"You don't like girls much, do you?" Lorraine mused, when Randi paused. "Both groups of friends you've had have been boys."

"Yeah, I just fit in better with guys. Girls are so catty and superficial..." Randi trailed off, realizing her audience. "I mean...uh..."

"No, it's okay," Lorraine shrugged. "Girls can be very catty and superficial. Mostly popular girls. I'm not evil or popular. I'm 'special'," she made air quotes with her fingers. Randi laughed.

"So, you're going to tell me about camp, right?" Lorraine asked.

"I'll get there," Randi assured her, "That's the main part of the story. But the night before I left..."

********************************

Mouth, Data, Chunk, Mikey, and I were hanging out at the coastline. It was kinda cold, because it's always cold in Astoria, and I was huddled against Mouth. The others were sitting in front of us, talking about something that clearly didn't catch Mouth's interest.

"I'm going to miss you," Mouth said, "Will you miss me?"

"I'll only be gone two weeks," I reminded him. "But yeah, I'll miss all you guys."

Mouth sighed. "Not exactly what I meant," he mumbled. I didn't say anything. I knew exactly what he had meant, and exactly what he wanted to hear. But God, I couldn't tell him that it would be surprisingly refreshing to get away from him for a little.

"Uh, Randi, there's something I want to give you."

"What?"

"This," and he leaned close to me and gave me my first real kiss. Now, I'm not going to lie and say I didn't like it, I did. But it was a warm friendly kiss. There was no...spark to it. Even Teddy had spark, but I'll get to that later.

He pulled back and grinned at me.

"Shame, shame!" Data and Chunk sang in unison. Mikey laughed. I blushed and Mouth just kept smirking cockily. I stood up quickly.

"I gotta go home," I mumbled. I half walked, half ran back to the main road.

"Aw, you guys pissed her off!" I heard Mouth yell behind me. I wasn't pissed, I was just embarrassed, and I wanted to go back and get ready for camp. I was going to "try and make the best of it", as my dad put it. I went home and packed, and the next morning, I was ready to go.

I said my goodbyes to my dad, my brother, and my friends, and rode on a bus to a lovely wooded part of Oregon, about 3 hours from here. It's about 1 from Astoria, though.

When I got there, I found myself surrounded by running kids, and a lot of counselors trying to round them up and get organized. I felt slightly out of place, clutching my duffel bag, but I scanned the crowd for anyone that I knew.

"Randi Riverton is that you?" came a yell. I turned in that direction to see a girl from my church, Sandy, bound towards me. I inwardly cringed. Sandy had blonde hair, spring curls and huge blue eyes. She was so cutesy and annoying.

"Hey Sandy," I smiled weakly.

"Hey Randi! This is so cool you're here! You're so funny! These are gonna be two great weeks..."

Sandy kept talking, but I stopped listening. I spotted a young, innocent looking boy sitting all by himself. He had dark hair and big doe eyes that were filled with sadness. He was staring at the ground, and moving dirt around with the toe of his shoe.

"Hey Sandy," I interrupted her babbling, "Do you know that kid?"

"Who?"

"Him!" I pointed to the boy.

"Oh, him," she shook her head, "No, I don't. I heard a counselor call him Gordon. He looks like a psychopath if you ask me. Anyway, what bunk are you in?"

"What now?"

"Bunk number," she stressed, as if I were stupid.

"Oh, uh," I dug the card I got in the mail out of my pocket, "G-11A"

"Me too!" she squealed. "We totally have to be bunkmates!"

Bunkmates...what the hell was she talking about?

"And you know what..."

I kept watching that Gordon boy, as Sandy yammered on. There was something about him that just intrigued me. For some reason, I wanted to know why he was sad...like that sadness in those eyes was contagious, and if I couldn't help him I wouldn't rest. Or something not nearly as weird as that. I'm not sure. I just wanted to know all about him.

"Come on!" Sandy grabbed my arm. "The counselors just said to go to our cabins! Are you deaf?"

"What?" I joked, as Sandy dragged me to the cabin.

We walked in to find a nice looking older teen standing in the center of the cabin. The cabin was just a big room with a couple of bunk beds. There was a small area in the back curtained off. The cabin seemed pretty nice and clean, thought that didn't matter much to me.

"You must be Randi Riverton and Sandy Moyer," the girl smiled warmly. "You're the only two that haven't shown up yet. Which is which?"

"I'm Randi Riverton," I said. I silently thanked her for not introducing us as 'Randi and Sandy'. I prayed that no one would notice that our names rhymed. Being ostracized was all I needed.

"I'm Judy Denker," the counselor smiled. "I'm this cabin's counselor. You two can have those bunks," she pointed to the last one left. "Get unpacked quickly," she turned to address the whole cabin, "Because in a half-hour we're going to play a camp-wide game of capture the flag!"

Judy was very perky.

"I call the top bunk!" Sandy smiled, just as perky as Judy.

"I'll arm wrestle you for it," I pleaded, as she climbed up the bunk ladder.

"I already called it."

"Damn," I mumbled. There was a small shelf on the wall by every bunk, so I unpacked some of my stuff, like my notebook, and pens. I left all my clothes in my bag, and shoved it under my bed.

"That's not organized," Sandi frowned from the top, her curls dangling over the edge.

"That's as organized as I get it," I shot back. I remembered why I didn't really hang out with Sandy outside of church. Lying on my bed, I took a picture of all the Goonies together and taped it to the bottom of Sandy's bed, right over my head. I smiled at the picture. I wondered what they'd all say if they were here with me. Mikey would assure me that I'd make friends. Data would help me think of some sort of cage device to contain Sandy. I laughed to myself. Chunk...well I could just hear him say something like, "I bet the food is great!"

I laughed aloud.

"What's so funny?" Sandy asked, peering down at me over the edge of the bed.

"Your face. Are you ready to kick some Capture the flag ass?"

Sandy shrugged, "Whatever."

****************************************************