to kiss him on the cheek at the same time he was turning back to face her and ended up kissing him on the lips. Her eyes widened in embarrassment and she pulled away. "Sorry, I was trying to-" However, still grinning, Zero cupped her chin with his hand and pulled her forward and kissed her again on the lips, a bit too passionately for two fourteen year olds but sweet all the same.
"You want me to go get them," Mr. Sir said quietly as he and the other two adults watched the kissing adolescents on the screen. "After all, we said they'd be punished if they got to any relationships with them girls."
"I'm just surprised Zero was the first one to get himself a girlfriend," Pendanksi said, rubbing his head disbelievingly. He might not have liked the kid, but had to be kind of proud of him.
The Warden snapped at them. "Shut up, you idiots." She turned toward the screen again, and despite her stern exterior, felt herself soften a bit. No one in all of her forty-three years had ever looked at her the way Zero was now looking at Innocence. "I'll let 'em alone for now," she said, softly. 'They ought to be lucky,' she thought, turning the screen off. 'It's not every day you find your soul mate at fourteen.'
"So I hear you've got a boyfriend now, huh, Innocence?" Lyter asked the younger girl at dinner.
Innocence beamed. "Yup!" Everyone congratulated the new couple and couldn't help wonder who'd be next. Silhouette looked around at the table. It was true that everyone seemed to be getting cozier. She knew Fox and Magnet, though still not technically "together", were making out whenever they caught a rare moment alone. Lyter and Zigzag were talking now and she stopped treating him like crap. Heck, it even seemed that Armpit had chosen Disney as the object of his affections, even though she was still obviously crushing on Zigzag. She couldn't wait to see how that love square worked itself out.
Also, needless to say, she was immensely surprised to see the new kid, Stanley, attempting to engage Dare in a conversation, who didn't seem to know how to respond to him.
"We need to have another tent meeting," she told X-Ray, who she was forced to sit next to. Probably the plan of Fox and Magnet or Squid. "We need to go over who's getting what and we need to tell the new kid our plan. I'll check in with Dare tomorrow." He nodded.
"I'm happy for her," X-Ray said suddenly, watching in amusement as Innocence and Zero ate one-handed as they hadn't let go of each other's hands since sitting down at the table. "Kid deserves to be happy."
Silhouette nodded. "Yeah, she does. They both do." X-Ray smiled to himself. "What?"
"Looks like we finally agree on something," he told her.
"Shut up."
"How's that new kid settling in? The kid with the stupid name?" she asked
"Ah, yes. Stanley Yelnats. He's actually Emily's younger cousin," Pendanski told her. "I've let her be his mentor."
"Good, good." There was an uncomfortable silence. "Well, I've been through all of the girls' files and still nothing about any of them being anything more than an acquaintance of a descendent of Kissin' Kate Barlow. My brother didn't know what he was talkin' about."
"Four of the girls have stepparents," Pendanski mentioned. "Maybe we have to do some digging."
The Warden snapped her fingers. "Of course," she said excitedly. "I'm going to have to go through their files again. But it has to be a blood link. Otherwise, it doesn't matter."
"What are we going to do with the girl after we find the treasure?" Mr. Sir said gruffly. "I ain't sharing money with no teenager."
The Warden snorted. "We shoot 'em and drop 'em in a hole. We have plenty to choose from."
The sounds of rustling papers drowned out the gasp from behind the ajar door. Dare had heard everything. However, she calmed herself down enough to knock loudly on the door. The Warden answered it and sneered down at her. "Yes?"
"Um, I'm here to start working," she said, with her usual attitude. If she let on that she had heard their conversation, she didn't want to know what they'd do to her.
"Wait here," The Warden went back into her office and Dare heard noises like a cabinet closing. Once she was finished, she opened the door widely. Inside, Dare saw a desk and regular television set. The desk had lots of papers on it. "Put these files in order and then alphabetical order on my desk. If you touch that T.V, I'll know, do you hear me?"
"Yes, ma'am," Dare grumbled.
No sooner than the adults left than Dare ran into the office to begin rifling through the papers on the desk. Sure enough, her and her friends' files were all over the desk. Immediately, she began going through the girls who she knew had stepparents. At once, she'd separated out Silhouette, Innocence, Chill, and Lyter's files from the others. After she'd gone through them all, she finally found what she was looking for, and sucked in a short breath.
"Shit."
Silhouette and X-Ray both stood as the others sat down. It was later than usual, around two in the morning. Everyone was tired, but they didn't want to get caught talking about escaping the camp by anyone. "Look, Stanley, we're leaving Camp Green Lake," X-Ray told him. "You need to make a choice on whether your comin' with us."
"L-leaving? We can't leave?" Stanley stammered. "What about my parents? They'll be freaked out worried about me. An-and where could we possibly go?"
Chill rolled her eyes at him. "You can email them from a hostel in Prague."
"What happens if I don't go?" Stanley asked them, worriedly.
"We kill you," Armpit said with a serious look on his face. Stanley nearly peed his pants. Fox punched Armpit on the arm.
"We will not," she hissed. "But we will knock you out."
Stanley looked at Chill, who nodded at him. "Fine, I'm in."
"Okay, this is what needs to happen. We have dinner duty tomorrow, right? We'll steal all the food we can and two of us can run back to the tent with everything," Silhouette said. "That can be you and Zero, Innocence. It'll be heavy but you're both really small and quiet and probably won't get caught, especially if everyone's at dinner."
"Water's gonna be a bit more of a problem," X-Ray said. "I think we're gonna have to steal extra jugs of water in the middle of the night from the water truck."
Fox raised her hand. "I can do that."
"I'll go too!" Magnet said suddenly.
Fox smiled gratefully at him.
"And how about Disney and Squid?" Silhouette volunteered, eyeing Fox as if to say 'No way are you two making out while we're doing something important'. Fox sighed sadly.
Zigzag pipped up. "What can I do?"
"That's where you and Lyter come in. We torch the Wreck Room. While everyone's fighting that fire and are all panicking, we get out of here," said X-Ray.
"Fire," Zigzag giggled maniacally.
"Once we get out of here, we'll head straight to Dallas, where Chill says she knows a person who can make us fake passports. Is there anyway you can ask him to have them ready when we get there?"
"I need my cellphone," Chill answered. "I think Mr. Sir has them in his office."
"Or we just steal his or Pendanski's," Magnet countered. "Pendanski's so scatter-brained he'll think he dropped it into a hole."
"All right, guys, we need to get to slee-"
Before Silhouette could say the word, Dare raced into the cabin, panting heavily.
"What are you doing?" Disney asked her. "You should be at the Warden's cabin."
"It couldn't wait, it's important!" Dare said quickly and then turned to Innocence. "Innocence, what's your full name?"
"Ashley James," Innocence said, raising an eyebrow at Dare. "You know my name."
"No, that's your stepfather's last name, isn't it?"
Innocence hesitated, as she always did when her stepfather was mentioned. "My mom made us change it, because he wanted us to."
"I don't get where you're going with this, Dare," Disney said, confused.
"What's your real last name? Your birth dad's last name?" Dare prompted, ignoring Disney.
"Barlow," replied Innocence, still not understanding.
Finally, to Stanley at least, something clicked. "As in Kissin' Kate?" A few lightbulbs seemed to go off in the others' heads.
"That's just a family legend," Innocence said defensively.
"What's a family legend?" Chill asked incredulously.
"That we're descended from here," Innocence shrugged but smiled.
"You just happen to have a family legend that you're descended from one of the most infamous female outlaws in America?" X-Ray asked, eyes basically bulging out of his head and he looked dubiously at his 'little sister'.
"...Maybe..."
"Why is this so important, Dare?"
Surprising to everyone in D-Tent, Dare burst into tears. "I heard the Warden and Mr. Sir talking. They're obsessed with finding Kissin' Kate Barlow's gold. They think they can use a descendant of hers to find it and they know it's one of us. And then after they find her treasure, they're gonna kill her. I hid Innocence's file under a loose floorboard so it should take them a while to find it."
"What?" Silhouette shouted, looking at Innocence.
Everyone was silent for a full moment. "Why is it always fucking me?" Innocence said, not even surprised at this point. X-Ray tried to choke down a chuckle at Innocence's word usage, but failed miserably. Fox, on the other hand, couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing. Soon, they were all in tears from laughing despite the danger of the situation and Disney attempting to shush them all on multiple occasions.
Everyone calmed down enough for X-Ray to tell them. "All right, you keep tabs on whether they find Innocence's file or not. We start setting things in motion tomorrow. We'll leave in three days."