Cabin Queens

Sarah bade her parents goodbye as they finished checking her into Summer Mountain Camp, her personal retreat going on three years now. It’s one of the best weeks of summer to her, all this time away from home around friends and fun. Leaving registration, she filed into the lively cacophony of other new arrivals, campers settling in, and the settled-in involved with games of Gagaball and 9 square. Along her trek across the common grounds, Sarah spotted a girl looking a little lost.

“Can I help you?” She offered.

“Hey! Yeah, I’m looking for the Ashwood Cabin.”

“That’s where I’m headed! Follow me!”

They made small talk along the way, Sarah’s new friend introducing herself as Lauren. They barely entered their lodging when a gaggle of Sarah’s older friends delightfully recognized her. They greeted each other with hugs and Sarah introduced Lauren.

“We’re going to rock every cabin challenge again this year!” One of Sarah’s old friends explained.

“Sarah’s like an unofficial cabin queen,” Another added, “For the last three years, every cabin she’s been in has won them!”

Lauren was impressed.

“It’s not all me,” Sarah brushed off as she picked her bunk and unpacked. “We work well together and have shared cabins almost all those years. And I think just about everyone else meshes with us before the week is over.”

After Sarah and Lauren settled, the gaggle offered to hang out and show Lauren around. Sarah thought the start of camp couldn’t be any more perfect until she saw Ava approaching the neighboring cabin, Maple.

“Who’s that?” One of Sarah’s posse asked.

“My ex-friend from school...” she scowled. “We were friends up till sixth grade when we started having less classes and time to hang out together. Even when we did have stuff together, she was somehow better at it than me. She could ruin the winning streak here!”

“Well,” Lauren started encouragingly, “like you just said, we’ll have to mesh and work together and see what happens!” Everybody agreed, helping Sarah feel validated.

“So, what are the cabin challenges?” Lauren asked as they continued along their way.

“Every day during breakfast, some of the staff judge how well we clean and decorate our cabin.” Someone started explaining.

“They can be bribed sometimes,” Someone else added. “Then there’s a challenge course, a camp-wide scavenger hunt, and a performance night.”

“There’s also the Camp Champ games, which are a lot of team and athletic events set up in a championship format.”

Their conversations then gravitated towards plans and strategies for the week until time for camper orientation, where the challenges were again highlighted and other rules, expectations, and such were communicated. After that, the rest of the day progressed with some ice breaker and bonding activities between themselves and some of the other female cabins until evening mealtime. Much to Sarah’s luck, they didn’t have anything to do with the Maple cabin yet.

The Ashwood girls went to their first breakfast pleased with themselves. Between lights out and wake-up call, they worked hard to clean their cabin and decorate it in a fun, light theme they brainstormed. A couple of them brought string lights to put up, their counsellor had a set of marquee light letters to spell out their cabin’s name, and they showed off any flashlights or lanterns they brought. With some art supplies offered in their cabin, they also handcrafted affirmation posters, saying things like, “We’re brighter together”, “Be the light,” and “Shine on”. Someone had glow sticks they offered to include as a bribe. As the morning meal wrapped up, the camp leaders discussed the morning’s events and the cleanup challenge.

“Everybody gets top scores for cleaning this morning! Give yourselves a hand...We saw several strong contenders in the decorating aspect...second place today with the girls’ cabins goes to Ashwood! Their bright light theme was very cute!” They had a projector screen to show off pictures of the decorated cabins. As they flicked through Ashwood’s displays, the girls smiled at each other and joined in the brief applause. Second place wasn’t bad, they thought. The week is just getting started.

“And first place with the girls’ cabin goes to...Maple! Lookin’ like the Fourth of July all over again!” The slides switched to a cabin interior exploding with red, white, and blue: mini-flags, America250 hand fans, crafts and drawings of major U.S. landmarks and images. Somehow everybody in the cabin had something patriotic to display. The emceeing leader then switched the display to a single sheet of paper that bore “We the people” written with flourishing handwriting and the campers’ signatures at the bottom. “And writing out the Constitution’s Preamble was an impressive touch! Let’s give it up for Maple and everybody’s efforts today! Keep up the good work!”

Sarah applauded like a good sport but couldn’t help recognizing the handwriting. It was Ava’s. It took her back to how the whole class in fifth grade history learned to recite The Preamble. They learned it together, practiced it together even. Then she fast-forwarded to the sixth grade’s history fair. Sarah did her project on the events that led up to the American Revolution. She found so much in her research that she found it difficult to narrow them down to the right number of ideas for her display. She hoped her hard work showed through and the musical Hamilton’s popularity at the time would earn her some place between top three or top five. It did make top five, but she somehow ended up behind Ava’s project on The Constitution, the neatly written out Preamble she memorized the year before as a centerpiece of her display.

Ashwood cabin’s first morning activities were ice breakers and bonding and a Camp Champ ball game of their choice out in the activity fields. Sarah lagged behind a bit, stuck in her reminisce of the sixth-grade history fair. She missed whatever announcements and discussions about working with Maple until they were at the fields. She got the clue from just seeing Ava, leading the small group in some warm-ups, ever eager and ever a leader she was. Watching her and the group lean into lunges and jump jumping jacks took Sarah back to when gym classes and athletic tryouts with Ava got annoying. She was often team captain or among the top picks. She could lead most group runs or jogs. Everyone wanted to be with her for most paired exercises. The two of them had similar skill and potential, so what made her more special? On one hand, Sarah knew thinking so much in this way was going to affect her. Those were in the past. Yet, here, at Summer Mountain Camp, was where she knew she could stand out like that. Camp Champ and cabin queen were her titles. She had to step up if she was going to keep them.

Her first maneuver was convincing the group to pick soccer as their Camp Champ ball game, despite discussing basketball as their choice last night. Sarah for sure was well-suited for soccer while more of the Ashwood girls were inclined to basketball, both in skill and interest. They were gracious about this change, though most of them felt like the game was long, especially with Sarah, Ava, and a couple others carrying most of the plays. Ashwood Cabin eventually succeeded 2 to 1.

Following that came more neck-and-neck standings between the Ashwood and Maple Cabins. Maple topped the next two cabin cleaning/decor challenges: a nineties nostalgia theme won over Ashwood’s Taylor Swift theme on Tuesday then a state pride theme over Ashwood’s space and sky theme on Wednesday. Other Camp Champ events moved the two cabins closer to facing off in the finals and much of the site was becoming aware of the simmering rivalry.

The contention came to an ugly head during Thursday afternoon’s free time activities. Sarah was deep in a game of 9 square, reigning in the serving spot for a few rounds. She noticed Ava in the rotation line. That wouldn’t have been a big deal if not for the fact she was standing with a boy Sarah had been talking to. Now the day started well for the Ashwood girls. They finally placed first for the cleaning/decor challenge when they presented a pink-and-blue baby shower theme after hearing one of the judges was pregnant. They went through the challenge course with flying colors as well. But all at once, Sarah forgot about that when seeing Ava and the boy she liked together. Fighting her to keep my place at camp this week isn’t enough?! Jealousy stirred her in the moment. I have to fight her for my love life too?!

Sarah lobbed the ball towards the rotation line, nearly smacking into Ava’s face. Now Ava had brushed off most of Sarah’s cold shoulders and aggression for most of the week so far, but she felt this was just uncalled for. In blind retaliation, she lobbed it back towards Sarah but crashed the whole 9 ball structure in the process. Save for the few untangling themselves from the toppled game posts, every camper nearby went wide-eyed and quiet. The girls seethed with angst mixed a little shock and embarrassment. Fights like this was shaping up to be were rare at camp and neither of them were typically belligerent. A couple counselors entered the fray and beckoned them from where they stood, giving them a quick check for injuries before leading them to an administrative office.

“I think this has been a little more than a squabble over boys,” a staff member observed, sitting them down at opposite sides of an office foyer. “It's between you two whatever you need to resolve, but at the very least you’ll be here till dinner time, cooling down and reflecting if nothing else.” The adult turned for their office but kept the door open in case of any further altercation or needed intervention.

“Alright! What gives?” Ava broke the silence after several minutes to themselves. “Why have you been so antagonistic with me this week?”

“You dominate everything!” Sarah accused. “For years! School...sports...I’m just as good in most things but you’re the one to win or get picked or something! Camp has been the one place where I haven’t dealt with that! Until now maybe...”

“Gosh! I’m sorry you feel that way...” Ava lamented. “I don’t know if it amounts to much but trying to better you has never been my intention...”

“Of course not!” Sarah condescended. “But I still feel stuck in your shadow!”

They sat in dumb silence for a few moments, stumped on how to proceed.

“If I may...” The adult from the office chimed in, “Sarah, what might help you feel less in Ava’s shadow?”

“I miss just being with you and hanging out with you. We were best friends before middle school.”

“I miss that too, I’ll admit. Having such different schedules for so long has sucked but I guess I could’ve checked in or something when I had free time.”

“I could have too.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t made more time for you.”

“I’m sorry about that and for being so mean this week.”

For the first time in a long time, the two girls embraced, shortening the relational distance between them as well. With their camp detention ending better than it started, they started chatting about everything: about plans to remain connected after camp and during the school year alongside their adult counseling them about staying supportive of each other; they talked themselves out of the boy they both focused on and finally bantered about their performance night routines--the culminating event of the Camp Champ games.

The camp’s auditorium was supercharged with hyper or nervous teens, ready to entertain each other, and more still, to see how the games and cabin rivalry would end. The ever-creative Ashwood girls mashed up social media dances and trends to the new BTS song. Meanwhile, the Maple girls, who had grown infatuated with the nineties, tapped their millennial counselors to help teach and choreograph a routine of nineties dance moves. Many of them were cheerleaders or dancers themselves, so had a natural knack to their presentation. Maple was chosen as the overall winners for the games; however, the emceeing staff took a moment to explain that they wanted to honor Sarah’s and Ava’s friendship growth by making the cabin queen (and king) title a new achievement for future camps and crowning them the first ones to the title.