Robin’s not actually meant to be at Camp Nightwing. It’s bending the rules, Uncle Mark says, which is supposed to be different from breaking them but not in any kind of way that Robin can figure out. Besides, Uncle Mark says, we’ve got plans - he means him and Aunt Laura and Robin’s cousins, Abbie and Heather, the kind of ‘we’ that circles his family and plants Robin firmly on the outside - and Melissa didn’t exactly warn us you’d be coming.
Mark, Aunt Laura says, softly. Shakes her head no.
Mark doesn’t say much else to Robin after that, just takes Abbie and Heather out for ice cream, Heather still young enough she doesn’t know she’s meant to hate that she’s stuck with Robin and waving her chubby little baby hand buh-bye, and it’s up to Laura to promise Robin that camp will be fun, that Mark’s done such a nice thing by getting Robin a spot on such little notice, and extracting a promise in turn that Robin will give their address, because it’s really only meant for kids from around here, so if anyone asks, Robin has to say she’s just moved here to live with her aunt and uncle. Then assuring Robin that she isn't actually moving in with them for real, just for the summer, just in case Mom didn't know how to tell her.
Robin promises, and Aunt Laura drives her to camp, rattling in the backseat of her Ford Pinto, and Robin’s nine years old, way too old to cry about going to camp like all the other kids in her class are doing, so she bites her lip and stares out the window as the trees around them bend and sway in the wind, kind of like they’re waving their big tree arms at them, hello, hello, hello. She’s gonna have a great summer, the best summer ever, she decides, and when she gets back to school she’s gonna tell them all – Robin’s secret agent camping, like she’s undercover, and she can be any kind of girl she wants to be. She could be the kind of girl who has friends here. Nobody here knows any different.
Robin can be a secret agent type of girl, and go back to Hawkins when it’s done and say, hey, I had the best summer ever. I lied to sneak into a sleepaway camp and stayed for six whole weeks, and I made a bunch of friends and nobody called me weird, not even once. And even if they don’t believe her, that’ll be fine, Robin thinks. She’ll know the truth and she’ll be able to carry it around with her, best summer ever, like a shield. Like proof tucked against her heart, ready for her to pull out and check when she needs to, that Robin could be the type of person people wanted to be around, and if the jerks back in her class want to keep laughing at her and saying otherwise then she’ll know for sure that it’s wrong.
If all that takes is pretending to be from Shadyside – well, that’s not a lie, really, if Uncle Mark says it’s only bending the rules. Bending’s fine, really, like you can always bend back, and you don’t really get in trouble for it, and anyway, Robin does live here. Like right now. She’s living.
—
Her cabin is called the Belladonnas, and it's got five other girls who all know each other already, and so do all the other kids at camp, which is the perfect recipe for not making any friends except-
Except, except, except, calloo callay, right? Some kind of minor miracle occurs, and somehow that newness, not knowing, means people are interested. In Robin! In getting to know Robin!
At first it's just, you know, trying to figure her out, which one she belongs to - Shadysider, Sunnysider, and Robin remembers her promise, definitely does not break it on purpose, but she doesn't know what a Sunnysider is except for, like, eggs maybe? And it isn't eggs. So Becca and Claire (both Sunnysiders) explain there's another town and everyone's arranged themselves into little gangs over it, and Robin - by virtue of being an unknown quantity who is very much in the middle of this - moves between the groups, Sunny, Shady, without realising she's doing it. She doesn't know who belongs to who, and somehow being outside it all means people want to explain to her why their side is the best like Robin gets to choose. Like they want Robin to choose them!
Best summer ever, best summer ever, it sings in her ears all the time when she's eating lunch with Claire and Becca and going swimming with Danielle and Ruth (Shadysiders) and somehow their little gang all comes together, kids from both towns who wouldn't sit at the same tables for meals or play soccer together or dare one another to jump off the dock if it weren't for Robin on the outside, Robin not from here who didn't know not to be friends with both, and she whispers up at her cabin ceiling that she never ever wants to be anywhere else.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Re: Robin, Fear Street Crossover - Fill: Crybaby [2/?]
Date: 2022-10-11 08:00 pm (UTC)Robin’s not actually meant to be at Camp Nightwing. It’s bending the rules, Uncle Mark says, which is supposed to be different from breaking them but not in any kind of way that Robin can figure out. Besides, Uncle Mark says, we’ve got plans - he means him and Aunt Laura and Robin’s cousins, Abbie and Heather, the kind of ‘we’ that circles his family and plants Robin firmly on the outside - and Melissa didn’t exactly warn us you’d be coming.
Mark, Aunt Laura says, softly. Shakes her head no.
Mark doesn’t say much else to Robin after that, just takes Abbie and Heather out for ice cream, Heather still young enough she doesn’t know she’s meant to hate that she’s stuck with Robin and waving her chubby little baby hand buh-bye, and it’s up to Laura to promise Robin that camp will be fun, that Mark’s done such a nice thing by getting Robin a spot on such little notice, and extracting a promise in turn that Robin will give their address, because it’s really only meant for kids from around here, so if anyone asks, Robin has to say she’s just moved here to live with her aunt and uncle. Then assuring Robin that she isn't actually moving in with them for real, just for the summer, just in case Mom didn't know how to tell her.
Robin promises, and Aunt Laura drives her to camp, rattling in the backseat of her Ford Pinto, and Robin’s nine years old, way too old to cry about going to camp like all the other kids in her class are doing, so she bites her lip and stares out the window as the trees around them bend and sway in the wind, kind of like they’re waving their big tree arms at them, hello, hello, hello. She’s gonna have a great summer, the best summer ever, she decides, and when she gets back to school she’s gonna tell them all – Robin’s secret agent camping, like she’s undercover, and she can be any kind of girl she wants to be. She could be the kind of girl who has friends here. Nobody here knows any different.
Robin can be a secret agent type of girl, and go back to Hawkins when it’s done and say, hey, I had the best summer ever. I lied to sneak into a sleepaway camp and stayed for six whole weeks, and I made a bunch of friends and nobody called me weird, not even once. And even if they don’t believe her, that’ll be fine, Robin thinks. She’ll know the truth and she’ll be able to carry it around with her, best summer ever, like a shield. Like proof tucked against her heart, ready for her to pull out and check when she needs to, that Robin could be the type of person people wanted to be around, and if the jerks back in her class want to keep laughing at her and saying otherwise then she’ll know for sure that it’s wrong.
If all that takes is pretending to be from Shadyside – well, that’s not a lie, really, if Uncle Mark says it’s only bending the rules. Bending’s fine, really, like you can always bend back, and you don’t really get in trouble for it, and anyway, Robin does live here. Like right now. She’s living.
—
Her cabin is called the Belladonnas, and it's got five other girls who all know each other already, and so do all the other kids at camp, which is the perfect recipe for not making any friends except-
Except, except, except, calloo callay, right? Some kind of minor miracle occurs, and somehow that newness, not knowing, means people are interested. In Robin! In getting to know Robin!
At first it's just, you know, trying to figure her out, which one she belongs to - Shadysider, Sunnysider, and Robin remembers her promise, definitely does not break it on purpose, but she doesn't know what a Sunnysider is except for, like, eggs maybe? And it isn't eggs. So Becca and Claire (both Sunnysiders) explain there's another town and everyone's arranged themselves into little gangs over it, and Robin - by virtue of being an unknown quantity who is very much in the middle of this - moves between the groups, Sunny, Shady, without realising she's doing it. She doesn't know who belongs to who, and somehow being outside it all means people want to explain to her why their side is the best like Robin gets to choose. Like they want Robin to choose them!
Best summer ever, best summer ever, it sings in her ears all the time when she's eating lunch with Claire and Becca and going swimming with Danielle and Ruth (Shadysiders) and somehow their little gang all comes together, kids from both towns who wouldn't sit at the same tables for meals or play soccer together or dare one another to jump off the dock if it weren't for Robin on the outside, Robin not from here who didn't know not to be friends with both, and she whispers up at her cabin ceiling that she never ever wants to be anywhere else.