Read Online Almost Crimson by Dasha Kelly - Free Book Online

session. There were a hundred kids, all grouped by age. Most of them would board for a week or two. CeCe’s extended registration would have her at camp for eight. By her third welcome session, however, the experience felt less like a sweet treat and more like repeated loops.
    Back at the cabin, CeCe studied the other girls while Hoot chirped on about buddy systems, lights out, water safety, poison ivy, and keeping the latrine clean. All six of them were nine or ten years old, but the similarities ended there. They were African-American, Samoan, and white. Suburban, rural, and hood. They were broken. Naive. Jaded. Faithful. Each on her separate way to becoming debutante, valedictorian, underachiever, bully, innovator, and lost.
    She listened to their banter while building the courage to join in and take initiative , like Mrs. Anderson had made her promise to do. Mrs. Castellanos had given her a winding lecture about using this summer as her time to bloom. Though CeCe liked the notion of being compared to a flower, she felt more like a radish or, maybe cabbage, nothing overtly beautiful, but still something that emerges from the earth completely intact and completely without interference.
    â€œI have those same pajamas at home!” the Samoan girl said excitedly, spying the Smurfette PJs in the redheaded girl’s open duffel bag.
    â€œThey’re my favorites,” Redhead said.
    â€œI don’t like the Smurfs anymore,” said Portia, one of the other black girls. “I like the Care Bears. I got a Care Bear lunchbox at home.”
    From there, the conversation swirled around which of Strawberry Shortcake’s friends was the best, which Super Friend was smarter, and whether Ghostbusters were real. They were unpacking their toiletries and sheeting their cots, while CeCe followed the bounce of their chatter from Ninja Turtles to New Edition to ET .
    â€œYou’re awfully quiet, Crimson,” Hoot said as she walked into their small cabin. “I think I could hear everyone talking about their favorite things except you. I’d like to hear about your favorite shows.”
    â€œCeCe.”
    â€œI’m sorry?” Hoot replied.
    â€œI go by ‘CeCe,’” she said.
    â€œOh,” Hoot said, a relieved smile lighting her face. “CeCe, it is! What’s one of your favorite things, CeCe?”
    The other girls perched onto the ends of their cots, waiting for her to speak.
    â€œUm . . . ,” CeCe began, uncomfortable with the twelve eyeballs pointed her direction. “I don’t watch much TV,” she mumbled. “I like to read, mostly.”
    â€œAin’t you got a TV?” one asked.
    â€œYeah,” CeCe said, lying. “I just don’t watch it much, is all. I like books better.”
    â€œYou like Judy Blume?” asked another from the next bunk.
    CeCe hesitated, looking to Hoot. “I’ve read all of her books.”
    â€œMe, too,” her bunk neighbor said.
    CeCe felt optimistic. She hadn’t been around unfamiliar kids since starting kindergarten at Neil Armstrong Elementary. She was a fourth-grader now, with years of compiled lessons on which classmates might turn their smiles on and off from day to day, which ones would mock her mix-and-match thrift-store clothes, and which ones would always call out a goodbye to her as their class spilled from the cloakroom. She couldn’t yet know which labels to assign these new cabin mates and she felt anxious.
    By the end of that following day, their first full day at camp, CeCe was convinced she’d boarded a big, yellow school bus to heaven. There was a brand new experience almost every hour; she engaged with kids from every walk of life. Hoot and the other counselors were unwavering in their excitement, and CeCe was stunned by the scenery around her. Her visits to the park were wholly unremarkable compared to this immersion in nature .
    By the end of the second week,