They were led into the dining hall, which was decorated for the occasion with paper streamers and battery-operated candle-shaped lights.
"It's like Paul Bunyan's prom," Anne whispered to Rebecca as the girls walked in with their "dates."
"Why couldn't our parents just chain us up in the closet and feed us stale bread crusts and water like normal people?" Rebecca whispered back.
"Because they're evil."
"So not bloody fair."
"Tell me about it," Anne grumbled. "I feel like a deranged escapee from Little House on the Prairie."
"You look like one, Laura," Rebecca replied.
"Yeah, well, so do you. And don't call me that name. I've never liked it for some reason." Anne shivered.
They approached the tables then, and, per the instructions of the counselors, the boys pulled out the chairs for their dates of the evening. "Oh, what lovely, gentlemen," Anne muttered under her breath.
It wasn't long before their dinner came out, and Anne stared down at the mass-produced food on her plate in horror. She was British and she was scared to touch the stuff.
From beside her, Rebecca leaned over and whispered in her ear, "What the bloody hell is that?"
"I haven't a single clue," Anne whispered back, her nose wrinkled. "It looks like something Da killed the other night—complete with ooze."
The other campers, however, seemed to have no problem with the questionable food on their plates. Anne wondered if perhaps they were even more insane than she'd previously thought.
"Aren't you girls hungry?"
Anne and Rebecca looked up as Carrie clamped her hands down on their shoulders. "I was before I had to look at this," Anne replied, gesturing down to her plate of questionable lumps.
"Now, that's not a very polite thing to say!" Carrie said with an over-exaggerated frown. "It sounds like someone's having a hard time catching the camper spirit!"
"Is that anything like catching the clap?" Anne asked, her eyes wide with feigned innocence.
Carrie jerked her hands away, her cheery disposition going away in an instant. "Eat your dinner, girls," she said coldly before she resumed walking the length of the table.
Anne watched the counselor for a moment, something niggling at her senses before she shook it off, chalking it up to the strangeness of the situation over all.
"I'll eat it if you will," Rebecca said, regaining Anne's attention. She stabbed a brown glob with a fork, relieved when it didn't scream.
"Could be worse. Could be Aunt Dawn's cooking," Anne replied. She sighed. "Oh well, this or starve, I suppose."
With a shared grimace, the girls began to eat their meal.
After dinner, Anne had hoped the whole thing would just be over. Granted, it was still early in the evening, but she'd welcome going to bed—she'd rather be unconscious than aware of being in this place.
However, luck was not with her. Apparently, the whole shoe date extravaganza also included a dance. With streamers and teeny bopper music.
It was enough to make Anne want to heave.
She sat in a chair on the edge of the make-shift dance floor of the gym with Rebecca on one side and Todd on the other.
Rebecca's "date" for the night had long since run off with Melissa. Anne had had no such luck ditching Todd. He'd barely spoken a word, yet the boy continued to cling.
She leaned over and whispered in Rebecca's ear, "Can't you like, make this place burst into flames or something? At least make the bloody stereo explode."
Rebecca shook her head. "Da said no magic. He said he'd know, and then I'd be in even more trouble." She sighed heavily. "He always seems to know, no matter how sneaky I think I'm being. It's so not fair."
Anne groaned as she watched Counselor Dan approach. She was already suffering enough—couldn't these people just leave her alone? "Don't you girls want to get up and dance?" he asked, his tone chipper enough to make Anne want to kill something.
"No," Anne replied. She glanced down at her feet and decided to see if she could get some extra mileage out of her earlier falsehood. "I have fallen arches, see. Dancing causes me all sorts of pain. And Rebecca here is being a good friend and putting her own enjoyment aside to make sure I don't have to suffer alone."
"She's always been right upset that she isn't allowed to dance, due to her tragic medical condition," Rebecca added. "I couldn't dance in good conscience knowing she'd be alone."
"Well, I certainly won't make you do something that would aggravate a medical condition. We have to keep all you kids strong and healthy!" Dan replied. "And it is good of you to stay with your friend." He stepped to the side and pulled Todd up from his chair, ignoring the boy's protests. "But you need to be having fun!"
Dan toted the boy towards the dance floor, leaving Rebecca and Anne on their own again.
"Who would've thought freaky Dan would come in handy?" Anne asked, stretching out now that she was free of her quiet, yet annoying with his mere presence, date.
"And you're really milking this whole 'fallen arches' thing," Rebecca pointed out with an arched eyebrow.
"Says the girl who's right along for the ride. But really, anything to keep away from that lot of patheticness." Anne gestured towards the congregation on the dance floor. "What exactly is that weird jerky, lumbering thing all the boys are doing?"
Rebecca giggled. "I'm pretty sure they think they're dancing."
"Then my toes thank me for staying put." She sighed. "We so need to escape."
"How exactly are we going to do that?" Rebecca asked. "We can't go home before the summer's over; our parents would wring out necks. And if we leave, then the camp is sure to call them anyway, and they'll come over here looking for us—which you and I both know would result in our speedy capture."
"Yeah, I know, but I still think we should at least try for an escape. Sure, once they find us, our parents will have our heads, but what can they do to us that's possibly worse than this?"
Rebecca glanced between the two of them and their nearly-identical frock dresses, then out towards the dance floor itself before she grimaced. "I can't think of anything worse. I think I'd rather just go back to jail."
Anne leaned in towards Rebecca, keeping her voice low enough so that no one but Rebecca herself could hear it over the music. "So we make a break for it tonight, after everyone else is asleep. We get as far as we can and try to avoid capture until they can't make us come back here."
"Just no magic. That would be the quickest way to alert my parents that something was up. I'm fairly certain my father has done some sort of spell to let him know when I do a spell, only he won't tell me what so I can't counteract it." She crossed her arms over his chest. "I hate it when he's wily."
"My dad doesn't even need magic. He just knows everything I do. Half the things I try to get away with he can smell, which is completely unfair."
"If we run, how easy will it be for him to track us?" Rebecca asked.
"We'll have a head start, plus, I know how to disguise my scent. He made the mistake of teaching me that one before he realized I could someday use it on him," Anne replied with a small smirk. "We'll be good for at least a while."
"Okay, everybody, gather 'round, because tonight, we're going to learn a new, fun way to dance. It's called Square Dancing!"
Dan's announcement caused Rebecca and Anne to share a look as they blessed Anne's faux-fallen arches.
They needed to get away from there fast, consequences be damned.
"I can't believe they let losers like them in here."
From the bunk beneath Rebecca's, Anne's eyebrow arched. "Melissa? Which was that exactly: You thinking you're being sneaky by saying something derogatory about us loud enough that we could hear or you actually being stupid enough to think we're deaf?"
Melissa turned away from where she'd gathered with her gaggle of friends, and looked at Anne in shock. Obviously, she wasn't used to people responding to her like that.
Still, she tossed her hair. "Whatever. I don't care that you know I think you're a loser."
"And I don't care you think that," Anne replied coolly. "Honestly, I take derision from people like you as a compliment."
"Huh?" Melissa asked, blinking.
"Oh, right, you're an idiot," Anne said with a roll of her eyes. "Guess I should tone down the vocabulary."
From her bunk, Rebecca snorted.
"You two think you're, like, all cool and stuff, but I know you're really just jealous because you're not pretty and popular like me," Melissa replied, her expression smug.
This time, Rebecca burst into full out laughter.
"Okay, little miss deluded, first off, I am prettier than you ever dreamed of being. And secondly, I thank my lucky stars every day that I'm nothing like you." Anne waved her hand. "But by all means, carry on with your catty gossip. Why am I a loser, exactly? I'm sure your friends are all waiting with bated breath for the rest of your oh-so-interesting observations."
Realizing what was happening, Melissa's friends began to giggle. Melissa looked flustered, until she finally snapped, "I have better things to do than talk about the two of you."
Anne smiled, the expression taking on more than a hint of her father. "Yeah, that's what I thought."
With a huff, Melissa got up and stomped over to her bunk.
Once the cabin was filled with the steady, even breathing of sleeping girls, Anne got out of her own bunk, tapping discretely above her head on the bottom of Rebecca's mattress as she did.
Rebecca climbed down the bunk silently, sharing eye contact and a nod with Anne before they slipped out of the cabin.
Once outside, Anne blinked, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the darkness of a wilderness night. It was different than the city-lit London nights she was used to, but her demonically enhanced eyes quickly adjusted. She took hold of Rebecca's arm, leading the other girl towards the woods.
Anne had no fear of getting lost. Her father had seen to it that her tracking skills were nothing short of exceptional. She could find civilization. If nothing else, the smell of greasy hamburgers would lead her right to it.
However, she never got her chance. Right before they reached the edge of the woods, a figure stepped out of the shadows, making Anne come to a jerky stop.
"Out for a late night stroll, girls?" Dan asked, his eyebrow arched upwards and his hands planted firmly on his hips.
"We just wanted to get a head start on that wilderness trail activity planned for the morning," Anne said, even though she knew it was about the lamest excuse she could come up with. But then again, what could she say? They were inarguably busted.
"Leaving the cabins after lights out is not permitted, at any time, under any circumstance," Dan said sternly. "The woods are a dangerous place for little girls."
For a second, Anne thought she saw something flicker in his eyes, but she dismissed it as a trick of the lack-of-light.
"Well, we'll just be heading back then," Rebecca said from beside Anne. "No late night treks in the woods for us."
Dan grabbed both of the girl's by their arms. "I will be escorting you back to your cabins to make certain you find your way back."
"Ow!" Anne exclaimed as Dan squeezed her forearm. "Watch it there. I don't think you're supposed to be manhandling the campers."
"And you're not supposed to be wandering around now," Dan replied evenly. He brought the girl's back to their cabin, giving their arms one more squeeze before he let them go. "I'm going to let this slide this time since no real harm was done, but rest assured, there will be dire consequences, should I catch you trying to sneak off again."
"Yeah, all right then," Anne grumbled. "We're going to bed."
Dan opened the cabin door, allowing Anne and Rebecca to step back inside before shutting them in. Silently, the two girls went over to Anne's bunk and sat down on the edge.
"I guess we're stuck here then," Rebecca whispered.
Anne shook her head. "No. We'll just have to be more careful, is all. The counselors are more alert than we thought—now we know that. We'll try again tomorrow and be sneakier about it. I mean, what are they really going to do if we keep acting up—expel us?"
"Good point," Rebecca replied. "I guess for now, we just try to suffer through tomorrow."
Anne nodded. "Hopefully it won't be too horrendous."
"I'll keep my fingers crossed." Rebecca stood with a soft sigh. "Good night, Annie."
"Good night, Becca."
Without another whispered word, Rebecca climbed back up to her own bunk.