Chapter Three

The Warden smiled as the looked at the boys excitedly take their seats at breakfast. They sure didn't know what they were in for.

"I was plannin' to keep this a secret," said the Warden, smiling mischievously at the boys, "but I guess it was a little too obvious."

"You rock!" A boy from B tent shouted.

She let out a small chuckle and said, "I know. I've been reading the suggestion box and I decided you boys deserved this." They didn't know she meant that in the bitterest way possible.

As the Warden droned on, Zigzag looked over at the area marked "Girls D", this curiosity overpowering him. At once, he made eye-contact with a girl; fair skinned with curly red-orange hair and small brown eyes. She had sleek, high cheekbones and a slim nose. She was one of the smaller ones in the group, but obviously a heck lot more mature. The girls were wearing the same orange jumpsuits as the boys, only wearing t-shirts, tank tops, and wife-beaters. This particular girl was wearing a dirty white one with clunky, black skate shoes. She shot him a friendly smile and focused her attention back on the Warden.

Tara looked around the Mess Hall at the boys nudging each other and whispering. Yup, they were definitely gay. Especially that one kid with the wild, frizzy, blonde hair…he was staring but instead of making her feel uncomfortable, she looked him right back digging into his stormy blue eyes. At first, she uncomfortably thought that he was checking her out, but the announcement came back in mind.

He's GAY! She told herself amusedly, cracking a smile. A pink tinge appeared in his cheeks. I guess he knows I knows…poor fellow…might be one of those guys who still don't want to admit it yet.

She decided silently to herself with the often sideways glances that she gave him that she'd get to know him better and hopefully counsel him into knowing that it was really all right to be homosexual.

"Psst, X," Zigzag nudged the leader. "I think I'm going to score that girl over there."

"Which one? There are a lot if you haven't noticed."

"The cute one. She's been smiling at me all through breakfast."

"Which one! As long as it isn't that sweet lookin' one over there." He jerked his head back to slim pale girl with wavy black hair and brown streaks, large blue eyes, pink lips, and slightly large front teeth. She had diamond-cross earrings and a tight, black tank top. She wore more makeup compared to her friends when it came to the black eye makeup and X-Ray never missed an opportunity to wink at her.

Wink, wink, wink went his eye all through breakfast and she seemed to be responding quite well. She'd lean over to her Asian friend (particularly close he noticed) with the long black hair and they'd look around, then at X-Ray and giggle.

I am such a stud, the leader of D-tent though to himself as they waved at him from across the room.

"Check out that guy," Janie whispered to her girlfriend. She pointed across the room to an African-American boy with thick glasses.

"Isn't that the dude from earlier?"

"Yeah…I think he has something in his eye."

"Oh, no, that can't be it!" Samantha exclaimed quietly. "He's obviously winking."

Janie raised her eyebrow and said, "He's gay, Sam. Don't you remember? He wouldn't be making that suggestive of a sign…unless he was bisexual or something."

"I didn't mean that," Sam said, heaving a sigh. "Look behind us!" There was another boy, one from A-tent, who was smiling at something across the room. Tracing his stare, it led back to the boy from D-tent (they didn't know he was smiling at some girl in the lunch line who happened to be standing behind X-Ray).

Janie grinned and rolled her eyes. "I got so nervous for a second there. Hmm…but they really don't make a cute couple, do they?"

"Nope," Samantha agreed, picking at her cereal. "But hell, as much as they're free to be gay, they're entitled to their rump-buddy."

All the others were also busy trying to make their impression on the girls as they left the Mess Hall to start their holes for the day. The boys giggled and waved at the girls, who stayed completely indifferent to them.

"Man, are they playing hard to get!" X-Ray heard a boy for E-tent sigh.

It was true. It had been the boys the whole morning who were trying to get the girls' attention and not once did they walk over to them. It was disappointing. They were all good looking girls—except for a few that appeared to actually be quite manly and scary.

Armpit had taken a sudden fancy to one of the muscular girls that happened to be in D-tent. She was about 6'3 feet tall and African-American. She had blonde cornrows and her arms were burlier than any other boy at that camp. Her hands were like paddles and they were rough with calluses covering the palms of her hand. Her face was square, her eyes were small, her nose was a bit flat and squashed in, and her lips thick and full. However, this was the kind of girl Armpit has dreamed about.

Pat noticed the fat African-American boy in the group seemed to be having trouble talking to the Hispanic one.

I'm thinkin' somebody has a little crush, she laughed to herself as the fat one beamed.

The Hispanic one was chatting away and the African-American one was nodding intently, paying close attention to each word. He was obviously infatuated.

Camp Green Lake seemed no different than Camp Lesbos so maybe playing some match-maker would be fun.

"My advice," said Magnet, "just talk to her. She don't seem like the kind of girl that gets a lot of attention from the fellas so yeah, I think she'll respond real well."

"Ya think?"

"Do I look like an idiot?"

"No… but dude, is she smokin'!" Armpit whispered loudly to Magnet as she rammed the shovel to the hard ground, immediately going about a foot down.

"She's kinda scary," Magnet shuddered. "Are you sure that's even a girl?"

"Heck yes! She has womanhood written all over her!"

"She looks like a friggin' transvestite!" Magnet said rather loudly. This caused a few of the lovely D-tent girls to turn around and grunt with disapproval.

"I don't care what you say, man," Armpit said, becoming nervous as she looked in his direction. Her presence was intoxicating. In his eyes, she was as perfect as any girl from Camp Mary-Sue…but to the others, she was as scary as King Kong.

Meanwhile, Magnet was busy making eyes at the other African-American girl who was much more feminine and cuter than the manly one. She rolled her eyes and Magnet purred, studying her.

Yes, she was more of a girl. This one had lighter skin that the "man-woman". She had delicate curves, a very voluptuous body, and long, black hair. Her eyebrows were perfectly formed with high arches, lip gloss shined her lips, and dark brown eyes peered suspiciously through long lashes.

He was watching her dig her hole.

That's right chica, bend for papa…Magnet thought dirty little thoughts to himself, becoming excited.

She seemed to sense somebody was looking at her when she turned around.

"Hey," he said coolly, leaning on his shovel.

"Hey," she smiled back.

"You look nice."

"Thanks."

"I really like your makeup."

"Thanks."

This boy was especially weird compared to his friends…giggling. That's all he did the whole day—that is, other than watching her of course. It was creepy and at first she thought he might've been sent to this gay camp by mistake when he told her she had nice makeup.

I was wrong about him, Dionne said to herself. All he wants is to learn how to put on makeup. I'll help this future-drag queen out a bit…won't hurt and it might be fun.

"Maybe we can hang out sometime?" Dionne said wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead.

Magnet giggled idiotically and nodded, watching as she shot him a smile, saying, "I'd talk to ya know, but buddy, I have to finish."

Starting to dig his hole again, he gleefully thought about how he was going to sit next to her at dinner.

Squid hovered over the Spanish girl's hole while she dug underneath the hot sun that tanned her skin. He watched her with sneaky prevented eyes and she dug the shovel into the soft earth. He had noticed her being obviously the pretty one in the group. She felt a shadow cast over her and looking up, she saw Squid grinning goofily from ear to ear.

"Whaddya want cowboy?"

"Your name," he said, jumping into the hole next to her.

She gave him a strange gaze and studied him a bit. Suddenly, a lovely smile spread across her delicate lips and she played with her dark brown hair. "Alexandra," she said, her voice deepening a bit as she took his hand to shake it. "But you can call me Alex."

Now, he was evidently the good-looking one in the group so Alex considered herself lucky. Not only was she the gorgeous girl of the group, she was also prone to being jealous, proud, flirtatious (only to girls though), and at times, a bit greedy. She knew she was beautiful so she only expected the good looking boy of the tent to approach her as well.

Wow, what a waste of manhood… if I weren't dating Leslie and he weren't gay, we'd so be making out in this hole right now.

But hey, become close friends with this boy was better than nothing. She gripped his hand and shook it, introducing herself as Alex.

"Oh my," Squid yelped, flinching a bit. "Quite a grip you've got there, Alexan—uh, Alex!" He took in her figure greedily with his eyes—her

"Thanks," she chuckled, spitting her white wad of gum into her hole. "I'll see ya around, man. Leslie's watching…" she cocked her head to the side, knowing how suspicious her girlfriend could be even when it came to boys.

"Oh…okay," said Squid, looking at Leslie. She was probably one of those girls that didn't trust boys. He shook it off. Compared to the rest, he was feeling rather fortunate.

The rest of the boys were beginning to believe that they were having just as much luck as the others did.

Barfbag had an interest to the tall blonde girl with dark eyes and a wide smile but she seemed far too interested talking to her friend that had just introduced herself to Squid. Barfbag shrugged; taking glances at her often while she leaned against her hole to take a sip from her canteen

Without so much as even looking at him, the blonde girl screwed the cap to the canteen back on and swallowed her water, saying, "What do you want?"

Barfbag jumped slightly, embarrassed at being caught. She seemed to be scolding him.

Regaining his composure, he said, "Um…nothing."

"Don't give me that," she said, still not bothering to glance at him. "I know you're staring for a reason.

……

This boy seemed to have a hard time just trying to talk. "It's nothing…more of a personal thing actually…entirely personal."

"What would that be?" Leslie asked.

"I told you it was personal."

"Oh c'mon now. You were staring quite rudely. Must have something to do about me."

He paused, closing his eyes to summon up all the courage. He was tightly gripping the handle of his shovel.

He has a problem with lesbians! Leslie came to that awful conclusion after he said, "I'm just not used to having…you know…around here. If you haven't noticed."

……

Barfbag wasn't sure if she was just trying to act ambiguous but she didn't seem to notice that they were girls in an all-boys camp.

"No, actually, I don't know," she said defiantly, throwing her shovel aside. She jumped out of her hole and stood over Barfbag who began to feel very frightened. He seemed to crumble through her intimidation and she heaved a sigh.

"C'mon, cupcake," she growled. "Spit it out."

He lowered his eyes once more, looking more demoralized than ever.

At this point, not even the united powers of all Four Founders could have prevented

Perhaps he had picked out the wrong girl. He was always bad at making choices; that was one of the reasons he was at Camp Green Lake.

The blonde girl threw a handful of dirt into his face and jumped back into her own hole, obviously now in a bad mood.

He heard a laugh come from behind him as he spit out the dirt. There was a cute Asian girl with long, black hair and big black eyes. "I think she likes ya." (She meant that in a friend sort of way, of course, but Barfbag didn't know that)

"She feisty, isn't she? I don't know if you're joking, but I think I've already made a new enemy."

"Don't even try to make the first move, bud. Leslie's the type that'd kill you as soon as look at you. Give it time. She might warm up at dinner."

Barfbag beamed. "Really?"

"Yup."

He looked around and said, "Yeah…so, you find anybody interesting?"

"Yeah," said the girl, leaning casually against her hole. "That one kid right there."

……

Janie pointed across the wasteland to the curly-headed boy. He was interesting. He did seem a little gayer than the others and she really did want to make a new friend. He seemed just her type. She liked making new friends and she felt as though becoming friends with a gay boy would lead to a fun opportunity to share their stories about how their friends and family reacted to their "coming out of the closet".

"Zero?" the boy that smelled of sour milk laughed.

"Zero?" Janie raised an eyebrow and smiled. "I've noticed that ya'll have your nicknames."

"Yeah, I'm Barfbag."

"Well, Barfbag," said Janie, "if you can get me to meet that Zero kid, I'll get Leslie over there to talk to ya."

"Really?" He brightened up a bit.

"Yeah, why not? We can all forge some allies here. So tell me about that Zero guy."

"I'm tellin' ya, he won't be easy to talk to. He's real quiet and doesn't talk to anybody. Might be hard."

"Can't be that hard. I'll kick his ass if he so much as ignores me."

"You know you used to be like him too," said Alex from her hole. She had obviously been eavesdropping. "Quiet and easily beat up. Not till Sam came along."

Barfbag raised his eyebrow. "Sam?" he asked, not knowing she was talking about a girl. "Who's that?"

Janie blushed. "Oh, you know…my significant other."

"Ah…do they do to this camp?"

"Yeah…"

"Then why do you wanna meet Zero?"

"Cause he seems cool."

I really ought to look out for this one, Barfbag thought wearily to himself as Janie gave Zero a wave. She's a vixen this one is.

……

All the girls had finished digging their holes just as fast as any boy which surprised all of them. The Wreck Room was particularly crowded as the D-tent boys watched Pat and Armpit play around a bit.

She punched his arm and he yelled out, "Ouch! Watch it, girl! I bruise."

"C'mon, one hard punch in the face!"

"You're basically asking to be killed here!" said Squid, momentarily distracted for a second from his conversation with Alex.

Armpit rolled his eyes, but before he knew it, Pat had him in a headlock. A smile crept along his face despite the pain.

"If you don't fight back, I'm accidentally going to rip off your head!"

Before he could help himself, she elbowed her right in the stomach and she toppled over. He guiltily looked around as his friends stared at him wide-eyed.

"Ooh, Pit, you just pushed a girl…"

But Pat jumped up t her feet again and laughed, obviously pleased. "That's more like it. It's good to know one little fairy boy can do the trick."

The boys looked around, confused, but shrugged it off, continuing their conversations.

……

Miss Kathy was walking around the campsite, hoping that the Warden would come out to talk about anything when Mr. Sir came up from behind her, holding a bouquet of dandelions.

"Just thought you'd like a little welcoming gift," he said gruffly, scratching his greasy brown hair under his cowboy hat.

She smiled at him and said, "Why thank you. Lou would love them, wouldn't she?"

He stared at her then replied, "Well, yeah, I guess so…they're her favorite."

"Excellent. Thank you Marion." With that, she stalked off to the little cabin that rested under the shade of the only oak tree in Camp Green Lake.