stay close to keep from tripping in the darkness. And I don’t say anything. Partially because the land has started to rise in an incline and I’m having trouble breathing. Partially because I no longer know the answer. Something about Piper got to me. Made me think that camp wouldn’t be all bad.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just go with the flow once in a while?” he asks.
“That’s what Churchill...said when the Nazis...invaded Poland.” I hope the panting isn’t too obvious.
“Ah, so you’re comparing me to Hitler now?”
The moon rises higher and higher in the sky and it feels like we’ve been walking all night. We finally come to a stop and Tommy turns the lantern to full brightness. He holds it up, illuminating the rocky edge of a water hole. White steam rises off the surface and sends a rotten-egg smell in our direction.
“The Grand Prismatic Spring,” he says in a booming voice. In a quieter tone, he goes on, “You should see it during the day. It looks like something from another planet. The colors change. Sometimes you see a deep blue, sometimes gold and then red.”
“It’s the algae,” I say. “And bacteria. This place is basically one big infection. And it smells like one too.”
He laughs, and we start walking again. Typical. I just caught my breath. I can hear rushing water ahead in the distance. Tree branches poke into the pathway and with another wave of the lantern, Tommy is saying something about fires and forest thinning. He’s not huffing and puffing like me.
He stops and spreads a camp blanket over a patch of moss, yellowish green in the moonlight. I stand near the edge of a rocky ledge facing into the darkness. Behind me, I hear a thud as Tommy drops his backpack, and in front of me, the patter of water rolling off the cliff. He joins me with his lantern and holds it up over a skinny stream of water.
“Fairy Falls,” he says.
“It’s not too bad.” I smile. In spite of my hatred for the camp, for Getty, for Chad Tate, there’s something interesting about the gray granite rock formations and the tree trunks that litter the hillside. It’s like the opening sequence of a bad teen horror movie. Or the site of a giant game of pick-up sticks.
“Come on,” Tommy says, grabbing my hand.
We sit on the cold blanket. From inside his backpack Tommy unpacks ham sandwiches, sea salt quinoa chips and apples. And chocolate pudding. It’s pretty gross camp food. But after the day I’ve had, it’s a gourmet feast.
“Look, I know you’re not happy to be here,” he says.
“Um, yeah,” I say in between bites, “is there a reason you find the prospect of eating lettuce wraps and getting up at four in the morning to jog so thrilling?”
Tommy shrugs and opens his pudding cup. “Jogging’s okay. I guess I don’t love salads. And we don’t have to get up at four.”
I put down my sandwich. “Okay. But why are you here? You’re...not fat.”
He smiles. “My mom had a weight problem growing up. She keeps going on and on about genetics and history repeating itself. So here I am.”
“That totally sucks.”
He thinks about this for a minute. “Well. It was either this or visit my grandma and spend the whole break trying to cross-stitch Walt Whitman quotes. And this is fun, right?”
I sigh. I knew he was playing the odds. It happens a lot. Guys will be nice to me in the hopes that I’ll go on the cabbage diet and end up strutting around a catwalk in a bra like my mother. People say we look alike. I’m the image of supermodel Lindsay Vonn Tate as seen in a funhouse mirror.
Before I can tell Tommy Weston to go screw off, he points at a small reddish blob on the horizon. “You ever watch Arcturus?”
I followed his gaze up to the night sky. “What’s that?”
“A star. Fourth brightest, actually. The Bear Watcher.”
I snorted. “Great. Now you’re Bill Nye the Science Guy.”
He ignores me. “My dad used to tell me this story. About how they used the light from Arcturus to open the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.”
I sit cross-legged and stare at the star too. “How did they do that?”
Tommy turns to face me. “Well, they set up photocells and used several large refracting telescopes to—”
“Okay. Forget I asked,” I say, and we both laugh.
“The point is that there’s Arcturus. It can be this impersonal ball of gas floating around thirty-seven light-years away, having nothing to do with anybody or anything. Or we can take a telescope, focus its light and shoot it over a crowd of ten thousand people. And it’s up to us what we do.” He’s watching the dark sky. Wishing on a star.
There’s something sweet about him and this world he’s imagining. “So this is your dad’s version of a motivational speech?” I giggle. It sounds kind of weird.
“My dad’s a physics teacher. He likes to go with what he knows.”
We pack up the garbage and walk back to camp. The walk back is way more pleasant than hiking up, since it’s mostly downhill.
When we arrive at Juniper, he extends his hand. “Friends?” he asks.
“Friends,” I agree.
I watch him go over to the boys’ side of camp. Low, snow-covered mountains billow across the landscape behind him.
Inside my cabin, Piper’s still awake. “Some counselor brought your bag. Don’t worry. I said you were in the toilet. I guess Mr. Getty’s lawyer says, strictly speaking, he can’t refuse to give you food.”
I shrug and pull the bag into the corner near my bunk. “I think I’ll just wear the uniform. I mean, what’s the big deal, right?”
Piper grins at me. “Got anything else in there besides fancy clothes?”
Unzipping the bag, I hold up several magazines. “Can I interest you in a copy of Seventeen? I never leave home without one.”
Fairy Falls sucks.
Not being alone completely rules.
SKINNY: Day 738 of NutriNation and there’s nothing to eat
Miller’s people have pulled out all the stops. I guess they must really be worried I’ll make him out to be the anti-Christ.
I ride in a fancy limo to the Refinery Hotel. The driver makes a point of telling me to have anything I want from the minibar. He tells me three times.
Finally he shakes his head. “You pretty girls never eat.”
My right eye starts to twitch. “When Gareth Miller rides in a limo do you think he eats?” The rest of the drive is pretty
