Daria Gender Flip From Not So Different JTL Version

57. Second Wind

'I never went to a summer camp. I didn't know they had five-year reunions. It sounds like a weird idea to me. And you say your mother is forcing you to go to this one?'

'Wouldn't you say it counts as force if the only alternative she offers is to help with cleaning out the garage this weekend?'

Jane made a broad encircling gesture to indicate the Lane residence generally. 'In this household, any suggestion from anybody about cleaning out the garage would count as evidence for the existence of orbital mind control lasers.'

Sonny acknowledged this, but suggested that they'd got off the point.

'Come on', Jane said, 'camp's not so bad.' She looked at Sonny. 'Hmm … I was going to tell you about how I used to have to spend summers, on a commune with my parents' friends, making burlap sacks and building compost heaps—but I know what that particular blankness on your face means. Okay, I give in. My horror stories can't compete with what happened to you at camp.'

'There's blunt-force physical trauma', Sonny said, and then continued in a hollow voice, 'and then there are other kinds.' He switched to faking an announcer's tones (but with less modulation). 'Picture, if you will, a wildlife documentary team. What is this they have come upon? Why, it is a group of middle-schoolers who appear to be passing through the "summer camp" phase of their life cycle. They are gathered in a ring as if for some sort of ritual. Can the team get close enough to record their cries? Yes, they are chorusing "The Weird Kid and Amelia, sitting in a tree—" '

Jane interrupted. 'The Weird Kid?'

Sonny looked at her.

'Of course. Sorry, stupid of me, I should have known.'

'There were a few of them who could manage to remember my name from time to time, but—'

Jane finished the sentence for him. '—everybody knew who the Weird Kid was.' She waved a hand. 'Carry on.'

'You don't know the second line of that couplet?'

'K—I—S—S—I—N—G?'

'Except that a few of the more uninhibited choristers spelled out a different word, but they tend to avoid that kind of language in wildlife documentaries.'

'So', Jane said, 'who was Amelia?'

'She followed me around constantly at camp, for no good reason.'

Jane tilted her head to look at him sideways. 'And she wasn't deterred by the chanting? Did you ever consider the possibility that she had a crush on you?'

'No, I did not', Sonny said, again without modulation. 'I did not ever consider the possibility that she had a crush on me.'

'You know, Sonny, when we met you told me that you were a big outcast that nobody liked. Has our whole life together been a lie?'

Before Jane could ask any more questions, Trent came into the room. Not many people would have been able to recognize it, but he seemed troubled. Jane teased him a little and got him to reveal that he was troubled about Mystik Spiral's future and was even thinking about the possibility of breaking up. When he said he needed to get away and think, it gave Jane the idea of combining Trent's meditation retreat with a ride to Sonny's reunion. 'We can hang out in the sticks', she said, enlarging on the idea, 'while you're leading the color war. A waste of time will be had by all.'

'Hmm', Trent enthused.

It sounded to Sonny as if Jane had nothing to do herself that would rank higher than cleaning out the garage. He couldn't reject her suggestion, despite the catch.


'Ugh!' said the catch, looking out the window. 'Look how dirty those sheep are! From now on, I buy only imported sweaters. I bet there's not an outlet store within a hundred miles. Not that anybody would know what to buy after living out here for so long. Huh, some people are beyond help.'

'I was just thinking the same thing', said Sonny. He wondered yet again whether Quinn had really enjoyed herself at Camp Grizzly or just had a selective memory.

They'd had to bring her along: Sonny couldn't have told his parents that his friends were offering him a lift to the reunion but Quinn wasn't invited.

Stacy said she'd come along too but with Quinn coming it might blow their Gay BFF cover story.

Trent tried again to choke Quinn off by turning the subject back to the decline of Mystik Spiral, another concept which puzzled Sonny. You can't fall off the floor.

They were saved by the signpost for the turn-off. Quinn asked to be let out and said she'd find her own ride back. When she was gone, Jane said, 'She didn't say that just to get our hopes up, did she?'

It was a very short distance from the turn-off. By the time they'd found the parking area, pulled up, and descended from the vehicle, Quinn was walking up behind them. She rushed to join three other girls who looked regrettably familiar to Sonny. He explained to Jane.

'The first time we arrived here, we'd got out of the car, Mom had just taken my book away …' (Jane grinned knowingly) '… and we realized that Quinn was still hiding in the car. Then she saw that one of those girls had the same backpack she did and rushed over to join them. They bonded instantly over fashion and hairstyles and then one of them asked, and I quote exactly, "Who's that weird kid over there with your parents?" '

'And that's how you became "the Weird Kid", right?'

'Oh, it went beyond that. Quinn told them I was her distant cousin—and I've been her distant cousin ever since.'

Jane looked around. 'So this is where it all began.'

Sonny saw another familiar figure walking straight towards them as if alongside him would be a good place for her. 'You know', he said, just before the figure reached them and spoke, 'there's just a chance that this might be vaguely interesting.'

'Sonny? Is that you?'

'No, Amelia, I'm a decoy to flush out assassins.'

Amelia appeared to be as unsubtle and unsophisticated as ever. 'Thank God! I was afraid you weren't coming, and then there would be no reason for me to come, because I wouldn't have anyone to talk to. What's new?'

'It's funny you should ask me that question. There has been one big new change since we were innocent young middle-schoolers together, with our equally innocent fellow-campers carolling so gaily about the pure but deep bond they saw between us. If you were looking forward to our reunion as a way of reviving that bond, I'm afraid there is something important I need to tell you.'

'Oh!' said Amelia, and then, after one awkward moment (awkward for her), 'Oh!' again as she looked sideways to Jane. 'Ah … um …'

'Jane Lane', said Jane, with more cheer than seemed natural. 'I hear you're a big fan of Sonny's.'

Amelia looked from Jane to Sonny, then back to Jane, and then across and back again. 'Well … um … it's nice to meet you … I mean, you seem really … um …'

Sonny interrupted. 'I haven't told you my big news yet. You know, Jane was the first to guess. Well, Trent guessed too. This is Trent, Jane's brother. And Jane's been my best friend for the last two years. That is to say, most of the time. I didn't behave too well when Jane got a boyfriend a while back, and there was a bit of friction.'

Amelia looked back and forth again. 'But now you two are …?'

Jane noticed the change in Sonny's stance and face. She wasn't sure what to suspect from his response. 'Oh, we're okay with each other again now, although we went through a really bad time more recently when Jane's boyfriend and I kissed behind her back.'

'Jane's boyfriend … ?'

'So now you know my big news. It came as a surprise to me too, I can tell you. I never had any idea. But Jane guessed, as I mentioned. She also guessed, when I told her about you and me at camp, that you might have had a crush on me—so I thought it was only fair to let you know how, even if I were to break up with Thomas, there's no hope for you and me. Not that that should be surprising news. Comes more under the heading of "story of our lives", wouldn't you say?'

The color Amelia turned reminded Sonny of the rash that had got him out of gym class, but he had to award her some points (entirely internally, of course) for her recovery.

'Well, uh, Sonny, it was great catching up with you! See you later around the reunion, okay?'

She walked off almost smoothly.

'I think you enjoyed that a little too much', Jane said. "And great story."

Sonny side glances over at Quinn. He wasn't sure he had heard him or not.

He, and Stacy, had been hanging out more and more. He started to hear rumors he wasn't her gay BFF. Stacy said she would be ok with the truth but he wasn't sure if she was truly ready. So he would help keep the cover story alive. 'It's easy for you to talk. You haven't been sentenced to summer camp reunion.' Sonny scratched behind his ear. 'Would you believe me if I said I was being cruel to be kind?'

'Nope.'

'The fact remains, whatever my motivation, whether she had a crush on me or not it'll be better for both of us if she doesn't keep hanging around me. See that big lug coming towards us now carrying the pile of Camp Grizzly T-shirts? That's Skip Stevens, self-appointed Big Man On Camp. Amelia's lucky I drove her off before Skip turned up.'

The lug referred to introduced himself as 'Alumni Coordinator' as he handed T-shirts to Trent and Jane. Apparently he hadn't cottoned that they weren't Grizzlies (or that summer camps didn't have 'alumni'). It was the most amusement he'd ever given Sonny, but then Skip cancelled it out by addressing him.

'Saw you having a sweet reunion with your friend, didn't want to interrupt. I bet you're excited to be back at Camp Grizzly.'

'Hey, man', said Trent, 'what's your problem?' It sounded as if he were simply curious.

'Wait a minute', said Skip. 'Are you two Grizzlies?'

The Lanes gave a negative response. 'Actually', Jane added, 'we have to be going now', as she headed back to the van.

'I might have known it!' Skip said. 'Camp Puma!' He snatched the T-shirt away from Trent as Jane opened the passenger door and got in. 'Hey, kitty-cat!' he called. 'Give that T-shirt back!'

Trent leaned forward to look at Skip more closely and Skip took a step backward. 'You're weird', Trent said. He looked at Sonny. 'You gonna be okay here, Sonny?'

'Born coping', Sonny said.

'Gotta hit the road', Trent said, and swivelled round to depart. As he opened the driver's door, Jane leaned out of her window and shouted, 'Hey, here's your T-shirt!' She tossed it at Skip so that it wrapped round his head. As she and Trent drove off, and before Skip could recover, Sonny walked away towards a picnic table pulling a book out of his pocket.

He was still sitting there reading when Mr Potts started mustering 'alumni' for a hike, with egregious assistance from Skip. Mr Potts looked smaller than Sonny remembered, and less enthusiastic. Sonny could almost have felt sorry for him, but that would have been too much like caring. At least Skip was taking a hike. Sonny looked up from his book long enough to see them all marching away leaving him alone in the world of literature.

Well, almost all. Amelia peeled off from the tail and came back to him. She explained that she'd had an eye out for him and had noticed his absence. 'You're missing the hike', she went on.

'To say that I'm "missing" it presupposes that I was aiming at it.'

Amelia's face took on a puzzled look. 'You're not going?' Her expression changed as she sat down across the table from him. 'This reminds me of how you boycotted the End-of-Summer campfire by the lake. That was so cool.'

'Actually', Sonny said, 'I wasn't invited.'

'Oh, right.' Amelia shifted awkwardly on her seat. 'Skip really didn't like you.'

'Nobody really liked me. I was picked on systematically from the first day of camp to the last. Remember that so-called "game" where Mr Potts threw a greased watermelon into the river and we were supposed to race to fetch it out? And the first time we played it Skip said I was slacking off and pulled me into the water? That started off a new game that ran till the end of camp, to see who could get the most water on "the Weird Kid". I was probably lucky not to be invited to the campfire by the lake. But if there are any other special moments of my humiliation that you'd like to recall nostalgically, please don't let me interfere. Do you remember the horse-riding incident, when somebody deliberately jabbed my horse so that it threw me and I had to have stitches? That must have been more fun than a barrel full of monkeys. I mean, for anybody who wasn't "the Weird Kid", obviously. At least it gave me an excuse to avoid that watermelon game for a while.'

Amelia flushed again. 'Sorry', she said. She fidgeted some more, and Sonny started to turn his attention back to his book. 'Listen', Amelia blurted, 'what you said? Before? When your friends were here? Were you just making that up?'

'You picked that up, did you? You're right, I'm not a decoy to flush out assassins.'

'No, uh … I meant the other part.'

'You're still hoping that I'm not really gay?'

'I didn't mean that. What I wanted to say was, just because you're gay, that doesn't mean we can't still be friends, right?'

Sonny allowed his shoulders to move up and down slightly. 'Amelia, the obstacle to our being friends is not that I'm gay.'

Amelia smiled. 'Then that's great. Isn't it?'

'Amelia, the obstacle to our being friends is that we're not friends.'

Amelia looked as if she were about to cry. 'But we were always friends at camp!'

'You followed me around all the time, Amelia. Kind of like the way you've been trying to follow me around at this reunion. That kind of thing doesn't make us friends. We were occasional fellow-victims, that's all. Being picked on together doesn't make us friends either. And generally speaking I don't much like people following me around because of what usually happens next. You had plenty of opportunity to observe that pattern at camp.'

'Well there's no need to be mean to me because of it, is there? I never picked on you! You just don't like anybody!' Amelia stood up and took herself off to one of the other picnic tables. Sonny watched her as she sat down heavily. She seemed to be nursing hurt feelings. There was nothing he could do about that. He returned to his book.

He was still reading, and Amelia was still off by herself doing whatever it was she was doing, when the hikers returned. In fact, he remained undisturbed—except for a few ex-Grizzlies dropping by his table for a nostalgic jeer at the Weird Kid with his nose stuck in a book, from which Amelia had a fortunate escape—until it was time for lunch. Naturally Skip was Commander-In-Chief of the barbecue grill. He was also chief spruiker for his own culinary achievements. Answering the chef's call, Sonny picked up a plate with a hamburger bun, came up to Skip's cooking station, and transferred a burger from the grill with his fork.

'Hey!' Skip said. 'Do you think you're too special to line up with everybody else?'

'You told us to get our Grizzly Burgers', Sonny said accurately.

'Well, you can wait your turn like everybody else.' Skip reached out with his spatula and lifted the burger from Sonny's bun. 'This one's yours, you touched it. I'll let you know when it's ready.' He moved the spatula back in the direction of the grill, but then tilted it so that the burger fell off. 'Whoops! Looks like your burger fell on the ground. I'd better pick it up.' He bent over with the spatula, and as he did so brought his foot down on the fallen burger. 'Oh no! Now your burger's squashed! That's too bad.'

'Yeah', Sonny said, 'I'm going to miss out on your Cordon Bleu cookery.' He turned to walk back to his table and found Amelia again coming to join him.

'I saw that', she said. 'You're not scared of Skip at all, are you? Did you do something to make him mad?'

'That's hard to say, but I don't know that it makes any difference anyway.'

'You might not get any lunch now.'

Sonny sat down and looked at Amelia. She sat down across from him.

'I've still got the bun', Sonny said. 'And even if I didn't, I haven't had to pretend that I like Skip, or that I care what he says or what he thinks. Do you think anybody here likes Skip?'

Amelia slowly shook her head and Sonny continued.

'Well, tomorrow morning he's going to wake up and he's still going to be Skip Stevens. And I'm still going to be Sonny Morgendorffer. Would you want to wake up tomorrow and find out that you're Skip Stevens?'

Amelia shook her head again, even more slowly.

'So my advice to you, Amelia, is that you go off somewhere by yourself and start trying to decide who you want to be when you wake up tomorrow morning.'

'All right', Amelia said. She stood up and started to leave the table again, but then turned back to Sonny. 'I'm going to line up and get a burger, because I'm hungry. I don't mind sharing with you if you like.'

'I'm still okay with the bun.' Sonny returned with relief to his book, and didn't notice Amelia again until Skip had his unfortunate victims assembled once more so that he could inflict on them some of his favorite memories of Camp Grizzly. As he started to warm up (himself; there was no discernible effect on his audience), Amelia stalked up the stairs to the porch he was standing on, swiped the microphone from him, and asserted her right to speak over his objections, winning some audible support from the audience when she pushed him out of the way. As she spoke, Skip protested again, but the support got louder.

'I'm fed up with doing stupid things that I didn't want to do just because Skip says so. But until now I was frightened to be the only one who challenged him. I didn't want to stand out from the crowd if I could help it. Now that's changed. At this reunion I've renewed my acquaintance with somebody special, a role model, an inspiration.'

Oh no, Sonny thought. Don't say my name. Please don't say my name. Please don't say my name.

Amelia said his name.

The audience response died.

Sonny had one instant of unexpected joy at the non-recognition of his name.

'You know', Amelia persisted, 'the Weird Kid.'

The audience came back to life. Somebody giggled with recognition and somebody else stage-whispered, in rhythm, 'The Weird Kid and Amelia'.

Amelia heard, as she was probably intended to. 'I don't care what you think and neither does he. If you want to chant about us K-I-S-S-I-N-G, you can, although it's not going to happen because he's gay. Anyway, who'd want to be involved with him? He's unpleasant, he's anti-social, he doesn't care about anybody else's feelings. But he's not afraid to think for himself and he's not afraid to say what he thinks. And from now on I'm going to be like that too, and I don't care if I end up like Sonny, with no friends.' She paused and looked around the crowd, which was now attentively silent. 'I don't care if I never come back to this stupid campground, either!'

Skip took the microphone back, but Sonny couldn't hear most of what he was saying over the crowd's cheers for Amelia, and for that he was as grateful as one can be for a mixed blessing. Amelia snatched the microphone again to respond to something Skip had apparently said about 'the team'.

'Who do you think wants to be on your team, Skip?' She pulled off her Grizzly T-shirt. 'You can just take this back as far as I'm concerned!'

As Amelia thrust the T-shirt and the microphone at Skip before walking back down the steps off the porch, the cheering rose again and the crowd all began taking off their T-shirts to throw them at Skip. Amid the hubbub Skip seemed to be appealing to Mr Potts for support, but he wasn't getting it. Sonny stopped paying attention anyway, as Amelia, down from the porch, came back towards him.

Sonny stood up for her. 'Good speech', he said.

'Thanks. Um … I hope I didn't hurt your feelings.'

'Why care?'

Amelia stopped to think about this. 'I don't know', she said finally, 'but I do.'

'Well, it takes more than just words to hurt me. Unless they happen to be particularly truthful words strung together in exceptionally observant sentences.'

Another ex-Grizzly came up to them and said, 'Amelia, thanks for telling off that jerk, and Sonny, I guess I never knew you to be such an inspiration.'

As the girl was speaking to Amelia and Sonny, Jane and Trent came up from behind. As she walked off again, both Lanes began teasing Sonny about his secret popularity. He realized they were probably going to tease him all the way back to Lawndale. He could have told them that Amelia was the one with the fan club, but instead he decided to encourage them, by protesting violently and walking off in disgust. It was the least he could do.


Some dialogue from 'Camp Fear' by Jonathan Greenberg

A/N Hmm, not much needed to be changed since there was no appearance by Stacy in any of this. Just had to change maybe two lines? Gah, feels like cheating. Some take entire pages of changes and others not so much.