Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fiera glanced at her friends’ table. Wren and Daisy were listening to Master Gavin. But Sadie was staring Fiera’s way, and she looked mad.
“Ooh, listen to her,” one of the girls at Laura’s table said. “She doesn’t sound so tough to me. What’s the matter, skunk girl? Eww! Do you smell that? I think she gets stinky when she gets scared. Are you scared, skunk girl?”
“Yeah, I don’t guess you’re as tough when the person you’re aiming for knows you’re coming, are you?” a different voice called from the same table.
Everyone laughed, and it took all Fiera could do not to shrink in on herself. She’d never done anything to any of the girls sitting at Laura’s table. Those girls knew nothing about her except what Laura had told them.
Master Gavin caught her attention. “All right. You have up to two and a half hours to complete your work. When you finish your painting, you can bring it up to the drying table, and one of the camp helpers will dry it for you before you turn it in. I’m starting the timer… now!”
After another quick look at Sadie, who was still glaring, Fiera began to paint. Now even her friends were getting mad at her.
Twenty minutes later, Fiera had barely sketched out her plan on her canvas.
The comments coming from the table next to her were driving her crazy.
They seemed to know exactly how to say things when none of the Bigs were looking.
How in the world could they act that way, and then turn around and call her mean?
Mace had told her to turn her hearing aids to noise-cancelling mode. She didn’t like doing that, though. It made her feel like she was underwater. Instead, she took them off and set them on her table because, of course, she’d forgotten her case.
Slowly, the tent emptied as the campers finished their paintings. At least Sadie, Wren, and Daisy were still painting. Hopefully, they wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye. Tears stung Fiera’s eyes.
On top of everything else, she couldn’t get her storm to look right. She wanted it to be the color of Mace’s eyes, but she’d run out of white, so the closest she could get was dark, muddy purple.
Her painting sucked! There was no way she was showing it to her Daddy. She wasn’t even going to turn it in for the art contest. People were already laughing at her enough.
A shadow on her canvas had her looking up, expecting Master Mace. Instead, Laura crouched in front of her table so that she was eye level with Fiera. Great. Just great.
Glaring at her archnemesis, Fiera demanded, “What do you want?”
Laura’s bottom lip trembled. “I just want to say I’m sorry. I know you weren’t trying to run into me the first day. I should have accepted your apology.” Glancing at what Fiera had labeled the mean girl’s table, Laura shook her head.
Who the heck was she signaling? Fiera wouldn’t put it past her to be signaling one of the girls to squirt paint all over her. When she turned to make sure, none of the girls at Laura’s table had moved.
Turning back, Fiera found four tubes of paint that hadn’t been there before. And they were beautiful colors like teal, orange, and green. Even better, there was a tube of white. But still, this was Laura, so there had to be a catch.
“What are those for?” Fiera demanded.
Laura smiled. “They’re for you, silly. A sort of peace offering. I mean, you got here late, so all the good colors were gone. I thought you might like to use these. They haven’t even been opened.”
Fiera studied Laura. What was the girl up to?
It had to be a trick. Had she switched the labels on the tubes somehow so Fiera would have an even bigger artistic disaster than she already had?
Unscrewing each of the tops, she saw the tubes of paint hadn’t been opened, and the labels looked fine, too.
Maybe Laura realized she’d been wrong. Anyone could make a mistake. And Fiera could really use the paint. If this was Laura trying to make nice and be friends, it wouldn’t be fair for Fiera to turn her down.
She did her best to smile at Laura. “Thanks. I appreciate it. These will really help.”
“My pleasure,” Laura said, doing her best to return a smile. “Good luck.”
As Laura sauntered back to her table, Fiera scolded herself for all the nasty things she’d been thinking about Laura since breakfast. It was all just a big misunderstanding. Squeezing the new colors out of the tubes, Fiera went to work fixing her painting.
Just as she was putting the final strokes on her masterpiece, Master Gavin called time. “Let’s move all the remaining paintings to the drying table now. The judges will want plenty of time to select the winners.”
As Fiera walked to the drying table, she admired her work. She’d done a pretty good job, if she did say so herself. Who’d have thought it would all be thanks to Laura?
When Fiera reached the drying table, Laura and her friends all crowded around, along with all the other budding artistic perfectionists at camp. Even though she told herself not to, her eyes insisted on scanning the room for Sadie, Wren, and Daisy in hopes they’d come back. They hadn’t.
It wouldn’t make her so sad if she hadn’t seen the anger on Sadie’s face when she’d looked at Fiera from across the tent. She wasn’t sure what she’d done. Sometimes she missed the cues other people picked up on. But she wished her friends had talked to her about it instead of walking out.
Before she even placed her painting on the table, she knew something was wrong. Murmurs and whispers worked their way through the Littles, waiting for their turn.
Someone gasped behind her, and it threw her for a moment because she couldn’t tell where the sound had come from. She reached up to adjust her hearing aids, only to find them not in her ears. That’s right. She’d taken them off while she was painting.
Looking over her right shoulder, she jumped because Laura was standing so close that Fiera felt the girl breathing.
Laura yelled, “Fiera cheated!”
Such a loud sound so close to Fiera’s dominant ear made her flinch. Instinctively, Fiera’s shoulders jumped, catching Laura under the chin.
Laura screamed in pain, and Fiera almost joined her. Her nerves were on fire. Her self-control was slipping for the first time in forever. Everyone gawked at her like she had kicked someone’s puppy. And where were her friends?
“Fiera!” Laura wailed. “Just because I said you cheated, that doesn’t mean you can crack me in the jaw. I only told the truth.”
Shock rendered Fiera immobile. What had Laura just said? A quick glance around the table showed her a sea of faces, all staring at her. She spotted her friends and wished she hadn’t. They were on the other side of the crowd, glaring and talking to each other.
As Fiera scanned the crowd, all she saw was a sea of shocked, judgmental, or angry faces. All over something she didn’t do. The only people she no longer saw were Sadie, Wren, and Daisy. Fiera was all alone.
Heat crawled up her neck, filling her face. She wanted to disappear. It was her, facing a crowd of strangers. Where was Master Mace? He should be there. She beat back her tears. The last thing she needed to do was cry. It would make her look guilty. Worse, it would make her look weak.
Suddenly, it was all too much. Her body made decisions on its own. Without any conscious thought, Fiera dropped to the floor, still on her feet, but curled around herself into some weird fetal position.
She needed to say something. She had to tell them she would never cheat.
Then warm, strong arms lifted her from the ground. She recognized his scent before she saw him. Her Daddy was there. She twisted in his arms, wrapping herself around him. It was like he was a wall between her and the rest of the world.
“Chair,” he barked out. And just like that, she was sitting in his lap with his arms holding her close. “Master Gavin, would you please tell me what is going on here?”
“I was just about to ask that myself,” Master Gavin said. He didn’t sound any happier than her Daddy. “Laura, would you like to explain why you think Fiera cheated on her painting?”
Laura had gone pale, but she nodded. Running back to Fiera’s table, Laura returned with the paints Fiera had used.
“See, Master Gavin? Her painting has colors that she didn’t make herself.
She used special paints none of the rest of us had.
That means she cheated. Her sky is so pretty, but it’s because she broke the rules. ”
“Master Gavin,” Mace said, his voice soft but firm, “I don’t know how Fiera painted her sky, but I do know she would never willfully, knowingly cheat. My babygirl is not a cheater.”
What had he… was he saying… did he just stand up for her without even hearing her side of the story? She’d never had a Daddy believe in her like that. Her pulse slowed, and everything in her world settled.
Her Daddy trusted her. He believed in her. And no one else mattered.
She wanted to prove to him that his faith in her wasn’t misplaced. “I… I didn’t cheat. I would never do that.”
Master Mace squeezed her in a way that felt like a hug.
“Can you tell us how you came up with the color combinations in your painting, Fiera?” Master Gavin’s voice was kind and gentle.
“Well, I did use color other than the ones I got from the supply table. I didn’t know we couldn’t use other colors. And I wouldn’t have had them in the first place if Laura hadn’t given them to me.”
Everyone’s gaze shifted to Laura. She shook her head so hard Fiera wondered how she didn’t fall.
“I didn’t give her anything, Master Gavin. She’s lying again, just to get me in trouble. You can ask anyone sitting at my table. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Master Gavin turned to the girls standing behind Laura, the ones who’d sat at Laura’s table and made fun of her, too. One of them said, “She didn’t go anywhere near Fiera’s table. Fiera is just blaming Laura out of spite.”
Out of the blue, the voice Fiera needed to hear more than anyone else in the world said, “Spite for what?” Master Mace asked.
The girls all looked at him as if he’d asked them to calculate the distance to the sun and back.
“I don’t know,” one of the girls managed to say.
Another chimed in with, “She’s just a spiteful person.”
“I am not!” Fiera yelled, unable to keep quiet.
Her Daddy cleared his throat, and when Fiera turned to him, he tugged on his ear. That was one of the hand signals they’d worked out that morning on the way to breakfast. Tugging on his ear meant she should wait and listen.
With great reluctance, Fiera nodded.
What she couldn’t figure out was why she had missed the instructions about not using other paints. Then it hit her. That was when everyone at Laura’s table had been heckling her. That was when Sadie had scowled at her and seemed so angry.
Remembering that hurt her heart. Maybe she could talk her Daddy into heading back to Wilder right now.
It occurred to her that, if everyone believed she cheated, they might ask her to leave.
What if she had to leave without her Daddy?
He wasn’t finished running the summer camp rodeo.
She really didn’t want to have to go back to Wilder all alone.
Before anyone else could speak, Master Gavin’s phone rang. He answered the call, listened, and said, “That sounds good. We’ll be right there.”
“Be right where?” Mace asked.
Master Gavin shook his head. “I swear, Master Derek is psychic. Apparently, he’s already heard of our little dilemma and wants us all in his office right now. He’s pulled Laura’s Daddy out of the seminar he was attending and he’ll meet us there.”
Laura’s face grew paler, but her eyes were cold.
One trip to Master Derek’s office was more than enough for Fiera. She had no desire to visit there again. Not that anyone asked her opinion.
Fiera’s Daddy, however, seemed to disagree. “That sounds like an excellent idea. Come on, firefly. Let’s go see Master Derek.”