Camp Confidential 09 - Best (Boy)friend Ever by Melissa J. Morgan

toilet-seat covers stuffed down her underpants.
    “How amazingly cool was that?” Alex asked.
    “Extremely amazingly cool,” Priya said. Her head felt like it was still somewhere around her toes after that last barrel roll they’d done. It had really felt like they were flying through the sky in one of those old-fashioned barnstormer planes, like the one Snoopy rode in when he was in Red Baron mode.
    “Where to next?” Alex retucked her navy shirt into her shorts.
    “Let’s check the map,” Priya answered. It was the map that she and Jordan had sent away for and used to plan out almost every minute of their trip to the museum. The place was massive. “Next up—the paper airplane contest in the How Things Fly gallery. I’m an expert at paper airplanes. I’ve had a lot of practice—I like to throw them at my little brother—and I can get some extreme distances.”
    “I only know how to do the basic,” Alex admitted.
    “I can teach you some variations, no prob.” Priya lowered her voice. “I owe you for last night. Or we don’t have to do the planes at all. I mean, we don’t have to follow the schedule Jor—” She stopped. “The schedule I planned out.”
    “Are you kidding? It seems like you know more about this place than the tour guides. Can you believe Brynn attempted to talk me into going to that Elephant and the Basketball play with her instead of coming here? She’s my best camp friend. And I’d do almost anything for her. But, puh-leaze.”
    “Grapefruit,” Priya corrected automatically. She wondered how Jordan was doing. Only about the thousandth time she’d wondered the same thing since she hit the museum this a.m. Had he found the perfect thing to use to impress Brynn in one of the reviews after she’d bailed on him last night?
    “Huh? Grapefruit?” Alex shook her head.
    “The name of the play. The Elephant and the Grapefruit . Not basketball,” Priya explained.
    Priya suddenly felt like spewing the whole Jordan slash Brynn deal to Alex. That was what girlfriends did. Talked. And Alex was getting to be a girlfriend. Except it wasn’t Priya’s story to tell. It didn’t have anything to do with her. So Jordan liiiiked Brynn and was going to try and get her to liiiiike him back today while they were at the play. What did that have to do with Priya? A big fat donut of nothing. So it’s not like she’d be talking over a problem with Alex in a girlfriend kind of way. Because there was no problem.
    So why did Priya have a kind of sick feeling in her stomach?
    It was just period cramps, she decided. That or a side-effect from the flight simulator. Or a combo of the two.
    “How do you think the writer came up with that title?” Alex asked, pulling Priya out of her thoughts. “Come on. The Elephant and the Grapefruit ?”

    “ The Elephant and the Grapefruit is the most fabulous thing I’ve ever seen,” Brynn gushed as she, Sarah, and Val came into the hotel room after the play. “I want to be an actress more than ever. I can imagine myself up there on that stage in the Kennedy Center already, tears streaming down my face like in that scene with the basketball.” Her eyes were moist, like she might start crying right then. And Jordan was crushing on her? Brynn was okay, nice even. Okay, she was actually cool last night. But wouldn’t all the drama drive Jordan a little cuckoo?
    “There was a basketball?” Alex exclaimed. “I’m psychic!”
    “For you,” Val said quietly. She passed Priya a piece of paper, then plopped down on her bed.
    Priya opened the note and read it. Meet me in the lobby. Now! Life and death!!—Jordan . She sprang up from the rollaway and started toward the door. She had her hand on the doorknob before she thought of Sophie. Priya spun back to face the room chaperone. “Sophie, is it okay if I go down to the gift shop for a minute? I need to stock up on pads. I don’t want to keep borrowing from everybody.”
    “Sure. Go ahead. I’ll expect you