FIRST KISSES
Trust Me
Rachel Hawthorne
For every girl
who has dreamed of that first kiss
Contents
Chapter One
“What were we thinking?” Liz asked.
Chapter Two
We headed out the door. Towering oak trees circled the…
Chapter Three
Sean Reed. My arch-nemesis. Four years running. And it looked…
Chapter Four
Do you consider yourself mature?
Chapter Five
If Edna broke the news about our dishwashing assigment to…
Chapter Six
As it turned out, Liz, Torie, Caryn, and I were…
Chapter Seven
I shrieked, crouched, and retaliated!
Chapter Eight
Later that night, after lights-out, I was lying on my…
Chapter Nine
“Quiet!” the guy said, using the kind of voice you…
Chapter Ten
The next morning, following a breakfast of rubbery pancakes and…
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, while it was still dark, I got…
Chapter Twelve
By Thursday all the leadership training and learning to work…
Chapter Thirteen
“We’re lost! I don’t freaking believe this!” I turned around…
Chapter Fourteen
I didn’t remember falling asleep. One minute I was staring…
Chapter Fifteen
Sean and I weren’t hailed as heroes or anything. As…
About the Author
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Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
“What were we thinking?” Liz asked.
I’ll admit it had been my brilliant idea. As a matter of fact, most of our ideas started out as my brilliant idea.
It’s not that my best friend, Liz, isn’t creative. She is. She’s incredibly artsy, especially when it comes to craft projects. She made the shoulder bags that we carried around at school. Mine was pink with fringe and sequins. Hers was blue with felt-shaped puppies on it. They actually started a trend, and for a while she had a business going. She also created a lot of the jewelry I wear: earrings, bracelets, necklaces. She always makes them kinda whimsical: a lady in a flowing gown sitting on a crescent moon, a unicorn. Stuff like that. Real originals. So Liz is definitely creative.
But the idea to rearrange the furniture in our dormitory was definitely mine.
“We were thinking that four beds lined up along one wall looked like something from the mental ward in a psycho movie,” I reminded her. Maybe we’d been a bit harsh with our original assessment of our surroundings. Maybe it more closely resembled an army dormitory. Which I figured was fitting since we were basically at boot camp. Counselors’ boot camp.
Anyway, I’d suggested we shove the beds so each one was angled out from a corner of the room.
“Now we have something from Charmed,” Liz said. “All we need is a pentagram in the middle…” Her voice trailed off and she released a tiny giggle. “Bad, bad idea, Jess.” She giggled again. “I mean, it just doesn’t…work.”
I started laughing and fell back on the bed. It wasn’t often that my ideas didn’t work. The problem with this one was that one of the beds angled in a corner blocked the door to the bathroom. So yeah, it definitely wasn’t going to work.
“Okay,” I said. “For now, let’s just put everything back the way it was.”
I got up and started pushing my bed back against the far wall, while Liz started pushing hers.
We had spent the past four summers coming to Camp Lone Star. In the past, we’d been designated as nothing more than campers, having a great time, goofing around, working on the craft projects that Liz was so good at, telling scary stories while sitting around the campfire, becoming friends with kids from other schools in the area. Last summer, our favorite pastime had become checking out the guys and rating them according to cuteness factor.
But this year we wanted to do more than follow orders. We wanted to be the ones issuing orders. And we wanted to do more than check and rate the guys. We wanted to seriously connect with them. And one of the things that our previous observations had shown us was that guys tended to gravitate toward the counselors. Since Liz and I were now old enough, we’d applied to be those all-attention-getting counselors.
And we’d both been selected!
I was totally psyched!
Of course, the first step in being a counselor was attending leadership boot camp—“a week of intense team building,” according to the letter we’d received announcing our selection as counselors. Not that I thought either of us needed leadership training. My younger brother, Alex, was always telling me that I was way too bossy. So I figured I’d be a natural at this job. Since Liz and I tended to excel at the same things, I was convinced she, too, would make an excellent counselor.
Our parents had dropped us off almost an hour ago, with the usual hugs, tears, and promises to call, to be careful, and to have fun. We wouldn’t see our parents for almost a month, a week longer than we’d ever been gone before, since the summer camping sessions were divided into three-week intervals. Strange how a month seemed so much longer than three weeks. But I had Liz and she had me, so we knew we’d survive the longer separation from our families. No problem.
We’d registered, received our uniforms, and headed to the dormitory. We’d put our gear in the footlockers at—you guessed it!—the foot of the beds. Then we’d decided to do the extreme room makeover. Now we had everything back to the way it was. Boring. Maybe when the other two girls we’d be sharing the room with arrived we could come up with another arrangement.
“Guess we’d better get ready for our first”—Liz wiggled her fingers, making quotation marks in the air—“official team meeting.”
“Yeah, we don’t want to be late for that.”
Quickly we got dressed in our “official” camp counselor uniforms. Then we stared at each other. The clothes didn’t exactly come from the Gap. They looked like they’d been made with the “one size fits all” approach.
“This is so not going to work,” Liz said.
As usual Liz spoke out loud exactly what I was thinking. I wasn’t sure if she could read my mind because she’d been my best friend forever or if she’d been my best friend forever because she could read my mind.
“I don’t remember the counselors wearing anything that looked like this,” Liz said. She swept her hand from her head to her narrow hips, like a sorcerer about to cast a spell that might rid her of what she was wearing.
“Maybe these are just our ‘in training’ clothes,” I offered hopefully.
“Jess, they stitched our names over the pocket. That’s a lot of trouble for something we’ll wear for only a week.”
Good point. Above my left pocket was stitched in red JESSICA KANE. Above Liz’s was ELIZABETH STEWART. I didn’t know anyone who called her Elizabeth. Not even her parents. At least mine called me Jessica.
But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst was the baggy brown shorts. They looked like something my granddad wore with white socks and sandals when he walked the grounds at the assisted-living facility. And the shirt matched in all ways possible: color, bagginess, hideousness. Could the outfit get any more out of control?
Liz and I had sorta thought that this summer, the summer before we entered high school, would be the summer of transforming ourselves into guy magnets. But no way was that going to happen with our present clothing. It was like wearing a sign—WARNING: LOSER CROSSING.
I’ll admit that in addition to becoming a guy magnet, I wanted to be a
counselor because they were totally cool. They knew everything. They were the ones people turned to in a crisis. Like last year when the canoe I was in tipped over because the guys who’d also been in it had been goofing around, it was a counselor who helped get us all safely back to shore. They were the ones who decided our indoor activities—Did we play games like Twister or did we string beads or create artwork using leaves?—and our outdoor adventures—hiking, plant-life identification, trail marking, swimming. They had total control.
As much as I loved camp, the previous summers I’d experienced a few moments when I’d felt totally out of control. And very uncool. Thanks to one Sean Reed. We lived in the same large town north of Dallas but didn’t attend the same middle school—although our schools flowed into the same high school so our paths might cross more often in the near future—something I was definitely not looking forward to. Anyway, in the past, we sorta had that school rivalry thing going. At least, I think that’s what started his let-me-see-what-I-can-do-to-irritate-her shenanigans. From there it had escalated into obvious can’t-stand-the-ground-she-walks-on dislike.
He’d gone so far as to nickname me Twinkle Toes the first summer. Simply because he’d spotted me sitting alone on the dock at the lake painting my toenails bright red. According to him, toenail polish shouldn’t be anywhere near hiking boots. As though he would know.
Last summer he’d said I was like Paris Hilton. (But, trust me, I don’t look anything like her!) Just because, one evening, some of the girls in our cabin had decided to have a makeover session. And all right—it had been another one of my brilliant ideas. But after two weeks of hiking, bugs, and “roughing it,” I was more than ready for a little pampering. And so were they!
And I’ll admit that we had gone totally extreme on the makeup and hair and nail polish. But we’d never planned for anyone outside our dormitory to see us. And no one would have if the guys hadn’t decided it would be wicked hilarious to make us think a bear was trying to get in through our bathroom window. We’d all run out the front door, screaming for help.
The guys had laughed and snickered for days.
“There aren’t any bears in these woods,” Sean had announced, like we’d been totally stupid for falling for their gag.
If Sean Reed showed up at camp this year, I planned to assign him toilet-scrubbing duty. We’d see who was laughing then. Yep, this year I’d be totally in control. It was going to be the funnest summer yet!
“Okay,” I said to Liz now. “This is fixable.”
Do you consider yourself adaptable?
Question five on the application I’d completed in hopes of being selected as a counselor. I hadn’t hesitated one sec before using my number-two pencil to shade in the oval next to the Yes.
I knelt beside the footlocker where I’d put my things shortly after we arrived. I pulled out a red camisole and waved it at Liz. “Find something red that matches the stitching, so we’re at least color coordinated.”
“Do you think it’s okay for us to alter our clothing?”
All right, so maybe Liz wasn’t leadership material just yet. I was usually the one with the ideas, and she always had to make sure we weren’t going to get into trouble—or at least she wanted good odds that we weren’t going to get caught. I didn’t blame her. Her mom’s two favorite words were “You’re grounded,” for the smallest of infractions. Like once, during a sleepover at Liz’s house, our friend Joanie brought over the DVD of Brokeback Mountain. We’re all huge Heath Ledger fans. Unfortunately, Liz’s mom came into the room while we were watching the movie. Liz isn’t allowed to watch R-rated movies. So she was grounded for a week. Getting away from the grounding machine was one of the reasons that Liz loved summer camp. The worst that happened here was an hour in the “jail.”
“Do you really want to go out there looking like the UPS delivery guy?”
“Good point.” She knelt beside her footlocker and began scrounging around. “I spent a lot of time looking at Cute Casey last year, and I sure don’t remember him wearing this.”
Cute Casey had been one of the counselors last summer. He was tall with dark hair, and looked exactly like this guy in an Abercrombie ad. He was way older than us—way out of our league, of course—but that was okay. If we were honest with ourselves, he was another reason—a major reason actually—that we wanted to be counselors this summer. Counselors had a later curfew than campers. After we all were supposed to be in bed, we could hear the counselors outside our dorms laughing and talking, just loud enough to be heard but not understood. They had secrets and we wanted to be part of their secrets.
Another reason was Gorgeous George. He had shaggy blond hair and blue, blue eyes. We didn’t want either one of them to view us as kids any longer.
“Maybe we didn’t notice what they were wearing because we were too busy studying their faces,” I said. I pulled out a scarf that had red, white, and blue swirling through it. Talk about patriotic. I could use it as a belt.
“They?” Liz asked.
“Cute Casey and Gorgeous George.”
“Oh, right, and don’t forget Hot Hank.”
It was a game we’d played last year, identifying the counselor with a word that began with his name. We’d done the same thing with the girl counselors, but we weren’t nearly as complimentary. Crazy Claire—she hated the outdoors and was always finding reasons for us to have to stay indoors. It was crazy to come to Camp Lone Star if you didn’t like the outdoors because the only time we were indoors during the day was when it rained. Moaning Mary—she moaned about the heat, the rain, the bugs. Patient Paula—she was never in a hurry, which meant if you got her for a counselor, you were the last in line for everything.
It wasn’t that we didn’t like them or tried to find fault with them, but they were competition. And I have kind of a competitive nature. The girl counselors held the attention of the guy counselors a lot more easily than lowly campers did.
This summer would be totally different. We would be sure of it. For one thing, we would be counselors. For another, we’d come better prepared. We’d brought these cute American Eagle visors, lots of short tops, and low-riding jeans and shorts.
It didn’t take us long to add some flair to our outfits. Liz wore a red tank beneath her brown shirt, while I wore the camisole. We’d unbuttoned the shirts, gathered the shirttails, and tied them at our waist. Then we’d rolled up our shorts until they were mid-thigh.
“When we have more time, we’ll have to cut and hem these babies,” Liz said. “I’m so not going to start high school in the fall with a half-tanned leg.”
“I know. This uniform is the worst. It still needs major surgery.” And we could only take accessorizing so far. “Remember the crafts we did with beads last summer?” I asked.
“Absolutely! Are you thinking—”
“We could cut the sleeves into strips—”
“Braid the strips—”
“Thread them through the beads. Add some color, some pizzazz.”
“I like it!” we both said at the same time, following our mind-reading session.
“Think we can do it before we head to the meeting?” Liz asked.
I glanced at my watch. It was actually my dad’s, on loan for the summer. It was really way too big for my narrow wrist, but Dad had punched extra holes in the wristband so it wouldn’t slip off. It had all kinds of gadgets. A compass—he worried about me getting lost in the woods. A face that lit up with the flick of my wrist—he worried about me getting lost in the dark. A button that would take me through the various time zones, just in case I ended up in London or Australia and needed to know the time. As if.
“We have only a couple of minutes before we need to report.” I looked in the mirror that was on the back of the door that led into the bathroom. “I think we have a fashion statement going here that’ll do for now.”
I’d gathered my strawberry-blond hair into a ponytail and pulled it through the hole at the back of the brown baseball cap that
had CLS embroidered in red on the front. I really wanted to toss the hat into my footlocker and grab my visor, but I figured we were pushing the limits on rebellion enough already.
Liz had also pulled her red hair through the back of her cap. She was several inches taller than me. Most people are. I tried not to be bothered by that, but sometimes I couldn’t help it. I wished I was taller.
White socks and hiking boots completed our outfits.
“Are we ready to rock?” I asked.
“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Liz said.
Chapter Two
We headed out the door. Towering oak trees circled the encampment. I could smell the scent of dirt and dampness and vegetation—nature as a whole. Several wooden cabins made up the camp. The main building was where registration took place. The nurse’s station was also located inside. Then a couple of cabins where the campers were housed had been built nearby. A lead counselor slept in each cabin, to be on hand for emergencies or homesickness and to keep campers indoors after lights-out.
Liz and I were Counselors-in-Training. Otherwise known as CITs. We’d live in the dormitory with other CITs. Which was fine with me. I didn’t particularly want to look after a dozen kids through the night. I was hoping to spend some of the evening looking after my love life.
Speaking of…
I pulled my cell phone out of my shorts pocket. Its display was flashing, NO SIGNAL.
“Still no luck?” Liz asked.
“Nope. I wonder why we never realized that cell phones couldn’t get a signal out here,” I stated.
“Maybe because we never had cell phones before.”
We’d both recently turned fourteen, me two weeks before Liz. We’d both asked for the same thing for our birthday. Cell phones. Big surprise. Having the ability to constantly keep in touch with our friends was such a must. Text messaging was also the absolute best, and we had the code down long before we could put it to use.