Chapter 11: Fisticuffs!

I can’t believe that Felix!! Who the hell does he think he is, standing so close to me and trying to...? ARGH!

I stalked across the lawn that separated the cabins from the dining hall, ignoring my growling stomach. There was no way in hell that I was going back in there, not for anything!

“Chloe! Wait up!”

I turned to see Mary running after me, her long hair blowing behind her. As I watched her, I felt slightly jealous, which was embarrassing to admit, even to myself. But, I mean, look at her! She’s got that gorgeous long hair and she’s really pretty and thin and tall... and I’m...

Well, I’m from Gotums, which isn’t exactly known for its supermodels, if you know what I mean.

Mary’s voice interrupted my comparison. “Are you okay? I mean, you didn’t even hit him or anything.” She cocked her head and looked at me. “Isn’t that how you solve most of your problems nowadays?”

I had to laugh at that. “Yeah, that’s true. But...” I stuffed my hands in my pockets and shrugged. “You know...” Mary nodded. “Oh yeah, I know. That would be total social suicide, even for you.” I decided not to pay attention to that last comment.

“Seriously, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” I forced a smile, which probably looked a bit mental. “You know I can take care of myself.”

Mary pursed her lips, then shrugged. “Okay, if you’re sure.” She stretched and yawned. “I’m heading back to the cabin for a nap, there’s no way I can eat if I’m this tired. Bye.”

...That was some interesting logic... At least she distracted me from my problem for the moment. My problem... FELIX!!!!!Damn, now I’m mad all over again!

In an effort to clear my head, I headed down to the lake on the other side of the camp. I’ve always liked the water, being in it or just looking at it. As soon as I arrived and saw the lake rippling and shining in the sunlight, I felt a calm wash over me. It reminded me of happier times with my family, when my brother and I were little, when Mum was still happy and Dad was still around...

I sat under a weeping willow tree, another natural thing I find soothing (not that I’d ever admit these facts to anyone), and just listened to the sound of the water lapping up against the bank.

Just for a minute, I can forget everything about this crazy camp and all the mental people in it...

....

Eventually, when I had calmed down enough not to twist Felix’s neck military-style until it broke, I left my ‘soothing spot’ and headed back to the cabin. The next meal was only about thirty minutes away. Yes, it took me that long... Get over it.

When I saw Jaclyn leaving the cabin, I immediately knew that something was awry. I wasn’t too fussed though, I mean, she was only after Mary, right?

...

WRONG!! So, SO wrong!

What seemed like arbitrary pieces of fabric had been scattered around the room, however, on closer inspection... THEY WERE ALL PIECES OF MY CLOTHES!!! Jaclyn had cut up every single piece of clothing that I owned until they looked like things a prostitute would refuse to wear!

“Son of a BITCH!”

My exclamation caused Mary to bolt upright, looking a little groggy. “Huh? What’s...?”

That was when I noticed what Jaclyn had done to her.

She had cut off Mary’s hair.

Mary must have seen the look on my face, because she immediately put her hands to her face. “What? What’s wrong with me?” I ran my hands through my hair and gave her a look. She desperately grabbed at were her hair should have been hanging and went pale.

“No, no, no, no, no...” She ran to the mirror and stopped dead.

At the exact same moment, I realised that the clothes I was wearing were dirty, and I needed to change.

Seconds later, screams that could wake the dead rang throughout Camp Woodlands.

...

A few minutes later, Mary and I barged into the dining hall with only one thing in mind. REVENGE!!!

Thanks to Jaclyn’s prank, I was now forced to wear a pair of ridiculously short shorts and half of my favourite purple T-shirt layered over a black tank top in an effort at modesty. It was not only awkward, but downright humiliating. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

But not unless I could drag Jaclyn down with me!

As Mary stalked down the aisle between the tables, I pushed the doors closed behind us and locked them. No one was getting out of this. And I mean NO ONE!

Mary picked up a meatloaf and headed towards the table where all our rivals were seated. She stopped a few feet away and just glared. I stepped beside her and reciprocated the glare. A long, loud wolf whistle came from the far end of the table. I didn’t even have to look around to see who it was. Didn’t that guy have anything better to do with his time than to constantly irk me?

“You. Are. Dead.” The growling voice sounded nothing like Mary. In fact, it sounded a lot like me when I had to be threatening.

Flipping her hair back over her shoulder, Jaclyn smirked. “Oh, come on,” she emphasised the last word, “Maria. What are you going to do, kill me with your death stare?” She laughed. “Everyone knows a Plotovesus girl doesn’t like to get her hands dirty.”

Mary gritted her teeth. I knew in that moment that she’d snapped.

“Is that so?”

The meatloaf was on her face before Jaclyn even had time to duck.

....

The next few minutes were complete and utter chaos!

Mary and Jaclyn ended up in a full-on catfight; hair pulling, name calling, bitch slapping, the whole deal. About half the guys in the room were watching... until I double-fist-threw a pudding at two of them...

“Nice shot, Chloe.” I felt Felix’s breath tickle my ear. “But then...” I heard him smirk, “you look pretty athletic.”

Whirling around, I did what I had wanted to do since the first time I met him in the woods.

I punched Felix right in the face.

I felt his nose crack under my knuckles. He staggered backwards, crashed into a chair and hit the ground, hard. As he sat up, he looked at me strangely. I was so startled by it that I didn’t even notice a bowl of spaghetti that wound up in my hair.

It was as if a mask had dropped. A look of vulnerability crossed his face as he stared at me, the bright red blood dripping from his nose down onto his lip. It was like... he never really expected me to do it, like he didn’t know what I was truly capable of till now.

However, our gaze was broken by the loud scream of “You total BITCH!”

With that, Kari launched herself across the table, in the same way that a lioness pounces on a baby antelope. It was in that instant that I knew: she was the one to really be scared of...

Thanks to my years of gymnastics training, I managed to dodge her crazy attack and slid under the nearest table. As I searched for a weapon (by weapon, I mean plate or beverage), I noticed just who was crouched under the table, protectively covering his laptop.

“Dylan?”

He looked at me, and shrank back slightly.

“Come on, I can’t look that bad!” A chunk of meatloaf detached itself from my shirtfront and landed on the floor with a plop. “Ugh, don’t freak out, I’m not going to touch you or your precious computer. Why’d you bring that thing to lunch anyway?”

Another blond guy, who I recognised from our rival gang though his name escaped me, crawled up beside Dylan. “This isn’t lunch, this is war!”

I turned back to Dylan as Mary rolled past, still attacking Jaclyn by rubbing pudding in her face screaming “Eat it!! Eat it!”

“Hey, why aren’t you covering us anyway? Aren’t we supposed to be a-” I got right in his face- “TEAM?”

To my surprise, Dylan dropped his eyes and backed away from me. “I just think its better not to get involved” he muttered, his eyes flicking from me back to the blond guy. “After all, you never know who you can trust.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to respond to this because, at that moment, crazy Kari found me, pulled me out from under the table and dumped a jug of cordial all over my shirt.

“Mother-” I decided to forgo speaking and just punched her in the stomach instead. Kari swore and doubled over and I took the chance to make an extremely ungraceful escape across the food-covered floor.

A sudden silence fell across the dining hall. That could only mean one thing... the head counsellor had arrived.

... Wait, how did he unlock the door?!

He silently surveyed the pandemonium that had been taking place, his eyes moving over the puddles of drink and mashed-up food. Then, he looked over each of us, covered in what was today’s lunch. I averted my eyes before he got to me, but I noticed that he looked at Forrest for a suspiciously long amount of time. Come to think of it, what was Forrest doing during the fight? I hardly saw him at all, and he didn’t even try to defend or help Mary.

It’s all pretty suspicious if you ask me.

“All of you get cleaned up and head down to the lake. The next activity will begin in twenty minutes.”

WHAAAAAAT?! Not even a word about it? We are standing here, COVERED in disgusting camp food... the food fight was probably the best use for that food... and he doesn’t say a WORD?! This guy is not human, that is for sure!

After an extensive period of scrubbing, changing and swearing as we pulled tangled pieces of spaghetti from our hair, Mary and I made it down to the lake just as Dylan and Forrest were pushing a canoe out onto the lake, a few seconds behind our rival gang.

“Hurry up! We almost had to forfeit because of you” Dylan snapped as he and Forrest pulled me into the canoe and shoved an oar into my hands.

I gave him a dark look, then shrugged and said flippantly “Whatever. Like I was going to hurry for this lame race anyway.”

As our paddles hit the water, I realised something. “Wait, what about Mary?” I craned my neck around, thinking that there must have been some mistake.

“We’re only competing with three” Dylan replied tersely, nodding to the boat ahead of us that contained our rivals. “They lost a member, so we have to be fair.”

As I turned back around, I noticed that Felix was not in the canoe. I must have hit him pretty hard... I have to admit, I felt kind of proud of myself. At least some of my skills were coming in useful at this camp.

As we approached a buoy that had been placed on the far right side of the lake, we had managed to gain some lost ground and were pulling up even with our rivals, who were on the far left. We rounded the buoys at the same time, and as we tried to turn the canoes, our boats collided.

An idea struck. With a smooth motion, I got my oar underneath the rival boat and flipped it upside down. Kari, Jaclyn and the blond guy all tumbled out as we paddled madly for the shore. Unfortunately, we were not quite fast enough. Evil Kari grabbed Forrest’s wrist and pulled him, causing Forrest to fall out and our canoe to consequently capsize. Completely unprepared, I ended up totally underwater and upside down. Not cool.

While I thrashed about under the water, I noticed something. There were lights under the lake... Now, call me crazy, but that did not seem normal to me. Then I noticed a second something. Dylan was not attempting to surface, instead he was swimming down... towards the lights!

I broke the surface, gasping for air and looked back at Mary, who stood on the bank, looking concerned. Something weird was going on here... something bigger than we’d ever imagined.