Any Red-Blooded Girl

  Chapter 3

  AT the entrance to Wild Acres, my dad pulled right up to the check-in shack and popped the SUV in park. And just our luck, Check-in Guy was MIA.

  “Why don’t you get out and look around?” my mother suggested. “We’ll wait here.”

  “Right you are.”

  With the SUV still idling, my father slid out the door on a mission. And only moments later, his voice echoed through the Maroon Monstrosity again.

  “Reservation’s under Vic Fontain,” he said, “like the Star Trek character, but without the e.” He paused for a response, but apparently Check-in Guy was stumped. “You know, the holographic singer who ran the Vegas nightclub. Vic Fontaine.”

  Honestly, did my dad really think anyone on earth but him would know the name of some double-imaginary lounge lizard from the dorkiest TV show ever? Doubtful.

  “Here it is,” Check-in Guy said, gesturing toward a ragged clipboard (and ignoring my dad’s crazy talk). “Fontain. Six nights. Site Tupelo-9.”

  “Ooh, Tupelo. That’s a tree, isn’t it?” my dad asked, as if our spaceship had just landed.

  “Uh-huh. All the campsites are named after trees. There’s Oak, Spruce, Elm, Birch, Pine, Tupelo, Maple…” Check-in Guy said, stopping to bite his lip. “I think that’s all of ’em.”

  My dad smiled and nodded, impressed with the cleverness of the witty soul who’d christened the campsites after trees. But just when he was about to ask another absurd question Check-in Guy couldn’t possibly answer, someone in the truck behind us honked their horn, which, thank God, kicked Mr. Tightwad back into gear.

  “Okay…Tupelo-9,” my dad muttered, as we snailed past a massive log cabin labeled The Clubhouse. A rustic sign nailed to a tree in front of the building read:

  WILD ACRES FAMILY CAMPGROUND

  HOME OF THE GIANT WIENER

  EATING CONTEST

  SINCE 1992

  Honestly, the sign was wrong on so many levels I couldn’t help laughing. And I guess my cackling must’ve woken Will, because all of a sudden, he was rearranging every item in his backpack with the delicacy of an elephant. Meanwhile, my parents were at each other’s throats arguing over the shortest route to Tupelo-9.

  “Look,” my mother said, stabbing a finger at the Wild Acres map. “It goes Pine, Birch, Tupelo. We’re in the third section back on this side.”

  Evidently my father didn’t believe her. “But aren’t we near the lake? I thought the tents were on the water.”

  “None of the sites are on the water, according to this,” my mother declared, exasperated. “It’s beach, then restrooms and showers, then tents, then campers and trailers. We’re two rows from the beach, in the third section back.”

  I stared out the window. What had my mother said? Pine, Birch, Tupelo? From the looks of things, the campground was massive. I mean, we’d only made it past Pine, and I’d already seen about sixty tents. If the math held up, the place must hold like a hundred and fifty of the things, not to mention all the pop-up campers and RVs. All told, there must be like a thousand people here, crammed together like subway passengers on a rush hour train. And unfortunately my stop was still five days, twenty-three hours and fifty minutes away.

  “So what’s the plan?” Will asked, while I fantasized about hurling myself off a moving locomotive.

  Plans were my mother’s territory. “Well, first we’ll pitch the tent, of course,” she said. “Then we’ll get the rest of our gear set up. And then maybe we’ll go for a swim before dinner.”

  “Tupelo-9!” my father suddenly shouted, in his just-hit-the-lottery voice. “Hot diggity! Put your party pants on people!”

  Party pants? Really? I have to be seen in public with this freak? I was starting to appreciate the fact that we were hundreds of miles from Punxsutawney. I mean, at least Mr. Tightwad might not get the chance to embarrass me in front of anyone who mattered anyway.

  So in case it isn’t obvious, I should probably point out something about myself: I am not an outdoorsy girl. And when I say not outdoorsy, what I really mean is that I’m sure nature is out to get me; it’s out to get everyone (what with all the bugs, reptiles, floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, heat waves, blizzards…etc., etc.). I mean, what kind of deranged human being could possibly enjoy this crap? I, for one, am not ashamed to admit I love the indoors. I’d take a plasma TV, a laptop computer, and a fridge full of junk food over any nature-related experience, any day.

  “Here you go,” I said with a huff, plunking my duffel on a pile of debris in the middle of my parents’ little camp. “Put this wherever you want it.”

  As much as I wanted to hang around and make everyone’s life miserable, I had to find a bathroom—and pronto.

  “I can tell you where to put it,” my brother offered.

  “Will! That’s not necessary!” my mother scolded. Then she turned her irritation on me. “And, Flora, let up on the attitude, please. We’re here to have fun.”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  As I walked off, Will said something under his breath. Probably something nasty about me. Lucky for him, though, I couldn’t hear it over the sudden rustle of the trees.

  Since I’d expected the worst, I was sort of surprised to find that the shabby pee shack actually had working sinks, toilets, and hand dryers (although it also had cold concrete floors and tiny, too-high windows that were covered in spider webs. Eww).

  I got in line behind a little redhead, tapped my toes lightly on the concrete, and stared at my ragged fingernails. If only I could grow them out like Carla Pearson’s. She has the perfect nails. Maybe if I could just stop biting mine…

  “Hurry up, Jo-Jo,” the little redhead in front of me whined, as she bunny-hopped in place with her hands over her crotch.

  Please, God, don’t let this girl pee herself right here, I pleaded.

  From the middle stall, the bunny-hopper’s twin emerged with a mischievous grin on her face. “Go ahead, Kat,” she said. As she skipped by, she gave her sister’s waist-length braid a playful tug.

  “Ouch! That hurt!” the bunny-hopper exaggerated. I swear to God, her head had barely even moved.

  “Are you going to use that?” I asked the bunny-hopper impatiently, pointing at the empty stall. “Because if you’re not, I am.”

  Before I could make good on my threat, though, the bunny-hopper darted into the stall ahead of me. But a few seconds later, an old lady in a loud Hawaiian shirt exited the next stall over.

  “There you go, honey,” the old lady said with a frown. “It’s all yours.”

  How embarrassing. Now even grandma thought I was some kind of narc. “Thanks,” I mumbled, clunking the heavy wooden door shut behind me.

  And by the time I finished peeing, the bathroom had miraculously emptied out. So while I washed my hands in the rust-streaked sink, I leaned forward to check my look in the mirror. Unfortunately, though, nothing had changed. My hair was just as orange and crispy as ever, my skin just as blotchy. Why couldn’t I have turned out more Mexican, like my mother? At least she has a defined look: warm, creamy skin, liquid-black hair, curvy shape. All I got was this strange, mixed-up concoction of characteristics that ended up looking like nothing special at all.

  “Ugh,” I said, sick of my own face. I mean, shouldn’t I be turning into a swan already? After all, I was going to be sixteen in two days. But so far there was no sign I was blossoming into anything other than an older version of the same little quacker I’d always been. I hate to say it, but fairytales suck. And they lie. I bet swans are born, not made—unless, of course, you count plastic surgery.

  Even though it wasn’t quite dinnertime, it was already cooling down outside. And the bugs were going nuts. Case in point: I had just turned onto the dirt road behind the shabby pee shack, when some flying pest catapulted itself right into my eye.

  Like a madwoman, I tried in vain to blink and cry the disgusting gnat, or mosquito, or whatever the hell it was out of my eye. But it wa
s no use. I swear, I could feel the thing fragmenting, decomposing, and scraping across my eyeball; hence, I just about poked my eye out trying to rub it bug-free. But even this spastic move was unsuccessful. So now, on top of the decomposing bug parts, I had a few stray eyelashes embedded in my eye. Perfect.

  And wouldn’t you know, that’s when I spotted him. The hillbilly boy of my dreams. He was right there behind the shabby pee shack with Flopsy and Mopsy—the redheaded twins—swinging one of them around like a helicopter blade while the other one stood just far enough aside to avoid taking a foot to the face.

  I don’t think he saw me at first, because he was so busy playing helicopter. But honestly, I was pretty hard to miss. I mean, my eye must have swollen to like twice its normal size. Plus, I’d frozen like a dork at the mere sight of him.

  And before I could think of a way to salvage my image, Hillbilly Boy returned Helicopter Girl to earth and bent over—hands on his knees—to catch his breath. Then he straightened back up and stared right at me.

  “Hey,” he said, smiling and walking in my direction. He had the cutest quirky smile with just a few slightly crooked teeth, which made him look like a sensitive nice guy instead of a pretty-boy wannabe. “Don’t I know you?” he asked with a chuckle.

  Okay, it was a lame opening line. But at least he knew it was lame. I took a step toward him, and then, in a freak moment, did one of those amateur things girls sometimes do when they’re clueless about men: I looked around to make sure he was really talking to me.

  “Um…hi,” I eked out tentatively, once I realized nobody else was around.

  That was it. That was all I could say. This guy was way too sexy for me to think straight. I mean, I had a better chance of puking than of composing a coherent sentence in his presence.

  “I’m Mick,” he said. “And you are…?”

  He was so close to me I could have touched him. And for a second, I thought he was going to touch me. But instead, he ran his thick, rough fingers through his luscious black locks, at which point I think I might have subconsciously licked my lips (which I truly hope I didn’t). But if Mick noticed, he didn’t let on.

  “Flora. I’m Flora Fontain. I’m fifteen,” I blurted. Holy freakin’ stupid. I must have been having a stroke or something. Apparently I could only say words that started with the letter f.

  Mick chuckled. “Well, I’m sixteen—if that matters.”

  Flopsy and Mopsy must have gotten sick of waiting around for helicopter rides, because the pig-tailed twin pinched the other twin on the stomach, and they both took off running.

  “You’re only sixteen?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Yeah. My birthday’s June 20th. I just hit a growth spurt,” Mick said with a grin. “People think I’m a lot older.”

  I must agree. It seemed impossible that this perfect creature was a mere month older than me. I mean, personally, I wasn’t even convinced we were from the same galaxy, let alone the same kingdom, order, and species—and born a matter of days apart, no less.

  “My birthday’s the day after tomorrow,” I said, like he’d care.

  “Will you be here?”

  Hmm. Maybe he was more interested in me than I thought. “Uh-huh. We’re here for six days,” I said. “Then we’re going to Lake Champlain.” In case it might scare him off, I left out the part about searching for Champ.

  “Ooh, Champlain is beautiful,” he said. “Have you ever been?”

  I was just about to answer him with a really inventive lie, when I heard a disturbing sound off in the distance. It was my mother, screeching my name like a banshee. What could possibly be so important? Had Will accidentally pounded a tent stake through his foot? Had Mr. Tightwad singed off his eyebrows trying to light the grill? I swear, nothing would surprise me coming from these people.

  My name rang out again. “Flor-a! Flor-a!”

  “That’s me, I guess,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I should probably go.”

  “Do you have to?” Mick asked. “We just got started.”

  We just got started?! Oh my God! That meant something. It had to mean something. He was into me. The most gorgeous guy in the world thought we were starting something. Together. Him and me. Okay, breathe.

  “I don’t know. My mother sounds pretty excited. I really should...”

  “What about later? Want to do something with me later?” he asked.

  Well, that was a stupid question. Of course I wanted to do something with him later. I wanted to do everything with him, all the time—or at least very close to everything anyway.

  “Sure,” I happily agreed. “When?”

  As far as I could tell, Mick didn’t have a watch. “How about eight thirty?” he asked, tilting his stunning face toward the sky. “Around sunset?”

  Sunset? That sounded right to me. And it would make a great story for our future children someday too: Our first date was a sunset stroll, or dip, or make out session at summer camp. How romantic.

  “I love you.” What?! Did I really just say that out loud? Did he hear me? “I mean, I’d love to.”

  “Meet you right here then?” he said. “Or I can come by your campsite.”

  Ouch. Not a good idea. My parents definitely would not approve of my interest in a sexy hillbilly boy. I could already hear them rattling off the reasons Mick was off limits to a simple, naïve girl like me.

  “Here’s good,” I said. “See you at eight thirty?” For the time being, I had to keep my association with Mick under wraps.

  “Eight thirty it is.”

  Even though we’d just met, I felt like he should kiss me goodbye. Not necessarily a long, drawn out tongue-lashing, but maybe something sweet and tender, like a good friend who really cares about you but doesn’t know yet if he likes you that way. That’s the type of connection Mick and I had right off: comfortable compatibility with a hint of sexual tension (well, maybe more than a hint—on my part, at least).

  To my great disappointment, though, Mick wasn’t on the same page as me about the kissing. He didn’t even try. Not so much as a lean-in-and-see-if-she-bites move. Nothing. But I guess my consolation prize was the penetrating, pulse-quickening look he gave me just before he turned to leave. With the kind of hot intensity I’d never even dared imagine, he stared right at me—right through me—until my mind went blank and my body went warm and tingly.