“The returning campers are assigned to their old team color. As for the newcomers, after observing all of you this week during your counselor training, and studying our staff child psychologist’s assessments about each camper’s strengths and challenges, myself and the other managers will designate the teams later this week,” Kehoe said briskly, leading them to the clearing that was in front of a handsome, modern, mountain-style lodge building. “Mr. Fall himself will be giving you your list of campers and file folders, as well as designating your team color at the dinner up at the castle on the last night of your training.”
Alice knew from the literature she’d received that the teams engaged in a friendly competition that culminated at the end of camp. Every child and team was rewarded and commended for something meaningful without exception, but the awarding of the Camp Durand Team Championship trophy was a special event. Each team could acquire points that were either earned straight out—say, by the winning of a competition or achievement of some team goal—or they might gain merit points awarded by Kehoe and/or other managers based on individual character growth and excellence.
She would have
thought the whole thing sounded a little too rigid and militaristic for her liking if it weren’t for the photos she’d seen of kids of various ages grinning away while they played water polo, piloted sailboats, rode on horseback, or painted on easels set up on the white sand beach. The informational packet Kehoe had sent her had made one theme crystal clear: The Durand counselors were expected to give these kids the time of their lives. Whatever happened at Camp Durand had to be wonderful, because the experience was meant to expand the impoverished children’s horizons, to encourage them to hunger for more, to expect good things of themselves, other people, and life in general.
An organization with that primary goal couldn’t be so bad, could it?
She felt a tickle on her right cheek and turned to see Brooke studying her as they walked up the lodge steps, her eyelids narrowed. Alice straightened her spine and cast her eyes forward. Might as well face it. Brooke Seifert was going to do her damndest to make sure that Alice was one of the first counselors to be checked off the Durand employee list.
And out of pure stubbornness, Alice was just as determined to see Brooke fail in that task.
“Just out of curiosity, what’s the dress for the dinner at the castle, Sebastian?” Brooke asked.
“Semiformal attire.”
Brooke shot a triumphant glance at Alice as they all started to file through the lodge’s front doors. Despite her determination, Alice felt herself wilting. Brooke had known she wouldn’t have anything “semiformal” in her grubby duffel bag.
Certainly not one thing suitable to wear to the prince’s castle perched atop the hill.
THE weeklong training flew by in a flurry of activities, challenges, and meetings. Every counselor was expected to complete every activity in which they’d lead the campers. In addition, they had to then learn how to instruct the campers in the various tasks safely and with psychological acumen.
Alice excelled in almost anything that involved strategy, physical strength, thinking out of the box, mental and physical endurance, and most aspects of teamwork. She knew right away—and realized with a sinking feeling that Sebastian Kehoe and the various managers recognized, too—that she had significant challenges when it came to basic knowledge of some activities, such as nutrition and cooking class, public speaking, or artistic expression.
And her most gaping shortcoming? Trust of her peers. Trust in any of the Camp Durand process. Part of her loved being in the gorgeous outdoor setting, testing her personal strength, playing games, and bonding with some of her fellow counselors.
Another part remained observant, but aloof. Wary. She got along especially well with Dave Epstein because they had that quality in common. Thad became another quick friend, but Thad was just too nice of a guy to ever be as cynical and vaguely amused as she and Dave were by the whole process. Thad never hesitated to throw himself into the thick of things. He also never wavered on his stated plan on that first day to have fun. Alice envied and respected his ever-present drive, optimism, and energy.
Alice thought for certain they were going to send her home on the afternoon she was paired up with Brooke Seifert on a steep and treacherous zip line challenge. Why someone would ever want to leave the solid ground and zoom over the canopy of the forest while suspended on a thin wire, Alice couldn’t fathom.
In the same fashion as the campers would be handled, the counselors were paired up according to their experience. Brooke had zip-lined several times, so she was labeled the “expert.” She had the task of coaching and reassuring Alice, who was a designated “novice.”
Alice wasn’t just a novice though. What she was, was deathly afraid of heights.
As a very young child, she’d taken a bad fall and woken up in the hospital. She didn’t remember the accident—or anything at all before waking in that hospital bed. Nevertheless, ever since then, her stomach and brain had minds of their own when her feet went too far off the ground. Of course, she’d withheld all of that from Sebastian Kehoe when he’d asked them some pre-activity questions.
If thirteen-year-old campers could finish the zip line task, she could.
But Brooke reassure her? What a joke. She’d muscle through the task on her own, thank you very much.
Despite her determination, she’d been stiff with anxiety and dizzy by the time they climbed to the way-too-skinny forty-five-foot-tall wooden platform suspended over the woods. She’d held her own, though. Until …
“Look at that,” Brooke said under her breath while Jessica Moder, their assigned Durand manager, had turned away to adjust their equipment. Alice instinctively glanced where Brooke pointed, vertigo hitting her like a tidal wave when she stared directly down at the forest floor. Far below, she blurrily registered Sebastian Kehoe talking tensely and gesticulating to a tall Durand manager with a military-style haircut and a face like it was carved from a rock. A cold sweat broke over Alice. The canopy of leaves blurred in her vision, and she barely managed to jerk her gaze off the horrible drop to the forest floor.
“That manager, Sal Rigo, is a creep,” Brooke muttered under her breath. “It looks like Kehoe is giving him hell for always slinking off from his assigned post. He deserves it.” Brooke turned to smile brightly at Jessica, who now was approaching them with a harness.
“I was telling Alice that I was a little nervous the first time around, but once I was airborne, it was too fantastic,” Brooke told Jessica enthusiastically. Her chattiness diverted Jessica from noticing Alice’s pallor and struggle to keep down the contents of her lunch, but that was just happenstance. Alice knew perfectly well Brooke had tricked her. She’d been an idiot to listen to her and look down over the edge of the platform.
Alice went first, Brooke’s saccharine reassurances for her safety bouncing right off her. What did she care about Brooke or her stupid platitudes when she was harnessed to this death contraption?
“Are you ready, Alice?” Jessica asked gently.
“As I’ll ever be,” Alice replied grimly. She held her breath.
Then she was sailing past the lush green treetops, her stomach seemingly left behind with Jessica and Brooke on the platform. A yawning vacuum had taken its place in her gut. She was positive she was going to drop to her death at any moment, but hated that prospect less than the idea of showing weakness in front of Brooke or any of the Durand managers.
She vaguely recognized Thad Schaefer’s smiling face at the next platform, but was too blank with terror to put a name to the other people waiting for her with outstretched arms.