Camp Rock by Lucy Ruggles Page B

nodded, and Mitchie beamed as she squeezed them tighter. She was going to Camp Rock!

CHAPTER THREE
    M itchie’s eyes were wide as she took in the scene passing outside the car window. Her mother steered their van by a huge sign at the camp entrance that read, CAMP ROCK. Once on the grounds, Mitchie saw SUVs and tiny sports cars pulled up in front of the check-in area. Rustic cabins dotted the campgrounds.
    Campers and counselors roamed around. They had name tags resembling backstage passes dangling from their necks. From what Mitchie could see, it looked as if the campers had already started to form groups: the goths had found each other, the hip-hoppers, the emos, the angry-chick music girls, the heavy-metal heads, the country crooners, and, of course, the rockers. One group had pulled out sheet music and was singing a cappella. Another was jamming intently on their instruments.
    â€œExcited?” Connie asked.
    â€œA little … okay, a lot,” Mitchie conceded. “Major. Yes, yes! Thanks, Mom!” she gushed. “I’m gonna have so much—”
    Mitchie’s attention was stolen midsentence by a girl stepping out of a white stretch limo. The light caught the girl’s long, blonde hair as she gabbed on her rhinestone-encrusted cell phone. Two assistants dutifully unloaded her designer luggage from the trunk of the limo.
    Mitchie’s mouth dropped. So that’s what the Queen Bee of Camp Rock looked like. Before she could get a closer look, Connie drove the van behind the mess hall.
    One thing was clear—this was going to be a very interesting summer.
    â€œA nd then my mom got me backstage passes to Shane’s concert,” Tess, the Queen Bee that Mitchie had just spotted, said rather casually into her cell phone. Ella and Peggy, speaking to Tess on their cell phones, fell into step beside her. The two girls made up Tess’s entourage. Wherever she went, they followed.
    â€œToo bad they canceled the concert,” Peggy said, still speaking on the phone even though Tess was less than a foot away.
    â€œWhatev,” Tess answered. “I’m sure he’s invited to my mom’s big record party next month.”
    â€œYour life? Perfect.” Ella observed with a shade of envy.
    Tess’s life did seem pretty perfect. She was rock royalty. Her mother, T.J. Tyler, had topped the charts more times than Tess could remember. There was even a special “Grammy room” in their house just for T.J.’s music awards.
    â€œYeah, but whatev.” Tess sighed into the
phone. Before she could go on, she spied a group of girls singing last year’s hit song, backed by three guys beat-boxing. She stopped in her tracks. “Wannabes,” she scoffed as she closed her phone with a sharp snap.
    Peggy shut her phone also. “Yeah,” she agreed. Then, “Wait, aren’t we?”
    Tess glared at her. “No. Because this year, we’re going to win Final Jam,” she said confidently.
    â€œThat will be so awesome,” Ella gushed, her cell phone still attached to her ear.
    Tess and Peggy looked at each other and then at their friend. “Uh, Ella,” Tess said with a smirk, “we’re off the phone.”
    â€œOh, yeah,” Ella replied, still into the phone. “Call me back.”
    Tess and Peggy rolled their eyes. Ella wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but she knew how to sing backup vocals.
    The cabin Mitchie and her mom would be bunking in was quaint though bare. Sunlight streamed in through the screened windows and onto the twin beds. Mitchie threw her duffel bag on the bed closest to the door and turned toward her mom. “Settled,” she said quickly.
    But instead of her mom, a man responded from outside. “That’s great,” the voice said.
    Curious, Mitchie and Connie watched as an aging rocker with short hair, faded jeans, and a worn T-shirt entered the cabin.
    â€œBrown