The counselors divided the camp into two teams. Since they divided us by whole cabins, Sandy and I were both on the Red team....yay. That was heavy sarcasm. Anyway, once we were on our respective starting sides, a group of boys on our team formed a small group.

"Okay Mark, I want you to guard..." one said. I realized that they were assigning positions, and excitedly, I jogged over.

"What can I do?" I asked breathlessly.

The self-appointed leader sneered at me. "You can stand over there with the girls." He and his friends laughed.

"You ass bastards!" I yelled hotly. My face was flushed. Nobody makes a fool out of Randi Riverton.

"Hey girls," I ran back over to the group of girls, who were standing around yapping and gossiping. They looked at me quizzically. "We're gonna lead a revolt, and capture the flag ourselves! Who's with me?" I cried.

They continued to stare at me blankly. I could have just told them I was Dick Clark and I wanted them on American Bandstand and they probably would have given me the same look. I glared at them. "Morons," I muttered.

I turned around to see the lead boy laughing at me. "Stupid girls," he laughed.

Now, as I said earlier, no one makes a fool of me. So, I did the only respectable thing to do. I decked him. I was never really known for keeping my cool.

So, I found myself being sent to the camp directors office, for giving the boy bloody nose. What a great way to start a day at Camp Dundermiller. What a freaking stupid name for a camp. I trudged slowly to the office. There was a door with a sign on it that said:

'Camp Emergency, be back in a few minutes. Please feel free to sit and wait. -Mrs. D'

I didn't feel very free, but I decided to go in and wait anyway. I opened the door and saw a small waiting area with two chairs and a little table in between. One of those chairs was filled with the boy I saw earlier. I sat down in the other chair.

We sat in silence. I glanced over at him. He was playing with his hands. I swung my legs and stared at my feet. When I snuck a look at him, he looked suddenly at me, and I turned away. I felt my face et hot. I was blushing. I used to never, ever blush. I cleared my throat.

"What'd you do?" I asked. He turned towards me.

"I was at the Nurse's office. I didn't want to play capture the flag. She figured out I wasn't sick pretty quick, and told me to get outside. I told her I'd rather not, and she sent me here. I think I'm supposed to get a lecture or something," he finished. He had a nice voice, not sickeningly sweet, like I thought he would, for some reason. "What'd you do?" he asked.

I tried to contain the grin coming to my face, "I punched some ass-hat in the nose for underestimating girls."

"I saw him coming in the Nurse's office," he laughed, "Bryan Johnson. The bastard's in my cabin. He deserves a swift kick to the balls as well as a bloody nose."

"I'm Randi Riverton," I extended my hand, grinning.

"Gordie Lachance," he shook my hand.

"I saw you earlier," I admitted. "You looked so sad."

His smile fell, and the sadness crept back into his eyes. "Yeah," was all he said.

"What's wrong," I pressed. I was never very subtle either.

He looked at me with those big brown eyes again. "My brother was killed in a car accident. My parents sent me here so they wouldn't have to deal with me," he gazed at his shoes.

And in that instance I felt all his pain. "I'm sorry," I said gently. "I've lost someone close to me too, I know how it feels. If you need someone to talk to..."

Gordie looked at me and smiled weakly. "Thanks," he said weakly.

We sat in silence for a little longer.

"...My neighbor's seeing eye dog ran him into a tree because the dog didn't like him.." I blurted. Gordie looked shocked for a brief second before he burst out laughing. That's a true story by the way.

"My God, really?" Gordie asked, between laughs.

"Yeah, apparently he didn't treat the dog well and the dog got pissed off and ran him straight into a tree." Now I was giggling too.

Gordie and I talked for about twenty minutes, until I realized that no one had come to reprimand us yet.

"Uh, Gordie," I interrupted a story he was telling me about his crazy friend Teddy.

"What?"

"Why are we still here?"

Gordie tilted his head and stared at me. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, why don't we just go? Nobody would know. The counselors would think we were lectured, and Good ol' Mrs. D," I rolled my eyes, "Wouldn't even know we came here."

Gordie hesitated, "I don't know..."

"Come on Gordie," I pleaded. "We could go be spies in capture the flag!"

"Spies?" Gordie warmed up to my idea, "How so?"

"We could go on the red team and saw we're on that team and figure out where the flag and guards are. Then we can go to the blue thing, say we're on that team, and do the same thing. Then we go back and tell the red team," I explained in one breath.

"That sounds kinda fun," Gordie mused.

"Come on," I got up and grabbed his arm, and we ran out of the office, and tore into the woods, where the capture the flag game was raging. I saw Sandy and a couple of her brain dead buddies standing around.

"Hey Colonel Sanders!" I called.

"Hey...Columbia-Riverton," she called back. That was pretty clever of her to come back with that so quickly. Gordie and I walked over.

"This is Gordie," I said hurriedly. I prayed she'd have enough tact not to say anything about her thinking he was a psychopath. Gordie waved without making eye contact, and Sandy merely nodded. "We were at the office, but we're gonna play now. We wanna guard. Where's the flag?"

"The flag's over there in the woods," Sandy told us, "There are two guys guarding each side of the brush. The flag's dead in the center behind the two tallest trees."

My jaw dropped. "How do you know all this?" I expected a 'over there' answer with a vague wave of her hand.

"Randi, there are cute boys guarding those flags. We've been over there a bunch of times already," she said simply, as if I was stupid for not assuming that. I rolled my eyes.

"Figures," I told Gordie. "Well, thanks." Gordie and I ran towards the woods. Once the girls couldn't see us anymore, we made a bee-line for the Blue team side.

Gordie stopped me. "I've got a better idea." I paused and looked at him. "What if we go back and hide the red flag? You know, we take it, hide it, then to the same to the blue team!"

I grinned wickedly, "Gordie, I think you and I could be deviously good friends."

He just beamed.

We snuck stealthily to the red flag. I distracted our guards by bragging about how I punched that kid in the face. Gordie snuck out the flag. We ran and hid it on the Blue side. Then, we went and pulled the same 'oh we just came from the office' routine on the Blue team, and hid their flag on the Red side. After all that, Gordie and I collapsed in the woods giggling our heads off.

"Mission accomplished," Gordie grinned.

"They won't know what hit them," I said proudly.

It took the teams two hours to find those flags. Gordie and I have been best friends ever since.

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

"That's so cute!" Lorraine cried, slapping her hand on the table. "I still can't believe you just punched that guy in the face!"

Randi shrugged, "I punch a lot of guys in the face."

"Okay, let me get this all straight. You and Mouth were pretty much on the outs at this time, right?"

"Well, yeah, but he didn't exactly know it yet," Randi said.

"Why didn't you write him a letter? You should have written him a letter," Lorraine said.

"I know, looking back, I should have written him a letter, telling him exactly how I felt. But the thing is, I didn't know how I felt. Breaking up with Mouth wasn't a decision that I could even think to make at the time. The fact that I didn't care about him, the fact that there were other people out there...that was a slow realization that I had to come to. And Gordie...well..." Randi trailed off.

It looked to Lorraine like Randi was getting choked up or something. "So what else happened at camp?" she desperately changed the subject.

"The next thing scared the shit out of me," Randi said. "And I never told anyone. I'm almost positive Gordie told Chris. It's not really a secret, I just couldn't tell anyone...not even Mikey. It's like, words would kinda cheapen it," she tried to explain.

Lorraine nodded. "Are you sure you want to tell me?"

"Yeah," Randi swallowed and took a deep breath. "It's still so vivid." Randi's eyes were distant, reliving the memory. Lorraine felt like she was just listening to Randi, and not like Randi was actually talking to her.

"You okay?" Lorraine asked.

"I'm fine," Randi said, the glazed look still in her eyes. And she began to speak again.

A/N: That story about the blind guy and his seeing eye dog is true. The dog was walking him, and there was a tree in his yard, and you could avoid the low branch by stepping to side, but the dog walked him right into it. It gave him a cut on the head, but he's okay now. And he got a new dog that is much nicer.