Unscripted - Nicole Kronzer Page 0,72

Maybe Jane couldn’t be bothered with such trivialities as whether or not to visit a boy. I changed my question. What should I do about the cold open situation? I flipped through the pages again.

“An improv team can be comprised of as few as three players and as many as—”

I exhaled sharply. Come on, Jane. I need you.

“Zelda?”

My heart slammed against my chest. I bolted upright on Mattress Island and peeked over my shoulder. I exhaled. It was just Dion and Roger.

“Hi!” I said, clambering to my feet. “What are you guys doing here?’

I unlocked the door, and Roger and Dion stepped across the threshold, their tall forms filling the space.

“Hey,” they said together. Roger swept off his stocking cap and pointed at Mattress Island. “That’s cool. Looks like fun.” He gave me a small smile. “The Gildas said you were here. Aren’t you coming to the bonfire?”

Dion held up a bag of comically large marshmallows. “We’re bringing back reinforcements.”

I chuckled. Was I going to the bonfire? I touched Jesse’s note in my back pocket. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to go tearing off at night to a Boy Scout camp all by myself, especially when I’d never been there. But even if I didn’t go to Boy Scout camp, I wasn’t really in the mood for a bonfire where I’d have to face Ben again so quickly. “Um . . .”

“Come on,” Dion said. He tossed the bag of marshmallows to me, and I caught it, surprising myself. “Paul DeLuca has a fire extinguisher under his arm, but he isn’t standing close enough to the bonfire for P2’s money.”

Roger nodded. “Paul DeLuca refuses to relinquish the fire extinguisher and also refuses to stand any closer to the bonfire because it makes him ‘too hot,’ and Paul Paulsen is so agitated about the whole thing, I think he might turn in on himself and implode.”

“Which would cause another fire,” Dion added. He looked to Roger. “More room to roast marshmallows.”

Roger grinned and nodded at me. “You don’t want to miss that.”

I chuckled.

“So, are you coming?” Dion asked. “Now that you’re in charge of the marshmallows?”

I looked down at the clear plastic bag and squeezed it a little.

“Nobody from Varsity’s there,” Roger added quietly.

I jerked up my head and then coughed to cover it. “Oh, okay,” I said, trying to make my voice sound as offhanded as possible. “Whatever. Uh, yeah. Bonfire sounds great. Let’s go.”

I grabbed a hoodie off my bunk and slipped into my Chacos by the door. Roger and Dion might have exchanged a glance somewhere in there, but I didn’t look up to find out.

I threw open the screen door. “After you.”

They preceded me out of the cabin. It was starting to get dark, but we could still see well enough to safely traverse down a set of log steps to a clearing at the bottom of the hill. There, by a wide stream, the bonfire was already blazing.

“You guys took the long way to get more marshmallows!” a deep voice called out. “Where have you been? My sugar high is crashing!”

I tossed the bag to the guy.

“Victory!” he shouted, thrusting the bag of giant marshmallows above his head.

Before he could open it, however, the kid who I’d seen playing Seeker in the Quidditch match leapt into the air and yoinked the bag out of his hands.

Deep-voice guy barreled after the Seeker into the woods with Paul Paulsen half shuffling/half chasing them, calling out, “Boys? Boys!”

Dion and Roger patted me on the back. “Have fun,” Dion said. “Okay?”

I nodded, forced a smile, and they were absorbed into the crowd.

I knew I could go find the Gildas or Will and Jonas, but for once in my life, I was feeling quiet. I hung back in the shadows and watched the fire.

Dad loves this poem by Gary Soto called “Oranges.” At one point, the poem says something like, “I peeled the orange, and it was so bright, it was like a fire in my hands.” I thought about that moment in the poem, where the kid peels open an orange to share with the girl he’s taken to the drug store to buy chocolate for. It’s so sweet. He’s so sweet.

Two boys, brows furrowed, sat on a log deep in conversation, their faces illuminated by the flickering bonfire. One of them gestured to the sky. The other shook his head. I tried to imagine what they were talking about. Time? Space exploration? God? The taller one