Played
“What about when we get to Woods Canyon?” I said. “Where will I be assigned there?”
“Girls will be in one cabin. Guys in the other,” he said. He might as well have added “Duh” at the end of his sentence.
“Oh,” I said, mildly relieved that this wasn’t a sleeping-in-tents-with-an-outhouse affair. The brochure hadn’t been completely clear on that point, and camping was not my thing. “I didn’t know.”
He tapped his clipboard, dismissing me, and I climbed inside.
There was excitement on the bus but it wasn’t, say, going-to-a-football-game-at-a-rival-school excitement. This was, after all, a collection of some of the smartest kids in all of Phoenix. Sometimes I had to remind myself that I was considered one of them, especially on the days when I felt like the biggest idiot in the world. Like yesterday, when I let Drew inject my forehead with toxic chemicals. What was I thinking?
The bus driver was reading a newspaper, his baseball cap turned backward on his head. He was chewing on a toothpick that looked as if it had been spinning between his teeth for the past six months.
When I reached the top step, I looked across the bus and saw that all of the seats were taken except for the first two rows behind the bus driver and one empty row near the back of the bus. It might have been my imagination but the excitement on the bus dimmed a smidgen. I pulled my cap lower as I surveyed the real estate. I didn’t see any sophomores from Lone Butte, and the juniors and seniors were already sitting with people, talking. There was no way I was walking all the way to the back, so I slipped into the second empty row behind the bus driver. At least I’d have a whole row to myself, so I guessed that arriving late had its advantages.
Behind me, Scott Jin hopped up the stairs, trailed by Mr. Romero, one of the school’s guidance counselors. Instead of his usual dark pants, white shirt and either red-or blue-striped tie, Mr. Romero looked almost human dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt that said Someone in Bozeman, Montana, Loves Me on the front. But his brow was furrowed as if he were anxious about something—and who could blame him? No doubt he’d rather be anywhere than camping with two busloads of teenagers. “Time to roll,” he finally instructed the bus driver.
Scott and Mr. Romero took the first seat behind the bus driver, thank god. Mr. Romero was okay, but I really didn’t want to talk to him for two hours about college applications and test scores, not when I’d downloaded four episodes of Friends to my iPod along with five new songs that I was dying to listen to.
The bus driver tucked his newspaper next to his seat, reached for the handle that cranked the door shut and steered the bus away from the curb.
We hadn’t even made it to the street when Mr. Romero stood and yelled, “Stop!”
I wasn’t the only one to look up in surprise. I hadn’t even scrolled down to my first Friends episode.
A blue pickup truck sped into the parking lot and headed straight for us.
“What the...” the bus driver muttered as the bus jolted to a stop. It looked like the truck was going to play chicken with our school bus.
I gripped the seat in front of me as a black cloud spewed from behind the truck, which, by the way, looked ready to explode. When it got closer, I could make out two faces behind the cloudy windshield. Boys. The one in the passenger seat was waving his arm out the window.
“Good!” Mr. Romero said, a smile in his voice as Scott returned to his clipboard.
“I thought we had everybody?” Scott said.
“We do now,” Mr. Romero said.
Scott’s brow furrowed as he continued to study his clipboard. He flipped through a stack of white pages. “Who’d I miss?” he said, as if it were not humanly possible for him to miss anything. Which, for him, was probably true. I’d heard that he’d gotten a perfect score on the math section of the SATs. I mean, who scored perfect on that? That was borderline freakish.
“Sam Tracy,” Mr. Romero said as he stared out the front windshield. “But let’s cut him some slack, okay? He traveled a long way to get here.”
4
Sam
Martin’s truck almost stalled three times before we finally chugged into the school parking lot. It was a miracle that his wheels made it at all.
Both my parents had worked late, so if the truck had died, waking them wouldn’t have been my favorite option. At the casino on the Rez, Dad worked security and Mom worked in a back office, “counting the money,” she always said, but really, she was an accountant for the tribe, and a damn good one. Dad was Gila and Mom was Havasupai and they’d been together since the summer of their senior year when they’d met at some high school summer program in Oklahoma. Figures that two Natives from Arizona would have to travel across state lines to meet. According to Mom, they’d fallen madly in love that summer, which was impossible for me to picture. You had to know my dad to understand—and knowing my dad, even a little bit, was one of the hardest things in the whole world. Harder than AP physics. Dad wasn’t exactly the flower-and-chocolates type. “Your dad’s just not sensitive like you are, Sam,” Mom had whispered to me once when I was about ten years old and I’d made him a Father’s Day card at school. “But he loves you, even if he doesn’t say the words. It’s what he thinks in his heart that’s most important.” Dad had looked at the card I’d made and smiled, sort of, but then he’d closed the card and placed it facedown and never looked at it for the rest of the weekend. I knew, because I’d watched him. I’d never made another card for him again. “But you’re more alike than you realize,” Mom had added, which I absolutely had not believed. Still didn’t. Sometimes I wondered if I was adopted.
On a good day, you’d never hear Dad utter five words, least of all to me, but I supposed that came in handy when most of your day consisted of sitting in a smoky haze and watching for people who cheated or misbehaved while playing slot machines or blackjack. I knew that my parents loved me. At least, my mother told me she did all the time. I just wished that I could hear my father say it, even once, before I stopped caring altogether.
Fortunately for my parents, they usually worked the same hours, but that was unfortunate for me from a ride perspective. So Martin really had saved the day by offering to drive me to school at the butt-crack of dawn on a Saturday morning, on the condition that I stayed later at last night’s party.
“How are you gonna stay awake long enough to reach Coolidge?” I stifled another yawn.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Martin said dully, his eyelids as puffy as mine.
“You sound like a rapper.”
“Don’t I wish,” he said. And then he flashed some sign with his fingers. I had no idea what it meant, but I was sure it was stupid.
I didn’t know how I was going to make it to noon on practically no sleep, much less through the rest of the weekend. I figured I’d catch some z’s on the bus ride.
“There they are.” I pointed to two yellow school buses.
“Dude. I’m just tired. Not blind.” Martin slammed down on the accelerator, grinding it to the floor.
I could smell something burning. Motor oil? It was pluming somewhere in the back of the truck. I felt kind of bad leaving Martin, especially since there was a pretty good chance he’d need a ride home. “Call Fred’s brother, Trevor, if you break down again. He’s good with cars. He’ll tow you home if you need it. There’s a pay phone by the front of the school, next to the drinking fountain.”
Martin nodded. “I’m not worried,” he said, and I smiled to myself.
Martin was about as good a best friend as a dude could have. We’d known each other all our lives. We grew up together. Our dads grew up together. It was like we were brothers, not friends. “Thanks, man,” I said as he approached the buses.
“No prob, bro,” he said. “Just don’t turn dork on me, okay? I’ve got a reputation to uphold.” He smirked, one arm draped lazily across the wheel, even though he was practically playing chicken with a school bus full of high school students, not to mention a couple of teachers.
I chuckled. “Sure. Reputation. Got it.”
Thanks to Martin, the bright yellow bus had no choice but to stop. Its brakes even screeched a little.
Ouch.
I sure hoped that Mr. Romero wouldn’t be too mad at me, but what could I do? It wasn’t like we’d be able to catch up to the bus if we road-raced down the freeway.
“Sure you want to do this?” Martin asked. “I can always keep driving. Here’s your chance.”
Chance. I needed one. I needed a hundred. “Yep. Got to.” I reached for the door handle. “Besides, I think Romero is ready to dive through the windshield. Can’t back out now. He’s probably pissed.”
“Okay.” Martin didn’t sound convinced. He paused. Then he said, “You know you can’t avoid her forever.”
I sucked back a breath, hitching my backpack over my shoulder. I looked at Martin for an instant without saying anything. Then I said, “I know. But I can try.”
Martin just shook his head.
“Later, dude,” I said.
“Later. See you Monday.”
I closed the door—more like slammed it, because the rusted door stuck a little—and then jogged the six steps to the waiting bus.
Even through the windshield, I could see at least thirty faces, including Mr. Romero’s, staring back at me like two rows of dominoes. A few mouths hung open.
“Okay, you idiot,” I muttered to myself. “You asked for it. Now deal.”
When I reached the door, it was already open.
Mr. Romero stood at the top of the stairs. His mouth twitched in one corner below his salt-and-pepper mustache. I couldn’t tell whether he was angry or glad to see me.
“Sorry I’m late, Mr. Romero. Had some trouble with the truck.” I nodded back at Martin’s ride, as if its mechanical limitations weren’t obvious. Martin turned and headed back toward the freeway as blue-black smoke billowed out of his tailpipe. He was never going to make it to the Rez.
“I can see that,” Mr. Romero said. “Well, glad you made it. Now have a seat. We’re already behind schedule.”
“Sorry,” I said again as I looked over his shoulder at all the faces on the bus. As usual, I was the only Native. I recognized maybe six people on the bus including Matt Hendricks from advanced chemistry. He nodded. I nodded back. Unfortunately the seat next to him was taken.
“You’ll have to put your backpack under your seat.”
“No problem,” I said, removing it from my shoulder. Other than a toothbrush and a change of underwear and socks, it was pretty empty.
There was an open seat up front next to a girl dressed in a pink sweatshirt and pink baseball cap. It was blinding, really. For some reason, she kept pulling her cap lower like she was in disguise. But I recognized her.
“Hi,” I said, slipping into the seat. There was barely any room for my legs. The bus driver closed the door and the bus lurched forward.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m—”
I interrupted her with my sigh. “Yeah, I know who you are.”
The bus lurched again and we all lunged forward, grabbing the seats in front of us. For some stupid reason, I put my left arm out to stop her from crashing her head against the seat.
“Um, thanks?” she said, turning sideways to look at me and then my hand on her shoulder.
My hand snapped back and I nodded, facing forward, wishing I could have found a seat all to myself.
She began to fidget with her hands before fumbling for the iPod in her lap. “Oh. Well...” Her thumb pressed one of the buttons, probably a little harder than she needed to. A notebook with some sketches and doodles sat on her lap.
I leaned my head back, hoping that I could sleep most of the way. Just my luck I had to sit next to Ryan Berenger’s sister, who was every bit as annoyingly perfect as her brother. Maybe worse. The clothes, the pale skin, the graceful way she crossed her legs like a pretzel all the way down to her ankles.
It was going to be a long ride.
5
Riley
Oh. My. God. What a jerk. Drew was never going to believe this! I pulled out my cell phone and began to text her.
I should have taken that seat way in the back, after all, despite the sea of juniors and seniors. I’d had no idea that Sam Tracy was so in love with himself. I know who you are? Seriously? I mean, get some manners.
I had seen him talking with Fred a couple of times in the cafeteria, and he’d seemed nice enough on school territory. Obviously I’d misread him.
My nose wrinkled. Great! And he reeked, too. Eau de Charcoal Grill.
Because he was so tall, I supposed he’d want to claim most of the leg space underneath the bench in front of us. Not gonna happen.
Once I got my internal hyperventilation under control, I uncrossed my legs, taking as much space as I could. Then I finished a quick text that Drew wouldn’t see until at least noon and pressed the volume button on my Friends episode. I’d rather listen to Chandler and Joey and sketch in my notebook any day than attempt conversation with Sam Tracy, especially now.
Mr. Romero turned around. He looked at Sam and me over the tops of his wire-rimmed glasses. “Could you pass these backward?” he said, handing us a stack of papers. “It’s the agenda for the weekend.”
I removed one earbud, one eye trained on my iPod screen as I grabbed the papers with my right hand. It was my favorite Friends episode, the one where Ross gets his teeth whitened so pearly white that they glow in a black light. Hilarious.
Mr. Romero stood. “Can I have your attention?” His chin lifted while his eyes swept over the rows. “Pause the texting for a moment, people. I promise your brains won’t self-destruct.”
A few people chuckled as the bus grew quiet.
Mr. Romero moved to the center of the aisle, still hanging onto the back of the seat with his free hand as the bus headed down the freeway toward the rising sun. “Since we’ve got three hours to kill till we reach the campground, we might as well go over a few details. As many of you know, we’ve reserved two large cabins—one for the girls, the other for the boys.”
“Damn,” someone behind me said, feigning disappointment. People around him laughed.
Mr. Romero smirked. “Watch the language, Mr. Wolkiewski,” he said.
“Sorry, Mr. Romero,” Logan said, but he didn’t sound the least bit sorry.
Mr. Romero continued. “Anyway, we’ve got a busy weekend planned and you can read all about it on the agenda that’s being distributed as I speak. There will be competitions and contests, and tonight we will have a barbecue. Keeping up so far?”
No one spoke. Most of us were too busy looking over the agenda. It seemed that at any given hour there was an activity—from rope climbing to scavenger hunts to leadership tests that were supposed to reveal our leadership styles. I had a style? It kind of looked like the weekend had the potential for fun, in a weird, dorky way. I did always like variety. I pulled out my pink highlighter.
“As soon as we arrive at the campsite, we’ll unpack the buses, get you settled and then get started on the first activity. Everyone has been organized into teams. They’re listed on the back of the agenda.”
I flipped over the page and scanned for my name. There were twelve groups of five. I was on the Green Team. One name jumped out at me right away: Sam Tracy.
It was impossible not to groan.
Then I stole a sideways glance. At that same moment, Sam and I locked eyes for a millisecond. He had these impossibly dark eyes, the intense kind that looked like they knew what you were thinking, even before you did. We both looked away so fast that I had to wonder if we’d eye-locked at all.
I guessed he was as excited about seeing my name alongside his as I was. His loud sigh and accompanying frown as he stared at the page were dead giveaways. I just wish I knew what I’d done for him to hate me so much.
Maybe I was making something out of nothing. I did that a lot. It was a sickness.
To stop stressing, I began to sketch in my notebook. Before I realized what I was drawing, Sam’s angry dark eyes began to take shape on my page.
6
Sam
I folded Mr. Romero’s fancy agenda and stuffed it in the back pocket of my jeans. Then I sank lower in the chair until my feet popped out from underneath the bench in front of me. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes and begged for sleep.
The next thing I knew, my head had bounced onto Riley’s pink shoulder. It felt as if it had been pounded against a two-by-four.
“You mind?” She glared at me, her blue-green eyes stretched wide below the brim of her baseball cap as she held a thick pencil in midair. Jeez, she looked exactly like her brother with that same know-it-all, confident face that always got on my last nerve.
“Sorry,” I mumbled with a headshake, sitting upright, facing forward, hoping that drool hadn’t made an appearance.
Just then, the bus exited the freeway. My ears began to pop, and I was pleased to see that we had already reached the top of the Mogollon Rim. A brown sign with white letters welcomed us to the Woods Canyon Lake campsite, and the bus pulled off the highway and proceeded along a narrow two-lane road. The bus shook from side to side as it made its way deeper into the campground on a stretch of road that alternated between pavement and dirt. Exactly as I remembered.
I hadn’t been to Woods Canyon since I was a kid. One August weekend, my parents and Martin’s parents had lugged all the kids, including his older brother and sister and my older sister, Cecilia, to the campground. Martin and I were probably around twelve years old. We thought it was killer to be camping in tents and fishing for trout. Our parents were thrilled to escape the desert heat and probably a weekend of night shifts at the casino. Who knew then that I’d be back five years later with two busloads of students that I barely knew?
Mr. Romero stood, stretched his arms overhead and then turned to face us. The look on his face demanded our attention. “Look, I know you’re all pretty anxious to get off this bus and have some fun. I am, too. So that’s why I’m going to ask you to dump your bags quickly once we reach the cabins. Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to them.” He rubbed his hands together and squinted his eyes. “And I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your cell phones probably won’t work way out here.” He chuckled.
A few people gasped and I rolled my eyes.
I was probably the only person on the whole bus without a phone—not like I didn’t want one, but it was the kind of luxury that I couldn’t afford. Mom said that if I wanted my own I had to pay for it. Maybe I would when I started college. I’d be able to work full-time during the summer before the first semester. Vernon Parker was the only one of our friends back on the Rez who had one, although I wasn’t sure why. Who was he calling, if not us?
As soon as the buses rolled to a stop in front of two large cabins that I didn’t remember from my previous visit, Mr. Romero directed all of the guys to the monstrous log cabin on the right and the girls to the equally large cabin on the left. The buildings looked like college dorms, only in the woods. I think I would have preferred to sleep outside.
“Leave your bag on a cot in your respective cabins, use the facilities if you need to and then hustle back outside for the first team-building activity,” Mr. Romero said as we began to file off the bus, stretching and groaning from having sat for close to three hours. “Don’t forget to grab a water bottle from one of the ice chests and then gather on the picnic tables with your teams.” I took a deep breath and forced myself to channel Mr. Romero’s enthusiasm.
Fifteen minutes later, I heard Riley’s voice outside the guys’ cabin. It cut through the wind whistling through the pine trees. “Green Team!” she said. “Green Team, over here!” She was waving a pink scarf over her head, the same one that had been wrapped around her neck like an intestine in the way that girls liked to do. Two boys and another girl gathered around her at one of the ten wooden picnic tables that surrounded a half-dozen grills and ice chests.
“Good,” I muttered to myself. Matt Hendricks was on our team. At least I’d know someone besides Riley, who I really didn’t want to know at all. I bristled at the way she was waving the damned scarf, an obvious attempt to assume the team leader role. She was already taking charge. Should I be surprised? Like brother, like sister.
I was the last one at the Green Team picnic table. “What’s the first activity?” I said.
“We’re supposed to give each other nicknames,” Riley said, not meeting my gaze. She jumped off the table holding a plastic bag. From the bag, she pulled out pens and those peel-and-stick My Name Is name tags. She proceeded to give each of us a name tag and a pen, although for herself, she grabbed a pink pen out of the front pocket of her sweatshirt.
“What. A regular black pen isn’t good enough for you?” I said, admittedly a weak attempt at humor, though Matt chuckled as we fist-bumped before straddling the picnic bench.
Riley rolled her eyes. “Ha. Ha. I think I already know your nickname.”
“What’s that?” I sat across from Riley.
“Lame Comedian.”
“Ha. Ha.” I mimicked her tone.
“So,” Riley said as the five of us stared at each other around the picnic table. “Nicknames?” Her gaze swept over us, prompting us to begin. Her eyelashes dipped when she reached me.
After a handful of quiet, uncomfortable seconds in which we all had to listen to Riley tap her pink pen against the wooden table, I said, “Um. Suggestion. Shouldn’t we introduce ourselves first? You know, try and get to know each other?”
“Would you like to be team leader?” Riley’s eyes widened.
“Do we need one?” Before she could reply I said, “My name is Sam Tracy.” I turned my attention to the other faces at the table. “I’m a junior at Lone Butte. I live on the Gila River Rez. That’s me.” I swiveled toward Matt.
“Hey,” he said. His leg began to shake against the bench. “I’m Matt.” He even gave a little wave. “Used to go to Lone Butte. Now I’m a junior over at Hamilton.” He paused to drag a hand through what little blond hair he had. “Live in Phoenix. Born in Chicago. I guess that’ll do.” Matt turned to the girl beside him.
The girl next to Matt crossed her arms when everybody looked at her. Hazel eyes widened behind her wire-rimmed glasses. She forced a nervous smile and spoke just a hair louder than the whistling pine trees surrounding us. “Cassidy McMahon.” We all leaned closer. “Basha High sophomore.” She spoke very fast, as if she wanted to get the whole introduction thing over with, and who could blame her. I hated these kinds of things, too. “I collect comic books,” she added, her pale cheeks blushing as she said it.
Cassidy turned to the boy wearing a baseball cap who was seated across from her. He sat sideways with his legs pointed away from Riley so I didn’t get a good look at him at first. But then he spun around to face everybody, a piece of brown grass spinning between his teeth. “Jay Hawkins.” He said his name like he couldn’t wait to tell us. Like it was a piece of vital information necessary for human survival. I couldn’t help but groan inside. Jay Hawkins was one of my least favorite people at Lone Butte, even one notch lower than Ryan Berenger, and that was saying something. “And I really hate these team-building things or whatever they’re called. When’s lunch?” Jay added, which got the others to chuckle. Naturally he didn’t bother with any further details, because guys like Jay Hawkins assumed the rest of the world already knew about him. Humility was not one of his strengths. He turned to Riley and flashed a set of perfectly white teeth instead.
Riley beamed back at him, tugging on the scarf that had found its way back around her long neck.
It was hard not to eye roll, watching the silent flirting. Of course Riley fell for it. Girls always did.