Sister City

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

We met up with the boys before heading to our separate dorms. They were separated from us by several parking lots and a road, so the only time we’d see each other was when we had scheduled activities together. We compared our schedules and discovered that Marcus and I would be playing soccer together in the afternoons, Marcus and Luka had swimming together in the mornings while I was at the gym, and Inara would be supervising my Iron Camper cooking class in the evening. Other than that, we didn’t have anything together. We all had arts and crafts, theatre, music, and nature classes at different times. There were so many kids signed up for camp this year that the kitchen couldn’t accommodate all of the campers at one sitting, so we didn’t even have the same schedules for lunch and dinner.

Marcus and Luka looked peeved that they didn’t get to have every activity together. I had two activities each afternoon and one in the evening. While I tried to appear nonchalant, I was worried that I wouldn’t know anybody. I’m a social butterfly; unless I don’t know anyone, then I become a wallflower.

“Swimming. That’s all we have together. Swimming. Not even football or soccer or something good.” Luka complained repeatedly.

“Maybe we could,” Marcus started, but Jack rudely interrupted him.

“Don’t even think about asking them to change your schedules. There are over 2400 campers here for two weeks. They can’t go around matching everyone’s schedules just because you’re friends. The whole point of these jumbled schedules is for you to get to know new people.”

“I don’t want to get to know new people. I like Marcus. Spending the whole camp playing football with him would suit me just fine.”

“That’s all well and good, but that’s not the way it’s going to be. You’re not going to complain, are you Rin?”

Putting on a brave face, I pretended to consider Jack’s question. “Well. Let’s see. I’m spending every morning at the gym with people I know. I’m spending two afternoons playing soccer with Marcus and two evenings watching Inara burn food. Nope. I think I’ll be just fine.”

Jack grinned at me and motioned to the boys to follow the rest of the male campers, who had just started to make their way toward Sauvignon Village. “Let’s get a move on. See you girls tomorrow.”

Smiling brightly at Luka, who glared right back at me, I hoped that my bravado had hidden how worried I really was about my lonely schedule. Inara and I both waved at the boys as we turned to follow Rhonda, our administrator, across the grass of the soccer field to Beaujolais Village. She led us along - what we would later learn was - the long way to the completed half of the dorms, warning us in no uncertain terms that we were to stay away from the side that was currently under construction. When we made it to the actual building, having followed what felt like hundreds of feet of dirt path, our group divided even further.

Trisha, Mary-Kate, Ashley and I struggled to catch up with Inara. She was quite a ways ahead and chatting with Evie and Carol, our lead counselor, whom we had run into around the halfway mark of the dirt path. They led us around to the far side of the building, which felt like another hundred feet or so. We were on the third story. It was cool because there wasn’t anyone above us, but it sucked because we had to carry everything up two flights of stairs. I had to pack everything I would need for both summer camp and for gymnastics practice, I had two heavy bags. Ugh.

Beaujolais Village was laid out in suites. Each suite had four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a kitchen and a living room. Normally, during the school year, only one person would be living in each bedroom. Because only half of the dorms had been completed by the time camp started, everyone was forced to share a bedroom. I didn’t find out that we were sharing rooms until Trisha, Mary-Kate, Ashley and I arrived in the suite and found four other girls there. They had already claimed two of the bedrooms and were sitting on the chairs in the living room waiting for us to arrive. At first I panicked, but after I looked around, I realized it wasn’t too bad; two people per bedroom and each bedroom had its own bathroom. It wasn’t like eight of us were trying to share one bathroom. That would have been like camping with my family.