Camp Takatoa

Kelley had huffed her way into the cabin for the fifth time, finally having moved everything from her car into the cabin. Well, except for the emergency bottle of tequila that she had hidden in her trunk covered by an old sweatshirt and half a dozen Cliff Bar wrappers. She let the heavy box she was carrying down with a heavy thud. She decided that because she saw a puff of dust come up from the ground as it landed, that it was far time to sweep and start arranging the bunks how they wanted them set up for the summer. She dug through the storage closet in the back of the cabin that was filled with about a dozen brooms that were broken in some manner or another, various pieces of poster board from the past summers declaring point systems and cabin names and boxes of trash bags until she found the least broken broom and a makeshift dust pan.

“Is it really our job to clean too?” Kelley turned around and saw Emily leaning against the door frame, the screen door pushed wide open and to the side. Kelley had made several small piles of dirt on the floor and was going around the entire cabin a second time.

“No, there are people who come and clean a few times over the summer, but it is our job to make this place at home for our campers.” Kelley replayed the message in her mind, assessing if it came off nearly as bitchy as she felt it had. She looked up and saw Emily make her way towards the still open back closet and pull out a broom with an impossibly short handle before she started sweeping near the entrance, throwing the piles of dirt outside.

“So I’ve been looking over that list that Aunt C gave us.” Emily started. She was in a weird half squat trying to reach the broom to the ground and made a face every time dust flew up in the air. It made Kelley stifle back a laugh a little at the idea that Emily was so clearly uncomfortable with their living circumstances, but had to do it for the next two months. Kelley hummed in approval and waited for Emily to continue.

“How do you typically set up for the summer? I mean clearly this isn’t your first rodeo but for a first timer, I’m looking at this list, and then remembered how much we get paid for this and I am seriously struggling not to do the math and figure out how much it is worth it.” Her tone struck Kelley the wrong way. Kelley loved Camp Takatoa, this had been her second home for over half her life, and the idea that someone thinks they’re too good to spend time here is not really someone she feels like spending lots of time with. Emily was now sitting on a bottom bunk, one elbow resting on her knee with her hand cradling her face, the other was reaching the broom out as far as the broken handle would allow her and making long sweeping strokes to get the dirt out of the cabin. It was not working.

Kelley took a breath and examined the cabin. There was no longer any “visible” dirt on the concrete floor and was already starting to feel more at home. She looked over at Emily who was in her same position but looking at Kelley curiously, a small pile of dirt still at her feet. Kelley leaned the broom against the wall and walked over to the bunk across from Emily and leaned against the frame. They had a moment of strange eye contact before Kelley plastered her best Camp Counselor Smile and figured out her plan for action.

“What do you like to do?” her eyes examined as Emily’s posture changed and she sat up a little bit.

“What do you mean?”

“Like when you fill out your tinder profile, or you are in a job interview and someone asks you what you do in your spare time. What do you say?”

“Aside from doing copious amounts of hard drugs and making pipe bombs?”

Kelley was taken aback by the stone cold serious expression on Emily’s face, it wasn’t until Emily’s eyes wrinkled and she started chuckling that Kelley realized she was indeed just trying to get under Kelley’s skin.

“Well heroin and pipe bombs are hardly camper friendly activities, anything else that we could use that would apply here?” Kelley’s Camp Counselor Smile had started to falter just a little when she watched Emily shrug.

“I watch a few sports but nothing that I really follow strictly, same with tv.” Kelley gritted her teeth, trying not to get frustrated with Emily and her lack of vision for how she wanted the summer to be.

“What about movies or cartoons? Did you watch any of those as a kid?” Kelley felt incredibly better when Emily smiled a little.

“Of course I did, what kind of self respecting 90’s kids didn’t?” Emily seemed to have caught on that Kelley was pulling information from her, and was at least being more responsive, having sat up straighter on the bed and stopped fiddling with the broom. She pulled her legs into her and sat criss cross on the bed and let the broom tumble to the ground.

“Okay so one of the things on the to-do list is to come up with a cabin theme, and we also need to make name tags for each of the kids based off of the theme. So maybe we could do something 90’s related, isn’t it retro now or something?” Kelley laughed a little at her own joke and felt better when she saw Emily’s shoulders relax a little.

“What did you do last year?”

“Last year Alex and I went all out and did a Grey’s Anatomy theme, we made little name signs for the girls out of surgical masks and signs about “finding your person” and we had a few Grey’s Anatomy watch parties and a lot of the girls were pretty into it. We would split them into groups based off of like different departments like cardio or general.” Kelley rambled remembering how proud her and Alex were of coming up with a theme they were sure no one would steal. Some counselors picked pretty general themes for their cabins like friendship, or flowers or something that would be pretty easy decorate with. There was one disastrous year where Ashlyn and Tobin were paired together and they had made the theme of their cabin red. The color red. They made decorations red and nametags were just on red pieces of paper, Christie learned that the two of them did not have enough creativity to be partners again.

Kelley woke up out of memory lane to watch Emily looking at her curiously, before shrugging.

“I mean they’re going to be having a summer doing a bunch of other things and not being in a cabin, so does it really matter what the theme is?” Kelley knew that emily had a point, but that didn’t stop her from letting out a frustrated huff, this was not how this was supposed to go and not according to her well manufactured plan.

“That's true. But think about it, these are kids away from their home for two months, we have to make it feel as home and comfortable and possible, and having a lame theme to break the ice is often a big step for them.” Kelley shrugged her shoulders and her mind was racing with ideas that she could do herself if her partner wasn’t willing to work with her, she was snapped out of her daze when she heard Emily inhale.

“You’re right. So about this 90’s theme, what ideas do you have?” Emily shrugged and looked away but Kelley felt a sense of victory anyway.

A few hours later all the counselors had joined together again for a Welcome Back Pizza Party thrown by Christie, Lauren and Amy. The counselors were in the dining hall all spread out among one of the tables the table. Crystal and Steph were sitting on top of the table, their legs criss cross so that they could see everyone at once, Sam had her back resting against Christen and her long legs taking up at least enough space for three people on the benches and Ali was laying down on her back with her head resting on Ashlyn’s thigh.

All of the girls had already relaxed into the camp lifestyle and were clearly feeling right at home. Emily had even seemed to relax a little, resting her elbows on the table and slouching into her pizza. Amy and Lauren were making the rounds, sitting down or across from each of the returning counselors and caught up on all the happenings over the past year. While Amy and Lauren were busy catching up on the gossip, they also passed around pictures of their kids, which made all of the girls coo in excitement over how they have grown in the past year.

Christie had two daughters that she had brought with her for the pizza party which Kristie and Morgan were currently in a competition over who can drink a juice box the fastest. The eldest of Christie’s daughters, Riley was going to be coming to the camp for the first time this summer and was clearly eating up the alone time she was getting with the counselors. Christie’s other daughter Reece was two years too young but was still all about the pizza party and was jumping around after ingesting three juice boxes.

The air was calm and relaxed and the camp atmosphere had started and Kelley was finally feeling at ease with the summer for the first time since she heard Alex wasn’t coming. Each of the girls were laughing and laid back and all had relaxed smiles on their faces. Emily had fallen into a casual conversation with Sam across the table and Kelley noticed out of the corner of her eye that Emily seemed to have less of a fake smile even though Sam was doing most of the talking.

Christie cleared her throat and everyone turned their heads in her direction, even Reece and Riley who each had pizza hanging out of their mouths. She pulled out a credit card and slapped it down on the table which caused an eruption of cheers.

“Ladies, you know I trust you with this and I know you’ll all stay within your budget. I’ll leave this with you guys for tonight to go do any shopping that you need to do for your cabins. Don’t forget we have the supply closet that is stuffed from the ghosts of campers past, so make sure to dig through that before you buy anything new.” Christie gestured towards the main office building where the supply closet was but the whole room was already buzzing with excitement over the trip to Walmart that they were all going to make and seeing the ideas that the other counselors had come up with.

They cleaned up the plates and the pizza boxes and put the leftovers in the industrial sized fridge in the kitchen of the dining hall and said goodbye to Lauren and Amy who were headed home for the night to spend time with their families and Christie whose husband had arrived to pick up her girls.

The counselors had all gathered outside the dining hall and were already splitting themselves up into cars for the 30 minute trek to the various stores. Tobin, Crystal and Ashlyn all produced a set of keys meaning that they were the self nominated drivers.

“Okay counselors, you have 50 dollars and one hour to buy your supplies. Make it work.” Sam’s Tim Gunn impression got a hearty chuckle out of most of the girls including Emily who had sidled up next to Kelley and pulled out the list that they had made together earlier. The girls walked towards the parking lot and loaded themselves into Crystal’s car, along with Crystal’s co counselor Sydney. It took less than two seconds for Sydney to cut to the chase.

“Okay spill, what's your theme, because ours is pretty badass and you’ll never beat us.” She was turned all the way around in the front seat with her seatbelt behind her making direct eye contact with Emily who just burst out laughing.

“Is she serious?” Emily’s eyes were wide and she was still chuckling and looking at Kelley for some sort of clue.
“Honey you have no idea how serious we are. These are about to be the most glam eleven year olds you can ever imagine.” Crystal heckled from the front seat.

Kelley nodded and added “These two aren’t messing around. Every year no matter who they are with, their cabin and their campers rock.”

Sydney grinned and Crystal voiced her agreement mumbling something about how nobody messes with her clique while Emily raised her eyebrows and smiled.

“Okay newbie, the question still stands, what’s your theme? What are you guys doing to decorate?” Sydney now had her finger pointed in Emily’s direction who had raised her hands up in defense.

“Lay off Syd, we’ll show you ours if you show us yours.” Kelley said with a wink.

“We are doing none other than the Queen herself!” Crystal said as she banged on the steering wheel for emphasis.

“Wait the Queen. Like of England?” Emily had apparently asked the wrong question by how Crystal swerved the car just a little bit and Sydney’s eyebrows shot into her hairline.

“Tell me she is kidding. Kelley tell me she’s joking.” Crystal’s eyes searched for Kelley in the rearview mirror

“Emily, they mean Beyonce. Like Queen Bey.” Kelley was clutching her sides with how hard she was laughing, her eyes switching back and forth from Sydney who was shaking her head and Emily who was awkwardly giggling along as well. “It’s okay.” Kelley patted Emily’s knee, still laughing hysterically. “It takes a while to be able to catch up to these two.” Emily shrugged a little and hid her embarrassment by brushing back a strand of hair and letting out her over anxious smile again.

“This girl was dead ass serious. She thought we were doing the Queen of England.” Sydney gestured towards Crystal who was giggling still.

“I mean let's think about it. You could do like a royalty based cabin. Give each girl a crown or do like tiara name tags, have a queen for a day and each camper could take turns doing it. Have all kinds of royal decorations.” Emily defended her stance with a strangely strong conviction causing Sydney to shrug her shoulders.

“Okay newbie, that isn’t the world's worst idea. I’ll give you some credit.” As Sydney spoke Emily’s eyes lit up slightly realizing that they had just been teasing. “Now that you know ours, tell us, what is your grand idea Miss *best cabin 2016*” Sydney had turned and was now grabbing the back of her seat attempting to face Kelley who was directly behind her.
Kelley straightened up her back and put her hands down on her knees. “Okay we are doing a… wait for it…” She looked between Crystal and Sydney with excited eyes.

“Spit it out!” Crystal shouted back smiling

“Throwback Thursday 90’s edition!” Kelley said excitedly, she looked over at Emily who was grinning as well, searching everyone in the car for approval.

“Okay okay, a 90’s theme. I can dig it.” Sydney nodded looking at Emily whose shoulders relaxed significantly. “You can do a lot with that, and the girls will think it’s pretty good.”

Kelley raised her eyebrows towards Emily as if to silently say “see. I told you so.”

“It was all Kelley’s idea. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t necessarily overflowing with ideas.” Emily admitted with a shrug. “I’m still trying to get used to this whole “exiled to the wilderness” thing that I’m in.”

The feeling in the car got a little heavier for a moment while everyone digested what Emily just said.

“Don’t get me wrong, I wish I had my phone and was able to text my boyfriend all summer or troll on facebook but working here is like the last feeling from being exiled.” Sydney sighed, which received approving nods and hums from Kelley and Crystal. Emily shrugged again and smiled out of the corner of her mouth.

“Just wait until the campers arrive. Those kids are crazy! In the best way of course, and you’ll feel like you’re 12 years old having the time of your life all over again.” Crystal said, turning up the radio just a bit, clearly trying to defrost the sudden chilly atmosphere of the car. “Speaking of Queen Bey!” Crystal shouted bringing her hands off of the steering wheel momentarily to dance to Crazy In Love that just came on the radio.

Sydney and Crystal put on a well choreographed dance in the car as they pulled into the nearest town, the road switching from dark and barren to light and smooth. Crystal pulled into the dollar store parking lot where the other two cars of counselors were waiting. Sam was sitting on the hood of Tobin’s car with a plastic cup on her head and Christen was attempting to knock it off by using balled up receipts that had clearly come from the back of Tobin’s car at Sam’s head.

“Finally slow pokes” Steph said with an exasperated sigh, she was sitting in the open hatchback of Ashlyn’s car and hopped out slamming it shut, almost getting Kristie’s fingers caught in the process.

“You know we were driving with the queen of 5 under the speed limit.” Sydney shoved Crystal in the side who held her hands up defensively.
“I can promise I am the only one out of this bunch who has never gotten a ticket, am I right?” Crystal looked around at everyone who was either laughing or hanging their head.

Ashlyn whipped the lanyard that was holding her keys towards Tobin and jerked her head to the store. The group of girls all entered the mostly quiet store loudly, all laughing and going through their list of things to buy, Emily hanging towards the back her eyes searching for Kelley. The girls split up into their partners and started wandering around the store, Kelley quickly grabbed Emily’s elbow and lead them straight to the aisle marked “arts and crafts” on one side and “toys and apparel” on the other side.

“So this can’t be cheesy 90’s it’s gotta be cool, retro 90’s” Kelley said walking down the aisle, occasionally stopping at things like army men and feather boas. Emily wandered around the other side looking at the “apparel” side not really knowing what she was looking for. Her eyes scanned down the aisle until they got caught on something.

“Kelley, what about these?” She picked up a package of five bandanas in the traditional paisley pattern that were army green and handed it to Kelley. “We could do that whole Destiny’s Child Survivor thing with like the rolled up bandanas?” Emily did a sort of dance with her arms reminiscent of the video “or if that’s too much like the Queen Bey cabin it could even be like the dorky 90’s bandanas that looked like handkerchiefs that everyone used to wear on their heads?” Emily was looking eagerly at Kelley who had her eyes wide in an amused expression.

“Yes yes! That’s an awesome idea! Get like five of those packages, we’ll have at least 20 campers and you and I will need some of course. Good thinking!” Kelley raised her hand for a high five which got a raise eyebrow and a smirk from Emily.

“No highfives remember?” She held out a fist for a fist bump and was pleased when Kelley reciprocated and made the explosion sounds afterwards.

Kelley felt lighter seeing that Emily was clearly trying now. She threw the packages into the basket and continued down the aisle. When they checked out they had bandanas (tie dye this time thinking it fit the theme better), slap bracelets and a coloring book filled with 90’s cartoon television show characters. Kelley looked around and saw Crystal and Sydney checking out with bags of sequins and fake jewels, Ali and Ashlyn had packages of stickers of marine animals, Sam and Moe had mini soccer balls and a tiny goal that they had found, Tobin and Christen had foam surfboards that fit in the palm of your hand and Kristie and Steph had foam footballs and NFL stickers. She turned her head and saw Sam talking to Emily about their theme and Kelley smiled, knowing she was just overeacting earlier with her panic.

They all loaded in the cars, drove the short distance to Walmart where everyone unloaded again and made their way into the store. Tobin immediately climbed into a cart and Ashlyn got a running start pushing her down the aisles. Ali linked arms with Christen and followed behind the two of them. Emily and Kelley along with Sam and Moe strolled down aisles slowly, looking to see if anything would fit their feel of the cabin. Moe let out a loud “hell yes!” when they were down the home goods aisle and found a soccer shaped door mat. Kelley and Emily decidedly hit the jackpot when they found a package of five posters for five dollars that were all 90’s bands and singers. She let out a deep belly laugh when Sam, Moe and Emily all did the traditional dance to Bye Bye Bye by N*Sync in the aisle. Emily perked up a bit when Kelley told her that there were a ton of board games at camp that they could use for a 90’s board game night and Kelley squealed in excitement when they plastic string and beads to make lanyards.

They met everyone else in the snack aisle all loading up with junk food to snack on for a couple of days and all the food meant for all night parties meant for decorating cabins and getting to know each other. Ashlyn was the first to suggest that they go down the alcohol aisle, but everyone whooped and followed her.

“Wait, aren’t we in charge of children? We can drink?” Emily looked astonished for a second as all of the counselors were putting in cheap bottles of wine and six packs in the cart.

“Don’t worry. The campers aren’t here for another week, and once they are here only one of us is on duty when they go to bed. We’re all responsible. If you get Amy going she can tell you so many stories of her being hung over trying to lead rise and shine yoga at six am when she was a counselor.” Moe’s voice seemed to help relax Emily’s eyebrows a little who ended up putting her own pack of hard cider with a shrug.

They all walked to the checkout, separating their items from the camp paid for items and all headed back toward camp. The ride back was much smoother than the right there, Sydney and Emily fell into a conversation that sparked from Emily’s Destiny’s Child idea and Kelley chimed in from time to time about her favorite song. Crystal put on music again, digging through her CD’s and found an old mixed CD that she had allegedly made in middle school that had everyone in the car laughing over the mix of early 2000’s pop and rap.

Everyone met again and unloaded in the dining hall, throwing all of their supplies on top of the table. Kelley went with Christen and Kristie to grab things from the supply closet. Kelley’s arms were full of poster board and construction paper and Christen and Kristie had grabbed markers and everything else to decorate and prepare.

“So, you still depressed over Alex not being here?” Kristie asked while piling stuff into Kelley’s outstretched arms.

“I can’t quite figure Emily out yet, and I know Alex and I were just such a good team. But we’ll be okay.” Kelley shrugged making her way towards the Dining Hall with Christen at her heels.

“She seems really sweet!” Christen chimed in, who always has something nice to say about everyone.

“Yeah Sam had some nice things to say about her.” Kristie was Sam’s older sister so Kelley was sure that Kristie had asked Sam for all the information she had as soon as they had piled in the car.

They walked into the Dining Hall where Steph had already found the radio and had put on the same CD that Crystal had played in the car. Kelley placed her stash down on the table and the other girls ran forward trying to get to the best supplies. Steph and Crystal had already started dancing, each with a beer in their hand. Ali was laying on the floor with a poster board in front of her and was drawing what appeared to be a giant shark. Sydney had a poster of Beyonce and was gluing that to a poster. In 15 minutes the entire Dining Hall had turned into a lively workshop where fun conversation was happening everywhere.

Emily walked forward and handed Kelley a cider and sat criss cross on the floor next to her. Kelley had already started cutting out green cardstock in a splat pattern for the nametags for the girls. Emily opened up the 90’s coloring book and started cutting out the specific characters. They didn’t talk to one another as they worked but they got caught up into bits of other people’s conversations. The worked together until Ali walked over and grabbed Kelley’s hand pulling her up from the ground so that all of the returning counselors could do a choreographed dance that they had done for the talent show the year before. Emily awkwardly chuckled as the girls formed a soul train and danced down to the tune of Uptown Funk, by the time everyone settled down and sat back down it was clear that everyone was mostly done working on stuff for the night, Emily tidied up her mess on the ground and walked over to Kelley and sat down next to her at the table where everyone had gathered.

“Whats going on?” Emily whispered to Kelley. Kelley who was feeling the buzz of a few beers just smiled nudged Emily.

“Camp tradition. Get used to it, there's like a million of them. Don’t worry, I’ll catch you up.” Kelley’s whisper was a bit louder than she had intended but the other girls around her had laughed with her. Emily’s non committal shrug pushed Kelley’s buttons again but rather than saying anything she just took another slug of her cider. “It’s never have I ever, or Ashlyn’s favorite game so she can tease the shit out of you for the rest of the summer.” Kelley said this with a louder voice which caused Ashlyn to give a smile and a wink over to the two of them.

“As I do every year, I will start us off” Ashlyn said with forced bravado. “Never have I ever worked at a camp that is run by my aunt.” All of the eyes zeroed in on Emily who rolled her eyes and took a sip.

“That was a cheap shot Ash” said Christen

“Yeah at least make us work for it!” Steph said raising what appeared to be an individual bottle of wine in front of her.

“Okay okay I’ll go again.” Ashlyn said brushing hair out of her face.

“No chance Ash, you know the rules, I’ll go next.” Tobin looked around and said “never have I ever gotten wasted on the doc and left a bottle out for campers to find the next day.” Tobin chuckled and watched Steph lower her eyes and take a long sip accompanied by Kristie, Sam and Moe.

“It’s amazing that one of them didn’t drown.” Kelley heard Sydney say to Emily who chuckled.

“Okay, never have I not worked with the tenners!” Moe said excitedly. She loved having the youngest of the camp and convincing all of the little ones that they were the hardest and the toughest and the cabin to beat. She had an army of 10 year olds by the end of the summer who all worshiped her and wanted to be just like Moe. Everyone sighed and took a sip and they continued going around the circle. The classic questions were asked and there were quite a few teasing questions that were clearly angled to embarrass certain people.

Ashlyn sighed and held her head in her hands when Ali said that never had she ever had a camper fall in love and stalk her over the summer, which caused an eruption of laughter out of Emily. Christen got a few hard glances when she said that she had never kissed another counselor during a game of truth or dare, which Ali and Ashlyn looked the other direction and each took a sip, so did Tobin and Kelley. Kelley blushed when she saw Emily’s eyes glance to her but continued drinking and averted her gaze.

“Okay, never have I ever been a camper here.” Emily said just loud enough for everyone to scoff and take a drink.

By this time the bottles were mostly empty and all of the leftover pizza had been finished. The counselors all agreed it was the best time to throw away all the bottles and the trash and head back to their cabins for bed. The Dining Hall was still scattered with art supplies and nametags everywhere but when all the food was cleaned up the consensus was to come back and finish in the morning. The counselors all stumbled out and headed towards their cabins. Tobin had convinced Christen to give her a piggy back ride, Moe and Sam had thrown their flip flops in their back pockets and ran barefoot, racing to their cabin and Emily and Kelley walked slowly carrying a few of their supplies back with them.

“So what do you think of your first night here?” Kelley asked, the warm air outside was less than comfortable and she felt a bead of sweat slip down the back of her legs. She huffed and lifted the bags up higher and tried to evaluate how much three beers had affected her cognitive functioning.

“It seems pretty okay so far. The girls are a blast.” Emily said, she stuck her leg out to catch the door and swing it open for Kelley and they dumped all of their cabin supplies in the closest empty bed.
“I know we can be a lot. But it really does end up being a ton of fun.” Kelley didn’t know why she felt the need to be defensive of the camp but the way that Emily nodded and started putting sheets on her bed without responding started to ruffle Kelley’s feathers a little. Kelley realized that out of the game of Never Have I Ever, she ended up not learning anything about Emily, and was trying to decide if she felt guilty about that. Emily had finished pulling the sheets on her bed and pulled a toiletry bag out and headed to the bathrooms.

“I shower in the morning if that’s okay.” She said over her shoulder. Kelley was halfway up to the top bunk stretching sheets over her bed balancing and trying not to fall over. She suddenly regretted not trying to do this before she was a little drunk or that she hadn’t picked a top bunk at least for the first night.

Emily had returned from the bathroom and stifled a laugh when she saw Kelley finally struggle over and get onto her fully made bed. Kelley laid back and let her gaze settle on Emily who had changed into a tank top and a pair of sleep shorts. Emily quickly busied herself and settled into her bed, she flipped through her same notebook that she had earlier and glanced over the last few pages. Kelley slung herself back off the bed and quickly and drunkenly got ready. She walked over towards the front of the cabin and turned the lights off, feeling her way over to her bunk.

“Please don’t die trying to get on your bed. I don’t know if I can handle 20 thirteen year olds by myself.” Emily snorted from her bed. She had out a book light and it was clipped to a novel that Kelley could not see the title of.

“I’ll be fine, can you just shine that light a little my way?” Emily chuckled and angled the light towards the ground so Kelley could safely walk to her bed.

“It’s cute that you think you’d get any reading done while you’re here.” Kelley snorted, flopping down on her stomach and pulling her covers over her back.

“Cute huh? Weren’t you one of the counselors who had made out with another one before?” Emily’s teasing tone made Kelley’s eyes narrow.

“It was one time and I was way more drunk than I am right now. Also Ali is a fox.” Kelley could feel herself sweating in bed and already felt bad for making fun of Emily and the air conditioner earlier.

“Well now I know who to watch out for during all of these millions of camp traditions I guess.” Even though Kelley had her eyes closed she heard Emily snicker, she turned her head and opened one eye and saw Emily leaning against the back of her bunk with a book resting on her knees, her face softly illuminated by the booklight. She might be new and she might be a bit standoffish, but Kelley decided that there were probably worse co counselors to have.