Camp by Elaine Wolf Page B

during rest hour. Okay?”
    An eye for an eye. I couldn’t say no.

    “Leave it to Erin,” Donnie said when she caught up to me on the way to the boathouse the next day. “She’s right. Don’t get mad; get even. And it’s about time we get even with Rory.”
    Getting mad I could handle. But getting even? When I thought about Rory’s father, I still really wasn’t sure. A chill worked through me although heat pushed down on us again, reminding me of the weather on the morning I’d left for camp. My father in his T-shirt: “Think I’ll turn on the air conditioner. Maybe a little air’ll get in here.” My mother holding him back: “We’ll be gone before it cools down.” Why did my father always hand her the reins? Was it her looks, her perfect figure? Something to do with sex?
    I gagged at the idea as I tried to flick my mother off my shoulder. Two wrongs don’t make a right , my mother whispered in my ear as Donnie opened the boathouse door. Was my mother telling me not to go after Rory? Would she say I had gotten what I deserved: punishment for being me, for not being pretty like she was? For not being sexy like Robin, like Rory? Sure, they might not have attacked me if I had big hair and polished nails. Yet it was my mother who wouldn’t let me use rollers; my mother who told me I couldn’t wear polish if I still picked at my cuticles. I heard her voice again: Two wrongs don’t make a right, Amy.
    Whose code held the truth, my mother’s or Hammurabi’s? And what about the Takawanda code? The law of the jungle: Eat or be eaten.
    “Okay, you guys,” Erin said as we settled in a circle on the dank floor. “First we need a secret word.”
    “What for?” Paula asked.
    “For when we’re at the social,” Erin explained, “which is when I think we should get Rory in trouble. We say the word, and bingo, we get her.”
    An eye for an eye. Hammurabi was right. So what if Rory’s father would abuse her? I couldn’t keep letting her get me. Camp was a jungle; I’d play by the law. Eat or be eaten. “Think about what Rory does,” I said.
    “Mean things.”
    “Sexy things.”
    “Right.” I enjoyed the limelight for a change, enjoyed ignoring my mother’s two wrongs don’t make a right mantra. “And when Rory does those things,” I continued, “she roars.”
    “That’s great, Ame.” Erin picked up my thought. “She roars like a—”
    “Lion!” we shouted.
    “Holy moly! That’s it,” Erin said. “Lion. Our secret word, the code for our plan. Now let’s work on it.”
    Paula spoke first. “All we have to do is arrange for Mr. Becker to find Rory doing something wrong, something bad enough to get her kicked out.”
    “That shouldn’t be hard,” Donnie said. “Rory does bad things all the time. We just have to figure out how to get her to do it when Mr. Becker’s around.”
    “Do it ?” Karen said.
    Fran snickered. “ It , as in sex?”
    I didn’t understand this focus on sex. I expected that from Rory’s gang, but not from mine. Yet even Erin grinned. “Now we’re cooking,” she said, pulling the rubber bands from her hair. “So here’s the deal. The Saginaw social will be in The Lodge. What if we get Rory to sneak upstairs with a boy? Then we’ll get Mr. Becker to find her there doing something naughty.”
    “Doing it ?”
    “Having sex?”
    “Well, she doesn’t have to go all the way,” Erin explained. “Just has to have her shirt open or something with a boy in a room where she’s not supposed to be.”
    “And how do we arrange that?” Paula asked.
    “Well, we could tell Rory we’re sorry we haven’t been getting along better, and—”
    “Or maybe I could tell her I’m sorry I got her in trouble in the dining hall over that stupid piece of cake,” Donnie said. “I could say I’m making it up to her by arranging a little privacy for her and the boy of her choice.”
    “A piece for a piece,” Karen added. “That’s great.”
    Fran elbowed her.