"Okay, you almost got it," Rachel said, laughing as she watched Ella climb up a tree to retrieve a kite. Ella grumbled as she finally reached the kite and started to pull it down, sliding down the tree with Rachel catching her around the waist, the both of them falling onto their backs and laughing hard. Rachel got up and pulled Ella up, still holding onto the kite.
"That wasn't so hard!" Rachel said.
"Yeah, says the one who didn't have to get it!" Ella said, laughing, "I'm not one to climb trees, I'm not used to it! It's hard! I'm not very strong, you know?"
"Ah, it's not that tough," Rachel said, as Gilly came racing up to them and tugging at Ella's arm.
"What is it?" Ella asked, still laughing as she turned towards Gilly.
"You have to come see this!" Gilly said in a hushed voice, "You need to come see this, you won't believe it!"
Ella and Rachel shrugged and followed Gilly as they headed back past the rest of the camp and into the woods. After about 15 minutes, Ella stopped to catch her breath as Rachel unscrewed the canteen she kept strapped across her chest and drank from it before handing it to Ella. After Ella drank some water, she wiped her mouth and looked at Gilly.
"Where are you taking us?" she asked.
"There's a boys camp," Gilly said, grinning, "There's a boys camp, like, right across from us!"
The unbridled enthusiasm in her voice confused and surprised Ella, who up to this point had been under the impression that Gilly solely liked girls, but she'd never really made that super clear, so. Ella glanced at Rachel, who just shrugged and screwed the cap back on her canteen when they heard someone coming up on the trail behind them, and they all turned to see Aime there.
"Where are you guys going? I saw you leaving," she said.
"We're going to see the boys camp, apparently," Rachel said.
"There's a boys camp?" Aime asked, smiling, sounding rather happy about it herself, "How did you find out about that?"
"I was catching frogs and I heard some guys shouting, and so I followed the voices until I found their camp," Gilly said, "They're not even that far from here! They've been there the whole time! I guess the counselors don't tell us cause they don't want girls and boys mixing, so."
"Alright, well let's get going," Aime said, walking next to Gilly, leaving Ella and Rachel to bring up the rear. As they walked behind them, Rachel slipped her hand in Ella's, making her blush. Rachel smiled and then quickly leaned in and kissed her cheek.
"Stooop," Ella said quietly, "God, they might see."
"So?" Rachel asked, "Are you...ashamed of me?"
Rachel and Ella started laughing again as they followed Aime and Gilly deeper into the woods.
***
"You cannot keep doing this!" Gillys mother shouted, pacing back and forth in front of the couch, "This has got to stop! Not only are you painting a target on yourself, but I don't have the time to continually be called into the school to come get you!"
"Ramona," her father, sitting in the armchair next to the couch, said as he leaned forward, hands cupped, "Why are you doing this? What started this?"
"I...I don't know," Gilly said, stammering and looking at her shoes, "I don't know why. I'm sorry."
"The more you draw attention to it, the more you're going to get made fun of," her mother said, "Like BOYS, that is what you should be doing. That won't get you made fun of because that's what's expected of you."
"But I...I don't want to, I don't like them," Gilly said, "What's so wrong with-"
"It's not that there's anything wrong with it," her father said, "It's that in a public space like a school, especially at your age, it's going to draw ire, do you understand? If you want to just survive school, you're going to have to fit in."
"There's a dance coming up, right? Winter formal?" her mother asked, "You'll be going, and you're going to ask a boy."
"No!" Gilly shouted, near tears, before getting up and running upstairs to her bedroom. Once inside her bedroom, she flopped on her back and looked up at the ceiling, where her glowing stars were put. All she could think of was her History teacher at her private school, and how pretty she was...her dark, curly hair and her pale skin and her big, brown eyes. Gilly shut her eyes and tried to focus on this image in her head when her father came into the room and sat down on the bed with her.
"Ramona," he said, sounding exhausted as he removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, "I love you. Things were so much easier when you were a kid. I could just fix everything by kissing you or putting a band aide on something or getting you ice cream or your favorite stuffed animal, but now...now everything is so hard."
"I'm not hard," Gilly said quietly, "You just don't understand me."
Her father smiled and stroked her hair, leaned in and kissed the side of her head.
"I may not but it doesn't mean I don't love you any less," he said, making her smile a little.
***
The girls hid behind a group of bushes as Gilly parted them cautiously and they all peered through, seeing in fact that there was indeed a second camp here, a camp for boys. Gilly turned to Aime, who was grinning ear to ear as she looked from boy to boy, and for a moment, Ella noticed a sad look flash across Gilly's face, as if she felt jealous that Aime felt this way towards boys. But, as quickly as she spotted it, the look vanished, and Gilly turned back to looking at the boys.
"Boys are so boring," Rachel groaned as she sat a rock nearby, running her hands through her hair and pulling it back into a ponytail, "Seriously, there's nothing there to look at. They're so...paper doll."
"I'm sorry we all have different tastes," Aime said annoyed, "God forbid we aren't all as cool as you."
"Well, that's uncalled for," Rachel said, annoyed.
"So is putting down something you don't happen to like," Aime said, "I like boys, I'm sorry for that."
"Nobody is saying you have to apologize, jeez," Rachel said, half laughing, "Forget it."
"Should we go talk to them?" Gilly asked.
"Are we going to get in trouble if we do?" Aime asked, "They obviously didn't tell us the boys camp was this close for a reason, so it's possible they might punish us if we speak to them."
"What're they gonna do, send us home?" Rachel asked, making Ella laugh and Gilly smirk, "I mean, we're at camp, how much worse a punishment can they come up with?"
Ella sat down on a tree stump and looked at the kite as Rachel sat in her lap. Gilly and Aime continued to look through the bushes, and much as Gilly wanted to make everyone proud of her, she struggled to find the bravery of going through with talking to any of the guys she saw. Still...she knew if she was ever going to get her mothers approval, she had to do this...
***
All the students were filing out of the classroom while Gilly sat at her desk, her bag packed on top of it, playing with her hands in her lap. After all the students left, her History teacher, Miss Norris, came down the isle and stopped at her desk. Norris sat down at a desk beside her and smiled at her.
"What's going on?" Norris asked, "You haven't been doing too well in class lately. Is everything okay?"
"...I'm sorry, I'll try harder."
"I'm not...Ramona, I'm not saying this to make you feel bad or guilt you into doing better, good lord," Norris said, chuckling, "No, I'm sincerely interested in how well you're doing. Talk to me. Are there students bothering you, or-"
"I don't want to go to the winter dance and my parents are making me ask a boy," Gilly said, near tears, wiping her eyes on her uniformed sleeve, "...have you...ever liked a girl, Miss Norris?"
"Back in college, yes," Norris said, crossing her legs and looking at Gilly seriously, "There was this girl in a blowoff class I took for fun, and we quickly became friends and spent a lot of time together. Once she realized how I felt, she became completely uninterested in even being my friend, and I was devastated. It wasn't the last time I've had feelings for another girl, but it was the last time i was honest about it, because I was too scared of losing people I cared about simply for being myself."
"...I don't want to not be me," Gilly mumbled and Norris smiled.
"You won't have to," she said, "Ramona, you're an extremely smart, empathetic, wonderful girl and with all the skills and talents you possess, nothing will stop you from being the best you, the you that you want to be."
Gilly smiled and stood up, picked up her bag and hugged Miss Norris before leaving the classroom. Sometimes the adults who care the most about us, Gilly discovered that day, were the ones we weren't even related to, sadly.
***
"I like him," Aime said, pointing at a guy with curly brown hair, "But...there's no point in going out there to talk to him. He won't like me. Everyone always makes fun of my brace..."
"That's a stupid reason," Rachel said, "You never know, he may think it's cool."
"So then he only likes me for it?" Aime asked.
"My god you're impossible," Rachel muttered under her breath, "Listen, all I'm saying is if you do nothing, you gain nothing, but if you do something, sure you have a fifty fifty chance of things not working out, but you also have that same fifty fifty chance of something working out, and that's better than doing nothing at all, right?"
Suddenly a soccer ball came flying through the bushes and hit Gilly right in the head, knocking her onto her back. As Aime scrambled to help her up, a boy with short black hair and dark grey eyes poked his head through the bushes and smiled.
"Sorry," he said, "Are you okay? I didn't even know there was anyone back here."
"It's ok, it's not like we let you know," Aime said, as Gilly sat upright and rubbed the side of her head.
"You're not in pain are you?" the boy asked, and Gilly shook her head, slowly smiling.
"No. No I'm fine."
"Cool. Where did you guys come from?"
"The girls camp, about 25 minutes walking distance through the woods," Rachel said, "We didn't know there was a boys camp. Probably a reason for that. Not wanting boys and girls to get together in the woods...alone."
"Can I have my ball?" the boy asked as Gilly tossed it to him, and he smiled, "Sorry about hitting you. You know, me and some of my friends get together near the well about 10 minutes from here sometimes if you guys wanna come hang out."
"That sounds cool," Aime said, blushing, "We'll see you there sometime."
As the boy exited, Gilly couldn't figure out if she had butterflies in her stomach, or hornets.
***
Standing in the main hall of the school during the winter formal, in her sparkly light blue dress her mother had had custom made for her, Ramona Gilly felt so out of place. She'd asked Brian Turner, and while he'd agreed reluctantly to go with her, he was now leaving her alone while he went off with some other guys and girls at another part of the room. Gilly wanted so badly to go home, knowing she didn't feel comfortable here, but she knew her mother would make a big scene out of it if she came home early, so her only choice was to stay.
"It's all so dumb isn't it?" Miss Norris asked, now standing beside her in her own dress, arms folded.
"What is?" Gilly asked, surprise her presence.
"Dances like this, trying to force awkward kids together, knowing full well none of them are really comfortable, and then telling them 99% of the time that being together is wrong," Norris said, Gilly now noticing that her hair pulled was back into a messy bun, "But it's a time honored tradition, or whatever, so we have it every year."
"I don't want to be here," Gilly said quietly.
"...you can dance with me," Norris said.
"Wouldn't that be weird? A student dancing with a teacher?"
"Who cares?" Norris asked, "Ramona, everything is weird and nothing makes sense. So you try and make sense of it on your own, in any way that you can. I'm here, I'm your friend, and I will dance with you if you want so you don't have to feel alone. To be honest, I'd rather be anywhere else but here also."
"I don't really know how to dance."
"Neither do I," Norris said, the two of them laughing as they headed onto the dance floor together. After the formal ended, Norris agreed to drive Gilly home, but not before stopping for donuts at an all night donut shop first. Sitting in a booth inside, both still in their ridiculous gowns, eating donuts right from the box, Gilly had never been happier.
"I just want you to know," Norris said, "That there is nothing wrong with you."
"I don't know why nobody else will say it."
"Because they're dumb, Ramona. You're a good kid. You'll go far and end up happy, it's just going to hurt a lot before you get there," Norris said, "I got made fun of so much growing up because I had headgear for the first few years in elementary school, but look at me now. Teacher at a prestigious private school? Who'd have thunk?"
"I like you," Gilly blurted out and Norris smiled, taking another donut from the box.
"I know you do," she said, "And that's okay. We all have crushes on teachers growing up. I'm happy to be the one thing telling you you're normal. Because trust me, I didn't have that growing up, and I'd have killed for it."
A few moments passed as they both continued to eat donuts.
"Thank you Miss Norris."
"You're welcome Ramona."
"That wasn't so hard!" Rachel said.
"Yeah, says the one who didn't have to get it!" Ella said, laughing, "I'm not one to climb trees, I'm not used to it! It's hard! I'm not very strong, you know?"
"Ah, it's not that tough," Rachel said, as Gilly came racing up to them and tugging at Ella's arm.
"What is it?" Ella asked, still laughing as she turned towards Gilly.
"You have to come see this!" Gilly said in a hushed voice, "You need to come see this, you won't believe it!"
Ella and Rachel shrugged and followed Gilly as they headed back past the rest of the camp and into the woods. After about 15 minutes, Ella stopped to catch her breath as Rachel unscrewed the canteen she kept strapped across her chest and drank from it before handing it to Ella. After Ella drank some water, she wiped her mouth and looked at Gilly.
"Where are you taking us?" she asked.
"There's a boys camp," Gilly said, grinning, "There's a boys camp, like, right across from us!"
The unbridled enthusiasm in her voice confused and surprised Ella, who up to this point had been under the impression that Gilly solely liked girls, but she'd never really made that super clear, so. Ella glanced at Rachel, who just shrugged and screwed the cap back on her canteen when they heard someone coming up on the trail behind them, and they all turned to see Aime there.
"Where are you guys going? I saw you leaving," she said.
"We're going to see the boys camp, apparently," Rachel said.
"There's a boys camp?" Aime asked, smiling, sounding rather happy about it herself, "How did you find out about that?"
"I was catching frogs and I heard some guys shouting, and so I followed the voices until I found their camp," Gilly said, "They're not even that far from here! They've been there the whole time! I guess the counselors don't tell us cause they don't want girls and boys mixing, so."
"Alright, well let's get going," Aime said, walking next to Gilly, leaving Ella and Rachel to bring up the rear. As they walked behind them, Rachel slipped her hand in Ella's, making her blush. Rachel smiled and then quickly leaned in and kissed her cheek.
"Stooop," Ella said quietly, "God, they might see."
"So?" Rachel asked, "Are you...ashamed of me?"
Rachel and Ella started laughing again as they followed Aime and Gilly deeper into the woods.
***
"You cannot keep doing this!" Gillys mother shouted, pacing back and forth in front of the couch, "This has got to stop! Not only are you painting a target on yourself, but I don't have the time to continually be called into the school to come get you!"
"Ramona," her father, sitting in the armchair next to the couch, said as he leaned forward, hands cupped, "Why are you doing this? What started this?"
"I...I don't know," Gilly said, stammering and looking at her shoes, "I don't know why. I'm sorry."
"The more you draw attention to it, the more you're going to get made fun of," her mother said, "Like BOYS, that is what you should be doing. That won't get you made fun of because that's what's expected of you."
"But I...I don't want to, I don't like them," Gilly said, "What's so wrong with-"
"It's not that there's anything wrong with it," her father said, "It's that in a public space like a school, especially at your age, it's going to draw ire, do you understand? If you want to just survive school, you're going to have to fit in."
"There's a dance coming up, right? Winter formal?" her mother asked, "You'll be going, and you're going to ask a boy."
"No!" Gilly shouted, near tears, before getting up and running upstairs to her bedroom. Once inside her bedroom, she flopped on her back and looked up at the ceiling, where her glowing stars were put. All she could think of was her History teacher at her private school, and how pretty she was...her dark, curly hair and her pale skin and her big, brown eyes. Gilly shut her eyes and tried to focus on this image in her head when her father came into the room and sat down on the bed with her.
"Ramona," he said, sounding exhausted as he removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, "I love you. Things were so much easier when you were a kid. I could just fix everything by kissing you or putting a band aide on something or getting you ice cream or your favorite stuffed animal, but now...now everything is so hard."
"I'm not hard," Gilly said quietly, "You just don't understand me."
Her father smiled and stroked her hair, leaned in and kissed the side of her head.
"I may not but it doesn't mean I don't love you any less," he said, making her smile a little.
***
The girls hid behind a group of bushes as Gilly parted them cautiously and they all peered through, seeing in fact that there was indeed a second camp here, a camp for boys. Gilly turned to Aime, who was grinning ear to ear as she looked from boy to boy, and for a moment, Ella noticed a sad look flash across Gilly's face, as if she felt jealous that Aime felt this way towards boys. But, as quickly as she spotted it, the look vanished, and Gilly turned back to looking at the boys.
"Boys are so boring," Rachel groaned as she sat a rock nearby, running her hands through her hair and pulling it back into a ponytail, "Seriously, there's nothing there to look at. They're so...paper doll."
"I'm sorry we all have different tastes," Aime said annoyed, "God forbid we aren't all as cool as you."
"Well, that's uncalled for," Rachel said, annoyed.
"So is putting down something you don't happen to like," Aime said, "I like boys, I'm sorry for that."
"Nobody is saying you have to apologize, jeez," Rachel said, half laughing, "Forget it."
"Should we go talk to them?" Gilly asked.
"Are we going to get in trouble if we do?" Aime asked, "They obviously didn't tell us the boys camp was this close for a reason, so it's possible they might punish us if we speak to them."
"What're they gonna do, send us home?" Rachel asked, making Ella laugh and Gilly smirk, "I mean, we're at camp, how much worse a punishment can they come up with?"
Ella sat down on a tree stump and looked at the kite as Rachel sat in her lap. Gilly and Aime continued to look through the bushes, and much as Gilly wanted to make everyone proud of her, she struggled to find the bravery of going through with talking to any of the guys she saw. Still...she knew if she was ever going to get her mothers approval, she had to do this...
***
All the students were filing out of the classroom while Gilly sat at her desk, her bag packed on top of it, playing with her hands in her lap. After all the students left, her History teacher, Miss Norris, came down the isle and stopped at her desk. Norris sat down at a desk beside her and smiled at her.
"What's going on?" Norris asked, "You haven't been doing too well in class lately. Is everything okay?"
"...I'm sorry, I'll try harder."
"I'm not...Ramona, I'm not saying this to make you feel bad or guilt you into doing better, good lord," Norris said, chuckling, "No, I'm sincerely interested in how well you're doing. Talk to me. Are there students bothering you, or-"
"I don't want to go to the winter dance and my parents are making me ask a boy," Gilly said, near tears, wiping her eyes on her uniformed sleeve, "...have you...ever liked a girl, Miss Norris?"
"Back in college, yes," Norris said, crossing her legs and looking at Gilly seriously, "There was this girl in a blowoff class I took for fun, and we quickly became friends and spent a lot of time together. Once she realized how I felt, she became completely uninterested in even being my friend, and I was devastated. It wasn't the last time I've had feelings for another girl, but it was the last time i was honest about it, because I was too scared of losing people I cared about simply for being myself."
"...I don't want to not be me," Gilly mumbled and Norris smiled.
"You won't have to," she said, "Ramona, you're an extremely smart, empathetic, wonderful girl and with all the skills and talents you possess, nothing will stop you from being the best you, the you that you want to be."
Gilly smiled and stood up, picked up her bag and hugged Miss Norris before leaving the classroom. Sometimes the adults who care the most about us, Gilly discovered that day, were the ones we weren't even related to, sadly.
***
"I like him," Aime said, pointing at a guy with curly brown hair, "But...there's no point in going out there to talk to him. He won't like me. Everyone always makes fun of my brace..."
"That's a stupid reason," Rachel said, "You never know, he may think it's cool."
"So then he only likes me for it?" Aime asked.
"My god you're impossible," Rachel muttered under her breath, "Listen, all I'm saying is if you do nothing, you gain nothing, but if you do something, sure you have a fifty fifty chance of things not working out, but you also have that same fifty fifty chance of something working out, and that's better than doing nothing at all, right?"
Suddenly a soccer ball came flying through the bushes and hit Gilly right in the head, knocking her onto her back. As Aime scrambled to help her up, a boy with short black hair and dark grey eyes poked his head through the bushes and smiled.
"Sorry," he said, "Are you okay? I didn't even know there was anyone back here."
"It's ok, it's not like we let you know," Aime said, as Gilly sat upright and rubbed the side of her head.
"You're not in pain are you?" the boy asked, and Gilly shook her head, slowly smiling.
"No. No I'm fine."
"Cool. Where did you guys come from?"
"The girls camp, about 25 minutes walking distance through the woods," Rachel said, "We didn't know there was a boys camp. Probably a reason for that. Not wanting boys and girls to get together in the woods...alone."
"Can I have my ball?" the boy asked as Gilly tossed it to him, and he smiled, "Sorry about hitting you. You know, me and some of my friends get together near the well about 10 minutes from here sometimes if you guys wanna come hang out."
"That sounds cool," Aime said, blushing, "We'll see you there sometime."
As the boy exited, Gilly couldn't figure out if she had butterflies in her stomach, or hornets.
***
Standing in the main hall of the school during the winter formal, in her sparkly light blue dress her mother had had custom made for her, Ramona Gilly felt so out of place. She'd asked Brian Turner, and while he'd agreed reluctantly to go with her, he was now leaving her alone while he went off with some other guys and girls at another part of the room. Gilly wanted so badly to go home, knowing she didn't feel comfortable here, but she knew her mother would make a big scene out of it if she came home early, so her only choice was to stay.
"It's all so dumb isn't it?" Miss Norris asked, now standing beside her in her own dress, arms folded.
"What is?" Gilly asked, surprise her presence.
"Dances like this, trying to force awkward kids together, knowing full well none of them are really comfortable, and then telling them 99% of the time that being together is wrong," Norris said, Gilly now noticing that her hair pulled was back into a messy bun, "But it's a time honored tradition, or whatever, so we have it every year."
"I don't want to be here," Gilly said quietly.
"...you can dance with me," Norris said.
"Wouldn't that be weird? A student dancing with a teacher?"
"Who cares?" Norris asked, "Ramona, everything is weird and nothing makes sense. So you try and make sense of it on your own, in any way that you can. I'm here, I'm your friend, and I will dance with you if you want so you don't have to feel alone. To be honest, I'd rather be anywhere else but here also."
"I don't really know how to dance."
"Neither do I," Norris said, the two of them laughing as they headed onto the dance floor together. After the formal ended, Norris agreed to drive Gilly home, but not before stopping for donuts at an all night donut shop first. Sitting in a booth inside, both still in their ridiculous gowns, eating donuts right from the box, Gilly had never been happier.
"I just want you to know," Norris said, "That there is nothing wrong with you."
"I don't know why nobody else will say it."
"Because they're dumb, Ramona. You're a good kid. You'll go far and end up happy, it's just going to hurt a lot before you get there," Norris said, "I got made fun of so much growing up because I had headgear for the first few years in elementary school, but look at me now. Teacher at a prestigious private school? Who'd have thunk?"
"I like you," Gilly blurted out and Norris smiled, taking another donut from the box.
"I know you do," she said, "And that's okay. We all have crushes on teachers growing up. I'm happy to be the one thing telling you you're normal. Because trust me, I didn't have that growing up, and I'd have killed for it."
A few moments passed as they both continued to eat donuts.
"Thank you Miss Norris."
"You're welcome Ramona."