Camp. Stupid, dumb, boring camp. Bugs all over the place and wearing sunscreen every day even when it wasn’t sunny and sleeping in a cabin with a ton of random girls who would probably end up hating her instead of staying at home in her room or traveling to some awesome hotel on one of her parents’ swanky summer trips.
Vivian was not happy. She loved summer in the city, even though the streets smelled like three-day-old garbage and the glare off the pavement made it impossible to see anything even through her nicest pair of sunglasses. She loved hanging out in her apartment building’s lobby with Margot, who lived upstairs, going to Central Park to people-watch, and poking through Duane Reade to get some air-conditioning and maybe some new glitter nail polish. Convincing tourists in Penn Station they were stuck without train fare and just needed fifteen dollars to get home to New Jersey—even though the only times she’d been to New Jersey were when she and her parents flew out of Newark airport.
The airport. Vivian didn’t even want to think about it. Airports meant flying and travel and all sorts of fun, exciting adventures. Adventures that involved elegant hotels and five-star restaurants in places like Hong Kong, not whatever was going to pass for meals and sleeping accommodations in Middle of Nowheresville, Vermont.
Vivian’s parents owned a specialty travel agency that catered to the wealthiest world travelers. In the summer they took their richest clients on fancy trips to the most exciting destinations in Asia—and in past years Vivian always got to come along. But thanks to some . . . issues that had developed this year at school, that wasn’t in the cards. Not this summer.
“We think you need more supervision,” her mother had said, standing in her favorite crisp plum-colored suit in the kitchen of their Manhattan apartment earlier that year. “Your father and I can’t watch you every second. Camp would be a . . . better experience for you.”
Better how? Vivian thought. Instead of exploring the Yangtze River on a luxury riverboat—this summer’s first planned excursion—she’d be eating twigs and berries and singing ridiculous songs around a campfire, batting away mosquitoes with a bunch of mouth-breathers from the suburbs. For six whole weeks.
She’d rather go to prison. At least in prison they had TV.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me! It’s like I’m being punished for something that wasn’t even really my fault,” she said, appealing to her father, who sat at the little kitchen table in the corner looking at his laptop. “Won’t you miss me?” She gave him the Look, which usually worked. Dad was a soft touch.
“Of course we’ll miss you, sweetheart,” he said with a sad smile. “But it’s not fair to our clients if we have to watch you all the time. And we don’t want you to get in any more trouble.”
“But none of it was my fault,” Vivian grumbled.
“What was that?” her mother asked.
“Nothing,” Vivian replied, and heaved a huge sigh. She didn’t know how to explain what had really happened at school that year, especially since she was sure they would never understand. How do you explain to your parents that you’ve failed utterly and miserably at being a normal kid? How do you explain to your parents that you can’t even make friends? Not real friends, anyway. It was better to just act like she didn’t care.
But things began to look up on the bus when she met some of the other kids headed to Camp Shady Brook.
Well, not at first. Her seatmate had irritated her right from the minute she opened her mouth. “I’m Sasha Howard! I’m from White Plains! This is my first time at Camp Shady Brook, but I’m so excited! I’ve never been to camp before!”
Every sentence sounded like it ended in an exclamation point. Or, as Vivian soon learned, a question mark. And obviously this girl wanted to be friends. But she didn’t know Vivian. She didn’t know that Vivian didn’t do “friends” anymore. Not after last year.
“Do you think it’s going to be fun there? I don’t know if I’ll like the food? Or if they have private showers?” The girl let out a high-pitched self-conscious giggle.
Vivian didn’t even want to contemplate the idea of nonprivate showers. What was this place, stuck in the Dark Ages?
Finally the girl took a breath. “Oh my God, I’m talking so much! I’m so sorry! I’m just soooooo excited! What’s your name and where are you from?”
“Vivian Cheng,” Vivian said, blowing her shaggy bangs off her forehead in irritation. The bus was air-conditioned, but barely, and unlike the rest of the kids in their shorts and tank tops, she was wearing skinny jeans and her favorite tall black leather boots. “And I live in Lenox Hill.”
“Where’s that?” Sasha asked. “Long Island?”
Vivian frowned, and her tone became even icier. “The Upper. East. Side. Of MANHATTAN.”
“Oooooh!” Sasha said. “I love the city! My dad works there! We go there all the time! For our class trip we went to the Museum of Natural History!”
Vivian rolled her eyes and tried to look out the window to get away from the girl’s beaming face. She always felt awkward around aggressively friendly people. People who acted like they were from another planet where everybody was nice and happy. She just knew she was destined to be the first person to disappoint them.
Finally Sasha seemed to notice her reluctance to talk.
“I’m sorry, are you shy? That’s okay, I’m shy too? Sometimes?” she said, and then paused. “You know what, there are some kids from my school on this bus! I can introduce you! Then you’ll know lots of people at camp! It’ll be great!”
To Vivian’s horror, Sasha stood up and started calling out names like an extremely happy drill sergeant calling role. “Aidan! Phoebe! Lily!” she sung out. “This is Vivian! She’s from New York City!”
Vivian slid down lower in her seat.
One of the girls Sasha had called over—Vivian hadn’t caught her name—gave a sour look. “What’s so special about New York City? My dad works for a company that’s based in France and we go to Paris all the time.”
“I’ve been to Paris,” Vivian said suddenly. And she had—it was the jumping-off point of a tour for European clients her parents had organized two summers ago. The group had met in Paris and then flown to Vietnam.
The sour-faced girl looked skeptical, but the other kids were rapt, so Vivian kept going, even though she normally wouldn’t be talking this much. It was so rare to feel like people were actually interested in what she had to say. Even before everything had gone upside down, her former best friend, Margot, usually acted like she was just waiting for Vivian to finish so she could start talking. “I’ve been a lot of places, actually. My parents own a travel agency. We go to China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam . . . all over Asia. And other places, too.”
“Wow,” one of the kids breathed. “My dad’s parents are from Korea but I’ve never been there. He says it’s too expensive.”
“Korea’s amazing,” Vivian said, turning toward the boy. “If you go, you have to go to Jeju Island. It’s gorgeous there.”
And that’s how it all started. At first, she’d only begun talking because she wanted to wipe that smirk off the face of Little Miss I Went to Paris. But pretty quickly she found herself enjoying all the attention of the rest of the campers on the bus, and began to tell them some of the best stories of her world travels. Most of the stories she told were true, but as she continued, she realized she could literally tell them anything and they would believe her. Why wouldn’t they? She sounded like she knew what she was talking about. And they had no clue who she really was.
For a tiny instant, she wondered if it might be nice to make friends with some of these kids, at least for the summer. A chance to start over. But she pushed that thought deep down. She sucked at making friends, so there was no point in even trying. If she’d learned anything at all in the past year, she’d learned that.
Instead a brand-new idea began to form. A plan to have a little fun—with kids who probably weren’t going to like her anyway once they got to camp. If she could convince them she was a world traveler, maybe she could convince them to do stuff for her, just like those tourists in Penn Station. And just like Margot had done to her, last year, when she pretended to be her friend.
Which might mean Camp Shady Brook wasn’t going to be that bad after all.