Chapter Three: Camp Day One

No one was the least bit enthused about arriving at school at five thirty in the morning on Thursday. Nevertheless, they knew better than to complain openly. They all needed to be on their best behavior for the remainder of the week. They were waiting outside the school for the van to come pick them up. Mrs. Roberts was standing out there with them.

“From this moment until the end of camp you will be doing everything with your team,” she said. “The boys will be in charge of making sure the van is loaded and unloaded.”

As Mrs. Roberts was talking a large white van pulled up in front of the school. A man and lady got out and walked over to Mrs. Roberts. The three talked quietly amongst themselves.

“All right kids,” Mrs. Roberts said. “This is Peter and Katie Gale. They will be your counselors for camp. They have asked that I retain everyone’s cell phones. You won’t need them where you are going.”

There was much grumbling as Razors, Sidekicks and one IPhone were handed over to Mrs. Roberts. Mrs. Roberts stuck them in a small gift bag. She told them that the phones would be left in her office and they could have them back when they return.

“Pete, Katie, they are all yours. Have fun kids!” Mrs. Roberts said, heading back inside the school.

Peter and Katie looked over the group of students in front of them. They had gone over the files on each student. They couldn’t help but to have pity on Abbie and Becca who had lost a part of themselves with their accidents. The one they knew would take the most to get through to would be Emma. Just from what they had read and talked to Mrs. Roberts about, they knew she was still a very angry girl underneath the bright bubbly shell she prided herself on. It was up to them to crack it and get to the bottom of what was really causing the tension and animosity between herself and Maddie.

Maddison was an interesting subject as well. The only child of the most affluent couple in Hidden Valley had to have been a perk. To Katie Gale, there were some major insecurities lurking just below the surface. Like Emma, it would take work to crack through the shell of Maddie. A few of the others gave Katie the feeling that they were going to be hard to crack as well.

Katie watched as the boys and Peter loaded the van. She noticed the groups and knew that she had to break them all up in the same way the teams were. Being a guidance counselor and a motivational leader for the last fifteen years, she was quite good at spotting who were best friends with whom. She could tell that Abbie and Emma was practically one person. She was in for a very tough week.

“All right guys and ladies,” Katie began. “As your principal said, my name is Katie Gale and this is my husband Peter. We can either be your jailers or the best friends you’ve ever had this week. It will be your choice. Before we load up the van to leave, I want us all to get in a circle.”

The group circled up. Katie stood in the middle of the group. She looked over each one, formulating her plan. “All right, for your seat partners for the ride there I am going to call one person at a time and they are going to pick someone that they don’t normally associate with to be their partner. I’ll start with Abbie.”

Abbie looked around the circle and locked eyes with her team captain Jenna. “I pick Jenna.”

“Joella?”
“Derrick.”

“Jesse?”
“Maddie.”

“Becca?”
“Odette.”
“Leah?”
“Matt.”
“Marc?”
“Emma.”
“Sebastian?”
“Halle.”

“Good. Not only will the people you chose be your seat partners in the van they are also your accountability partner or AP. Your AP is allowed to call you on anything they think is detrimental to your camp experience or harming your team in anyway. You will meet with your AP during select times during the day to discuss how things are going with you.”

“Is there any time that we are allowed to speak with our significant others or best friend?” Emma asked.

“After each full group session before you break off into teams you’ll have about fifteen minutes to yourself. If you choose to spend that time with a boy or girlfriend or even with your best friend is up to you. But, only during those times. From now until the end of camp, you will eat, sleep and breathe the other members of your team. You will learn to work together. That is our goal here. Let’s get going.”

Everyone climbed into the van, sitting next to their APs. Jenna and Abbie took the front seats, with Emma and Marc behind them. Jesse and Maddie were in the very back, trying to keep as much distance between Emma and Maddie as possible. Halle and Sebastian took the seat in front of them with Derrick and Jo in front of them. Becca and Odette sat behind them, then Matt and Leah and in the very middle of the van were Derrick and Jo.

It was a long drive up to the Gale’s camp. They went past Derrick’s place and farther up Mt. Washington. Nine of the fourteen had their IPods on and were ignoring the world. Emma and Abbie had their heads buried in a book, while Halle, Becca and Jo were doing homework. This was the quietest drive that Katie had ever taken.

Emma dropped her book and stared out the window. She hated Mt. Washington. She hated the mountain itself, the trees, the streams, even the wildlife. She had very few good memories about this place. It was here that the victims of her father had been found. According to Jeffery Blythe’s original interrogation, there were at least five more bodies out on the mountainside waiting to be found. Local legend claimed that the mountain and the small town at its base was haunted and cursed. Some campers have said that on a clear night and full moon you can see people up walking around. Emma hated being a part of local town gossip.

Maddie was staring at the back of Emma’s head. She couldn’t believe that she was not only forced to be her roommate but on the same team. Did Mrs. Roberts not know that putting Emma and herself in the same room without a buffer was a recipe for complete and total disaster? What sucked the most for Maddie was that she had no allies on her team. Derrick hated her for attacking Abbie, Sebastian for the same reason and for the stunt she pulled on Amber Morris. Halle hated her for stealing Derrick from her. The only person she was unsure of was Jo. Jo never seemed to get too involved with the drama. It could be that Jo had enough drama of her own.

It was close to seven in the morning when the van finally pulled up to a small camp. The camp consisted of four main buildings and a small dock leading out to what seemed like a small pond. Peter parked the van in front of a large cabin.

“Welcome to Inspiration Center,” Katie said.

The boys got the van unloaded and tried their best to separate everything out according to the owner. It was a rather easy task. Once everything was unloaded and claimed, Katie took the girls to their cabin while Peter took the boys. The cabins weren’t glitzy or at all glamorous like the private cabins at Derrick’s place. They were bare of any real personal touches. The girls’ cabin was a large building with four small rooms with two cots apiece. Each room also had its own bathroom with a single shower stall. Maddie and Emma glared at each other as Katie left them in their room.

“You have about fifteen minutes to get unpacked then meet in the main building in the middle of camp for breakfast and session one.”

Maddie tossed her Louis Vitton suitcase onto the cot and proceeded to unpack. In the informational packet that Mrs. Roberts had given out two days before had listed that “campy” clothes would be best: T-shirts, jeans, tennis shoes/hiking boots; stuff you wouldn’t mind getting dirty. Maddie must have missed that section when she was packing. Emma saw mini skirts, platform sandals and even a sundress come out of Maddie’s designer bag. Not at all camping attire. What made Emma laugh the most was all of Maddie’s hair care and make up.

“Paul Mitchell must be making a bundle on the Sheer Blonde hair care line,” Emma quipped. “Who the hell are you trying to impress?”

“You know none of this would have happened if that red headed harlot you like to call a best friend hadn’t sunk her slutty claws into my boyfriend,” Maddie snapped back.

“Abbie hasn’t done a damn thing wrong and you know it, Maddie. So why don’t you just back off and leave her and Derrick alone?”

“Why on earth would I want to do that? Working overtime on destroying that harlot will be the highlight of the rest of my year. No one will want to have anything to do with her by the time I’m done with her.”

“Abbie’s got more people on her side than you can ever imagine. I’m not really sure what you’ll be able to do about getting people to hate her.”

“You and your ‘Holier than thou’ posse don’t scare me. Price check Emily, you’re not perfect.”

“My name is Emma,” Emma said through clenched teeth. “I haven’t been Emily in ten years.”

“Whatever. This whole camp thing is a waste of time. Mrs. Roberts must be on some very strong medication to think that a week of this will have the fourteen of us coming back hand in hand singing ‘We’re All in This Together’ or some other stupid shit.”

Emma pushed her suitcase under her cot and left the room. Maddie enraged her so much that she had to get out of there before she said or did anything that could cause her to fail. Emma Ross didn’t fail. Emma Ross had no knowledge of what the word failure looked like or even understood. Many a social worker or recovery therapist had told her that because of what her father had done she wouldn’t amount to much. Emma refused to believe it. She poured herself into her school and everything else she did just to prove them all wrong.

As she was walking back to the main building, she saw Derrick and Abbie together. The pair were walking hand in hand Abbie was signing something that Emma couldn’t make out from the distance and Derrick was laughing. Emma knew that Abbie had been unhappy since her father had gone away on assignment. Abbie loved her father very much and hated when he was gone. Emma had no concept of that particular emotion. The last time she had seen her father was three years ago when she came to tell him that he was no longer her father and that Nanna and Poppa had signed the adoption papers that morning. She looked the man in the eye and told him to rot in hell.

Emma couldn’t help but smile when she saw Derrick place a small kiss on Abbie’s cheek. One of Emma’s favorite things to watch was a new relationship bloom and grow. So far, her favorite has been Matt and Becca’s. Never had Emma seen two completely different people come together and form the most well balanced, stable and steady relationship.
Matthew Edward Montgomery III may be the child of the most affluent couple in Hidden Valley but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. He is so down to earth and not spoiled that he really can’t be considered a rich kid. His parents practically own the entirety of Hidden Valley and have their names on every board in town as well. His dad is in real estate, development, city council mucky mucks. His mother is a very famous photojournalist. Her pictures have been in every major magazine and newspaper in the country. She has been a rather absent figure in 

Matt’s life. Both of his parents travel a lot for work so he’s been on his own for the past few years.
Becca Cornwallis is as far from Matt’s posh life as you can get. Her parents have struggled to make ends meet Becca’s entire life. Her father works construction and has been trying to launch his own company. The last building he worked on was designed and planned by Matt’s dad. Becca’s older brother Charles worked his ass off in school to get into Princeton and from there he went on to the Secret Service. Her sister Harmony is still in Texas trying to finish school.
Not only are their family and socio-economic statuses on completely different planets, they are the complete and total polar opposites of each other. Becca is prim, proper, and well mannered. Matt is loud, obnoxious and not completely tidy. In the short time that Becca and Matt had been together their friends were forever listening to Becca remind Matt to tie his shoes, tuck in his dress shirts or to tame his wild black curls. Matt would take it all with a smile and a nod. Becca was the calming force in Matt’s life. They balanced each other nicely.
Emma smiled when Abbie jumped onto Derrick’s back for a free ride into the main building. It would take some time but Emma could see herself warming up to Abbie and Derrick’s relationship. With time and major doses of patience, she would grow to not hate Derrick as much. Everyone was gathered in the main room of the building. There were sixteen chairs in a circle in the middle of the room.
“All right everyone let’s take a seat. Everyone on Team Unity on my right and everyone on Team Forgiveness on my left.”

Everyone took a seat with very little argument. With everyone settled, Katie began the first team building session of the camp.

“Since everyone already knows each other I was thinking we should start with a different opening. Halle, what’s Becca’s mother’s first name?” Katie asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t call my friends’ parents by their first names unless I have their permission,” Halle answered.

“That’s polite and proper I guess. Matt, what does Marc’s father do?”

“Plays golf with Jesus and the archangel Michael?” Matt quipped. “Marc’s parents are no longer with us. His uncle however is an investment, financial planner. I think his biggest and best client is my dad.”

Katie paused and looked over the group. “Jenna, what’s Abbie and Sebastian’s mother’s name?”

“I’ve never met her. I really don’t know Abbie’s family all that well,” Jenna replied, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Then how is it that you can say that you hate Abbie and her family if you’ve never met them?” Katie questioned.

Jenna sat quietly, trying to come up with an answer that didn’t completely suck or make herself look bad. Katie knew she wasn’t going to answer and moved on. “Sebastian, what’s Jo’s mother’s name?”

“Which one?” Sebastian asked.

“What do you mean ‘which one’? Step-mother and mother?”

“No. Jo has two moms.”

Katie was given a list of all the students’ parents’ names. On Jo’s they were listed as Dr. M. Diana Constable and Dr. S. Reed Constable. She was guessing she knew where Sebastian was going with this but Katie wanted to see how Jo would react to having her parents discussed.

“As I said Jo has two moms. Shay and Michaela,” Sebastian said.

Jo’s parents were not a secret at school or in the community. Everyone knew that the Drs. Constable were gay. In fact, they were the first the community of Hidden Valley had ever had.

Jo spoke up. “Michaela Constable is my biological mom. How I was conceived is rather painful for my mom to talk about so I’m not going to discuss it here. My mom and Shay or Reed as some people call her, have been together since medical school at Oxford.”

“Was it strange for you to move to the states?” Peter asked. “You moved to what is stereotyped as the least tolerant of diversity in the country. Is it hard to explain about your parents?”

“Everywhere we have lived we have been greeted warmly and haven’t run into any major bigoted or intolerant communities. Of all the places we’ve lived Mom and Reed like Hidden Valley the best.”

“Well that’s good. Derrick what does Jenna’s mom do?”
Before Derrick got a chance to reply, Maddie opened her mouth. “What does this have to do with anything? What are you trying to prove?”
Jesse, Maddie’s AP took the chance to stop Maddie before she got on too large a tirade 

and ruined everything. “Maddie, why don’t you be patient and listen. You might learn something.”
“No one asked you to pipe in, Prince William,” Maddie snapped. “Why don’t you just go back to Stratford?”
“Maddie, can it, will you?” Matt exclaimed.
Katie and Peter sat back and listened to see how the students would resolve this situation. Of all of the students both Katie and Peter knew that if anything was going to start, Maddie would be the one to start it.
“Is that all you know how to say Matt?” Maddie said. “I’ve heard how you speak to Becca. I bet there are days she wishes she was still deaf so she wouldn’t have t listen to you scream at her everyday.” Maddie took a look around the room and took in the incredulous stares. “What? You all know it’s true.”

Katie stood up and whistled loudly. “That’s enough! Maddie, outside now!”
Maddie stood up and stormed to the door. Katie was directly on her heels. The door slammed loudly behind them both. The room fell silent as the slamming of the door echoed. Maddie stood on the deck with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, staring intently at Katie.
“You don’t get it, do you Maddie?” Katie began. “This is your last and only chance. Cindy has no idea what to do with you anymore. I can’t even believe that a pretty girl like yourself would do the things Cindy has told me that you’ve done. You may not believe Maddie but I know what it’s like to be in someone else’s shadow. I know what it’s like to go to school and have to act a certain way, dress a certain way and be a completely different person. I know how to help you. But, you have to help me. I need you to pull back the claws and listen to what everyone else is saying for once. If you can’t do that or don’t want to do that then what the hell are you doing here? Why am I wasting my time on you? You say the word right now and I’ll put you in the van myself and take you back to Hidden Valley. You can take the two weeks suspension and lose your place on the cheerleading squad or you can stay here and learn from Peter, your classmates and I. It’s your choice.”
Maddie nodded and walked back to the door. “That’s what I thought.”
The two walked back into the room and retook their seats. “Now where did we leave off? That’s right at Derrick. So Derrick what does Jenna’s mom do?”
“Jenna’s mom is Cassidy Malone. The best freaking deejay in town. She always hosts the 

kickoff barbeque at the lodge every summer. God everyone knows Jenna’s mom.”
“Or tries to score free concert tickets off me,” Jenna mumbled.
“What was that Jenna?”
“I said that everyone is always coming to me to try to score free tickets off me.”
“How does that make you feel Jenna?” Katie inquired.
“It pisses me off that everyone only knows me as Cassidy Malone’s kid. I am someone else that has feelings too.”
“That is something we’ll get to at a later moment but let’s get back to the issue at hand. Maddie asked earlier what it mattered what we know about each other’s families. As Jenna said, she doesn’t know Abbie and Sebastian’s family that well. Yet all of you are sworn enemies. Who has the biggest family?”
Without missing a beat everyone said, “Abbie and Sebastian.”
“And how many are in your family?” Peter asked.
“Let’s see. Mom, Dad, Gavin, Miles, Stephen, Raine, J.D, Bryan, Hunter, me and Abbie,” Sebastian said. “Add Gavin’s wife Amy and their two boys, Miles’s wife Sherry and their two boys and Kennedy, J.D’s fiancée, it’s like twenty something people for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Who comes in second?” Katie inquired.
“We do,” Halle answered. “The parental units, Audrey, Judy, Julie, Joanna, Jennifer, me, Jesse and Oops aka Claire. Then there’s Hank and Hannah, Audrey’s husband and daughter.”
Soon the discussion moved to what everyone’s siblings did for a living. Soon Katie passed around a small hat with scraps of paper inside.
“Each of you are going to draw a quote from the hat. Then we’re going to each read and interpret the quote. Jenna you can go first.”
Jenna stuck her hand into the hat and pulled the first quote. “’A person’s a person no matter how small.’ Dr. Suess from Horton Hears a Who.”
“What does that mean to you?” Katie asked.
Jenna sat for a moment before speaking. “For me it means that no matter who the person is they deserve to be treated the same way.”

Odette drew next. “’After all tomorrow is another day.’ Scarlett O’Hara, from Gone With the Wind. That has always meant to me that no matter what has happened that day, tomorrow is a 

new day and everything can be different.”
The hat then moved onto Becca. “’We must be the change we wish to see in the world.’ Mahatma Ghandi. I guess he means that if we want something to be different in the world we must first be different.”
Jesse drew his quote next. “’Tis a strange fate that we all should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing.’ Boromir from Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I know he’s talking about the ring. I have only seen this movie a dozen times. However, in my life high school is such a small thing compared to the rest of the time we have here on earth. High school is only four years of our lives. Most of us are going to live to be eighty to ninety years old. These four years we have spent in a school will seem so short to us then.”
Jesse stopped talking and handed the hat over to Abbie. “’No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’ Eleanor Roosevelt. This is my life quote. I even have it tattooed onto my shoulder.”
Abbie took off the jacket she was wearing and pulled her tank top aside to let everyone see the wording on her shoulder. She had gotten it when she was thirteen. Her brother Gavin had taken her to get it while she was in New York. The family knew about it but not many of her friends did. In fact, she had never even told Emma that she had it. She sat back down and passed the hat to the next member of her team, Marc.

“’You’ll find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.’ Obi-Wan Kenobi from The Return of the Jedi. A lot has happened in mine and my brother’s lives. Our mom took off when we were just kids and then our dad died. From someone else’s view on life, you can either feel sorry for us or not. It all depends on how you look at the world.”
Marc passed the hat to Leah. “’And while Cinderella and her prince did live happily ever after, the point, gentlemen, is that they lived.’ The Grand Dame from Ever After. I guess it means that it’s not just enough to have the happily ever after. To get to that point you have to live, grow and experience life. It’s hardships, it’s times of enjoyment.”
The hat then made its way from the Unity Team over to the Forgiveness team and into the hands of Matt. “’A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. He arrives precisely when he means to.’ Gandalf from Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I think Jesse should have drawn this one. Sorry to say but man, you’re going to be late to your own funeral. All joking 

aside, I think it means that no matter when you arrive on earth or to a party, you being there at that particular time is right when you are meant to be there and experience that moment.”
He then passed the hat to Jo. “’The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story and writes another; and in his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he hoped to make it.’ J. M. Barrie. We all have some idea as to what it is that we want to do with our lives. I think we all have this inner time table that tells us at this moment in time we’re supposed to be this and have accomplished this, but in reality what we have planned and what really happens will never be the same.”
Emma stuck her hand into the hat next. “’Happy is what happens when all your dreams come true.’ Glinda from the Broadway musical Wicked. I’ve seen this play and I know what the context is behind this particular lyric. But, for me, all your dreams don’t have to come true for you to be happy. Happy is an emotion that comes from seeing your best friend start a new journey in her life. Happy is getting a good grade on a test that you thought you absolutely did terribly on. Happy is what happens when everything happens. It just doesn’t have to be when your dreams come true.”
Emma looked over at her teammate Derrick and locked eyes with Abbie. Emma had just publically announced her support of Derrick and Abbie’s relationship. Derrick took the hat from Emma and drew his quote.
“’We can’t all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.’ Will Rogers. He’s right. If everyone is a hero, then who do we have to look up to? But, in the same sense, we are all heroes to someone. I know I am to my little brother Kent. Abbie is a hero to all the little girls she teaches in Sunday school. In our own ways we all are heroes but we still have those that we sit on the curb and clap for as they go by.”
Halle went next. She read her quote silently and thought before she read it aloud and spoke. “’A team is two or more people with two things in common: A shared goal and good communication.’ Chuck Bowman. I think that’s really what we are trying to accomplish this week. We are sixteen people with a shared goal and we’re working on the communication part. I think by the end of the week we’ll get there.”
Sebastian drew his. “’That’s one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.’ Neil Armstrong. If man can walk on the moon then the fourteen of us can put aside the drama and hatred for one week and make a giant leap towards becoming a single unit pursuing a goal of 

being the young leaders we all want to be.”
Maddie drew the last scrap of paper from the hat. “’Do or do not. There is no try.’ Yoda from The Empire Strikes Back.” Maddie sat silently for a second. She was no good at dissecting things like this. “I think that Yoda is trying to say that we can either do something or we can’t. Trying is a waste of time.”
“Well I think now would be a good time for a short break,” Katie said. “There is coffee and bagels in the dining room. After break, we’re going to split off into our teams and do some teambuilding games. I want you all to keep your quotes because we’ll be using them for the remainder of camp. After break Unity will be meeting upstairs with Peter and Forgiveness will be down here with me.”
The teams broke off from the circle and made their way into the kitchen/dining room. There were four tables. Maddie, Odette, Leah and Jenna took one table, ignoring everyone else in the room. Abbie and Derrick took a table for themselves and took turns passing back and forth the purple polka-dotted notebook, smiling at each other. Emma had tried to snag Abbie away from the boy and have a “girls only” breakfast like they have every morning at break but there was no pulling Abbie away. For the first time in her life, Emma was jealous. She now understood how Abbie must have felt when Emma had begun dating Jesse. The rest of Abbie and Derrick’s friends pushed the remaining two tables together. Soon bits of bagels were being stolen from each other’s plates and grapes made flight towards an offending comment. Matt managed to switch Marc’s coffee with Jesse’s orange juice. He tried very hard to swallow his laugh when Jesse went to chug down the rest of his juice. For just a moment life was what it would be like if they were not miles from home.

The good times did not last though. Maddie had grown sick of Abbie and Derrick’s lovey-doveyness and decided to pull a stunt. Abbie got up from the table to refill her juice. On her way back to the table Maddie and Odette started up.
“I give them a week,” Odette said, loudly. “Derrick is too much of a bad boy to stay with super Christian Abbie.”
“I heard she’s not even mute,” Maddie said. “I think it’s all a ruse to get attention since her dad is MIA. I mean I could stop talking tomorrow and wear a scarf everyday too, if that’s what it would take to snag Derrick Lang.”
Abbie had heard enough and unluckily for Maddie so had everyone else. Abbie clutched 

the glass of juice she held in her hand and smiled. She walked over to Maddie and with a smile on her face did a very un-Christian thing. She poised the glass over Maddie’s head and with a flick of her wrist emptied the contents into Maddie’s perfect blonde hair.
Gasps echoed among those seated. It was so unlike Abbie to ever enter into anything like that at all. Emma, sure, but not Abbie. Maddie wiped away the juice from her eyes and watched as Abbie unwound the white scarf from her neck, reveling, for the first time to anyone, the scar that ran from under her chin to the notch where her vocal cords used to reside. She looked at the four girls sitting at the table, letting each one have a good long look.
Then she did the strangest thing. To anyone but Abbie it would have been strange. She walked over to the sink, pulled down a few paper towels, and brought them over to Maddie. She quickly signed, “I’m sorry” before sitting back down, embarrassed for what she had just done. Maddie got up and quietly left the room.
For the rest of breakfast, Maddie was nowhere to be seen. She had retreated back to her and Emma’s room to get cleaned up. She came out of the bathroom and made her way over to the nightstand where her brush had been lying. On the stand facing Emma’s side of the room were three framed photographs. One was of Emma and Abbie at the disastrous Winter Formal. The second was of Emma and Jesse on Tear Drop Island last summer and the last was of Emma, Abbie, Becca, Jo, Halle and the exchange student Kate. The six of them were sitting on Emma’s dock staring out into the sunset. They looked so happy and peaceful, it made Maddie sick.
She picked up the frame taking in the faces of the girls. She would never admit it to anyone ever but she was jealous. She hated Emma for having the life she wished she could have. She had the close-knit friends who were not afraid of her. Emma had the whole world and Maddie had nothing. In a rage, she chucked the frame across the room, shattering the glass, letting out a scream. Letting the rest of the anger and resentment out she tossed Emma’s bed and all her things all over the room. She finally collapsed in a heap on the floor, sobbing. She beat the floor with her fist. Almost as soon as it began, Maddie picked herself back up, dusted herself off and went to the mirror to fix her makeup.

The girl that Maddie saw in the mirror was not the monster that everyone else seemed to see. To Maddie she was perfect. She had perfect blonde hair, a perfectly chiseled face, with a few surgical enhancements of course, her round full blue eyes and her perfect smile. She was the epitome of perfection. Soon everyone would see it too. Derrick would see it and come back to 

her. Maddie was determined to get Derrick back by the end of this camp if it was the last thing she ever did.