Chapter Twelve
Looking Good Is the Best Revenge
Ben
Ben looked through his duffel bag for something to wear to the dance. It was either shorts and a Camp Pine Ridge T-shirt or jeans and a Camp Pine Ridge T-shirt. He went with jeans. They’d keep the mosquitoes off his legs. Although after today, he felt like he deserved to be eaten alive by mosquitoes. He’d ruined their truce. She was going to kill him for this one.
Blake hadn’t even looked at him all day long. It would be better if she came after him or something. Storm clouds were gathering in the hills, though. He could feel it. There’s no way she was going to let all this slide. If she did, he might have to beat himself up. He’d gone too far this time.
He already was in his dreams… That afternoon he’d passed out for an hour, and it had been all Blake, Blake, Blake. She’d been staring him down with a menacing green-toothed smile. Besides a creepy smile, she wasn’t wearing much else. Was it a sex dream or nightmare? He weirded himself out sometimes. He wasn’t a psychologist, but he knew this situation with Blake was messing with his head.
On the walk to the dance, he scanned the crowd of campers streaming toward the mess hall. He hoped she’d scrubbed the green off by now. She’d looked so miserable.
The dance was packed. All of the campers had piled into the mess hall, which actually looked pretty awesome, if you ignored a lingering scent of tuna casserole. A few girls were dancing with each other. Besides that, everyone else was on the edge feeling out the situation. There was punch, Chex mix, and most of the girls were dressed like they were going clubbing with Selena Gomez. The music had started, but no one was feeling it yet. Ben picked a spot with a good view of the door and settled in. Feeling the need for extra electrolytes, he grabbed a bottle of Gatorade and waited for Blake to arrive.
George sidled up to him. “Hey, Ben.”
“Hey, George.”
Ben grabbed a handful of Chex mix. “How long are you going to stay?”
George shrugged. “I don’t know.”
As they made dumb conversation, the doors burst open, flooding the dim hall with light and silhouetting a group of girls entering in V formation, Blake at the center. Ben took in her outfit. She wore a red dress, tight enough to make him stand up straighter. Like a good essay, it was long enough to cover the essentials, but short enough to keep things interesting. Her hair flowed down her back in a waterfall of strawberry blonde. Even he knew it was the kind of blonde that no bottle could buy. In a professional “you-are-dead-to-me” move, she let her gaze pass over him without stopping, even for a second.
George said, “Maybe you should go talk to her. I think it could be a good idea to open the lines of communication. I’m feeling a lot of tension in the air.”
Ben nodded. To be nice, he poured her a glass of punch and walked over to the pack of girls she was dancing in a circle with. When Taylor Swift stopped yelling in his ear—the speakers were just behind him—Ben tapped her on the shoulder. “Blake.”
When she saw who’d touched her, she looked like she’d been burned.
“Blake, can we talk for a minute?”
Her first lieutenant, Zoe, said, “No, Ben. She doesn’t want to talk to you ever again.”
Like a sucker, he kept standing, holding the punch out to no one. Blake rewarded him with a murderous look before turning back to her circle. She shimmied up and down in her red dress like he wasn’t there. His only clue that her teeth were still green—she wouldn’t open her mouth.
Ben tapped on her shoulder again. “Blake, I want to say I’m sorry.”
He could tell she heard him from the way she paused and lifted her chin higher, but she kept dancing.
He repeated, “Blake.”
She sucked in an angry breath and turned around to face him. He used the only card he had. He handed her the punch. “I got you this.” He looked at his toes and then back up at her eyes.
Almost reflexively, she took the cup and tossed it right in his face. “You’re sorry?”
He should have known better than to give an angry woman punch. He used the bottom of his shirt to wipe off his face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d get that upset.” Actually he did, which was why he did it. But never mind that.
“You must be joking.” She gestured to her teeth. “So are my teeth going to be green all summer? What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t kn—”
“You don’t know!” she cut him off, pushing closer, almost getting in his face.
“No, I mean—” He didn’t get a chance to explain.
“I thought we were starting to get along a little better,” she said.
He felt like a jerk, like the biggest idiot in the world. “We were. I tried to get it out of your shower caddy yesterday. I was done pranking you, but—”
“But what? You thought you just needed to be an asshole?”
She wasn’t even listening. Not that he could blame her.
“Well, after last year—”
“What, I deserved this?”
“No, but—”
“Did you know that Fozzie has a photographer coming tomorrow? It’s basically picture day! What am I supposed to do?”
The thought of perfect Blake with a toothy green smile in a glossy camp brochure hit him hard. He blurted out a laugh before he could think better of it. It was as much of a stress relief laugh as anything.
Blake’s mouth dropped open in horror, her face contorted in rage, and she was on him. She started pummeling his chest, pretty hard for someone who looked so hot in a red dress. There was no way he was ever going to hit a girl so he held his hands up in the air and took it.
Zoe yelled, “Blake, stop it! You’re gonna get in trouble.”
Blake screamed, “I’m so mad at you!” and moved to slap his face. Ben stumbled backward into the sound system. The music went dead, and she fell on top of him. When he looked up, Fozzie was staring right at him.
“In my office. Both of you. Now.”
Blake stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of her dress. She looked like she’d just been in a catfight. Her dress was all wonky and her hair all messed up. She took a few breaths without looking at him, apparently trying to get ahold of her emotions. Ben just stayed where he was and let her compose herself. He knew when to keep his distance. When she moved to follow Fozzie, he fell into step next to her. On the way to the office, Ben said, “I really am sorry.”
Blake glared.
“I promise the dye will fade. I read it online.”
With a heaping dose of sarcasm, she said, “And no one ever lies on the internet.”
She had a point.
Fozzie motioned for them to sit in the chairs across from his desk. Blake demurely sat down and stared at her knees. Ben noticed that her red dress hiked up even higher when she sat.
While he flipped through their files, he let them stew. Finally, he gestured to Blake’s teeth, “Mr. Iron Cloud, did you do this?”
“Yes, sir.”
Fozzie looked very tired and sighed deeply. “This is not the first time we’ve had a pair of feuding campers, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. You two, though, are being highly disruptive to the rest of the camp. This is not the experience kids come to Pine Ridge for. They come here for good, clean, wholesome fun. S’mores, hikes, comradery. Not mean-spirited pranking.”
He turned to Blake, “I am this close to calling your father, young lady, and having him pick you up. This close.” He held his thumb and forefinger about a millimeter apart to emphasize. “But—”
Ben heard Blake breathe a sigh of relief at the word “But.”
“But I am inclined toward leniency. I misjudged you yesterday, Blake. Mr. Iron Cloud is guilty as heck, too. In short, it seems you’ve both been equally giant pains in my ass since your arrival. Excuse my language.” Fozzie paused for another moment, seemingly to think of an adequate punishment. “You two need to work out your differences. By yourselves.” He shook his head vehemently. “I have no interest in holding your hands and talking you through some high school he-said-she-said conversation. I don’t care what kind of shenanigans y’all have been up to. I just want peace and quiet.”
They both nodded contritely. It was obvious to anyone they were getting off easy. Ben knew this could be so much worse. So far, Fozzie hadn’t called any parents. When it came to punishment, Fozzie Bear had nothing on his mother.
After staring out the window thoughtfully for a moment, he announced, “I’m assigning you two to trail cleanup. There’s a network of trails around camp, and they are in need of repairs. There’re fallen logs that need to be cut and picked up. Some spots might be washed out. Mostly, someone needs to clean up all the damn candy wrappers.”
He looked at them fiercely. “Every day for the foreseeable future, you two are going to report to duty at my office directly after breakfast. By the end of summer, I want every single cigarette butt and Snickers bar wrapper cleaned up off of my trails.”
Ben tried not to look as relieved as he felt.
“Now, off with you. I don’t want to see either of you until tomorrow morning at eight thirty.” Looking at Blake, he said, “Make sure you wear some shoes you can walk in.”
The two of them shuffled out of his office wordlessly. He tried to apologize one more time and she held up her hand, obviously too tired and frustrated to hear anything he had to say. He knew enough to let her be.
As far as Fozzie’s punishment went—spending every day alone with Blake for the foreseeable future—that was going to be painful, at least after today’s stunt. He prayed the green faded by tomorrow. If it didn’t, she might shove him over a cliff.