What It Was Like by Peter Seth

she was much better to look at than I was. Of course, ascribing good motives to questionable actions became something of a habit with me, later on.
    So I went into breakfast and brooded all the way through the meal – if she wanted to ignore me, fine. Oh sure, we were attracted to each other last night, but I was also sure that a lot of guys were attracted to Rachel, came on to Rachel, fantasized about Rachel. So if she was wary, perhaps she was right. She didn’t know me from Adam. I would have to be patient . . . and have some kind of a plan.
    The meals in the Mess Hall were a lot of things: loud was one of them. Four hundred-plus people eating in one huge, barn-like building make a lot of noise. Kids are noisy, and counselors trying to control noisy kids are noisy. Add to that the clanking of glasses and silverware, the drumming feet of the hustling waiters and waitresses, the mind-numbing inanity of eleven-year-old boys in deep discussion, and you get the idea. Especially first thing in the morning.
    â€œYou shouldn’t eat that. They put saltpeter in the food.”
    â€œWhat’s saltpeter?”
    â€œIt’s this stuff they put in the food so we can’t have sex.”
    â€œYou can’t have sex anyway! You’re eleven, you dork.”
    â€œBut even if I wanted to.”
    â€œWho would want to have sex with him ? He’s eleven and ugly!”
    â€œ And mental.”
    â€œLook who’s talking? The human zit!”
    â€œPeter who ? From Bunk Twelve ?”
    Then Stewie finally yelled for all of them to shut up so we could all eat just one meal in peace.
    And the food itself? Well, let’s just say that every meal featured a fruit punch they called “bug juice.” Pitcher after pitcher of bug juice. Sometimes it was red, sometimes orange, sometimes even green (lime, a/k/a “Mooncliff Moonshine”), but it was always bug juice.
    Sometimes I wish I could get lost in those silly memories. My memories of Camp Moon-shak and the trivialities of life there that seemed so . . . trivial, now seem so significant and precious. They are my refuge. So if I might be, shall we say, unsure of myself right at this moment, as I sit behind bars, on that particular morning after the first night we met, when I walked out of breakfast onto the sunny flagstone porch of the Mess Hall, in the clear, warming air of morning, and saw her waiting for me as if it were the most completely natural, inevitable thing to do, that’s when I knew that she felt the same way too; something was going to happen between us.
    She was sitting on the low wall on the Girls’ side, with two of her campers sitting beside her, but her eyes were on mine as I came out the Boys’ door. She had a smile that said: What took you so long?
    I walked over to her, as Steve McQueen as I could. Which wasn’t much, I admit, but I didn’t scare her away.
    â€œHi,” I said to her, trying to keep my voice normal. “How did you sleep?”
    She hesitated. I don’t think she was expecting me to say that. “Oh . . . I had crazy dreams.”
    â€œAll dreams are crazy,” I said.
    â€œSome more than others,” she answered back. I liked this flirting.
    â€œWhat do you have this morning?” I asked. Her eyes were even bluer during the day.
    â€œWe have kickball!” she said, faking enthusiasm for my amusement. Or was she really enthusiastic? I liked trying to read her.
    â€œA girls’ sport? I’ve never played a girls’ sport.”
    â€œYou don’t know what you’re missing,” she said archly. “Girls’ sports are the best. How about you?”
    She squinted in the sun, looking up at me, tilting her head.
    â€œArts and crafts!” I intoned.
    â€œBoth of them at the same time?” she laughed. “That is a challenge.”
    â€œHey, I’ll make you a lanyard,” I offered.
    She smiled and