FICTION
TENTING
TONIGHT
Will breaking the camp's rules
scar the psyche forever?
SUSAN WEINGARDEN
.
Special to The Jewish News
o be perfectly honest, adoles-
cence was not the best time of my life.
With my braces and bosomless body,
I was not exactly a stunner. While
other girls blossomed with signs of
womanhood, the only thing I
developed was hives.
To make matters worse, I was
hardly the adventurous type. I was
more the reluctant follower, the kid
other kids ordered around.
Struggling through this
traumatic time of life was adventure
enough for me. Content with my in-
nocence, I had no desire to branch out
and conquer the unknown.
But people had a way of leading
me where I didn't want to go.
Especially my friend Karen.
It was bad enough that I had to
walk around the block in the dark of
night to get to Karen's house (even
though she met me half way at the
alley, I still had heart palpitations),
but sneaking out of our tent at camp
in the middle of the night to trudge
through the pitch black woods to visit
the boys' village was enough to do me
in. In fact, it almost did us all in.
As content as I was to remain
docile and play by the rules, my
fearless friend Karen was just as
eager to stretch past the limits and do
exactly what it was that we weren't
supposed to do.
It was Karen who taught me to
light matches in the garage. (I was
afraid to hold them, let along strike
them.) It was Karen who taught me
to smoke. ("You're not leaving this
garage `til you take a puff.") It was
Karen who locked us both in her
upstairs bathroom and wouldn't let
me out until I shaved my legs with
her father's electric razor, which she
was expressly forbidden to use and I
was terrified to touch.
But shave my legs I did because
Karen was content to sit guard on the
toilet all night and study the dirty
pictures on her brother's deck of play-
ing cards. It could have been a long
night, which wouldn't have bothered
Karen at all. She never went to sleep
before 2 or 3 a.m. But I couldn't func-
tion one minute past 10 p.m. And that
is why I was safely asleep under my
mosquito net that night, that is until
she shined her flashlight right into
my slumber-filled eyes.
"Wake-up," she demanded,
flashlight in one hand, nudging me in
the shoulder with the other. After she
moved the light out of my eyes, I could
see her dimly in the darkness. She
was flanked by Sandy and Harriet,
the two other tenants of our four-
woman tent.
"What's going on?" I asked. "I'm
trying to sleep. Turn that light off,
you're attracting the mosquitoes to
my bed." (Next to the dark, the thing
I feared most was mosquitoes. There
is nothing more nervewracking than
spending the whole night with a mos-
quito buzzing around your ear, his
ritual in preparation of making you
his daily meal. To this day I detest
mosquitoes and. hold each one I en,
counter personally responsible for
that menace that made his home
under my net.)
"Get up and get dressed," Karen
ordered. "We're going to sneak up to
the boys' village and you're coming
_ with us."
"Are you nuts?" I asked, pushing
myself up on my elbow. "You have to
go through the woods to get to the
boys' village. It's dark out, you won't
even be able to see the path. I'm not
going up there at night. Leave me
alone. I'm going back to sleep." I
lowered myself down and shut my
eyes.
"You're going with us," she
ordered, as she shined the light in my
eyes. "Don't be such a chicken. You're
such a sissy. All you do is sleep. We're
going to see Freddie and you're going
with us."
Freddie, a junior counselor five
years our senior, was Karen's crush of
the day. Actually, she had been in love
with him for a whole week and by this
time - was totally obsessed with his
every movement. Should he even look
her way she was mentally making
plans for her wedding.
"I'm not going with you. I don't
want to see Freddie or anyone else.
Turn that damn light out and let me
go .to sleep."
"If you don't get dressed and come
with us we'll keep you up the whole
night. Every time you fall asleep we'll
put your arm in a pail of water and
make you pee in your bed. And we'll
hold your net up and let all the mos-
quitoes in. And we'll tell the rest of
the bunk to give you the silent treat-
ment `til the end of camp."
Talk about peer pressure! This girl
meant business. These were the
ultimate threats. Knowing her for-
titude, I knew the sooner I gave in to
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 49