Free Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet (9781940192567) by Jenny Ruden Page B

Utopia’s queen in less than two hours. Campers relinquished their autonomy the way I liberated peas from fried rice. It was no shock either when, the next day, Miss Marcia asked us to pick a team captain, someone who could manage the ITINERARY and keep us motivated, Hollywood stood up and accepted the nomination from Atlanta like a People’s Choice Award. She was just thrilled to be in charge of the schedule and would do everything in her power to make sure we campers were where we needed to be when we needed to be there.
    â€œGreat!” Miss Marcia screamed, bestowing the multi-paged ITINERARY in her hands like a bouquet of roses. “Everyone, this is your captain.”
    From: [email protected]
    To: Bethany Stern
    Subject: Re: SORRY SORRY SORRY
    dude, I get it. you’re sorry. You can stop with all the emails. Geez, Bethany. It’s only been three days! Is it really that bad there? Is that Hollywood girl really the spawn of Satan? Bethany, you’re so dramatic! She can’t be that bad. I mean, isn’t she overweight? Aren’t you all bonding? Are there any BOYS?
    Anyway, I have a story for you. Do you remember seeing a weird papery thing up in the corner of the minivan on the drive out here? None of us were speaking to each other at that time, so I don’t know if you’d noticed it. Anyway, I saw it soon after I dropped you off. Come to find out it was a nest! I showed it to Doug, and he checked his phone and told me it was a hornet’s nest. Then he climbed in with his lighter and gets ready to torch it when I start to feel bad, right, because I don’t SEE any hornets and I’m like, stop, Doug. Let’s just wait.
    So we’re near San Francisco and we get out at this scenic view point near the bay bridge. Then, when I get back in the van, there’s like 25 BUTTERFLIES fluttering around and Doug goes, “Dur. I guess they weren’t hornets.” So I climb in and open the doors and the windows and they start to fly out—all black and yellow and white. I start crying because it’s so pretty. Then I remember that book dad used to read us about the caterpillar that wouldn’t stop eating. And how, at the end, he wakes up as a butterfly. Do you remember it? It was my favorite book! Anyway, my point is I love California! and I forgive you! so stop apologizing, ok?
    See you in 7 weeks!
    xoxoxo
    jackie

16
    FRENEMIES
    FOR ONE WEEK the campers and even Miss Marcia crowded around Hollywood and asked her how she got her hair that way (she rolls it in Diet Coke cans every night), her skin so clear (no eggs), her teeth so white (Dental Spa), and everyone looked away when her phone cheeped delicately—“Hi, Daddy.”
    It didn’t matter one iota that Cambridge went to a private school so competitive you had to get on a waiting list before you were even born. No one cared that her dad was a professor or that her mom traveled around the world. No one mentioned Liliana’s brother—some kind of rocket scientist—either. All that mattered to everyone at Utopia,with the exception of my dorm room, was Hollywood, whose hair dryer whirred like an alarm at five every morning. Hollywood, who after one week, had Utopians following her like she was Twitter. Needless to say, after one week I couldn’t stand her. My feelings about her beloved California were pretty much cemented too. I thought the place sucked. It was foggy and cold. What a rip.
    But there I was. Since I had no cell phone and no family member who would aid my escape, I had no choice but to wait for The Forgiveness Diet to kick in—and Hollywood promised me it would. All the campers except Cambridge were on it now, and given where I was, I figured I’d try. So I did. For one week. I tried to listen to Miss Marcia and the other girls. I attempted to imagine how life would be as a skinny lawyer, a lithe marketing executive, a