Played. Liz Fichera

added brightly, trying to inject some lightness into the discussion. “I can live with that.”

      I nodded at Matt, once, as Jay grinned. “Yeah,” Jay chimed in. “Just Sam it is.” Jay had gotten under my skin and that pleased him. I could kick myself for letting him get the best of me.

      Our group grew quiet again. After a few more seconds, Riley cleared her throat. “I think we should probably decide on nicknames before we run out of time,” she said, tapping her pen all over again.

      “How much time we got?” I asked, grateful for the tapping. Grateful to move away from a topic that no one ever understood and one that was almost impossible to explain.

      “Mr. Romero said we had until he started to grill the hot dogs for lunch.”

      Naturally Riley continued with more directions. “I suggest we write our names on the back of the name tag and then pass it around the table so that everyone gets a chance to write a nickname for everybody.”

      “Okay,” I said again. “Anyone else have any other ideas?”

      “What do we base the nicknames on?” Matt said. “I don’t get it....”

      Riley looked down at the agenda, turning it over for the instructions. “Says here that we’re supposed to base them on first impressions.” She air-quoted. “And then see if our impressions still hold by tomorrow.”

      I turned over my name tag. I wrote Sam on the back and tossed it in the middle of the table. “Give me your best shot.”

      7

      Riley

      Grumpy? Needs a Haircut? Condescending? He Who Irritates? Those were the nicknames for Sam Tracy floating in my head.

      Poor Jay. Why did Sam have to be so snippy about his question? It wasn’t dumb. Sometimes I wondered the same thing, especially when I heard so many names and labels bandied about. It was confusing. Somehow I would need to come up with a less caustic nickname for Sam by the time my fingers found his name tag.

      And why did he think I was trying to take over the team? I was merely getting us going. No one else had stepped up.

      I nibbled at the end of my pen and pushed Sam Tracy out of my mind and focused on the other name tags tossed into the middle of the table.

      I reached for Cassidy’s first. Hers was easy. We’d taken a watercolor class together at the YMCA a couple of summers ago. She was killer smart and I loved her retro eyeglasses. Very John Lennon. Batgirl, I wrote on the front of her name tag, because she loved comic books. I smiled to myself. Cassidy would love that nickname. Then I reached for Matt’s name tag.

      I’d never really talked to Matt before, even when he went to Lone Butte. The only thing I knew about him after his introduction was that he had one of the deepest voices ever. And cute lips. So I wrote Barry White Impersonator and hoped he would get the humor.

      Next was Jay’s. I peered at him in my periphery and watched him smirk at the name tag in front of him. I hoped it wasn’t mine. I couldn’t help myself. I wrote Hunk and then quickly slipped the name tag upside down to the center of the table and then, reluctantly, reached for Sam’s.

      I squeezed my eyes shut and then tried, really and truly tried, to come up with a nickname that wouldn’t be mean. Or hateful. Because I so desperately wanted to write Grumpy. That nickname fit Sam oh, so perfectly. Was there a nicer word for grumpy? If only my phone had internet access. I could check a thesaurus....

      Finally I opened my eyes, let loose a relieved exhale and wrote Complicated. There. That was totally Sam Tracy.

      Behind us, Mr. Romero yelled, “Okay, folks. Five more minutes till chow time! Let’s wrap it up!”

      Everyone on our team stopped writing and pushed the five name tags back into the center of the table. I was dying to read the nicknames on mine.

      Since no one else reached for them, I picked up the name tags, clicking them against the table like I was readying a deck of cards. Then I passed each person his tag.

      I sank onto the bench. Like an idiot, I’d totally forgotten that I used my pink pen. Everyone else had used their black pens. How could I have missed that? It was all Sam’s fault! He’d gotten me so unnerved with the whole icy, just-call-me-Sam discussion that I completely spaced it out.

      Dang it.

      Across from me, Sam’s right black eyebrow shot up as he studied his nicknames.

      I looked down at the ones written on my name tag.

      Smart. Okay, I liked that one.

      Bossypants. Huh? Who wrote that one?

      Thorough. Humph. That one was completely lame and boring.

      But it was the last one that ignited fire through my veins: Pink Girl. I’d bet my new iPad that Sam Tracy wrote that one. He thought it was funny to make fun of my clothes? How nice.

      I peered at him through my eyelashes. It was impossible not to glare. The jerk. Naturally, now that I wanted his attention, wanted him to know how much I was beginning to loathe his existence, he turned his back to me the moment I looked at him. He must have realized I’d figured out his clever nickname for me. He didn’t even have Matt to chat up anymore. Matt had grabbed his name tag then jumped up to help Mr. Romero with the intricacies of hot dogs and hot-dog buns. There were two stone barbecues on the other side of the picnic tables and Matt began to line the hot dogs into neat little rows on each metal grill. Sam was watching them from his seat at our picnic table as if grilling meat were the most fascinating thing in the whole world.

      Pink Girl came from Sam, I was sure of it.

      “Don’t forget to wear your name tags!” Mr. Romero shouted, turning in a half circle so everyone could hear him. “Then step right up and grab a paper plate and a bag of chips. Scavenger hunt starts in thirty minutes.” He glanced up at the sky, at least what little we could see through the tops of the pine trees. He had to yell to be heard over the wind whistling through the branches. “You’ll be pairing up with people on your team. Some teams are larger than others but everyone should have a partner!”

      I walked closer to the barbecue grills. The hot dogs had already begun to sizzle. “Mr. Romero, do we pick our partner?” I asked, hoping—praying—that I could pick Jay or Cassidy.

      Mr. Romero scratched his head. “We’ll do this one by birthdates. The person or people closest to your birthday will be your partner.”

      I turned back to my Green Team and said, “My birthday is March sixth.”

      Jay said, “Mine is October twentieth.”

      “Mine’s November fifth,” Cassidy said, her eyes brightening behind her glasses as she beamed at Jay. My body slumped with that news.

      Sam sighed. “Mine’s February twenty-third.” He looked straight across at me, his jaw stiffening.

      I turned to Matt. He was already stuffing his mouth with a hot-dog bun. “When’s your birthday?”

      “September first,” Matt said as bits of bread flew out of his mouth.

      Ugh. I mentally counted the extra days for leap year, but not even leap year could save me. Sam and I were officially scavenger-hunt partners.

      Kill me now.

      8

      Sam

      I had barely started eating my third dog when I heard her voice. It was impossible not to moan.

      “Looks like we have to find stuff around the forest,” Riley announced behind me.

      I turned midbite and then decided to dump the rest of my hot dog.

      Her nose wrinkled as she rattled off the list for the scavenger hunt. Jeez, did she ever relax? “Pinecones, bark, berries