Love and Pollywogs from Camp Calamity by Mary Hershey Page B

like the boys were rock stars. A lot of the girls were acting pretty silly about them. Like they weren’t the same boys we saw nearly every day of the year, who had mustard on their shirts and messy hair and farted in class.
    By the time Aurora got back to us, she nearly had a girl mob waiting for her.
    “What’s going on over there?” Kayla asked. “Did they say anything about me?”
    “Next time you’re going over there, let me know!” Drew said. “I want you to take a note to Keenan for me. Has anyone noticed he’s starting to get sideburns?”
    “Those aren’t sideburns,” Nit said. “His face is just dirty!”
    “It was Donal,” Aurora said, grinning.
    “Donal
is getting sideburns?” I asked.
    “No!” she laughed. “Donal was the one who woofed up in Totem Village.”
    Nit and I looked at each other. Poor Donal! We’d been afraid of that. You never want to be the poor kid who throws up at school, or at camp!
    He’d never live it down.
    “He ate a big bag of sour green gummy worms after swimming because he was so hungry,” Aurora continued.
    “Ewww!” Kimber said. “I wouldn’t eat even one sour gummy worm even if I was starving to death.”
    Aurora grabbed her ball from me and sat back down. “What they’re going crazy about over there is that Donal upchucked
green
!”
    “Green! That is so sick!” wailed Missy.
    “I know!” Aurora said. “But they’re boys, and they think it’s the coolest thing ever! You know, on account of him being Irish and all. Donal told them he always throws up green!”
    Nit cracked up at that. “Go, Donal!”
    “You want to hear the worst of it?” Aurora asked, leaning in and lowering her voice.
    Chairs scraped closer.
    “It gets worse?” Sissy asked. “Oh! Do I want to hear this?” She put her hands near her ears.
    “Before they cleaned it up, Noah put some of the puke in a plastic bag. They’re saving it for Booger Boy. They think he’ll buy it for his collection!”
    “Oh, he will!” I said. Booger Boy had an exhibit of disgusting and creepy things that he showed kids for money.
    “I can’t believe Noah put it in a bag!” Drew said. “He is
off
my Maybe Going to Kiss list.”
    “You better take Donal off it too,” Naomi said.
    “Who’s kissing who at camp?” Kayla asked with a scowl.
    “Drew might kiss a boy at camp,” Georgia explained. “It’s her dream that she shared when we had our meeting with Cricket.”
    Aurora shoved her cheeseburger into her mouth and took a big bite.
    “God, Aurora!” Kayla said. “How can you eat now?”
    “Like this!” she said, chewing her food with her mouth wide open so Kayla could see.
    “You are so gross, Triboni!” Kayla said, turning her chair away.
    “But Donal’s okay now, right?” Nit asked.
    “Donal is great!” Aurora said. “He’s Celebrity of the Week over in Boy Town. He couldn’t be any cooler to them.” She tilted her head in their direction. “They’re trying to decide right now how they’ll split the money they’ll get from Booger Boy. Some of the boys think Donal should get ninety percent of it, but some think Noah should get most of the money since he had the idea and he had to—”
    “Stop!”
the Issys cried.
    “I think they should split it down the middle,” I said.
    “Well, technically, Totem Village should get a cut too,” Naomi said. “It was on their property.”
    Nit nudged me with an elbow. “Maxey sighting at four o’clock,” she said.
    I whipped around to see my sister helping Swat fill the ice machine from the top. Which was easy for him because he was so tall. Poor Maxey was trying out all her best moves on him, and he didn’t seem to be biting. He probably couldn’t see her flirty head tilt and lash flapping from his height.
    “How tall is Swat, anyway?” I asked.
    “Six foot ten!” Aurora said. “And he’s not even done growing yet. Man, I hope I get that tall.”
    I inhaled the rest of my iced tea as fast as I could. “Be right