Of course I grab the cup I’ve been cleaning my paintbrush in and hold it for a second while I think.
“I dare ya,” taunts Charlie.
I think for a moment….Should I? Yes!
I toss the water, but he ducks and it hits some random boy in the back of the head. When the boy turns around, I point to Charlie. By this time the whole camp is watching. Well, everyone except the counselors, who’ve left us unsupervised for no apparent reason. The tall boy rises slowly and grabs a roll of red streamer, then squeezes glue onto the outside of it. As if in slow motion, he throws it and we both duck. The gluey streamer hits a girl with long blond hair and sticks to her forehead while the roll falls to the ground. She looks like she’s bleeding red streamer. She is flabbergasted! Within two seconds, the room erupts into all-out warfare with art supplies. I smash Charlie in the face with glue and feathers. He smears pink paint all over my face. He touched my face! There’s so much stuff flying everywhere it is hard to see. Suddenly a long whistle sounds. Uh-oh!
—
Luckily it’s the end of the day, and thankfully Sally and I rode bikes this time. Uncle Larry would never let us in the backseat of his car unless he was able to somehow hose us down. We look like we’ve just been in a food fight, only more sparkly, with paint and feathers glued in our hair like we’re punk rockers.
“Well, I’m glad no one told on us,” says Tina as feathers fly out of her mouth.
“Yeah, we would’ve been in a crapload of trouble if they called our parents,” Melissa agrees.
I’m happy too, especially because I saw Charlie again. If he likes me, he sure is showing it in the weird way my dad warned me about. He might be confident, but not confident enough to say what he’s feeling. Boys!
“Kayla!” Sally yells at me. “Are you still in a daze over Charlie? ’Cause we have to figure out what we’re going to do about double Dutch practice.” Right! How could I forget?
“Um, yeah.” I’m back. “No, I am thinking about the competition.” Freestyle! I freak out in my head because I don’t want to freak out in front of them. “We have to figure out our freestyle. Let’s start bright and early tomorrow. We’ll have to choreograph a perfect and flawless routine.”
“I’ll say,” Tina chimes in. “Those Belles left after they announced we were going to ‘relax and do art.’ ”
“They probably snuck out way before that,” Melissa adds. “ ’Cause I sure was looking to give the little double Dutch divas a fistful of feathers.”
“That means they are really going to bring it,” confirms Sally.
“Well, we’ll have to work even harder,” I say, determined. “I didn’t come this far to lose to some country bumpkins. No offense.”
“None taken,” the three of them respond.
“Okay. Tomorrow. Seven a.m., Sally’s,” I say. I put my hand out. “Come on, don’t leave me hanging.” They look at my sticky, feathered, glittery hand for a moment, then one by one they throw in their equally messed-up hands. “Bring it, on three. One-two-three!”
“Bring it!” We all reach our hands up as feathers fly everywhere; we swat them away and laugh. Things may be funny now, but the pressure is on. We’ve got to have a good practice or we’re doomed.
The next morning, Melissa and Tina show up to work on our routine, but for the first two hours we get compulsory down to a science. This time Melissa and I turn first while Sally and Tina jump, then we switch. We want to make sure this doesn’t mess up our chances to compete in speed and freestyle. Hopefully we get that far. So it’s better to be safe than sorry and make sure we can do compulsory with perfection. A thousand times, done and done. But after that, we can’t seem to get anything right. Ugh! This is not working AT ALL! Compulsory is one thing, but freestyle is a whole other beast. In order for us to even be competitive, we have to show our skills by doing tricks, or whatever else we can to wow the crowd, within the ropes for one minute. And on top of that, we have to do it flawlessly. No mistakes, no stopping the ropes, and we have to look good. Right now we look horrible.
“No!” I yell at Tina as I almost pull my braids out. “You have to wait until I exit the rope, then you come in.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I got confused,” Tina sighs. “I thought you said jump in behind you and then you’ll exit.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I mean, it’s good that you’re trying, but we’re really not getting anywhere.”
“Can we take a break?” Melissa asks. “My arms are tired.”
“We’re never going to win,” says Sally. “The Belles are going to beat us. I know it!”
“Please! Stop being so negative!” I say with frustration in my voice. “It’s bad enough we’re having a hard time. Being negative doesn’t help.”
“I’m just saying, we’ve been practicing all morning and we can’t get one thing right,” continues Sally.
Ugh! Ugh! And ugh! She can really kill a spirit good and dead. I stare at her in disgust and turn away. That’s just the type of attitude that stops everything. Unfortunately this is one thing about my cousin I’ve noticed since we were little. When she’s having fun, things are great, but when things don’t go the way she hopes, she hops on the negative train all the way to Miseryville. I hope she’ll grow out of that. I heard my dad say one time that “being negative never won a championship.” And right now I completely understand what he means.
In seconds there’s a car in the driveway. It’s my cousin Marc, Sally’s older brother.
“Hey, what y’all doing out
