Saving Francesca

The first night I have to help Ms. Qui

“Are you married?” I ask Ms. Qui

“No. You?”

I laugh.

“If I can’t have Brother Louis,” she tells me, “I don’t want nobody, baby.”

I look at Brother Louis, who has two pink stains on his cheeks. It makes him look so cute.

“I’m in love with someone I can’t have as well,” I tell them boldly.

“He’s a fool,” Brother Louis says to me.

I’m pleased.

I get a bit of a crush.

It’s lights out at ten o’clock, which is when the action starts. The other girls in our cabin have a CD player, and someone puts on some music and Eva Rodriguez shows us how her brother hip-hops. “It’s like world peace is determined by how serious you are and how low you wear your pants,” she tells us.

It starts off ridiculous and goes downhill from there as we each take a turn. We dance in a way that’s only possible when there are no boys around. The rule is not to take yourself seriously, but whoever gets a solo has to keep as straight a face as possible and go for it.

Siobhan, Eva, and I try to outdo each other and everyone’s laughing uncontrollably, even Tara. We collapse on our beds, perspiring.

“God, you’re a show-off,” Siobhan tells me between pants, still laughing.

“Takes one to know one,” I say back.

Later, we lie on our bunks, talking in the dark. About anything. We go around the room, nominating teachers we love; teachers we hate; Year Eleven boys we’d date; Year Eleven boys we hate. Guys or girls we suspect are gay. We have a massive debate about which Buffy season was the best and an Angel versus Riley versus Spike dispute, and we end up nominating our most romantic moments in a film.

“The Last of the Mohicans,” I say. “Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe. ‘Stay alive. I will find you.’ ”

“Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed,” Justine says, “waiting for the guy out on the baseball field and she doesn’t think he’ll show and that Beach Boys song comes on and he’s ru

“… and Justine’s crying,” Siobhan says.

“Every single time. I’ve got it on DVD.”

“Han Solo and Princess Leia pretending to hate each other in The Empire Strikes Back.”

“Boring,” one of the girls boos.

“Don’t ever insult the Star Wars films,” Tara warns mockingly.

“In The Godfather Michael Corleone sees this girl in Sicily who ends up being blown up by the Mafia, and the look on his face is priceless,” Siobhan tells us.

“When she’s getting blown up or when he first sees her?”

“Buttercup and the Farm Boy in The Princess Bride,” A

“Jason Biggs and the apple pie.”

We groan.

“No, I’ve got the best,” Eva Rodriguez says. “Jerry Maguire. ‘You had me at hello. You had me at hello.’ ”

That one gets applause, and it trails off until the last two voices are dreamy blurs.

I think I’m a bit in love with these girls. They make me feel giddy. Like I haven’t a care in the world. Like I’m fearless.

Like I used to be.

Don’t get me wrong. The camp does hit a few low points. We have to make a human pyramid displaying the foundations of the Catholic Church, and the most frightening aspect, according to Brother Louis, is that Thomas Mackee is holding up the pyramid, which makes the whole future of the church incredibly shaky.

But I get to know people I have never spoken to. Some tell me that they thought I was weird until now, or that it’s the first time they’ve seen me smile, and for a moment I feel like the most popular girl around. And then they ask me if I could introduce them to Siobhan or Eva.

After di

“Probably another penis sighting,” I tell Justine as we walk out to investigate.

Will and the prefects are standing in front of a cabin, two doors down. The girls from that cabin are crying hysterically, and the prefects look harassed.

Obviously a hair-grooming session has taken place, as the girls are all braids and beads. Ryan Burke comes up behind Tara and me and puts an arm around our shoulders.

“What is it with girls and séances?” he asks. “My sister has them all the time.”

Justine is trying to calm the girls down.

“We were trying to contact Eliza’s grandfather, but now there’s an evil presence in there,” one of them cries.

“Who? The Blair Hair Witch?” Tara mutters.

Ryan and I look at each other comically.

“Did she just crack a joke?” he asks.

The Hair Bear girls refuse to go back into their cabin.

“There are no other cabins left,” Will explains politely, but the girls aren’t budging and I can tell he’s pretty shitty.

“Spirits are easy to get rid of,” I inform them. “You go in there, say eight Hail Marys while walking counterclockwise.”

Will and the prefects are not impressed. It’s obvious they got little sleep last night, and their eyes are hanging out of their heads. The séance girls, however, are looking at me as if I’m their hero.

I walk up the stairs to the cabin and Will follows me, but I gently push him back. “Nonbelievers are barred.” I look out at the crowd. “Believers, come forth!”

Tara, Siobhan, and I exit the cabin. We’ve spent ten minutes inside, hip-hopping while chanting a few prayers with mouths full of the Twisties and Pringles we found lying around.

We stand on the veranda and everyone below us stares in silence. Justine is still comforting one of the Hair Bear girls, and Eva and the rest of our cabin are killing themselves laughing.

“This house,” I say dramatically, like in a scene out of Poltergeist, “is clean.”

We get a massive cheer and applause. We wave a royal wave, and the Hair Bear girls are grateful and instantly our best friends, promising us free makeovers.

Will is looking at me, shaking his head with bemusement, as the others go back to their cabins.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re psychotic.”

“I got them back into the cabin, didn’t I?”

“What have you guys been doing in there? You’re perspiring.”

“Hip-hopping.”

He looks at me, as if he’s trying to work out if I’m having him on.

“You don’t strike me as a hip-hopper,” he says, laughing.

“I squeeze it in between ghost-busting.”

I look down at what he’s holding in his hand.

“Fart gas? Shame on you, Will.”

“Tom Mackee’s cabin. There could be more.”

“As if they don’t have enough natural emissions of their own.”

I feel reluctant to go and he seems to feel the same. It’s pitch-dark and we can only see each other’s outlines. We sit on the veranda and his hand comes across and touches mine and I slip my fingers through his and we sit like that for a while.

“What are you thinking?” he asks.

I’m thinking heaps of things, but they all require too much honesty and I don’t think I can take that at the moment.

“I’m wondering who came up with the concept of putting fart smells in a can.”

“Worse,” he says, hardly able to stop himself from laughing, and I just love the sound of it. “Imagine being their kid. Imagine going around saying, ‘My dad invented fart gas in cans. That’s how we made our millions.’ ”

It degenerates from there and we try to outdo each other’s grossness until he yawns and apologizes, and I can sense his tiredness.

“How much sleep did you get?”

“Hailler, the dickhead, got chucked out of his cabin because he wouldn’t shut up, so he ended up in ours and continued to not shut up for the rest of the night.”