Free Camp Payback by J. K. Rock

garbage.
    Pages rustled. “Hey, here’s a section on dealing with your first period. That could be helpful in a couple of years,” Siobhan deadpanned, her hazel eyes twinkling at me. The cabin howled, and I ground my teeth, especially when Yasmine’s belly laugh rose above the rest.
    Piper grabbed the book and opened it. “This part is titled, ‘Growing Up is Normal.’”
    “Not when you’re living Alex’s Wholesome Home life.” Jackie cackled, then reached for the book, beating me. “Let me see.”
    “Oh, my turn next!” Trinity jumped and clapped her hands, the bells on her ankle bracelet jangling.
    “Enough!” I snatched the book back from Jackie. “Do you guys have any idea how much it sucks growing up in the public eye? Every mistake out there for people to read about and judge?”
    “Geez. My bad. Seriously.” Jackie squeezed me so tight the air whooshed out of me.
    I caught a few pitying glances before my friends got their expressions under control. They knew how much I hated it when people felt sorry for me. “Emily, do you know who left this?”
    “Can’t say.” Emily glanced up from Yasmine’s bunk where they’d been comparing nail polish designs. “That’s confidential.”
    I popped a bubble so big it stuck to the slight hook of my nose. That figured. If I had a perfect ski-slope nose like Yasmine, I could blow them as big as I wanted. After unpeeling the mess, I slid into white sandals and headed for the door.
    “Are we eating or what?” I grumped, more than ready to get out of the cabin.
    Jackie gave the laces on her red hightops a last tug, then leaped to her feet. “Starving.”
    Piper held out a bag of pistachios. “You could have my Secret Camp Angel gift.”
    “That’s actually a decent gift.” Trinity peered over Jackie’s shoulder into the pistachio bag. “Wait. None of them are open.”
    “So evil,” Jackie laughed. “We have to re-gift those.”
    “Girls!” Emily pulled a pink Yankees’ baseball cap out of her back pocket and put it on. “That’s not in the spirit of the Secret Camp Angel.”
    “More devil, I’d say.” Trinity nudged her Ouija board under her bunk.
    “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.” Emily bit her bottom lip and rubbed the back of her calf with a foot. “It was meant to help you bond, to feel good about what is—for some of you—your last summer at Camp Juniper Point.”
    A wave of nostalgia crashed over me. I glanced around the messy room, loving how Piper’s overflowing recyclable bins lined the far wall, how Jackie’s basketball was always underfoot, how Trinity’s tarot cards littered her bureau and Siobhan’s books obscured most of her comforter. I’d miss all of this. All the more reason to make this a summer I’d never forget.
    My eye fell on Yasmine’s impeccable bunk, the corners tucked in, hospital-neat. Now that I wouldn’t miss.
    “It is a good idea, Emily.” Yasmine pulled Emily’s ponytail through her hat’s opening. “Every day I travel with my parents, they try to teach me about gratitude and to share what we have with others who are struggling. If some of the kids at Camp Juniper Point saw the hardworking children in the countries I’ve lived in, they’d be grateful for the chance to just have fun.”
    I rolled my eyes but saw only my friends’ rapt expressions as they hung on Yasmine’s words. Of course, Emily hugged her in her own display of “gratitude.” Was I the only one who felt like Yasmine clubbed us over the head with her messages of international wisdom? And what was the harm in pranks? My eye fell on the corner of the purple-and-pink spine peaking over the edge of my bunk. My book was the only exception. That was just flat-out mean. Especially if I was right about Vijay.
    “In one village,” she continued, hugging her arms around herself, “the women and girls walked ten miles a day just for clean water. Here you have lakes and rivers footsteps away, but does anyone