Chapter 5: Kennedy Goes to Camp

The next morning Kennedy was waiting for Mr. Glastonbury when he came into the practice room.

"Sir," Kennedy asked diffidently, "did a Slayer die last night?"

He looked at her curiously. "Yes. The Watchers Council let me know early this morning. Why?"

"I felt her die. It was like I was her. Then I was in this other place..."

"They would have told me if you'd been Chosen," Mr. Glastonbury mused aloud.

"I think I was only half-chosen, sir. Some black woman, I mean, she was really old, looked at me and kicked me out and brought in this other girl. A cheerleader. If she doesn't live in Los Angeles, she used to, because she sounds like a Valley Girl."

"You are a little on the young side to be Chosen."

"I don't think I was strong enough. I'm going to need to practice extra hard!"

"That's never hurt anyone!" he said with a chuckle.

"Oh, Harriet wants to know if I could go to summer camp with her. I'd really like that."

"You ask your stepfather, and then I'll do what I can to see that it happens."

She nodded, and then turned the morning practice, ferociously intent. That wasn't going to happen to her! Not if she could do something about it! And she could! She had more time!

Later Mr. Glastonbury confirmed that there was a new Slayer, living in California. He was quite upset that the girl hadn't had a Watcher. "Sometimes Potentials can sort of slip in under the radar. That's usually not a good thing. But someone is on the way."

It was, Kennedy thought, one of the few times she'd seen an "all-hands" event regarding herself. Not only was Mr. Glastonbury present when she was to set off for camp, so were both her parents, plus Harriet's mother, only Kennedy's stepsister Victoria was absent.

Kennedy's lip curled in mild disgust at her mother's comment the evening before. "Have a good time, dear. You'll have a lot more fun if you do what I would do. Of course, if you do that, I'd probably have to spank you when you get back."

Kennedy thought that was hilariously funny, considering her mother's earlier warnings about boys and hormones.

Some might think her mother was talking about sex, but Kennedy was sure that the idea of sex with other girls never occurred to her mother. No, her mother was talking about running amuck, breaking all of the rules and getting into trouble the usual way.

Not to mention her mother wasn't taking into account that now she and her daughter, even if Kennedy only stood five six, stood eye-to-eye and she would have no luck at all trying to turn Kennedy over her knee.

If the truth be known, none of the usual fears kids had about going to camp really mattered to Kennedy. The only thing she had the least qualm about being away for two weeks was that she was going to be parted from Lady Kennedy for longer than she'd ever been before, since the first time she held her in her hand. Parting with her parents was the normal state of affairs. Much as she liked Mr. Glastonbury, she wasn't entirely unhappy that she'd have a couple of weeks out from under his watchful eye. It was stupid, she was sure, to miss a sword more than people -- but that's how she felt.

She shouldered her backpack and tugged on her wheelie suitcase and joined the line of other girls getting ready to board the bus. She'd been mildly disappointed that Harriet had been assigned to a different bus, but that would only last for six or seven hours. Like the other girls ahead of her and behind her, she stuffed her bags in the bus's baggage compartment and then climbed up the steps and found a seat.

A few seconds later a girl about a year older than Kennedy sat down next to her. The girl was about the same height as Kennedy, but heavier boned and, Kennedy was sure, ate much more and exercised much less. That, and of course, she was wearing a dress that could be best described as a shapeless black sack.

The girl gave Kennedy a morose once-over, and then she reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out Atlas Shrugged. Kennedy couldn't help giggling. There was nowhere on her body she could hide a book that size without it being obvious!

The girl glared at Kennedy. "Don't you dare laugh at me! I'm Wicca! Laugh at me and I'll turn you into an obnoxious toad!"

Kennedy frowned. "Wicca's your name? That's one I never heard before. I'm Kennedy."

"Wicca isn't who I am, it's what I am. Wicca, you know, the religion."

Kennedy shrugged. "Actually, no, I've never heard of that religion. Is it anything like Episcopalian?"

The girl seemed about to explode. Kennedy sighed inwardly. This wasn't quite how she'd pictured meeting other girls.

"I'm sorry I laughed," Kennedy told the dumpy girl. "And I was laughing more at myself than you. I don't even own a dress, do you understand? I never had the least desire to wear one; I never saw any need to. My teacher says I need to get out in the world more. I kind of thought he was blowing smoke. Now I find there are things you can do with a dress that you can't do with jeans and a blouse."

"You talk a lot, don't you?" the girl said.

Actually, Kennedy thought, the answer to that was no. "I was trying to be polite. I'm not very good at it, normally. I didn't mean to upset you."

"Well, most Christians think Wiccans are pagan. They're right."

"That's nice to know," Kennedy replied. "Like I said, I'm Kennedy. What's your name?"

"Ruby Goldberg. And if you make fun of my name I'll turn you into a nasty smelling, obnoxious toad."

"I won't make fun of your name if you stop threatening me every few seconds."

The girl looked around them. There were a number of conversations, but everyone was sitting down. The bus driver looked ready to go, but there was a woman in the door of the bus talking to someone outside.

"Look, I don't want to be here, okay? I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Don't expect joy and cartwheels from me. My mother is making me go to camp."

Kennedy kept her face straight. Ruby was about as likely to be able to do a cartwheel as that guy at Faire had been to hold a sword ready longer than Kennedy.

"I have a friend on one of the other buses," Kennedy told Ruby. "It's my first time away from home, so it's all new for me."

"Well, I don't make friends. I don't want to be here. Leave me alone."

"Sure," Kennedy said.

It was odd, Kennedy thought. She wanted to make friends because she had exactly two in the entire universe. Well, maybe she could count Duke Roger, too. And if you included him, there were a couple of others she liked at Faire. Hopefully they liked her as well. And Harriet was new, no matter how long they'd talked at Faire, no matter how much time they'd spent on the phone since.

The bus door closed and the woman who'd been talking was now standing in the aisle looking down the length of the bus. She nodded to the driver and the driver spoke into a microphone. In a few seconds, the bus was in motion, following the others.

The woman picked up another microphone. "I'm Charlotte Tangier, one of the cabin counselors. We have about a six and a half hour drive ahead of us, so get comfortable. Please, for your safety, remain seated unless you need to use the restroom at the back of the bus."

She was, Kennedy saw, about thirty, blonde and tanned. She looked fit, a veritable blossom of buxom good health. She was wearing jeans and a "Camp Wanakena" sweatshirt.

"Just to remind you, Camp Wanakena is in upstate New York, in the Adirondack mountains. It can be safely said that Wanakena isn't near much of anything. The single exception to that is that it's near Cranberry Lake, which is certainly pretty to look at.

"You all received Camp Wanakena's information packet; you all signed a contract promising certain behavior. I'm here to see you all have a good time at the camp. I'm not your mommy, daddy or nanny. You will find your counselors easy to get along with, so long as you stay within the rules. If you mess up in a small way we'll explain the rules to you one more time. Do it a second time or do something really stupid and you'll be returned to your home.

"There will be not quite two hundred young ladies at this session. Most of you will have a good time, particularly if you avail yourselves of the many forms of recreation that are on offer. The single worst offense at Camp Wanakena is ruining someone else's experience. You don't want to do it.

"This is the end of the lecture. At Camp Wanakena, our director will speak to you about housekeeping things, cabin assignments and the like. She will introduce you to the staff and tell you how to sign up for activities."

The woman grinned then. "We even have a veggie track. You go off with a counselor and some like-minded people, sit someplace peaceful and restful. You can read, talk quietly or simply take in the scenery. I know I'm going to have a good two weeks, I hope you all do too."

She sat down then and Kennedy nodded to herself. Could it be that she was finally getting to the age where adults would start taking her seriously? From the counselor's statements, maybe it was true.

After a bit, the sheer boring scenery of driving down the interstate palled. Kennedy started running through a series of dynamic exercises that didn't require any movement.

She'd been exercising for a few minutes when Ruby nudged her. "Stop fidgeting! The bathroom's in the back! I can't read with you fidgeting!"

"I am not fidgeting," Kennedy told her. "I'm exercising. Sorry if it bugs you." Kennedy returned to her exercises.

"What part of 'don't bug me' didn't you understand?" Ruby said, raising her voice. "Sit still!"

Kennedy contemplated Ruby for a few seconds, then looked down the length of the bus. Charlotte Tangier was sitting in the seat opposite the driver; it looked like she was reading too. It would not do to turn Ruby into a bug splat on the windshield in the first half hour of the trip to camp.

She looked out the window of the bus. In a couple of hours they'd be in the mountains north of Albany. In the meantime, there was just town after town along the highway.

She was sitting on the left hand side of the bus, at a window. If she hadn't been sitting there, if she hadn't been looking out just at that moment, she wouldn't have seen it.

A big SUV was in the far left lane, moving much faster than the bus. It was just a flash, someone in the passenger seat of the SUV turning away to talk to the driver. She mentally played the scene over and over again in her mind. She was 99% certain the man in the passenger seat was the FBI agent that had bothered her at Faire. Everything else that happened to her that day had pretty much blotted him out of her memory until this instant.

She could be wrong or it could just be coincidence. But she remembered that Mr. Glastonbury had inquired of her parents and the other staff at home. There had been no FBI agent that had visited them. Not that they knew of. "Let me know if you see him again," Mr. Glastonbury had told her.

"Excuse me," Kennedy said to Ruby. "I need to get up."

Ruby snickered. "I thought you said you didn't have to pee."

"Please," Kennedy said, keeping her voice mild. She got up and squeezed past the other, and turned towards the front of the bus.

She stopped next to Charlotte who looked up at Kennedy. "Yes?" the older woman said.

"Are we going to stop for lunch?" That seemed a reasonable question to Kennedy. They'd started at ten in the morning, the trip was supposed to be six or seven hours.

The woman nodded, a slightly embarrassed expression on her face. "Yes. I'm sorry, I should have mentioned it earlier."

"No problem," Kennedy told her. "I was curious, is all."

"We stop near Saratoga Springs around one o'clock. There's a McDonald's and a Wendy's next to each other."

"Thanks," Kennedy said and started to turn away.

"What's your name?" the woman asked.

"Kennedy," Kennedy replied.

"Ah, the girl with only one name! You gave the computer a hiccup! It wants at least two!"

Kennedy was aware that the woman was staring at her breasts. Kennedy waited a second, but there was no further comment, so she turned and headed back to her seat.

Even before she reached her seat, Charlotte was up and speaking into the microphone. "I was just reminded that I forgot to mention lunch. Around one we'll be stopping for a bite to eat. You will have a choice of a Wendy's or a McDonald's. As you get off the bus I'll hand you a name badge and a six dollar meal coupon. If your choice of a meal leaves you change, you can keep it. If the coupon doesn't suffice, you'll have to make up the difference yourself.

"Please remember that we'll only be stopped for forty minutes. Don't wander. Eat and return to the bus. I might add that neither of the buses will move until everyone is back aboard. You will want to be aboard in plenty of time."

Kennedy resumed her seat, to meet Ruby's disdain. "Of all the things you can do wrong, the top of the list is sucking up to counselors. Don't do it!"

Kennedy's mind flashed to an image from one of the few movies she'd seen. Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in it, and he'd been taken to another country by a bad guy. As soon as the two of them had taken a seat in the airplane, Arnold killed the guy in the seat next to him and made it look like the man was only sleeping.

Kennedy was fairly sure she couldn't get away with anything like that, but she was tempted, just a little. Certainly she contemplated it for a few seconds, and then grinned at Ruby.

"Girl, you keep threatening me. Once more, girl, and we're going to find out which is stronger: your Wicca or my kung fu. I'm a black belt," Kennedy told the other.

Kennedy looked at Ruby, feeling nothing but contempt and feeling no desire to remain polite. "I came here to make friends; you told me you don't want to." Kennedy nodded at the front of the bus. "Remember what that woman said, stupid. The worst thing you can do is ruin someone else's time. Trust me, I'm the last person you want to mess with, when it comes to ruining my two weeks. Absolute, dead last."

After that Kennedy sat still, staring out the window, a million things running through her mind, none of them important or really germane.

Eventually her bus stopped, along with the others. Kennedy debated the better course. See Harriet first or make her phone call?

Fortunately, Harriet was waving at her and then running towards her. "Isn't this fun?"

Kennedy smiled. "Well, I've had more fun. The girl I'm sitting next to on the bus doesn't want to have any fun at all. She wishes she didn't have to come."

Harriet laughed. "If I had to do this every week of the year, I might agree with her. But for two weeks a year, it's good to get away from my mother."

Kennedy waved at the two restaurants. "Do you have a preference?"

"Wendy's has square hamburgers. They, at least, are funky; neither of them tastes very good."

"I've never had either," Kennedy told her.

Harriet looked stunned. "Never?"

"Nope," Kennedy told her. "Never."

"Well, then a Big Mac. Come on."

Kennedy mentally shook her head; the logic that had produced that decision escaped her. She followed her friend into the restaurant, ordered and paid. There were a lot of other kids at the counter, and she was sure it was going to be a few minutes before they got their order. "Harriet, I need to phone home. Would you wait here for a second?"

"Sure, no problem."

Kennedy made her way to the phones, and lucked out, only having to wait a few seconds. Mr. Glastonbury didn't sound surprised at all to hear from her.

"Everything going well, Miss Kennedy?"

"That FBI guy. I'm pretty sure I saw him going north on the freeway, the same direction we are."

"You're sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"Pretty sure doesn't cut it, Miss Kennedy. If you did see him, I'll be enroute in a few minutes... and canceling my personal plans for an indefinite time. Otherwise I'll be with Harriet's mother for the next two weeks."

Kennedy stopped herself from laughing with only the greatest difficulty. "Whatever. It was him, okay?"

"Do not, whatever you do, let him get you alone, or separated from the others. If you even think he's near the camp, tell one of the staff you have a stalker, posing as an FBI agent. It takes a check with FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC to verify that he's an agent. A local office won't identify him."

"I'll be careful. I'm sorry, sir."

"Kennedy, I'm not sure what the man wants. I'm not sure it would be good to find out. Be careful."

"I will," she reassured him.

She hung up and turned around. Miss Tangier was a few feet away, just coming in the restaurant. "Calling home already?" she asked Kennedy, smiling slightly.

Harriet arrived, trays in hand. "Come, sit with me, Kennedy."

Kennedy saw Charlotte Tangier's eyes run over Harriet with evident interest. For the first time, Kennedy felt a little uneasy. Still, this would be a good time to get this out of the way...

"Miss Tangier," Kennedy started.

"Charlotte, please," the other said smoothly.

"Charlotte. A few weeks ago I was at a Renaissance Faire not far from the City. A man, saying he was an FBI agent, tried to get me to go off alone with him."

"That wouldn't have been a good idea," Charlotte said, nodding.

"Yes, ma'am. My tutor checked and told me the FBI people in New York said he wasn't one of their agents." Kennedy mentally patted herself on the back. A lie, but telling the truth at the same time! That was cool!

"And what has that to do with us, here today?"

"A while ago in the bus, I saw him in a car that passed us, heading north. I called home; they're sending someone up to the camp. In the meantime, I'd like you to tell the people at the camp about it, and not to trust anyone who shows up with a badge, don't let the man take me away without someone with me."

"We'd never!" Charlotte said with heat.

Harriet spoke up. "I wasn't far when that man was talking to Kennedy at Faire. He gave me the shivers. I hid, so I could run and scream for help if he tried to kidnap Kennedy."

"That's a good thing to do," Charlotte told her, looking at Harriet seriously. "Run if you can, scream if you can, as loudly as you can. Don't go peacefully. If a man is trying to get you alone -- well, odds are he isn't interested in playing patty-cake with you."

Charlotte waved at the tray. "I'll talk to the other counselors. You two relax and have a good time. We keep all of our campers safe and well-protected."

She walked away and Harriet and Kennedy found a table in the restaurant. "Are you having fun?" Harriet asked. "I mean, aside from seeing that man?"

"The girl sitting next to me doesn't like it when I fidget. She doesn't want to go to camp; she keeps threatening to turn me into a toad. She says she's a Wicca or something."

"A witch," Harriet told Kennedy.

Kennedy snorted. "Right! Sure! Spells and all!"

Harriet giggled. "Hey, I never said I believed in all that! I just know what it is. A lot of girls like it because they're told they are big, nasty and all-powerful -- even if they aren't. A lot of them go to Faire."

"Yeah, all that. She and I aren't getting along."

"It's just a few more hours, Kennedy. They told us we could pick who we slept with at camp; I picked you. You said you picked me."

Kennedy looked up at Harriet, a clever rejoinder on her lips. And stopped. It was "slept with" that did it, she figured a few seconds later. She knew what "sleeping with someone" meant. Charlotte Tangier had stared at Kennedy's breasts. She'd stared at Harriet's breasts. She had even, Kennedy was a little grossed out at the thought, stared at Harriet's jeans, where her legs come together.

Kennedy wasn't a prude, but she wasn't experienced either. Sexual thoughts left her profoundly uncomfortable. That hadn't been a problem back when that occurred once a year, when she was ten. It wasn't much more of a problem a year ago when it happened two or three times during the year. But lately it was threatening to become a daily occurrence. It seemed like half the things people said reminded her of sex. She'd had some pretty explicit dreams about sex as well.

Why had Harriet said it that way? She listened to Harriet rattling on about this and that, but Kennedy's mind was fixed on that "pick who we sleep with at camp," comment. Kennedy forced herself to pay attention and smile. Then it was time to get back on the busses and it was with regret that Kennedy watched Harriet walk away.

Still, it was impossible for her to miss that Harriet wasn't ugly. She was a pleasant, rather cute girl. Did she sexually stir Kennedy? Kennedy settled into her seat and thought about that, long and hard. After the first few minutes, she was embarrassed. If the answer had really been "no," she wouldn't have still been thinking about it. Thus, her mind's "no!" lacked conviction.

Kennedy lifted her eyes and looked forward in the bus, towards where Miss Tangier was sitting. There was no doubt in her mind that anything she felt, Miss Tangier -- Charlotte -- felt ten-fold. Kennedy swallowed at the thought. What should she do?

Next to Kennedy, Ruby snickered. "You're not the first girl to get her knickers twisted thinking about a counselor! Hey, they love it! Go for it, if that's what you want! She'll eat you up!" Ruby's expression suggested that the last sentence should be taken literally rather than metaphorically.

For a second Kennedy didn't know how to respond. Then she remembered her response about the FBI agent. Tell the truth, nothing but the truth and lie between your teeth!

"If your knickers are knackered," Kennedy told Ruby, "feel free to fix them. I wouldn't, if I were you, concern myself about others."

"Let me be the first to clue you in, little Miss Muffet. The counselors are here because of all the delicious little morsels running around, away from home and feeling liberated enough to try practically anything. A good many young women will return home far more sexually mature than when they left, if you get my meaning."