Camp Confidential 01 - Natalie's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

was Chelsea.

    “Are you allergic to cold water?” Natalie mumbled sarcastically, surprising herself. She hadn’t meant to be nasty, it had just slipped out.

    “Did you say something?” Chelsea asked.

    “No, I didn’t say anything,” Natalie replied quickly, covering. “I didn’t say anything at all.”

    She ducked back underneath the cold water, resigned to her fate for this morning, at least.

     
 
If Marissa had been around in the morning, she probably would have been able to give Natalie some “quick tips to getting gorgeous FAST.” After all, she had about a million magazines strewn on top of her bed, and that was the gist of most of the headlines Natalie had seen. But Marissa was long gone by the time the girls of 3C had woken up. Julie explained that it was because as a CIT, Marissa had to work as a waitress in the mess hall. So she had to get there early to set up for the morning meal.

    Walking to the mess hall, Natalie was actually kind of excited to see Marissa waiting on them. She wondered if all the CITs had cute matching uniforms that they wore when they served. And maybe Marissa would carry a funny notepad in her apron that she would use for taking orders, like in a real restaurant. Natalie wondered what they normally had for breakfast at Lakeview. If the cookout was any indication, the food wouldn’t be any great shakes, but that was no big deal. She could live on scrambled eggs if she had to.

    “Oh, and if the bug juice is yellow, don’t drink it,” Alex was saying to a group of girls.

    “Um, why?” Karen asked quietly. By now Natalie had gotten used to the fact that Karen did everything quietly.

    “Because you don’t know what they put in it,” Alex explained. “I mean, I guess you never can be too sure, but with yellow, it’s like asking for trouble. I wouldn’t put it past them if they peed in it,” she said, lowering her voice.

    “Ew,” Karen said.

    “That can’t be true,” Natalie interjected, holding out hope that Alex was just being dramatic.

    Jenna nodded solemnly. “It is, though. My oldest brother Matt—he’s not here anymore, he’s really old, and this summer he’s going to a summer college program in science, how boring is that ?—anyway, his friend used to work in the kitchen. You would not believe the stuff that goes on in there. I mean, pee in the bug juice is seriously the least of it. I can tell you stories—”

    “—Please don’t,” Natalie begged.

    “Okay, okay,” Alex said, breaking into the conversation again like a weary referee. “Let’s just put it this way—if we tell you to avoid something, you’ll just have to trust us.”

    “Fair enough,” Natalie said.

     
 
“This is our table!” Julie shouted, beckoning the girls to a long, cafeteria-style table and bench set just inside the mess hall.

    They’d been inside the mess hall for all of three seconds, and already Natalie’s head was spinning. For starters, the room was enormous, cavernous, with soaring ceilings held in place with long wooden beams and rafters. Which of course made for the kind of acoustics that sent the racket of at least two hundred separate conversations up into the air only to pour loudly back down. Natalie shook her head. So far, everything about camp seemed to be chaotic. Certainly the paint-splattered banners dangling from the walls, hailing color wars of years gone by. Natalie wasn’t sure yet what color war was, and she was almost afraid to ask. It sounded potentially stressful. And there was the clatter of silverware clinking against the surface of the tables. And the laughter coming from her own fellow bunkmates. Was she honestly the only person here who didn’t find camp to be one great big party?

    She looked up to see Alyssa cradling her chin on her palm, looking thoughtful. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly the only one. But that didn’t make it much better. Natalie was still hoping that her mother would come up on Visiting Day, take one