Rookie

Ruby

I am still at camp. I ended up sending that girl’s boyfriend a Facebook message, but then as soon as I told her I had, I sort of cut her off. I’ve grown closer to the other two, and they’ve kind of accepted me as the “good one” in the group. Both of them come to me for advice, and I feel like they respect my judgment. There’s only so much they can do in the woods at camp anyway, so their “badassness” (as one of them put it) hasn’t really affected me.

In other news: there has been SO. MUCH. DRAMA. The following is a short summary of what I’ve been dealing with.

It all started with this one girl, Amy,* who insisted on reading the Bible aloud to her cabin every night. Naturally this makes some people very uncomfortable. When I saw this new girl being somewhat shunned, I decided to take her under my wing. In the camp’s makeshift library, which is just a small cabin in the woods filled with stacks of new and vintage books, I motioned Amy to sit with me.

“They’re all being so mean to me,” she told me. “They won’t stop calling me names.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’m sure it’s not personal. I bet they’re like this with all the new girls.”

Soon after our talk, I regretted associating myself with her. She started spreading rumors about other girls and trying to get me to help her start new ones. She told a counselor that I had been lighting matches inside the log cabin (very forbidden at camp) when, in reality, she had been doing it. She’s made lots of people cry. She told everyone that one girl had sex with a boy at the brother camp where her parents worked. Who knows if it’s true. She told everyone that several people were bullying her—and then fingered campers who didn’t even know her name. She told me to my face that she had spread rumors that I was a tattletale, which turned at least one old friend against me. I just don’t understand. Her life goal seems to be to stir everyone up and get attention by telling the most obvious of lies.

Sometimes her desire to start a fight is totally comical and bizarre. For example, on Saturday I told another friend of mine how pretty I think she (my friend) is.

“Yeah, you’re almost as pretty as I am,” said Amy to my friend, “and that’s saying something.” I know, it almost sounds too bizarre to be true. The funny thing is that this wasn’t the first comment Amy had made about how she was prettier than everyone else.

“No, that is not saying something,” a girl named Becca responded. “Some people are prettier than you, and some are prettier than me and everyone else.” Amy was furious.

“Well, everyone in my church is jealous of my good looks—I have perfect skin, and it looks like you have a pimple right there,” she said, pointing to a tiny blemish on Becca’s face.

“Amy, I honestly do not care whether or not I have a pimple. Can’t you just let something go without making it about you?” At this, Amy stormed away, only to return about a minute later.

“What, do you have a problem with me being here? It’s a public place, you know,” she said.

“No, I just have a problem with people who are egotistical and point out my acne to me as if I don’t know,” Becca said simply, not sounding angry at all. “Sorry, Miss Perfect!”

“I’m not perfect. Nobody’s perfect!” Amy said. Then she turned around and skipped away, singing the Hannah Montana song without a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

The counselors all seem to be on Amy’s side, so I’ve decided to try to laugh at these little skirmishes. Clearly that’s not very hard to do. ♦

* Names have been changed.