not my circus, not my monkeys [wendy]

JR crossed his arms and gave their little group a bored look. They were all working on art projects today and campers had been tasked with coming up with comic book ideas to work on. The catch was that Miranda, the camp art counselor in charge today, got to decide whose ideas were best for the group to work on together. JR had thought his action hero quidditch star comic was going to be a hit, but apparently Miranda had liked Wendy's romance idea better. He had been glumly pouting ever since.

The four of them were sitting a small round table in the art room, the little plastic chairs felt sticky with the summer heat that even the giant fans above couldn't cool down. JR glanced at Wendy as she spouted off another idea and then slid his gaze to the French girl called Brigitte who had curly red hair and was nodding along with everything Wendy said and the other Swedish boy at their table whose name JR had no hope of pronouncing who was more concerned with drawing something on his own rather than participating in what they were attempting to do together.

"Are you sure you don't want to do the action plot instead of the stupid romance one?" JR grumbled, glancing at Wendy.

@Wendy Willbond

Out of the classes she had tried at camp, art class was quickly proving to be her favorite. Not only was the camp counselor in charge, Miranda, the nicest most encouraging person ever but they got to do things she really liked doing. The past week, they had made dreamcatchers and the class before that, Wendy had tried her hand at painting a landscape portrait. She hadn’t been that good at it, Wendy wasn’t the most coordinated painter, but she had gotten inspired by one of the worlds in the novel that she and Benny had been discussing recently and she wanted to show him to get his opinion on it.

And although Wendy had enjoyed all of the ideas immensely, today finally felt like her time to shine. They were going to work on a comic book that couldn’t have come at a better time considering how many she had been reading with Tomie. Wendy had a good idea of how the format worked and hoped to make something everyone could feel they were a part of. Maybe they could add some adventure and a few big tasks like all the heroes faced in her favorite tales but there had to be romance. Miranda, the camp counselor, and at least Brigitte, seemed to agree.

“Um—" she started, looking over at the Swedish boy at the table but not quite sure how to go about saying his name, instead she opted for tapping lightly on his paper and the drawing he had made, “this looks cool, but I think we have to work together,” she suggested as politely as she could. Turning to JR, a little surprised by his statement she shook her head, “Romance isn’t stupid! It can be super fun, we can have action, too, what if there is a warrior princess who has to go to an alternative universe on the advice of a seer and meets the love of her life?” she suggested enthusiastically. “Fighting is action and stuff, he can be a prince or something if you want?”

JR leveled a look at Wendy as she defended her idea and just shrugged. He tried to smile even though he didn't feel like it, maybe that would help his case. Maybe he could convince her. "Well, what if the warrior princess goes to that other universe and meets her arch nemesis and they battle it out?" Huh. That sounded eerily similar to the original idea that he had pitched for his own comic book. He was just trying to make this group project the best it could be.

"What do you think Brigitte?" he asked, hoping she'd side with him. "Think they should be arch enemies?" But luck was definitely not on his side today because Brigitte shook her head and told them in her French accent that she liked the idea of the warrior princess falling in love with the prince. JR rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair, folding his arms again. "Great," he muttered.

“Um—” Wendy blinked at JR, a little confused by his suggested but not thinking it was an entirely bad idea, “yeah, is the arch nemesis the guy she falls in love with?” she offered. “Maybe he thinks they’re enemies but then it turns out that they actually like each other a lot,” she continued to which Brigitte nodded enthusiastically. Wendy was glad that JR was cooperating and adding in ideas but she also wondered why he wouldn’t stick to the original plan. If they ended up making it too complicated they’d never finish.

“Maybe we can just start it and see where it goes?” she asked, gathering a few sheets of paper and sliding them in JR’s direction first before distributing some to Bridgitte and the other boy at their table. “Any name ideas, first?” she asked, feeling like this was something she could take the lead on considering how many times she had done something similar in the past. Plus JR didn’t look too happy with the way things were panning out so she figured it just made sense to tell him what to work on rather than to focus on the ideas bit too much. “Or like what the universe is like?”

"Or we could just have them battle it out," he offered. "You know, like you mentioned in the beginning, the fight stuff. Don't need to complicate it with the 'fall in love' stuff," JR added with a smile. He wasn't exactly being subtle about it, but he hoped that he could win her over into doing what he wanted instead of her original idea. Miranda never said the group members couldn't add their ideas, right? "What do you think.. mate?" he asked the Swedish kid, hesitating when he forgot that he didn't know the kid's name.

The blonde haired Swedish kid looked up and JR tried to smile ingratiatingly at him, but he just shrugged, saying he liked Wendy's idea better. JR huffed a sigh and sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest again. This project was so dumb. He glanced out the window as Wendy tried to get them started, wishing he was outside on the lake canoeing or climbing the rock wall. Somewhere he could show off and show how good he was at it. Something Miranda clearly didn't appreciate.

"I don't know, it's your idea," he muttered sullenly as he twisted the paper under his hand.

“But it doesn’t really make sense to have them fight so soon, right?” Wendy wondered in response. Falling in love felt like an easy thing to establish in a few panels, but for a fight well shouldn’t there be a reason and then a build up to it? Starting with a fighting scene didn’t really make sense unless they were starting in the middle of the plot but that didn’t seem likely here either. “Plus Ms. Miranda said she thought the idea of the characters falling in love was sweet,” she added as an afterthought.

Wendy turned to her other team members who didn’t have many ideas to begin with, they sort of just looked at her for directions and then there was JR who wasn’t even paying attention anymore. “This will be a fun way for you to do something new, JR, you always talk about Quidditch,” she added, not intending to say it in a mean-spirited way but also feeling that there was more to life than Quidditch. But there wasn’t more to life than love, that was probably why every novel she loved had an extraordinary love plot. “Maybe the alternative universe is this one and he’s not a prince but a…Quidditch player?” she continued, hoping that the two of them could compromise and come to a solution without it resulting in JR just choosing not to do the work.

“It’s supposed to be our idea,” she added softly, starting to feel discouraged.

"Fighting scenes are great, everyone loves a good fight scene," he muttered again. He wasn't just going to agree with her now that he hadn't gotten his way. He was just going to sit here and vaguely help so that Miranda didn't chide him and hope that this whole thing was over soon. He glanced about hoping to find a clock on the wall so he could count down the minutes, but there wasn't one there, much to his disappointment. Probably because the counselors wanted this stupid art class to feel like prison.

He frowned as she mentioned Miranda thinking it was a good idea. "Yeah, well, maybe Miranda doesn't know a good idea if it hit her in the face," he grumbled as he leaned his chair back onto the back two feet, sending a smirk to the Swedish kid, hoping to have brought out a laugh, but as usual, this kid was not a good sidekick. Where was Benny when he needed him? He glanced at Wendy though and double backed. Maybe not Benny. He would probably side with Wendy too. Tomie then? He sighed heavily as if this were the worst chore ever.

"Quidditch players don't care about falling in love," he told her matter-of-factly, shooting down her idea again with a scoff. She clearly didn't know anything about quidditch players or what they were after. "They only care about duking it out on the field for the win. So if that's what you want your story to be about, that's fine, but otherwise it just sounds dumb," he said lightly with a shrug, not caring if she didn't like what he was saying. If she didn't want his opinion, she shouldn't have asked.

“We can have a fighting scene in the end if you want?” she offered instead, it was starting to feel like there would be question marks at the end of all of her sentences as she became increasingly unsure of where she wanted to go with this. It had been much easier to defend herself when Ms. Miranda had been at their table, the feeling that someone was backing her up, especially an adult, making the words with which she hoped to convince her teammates, flow out of her easily. But now with Ms. Miranda away, Wendy could almost feel what she believed to be waves of anger rolling off of JR. He had always been much more popular than she had, even in their small group of friends, so it only made sense for Wendy to believe that maybe they were all secretly thinking that her idea was indeed stupid. Maybe JR was the only one with the courage to tell her to her face?

“I think she’s pretty smart,” Wendy offered in defense, feeling a little dejected by JR’s comment as it seemed to reflect what he thought of her. But Wendy really liked Ms. Miranda, the two of them were big fans of reading and when she had offered some of the novels she enjoyed reading in her spare time, Wendy was so excited to find out that they had many book favorites in common as well.

For a moment she wished that one of her other friends was here instead. It wasn’t that Wendy minded being wrong or having her views opposed, she just wished JR was nicer about it, especially because the last thing she wanted was to get into argument with him. “But wasn’t your dad a Quidditch player? He fell in love with your mom…” she offered quietly, her own way of countering his point. “A lot of Quidditch players have cute love stories and get married and have happy endings,” she offered. She couldn’t name anyone specifically but she knew they existed.

He shrugged at her suggestion for the fight scene at the end. "It's your story, not mine," he told her, his tone cool and distant. He wasn't sure what more to say. She wanted his opinion and kept asking him questions, but then didn't like when he gave her his thoughts and ideas. Why was she even asking if she wasn't going to listen to any of this ideas? He felt like this was going round and round in circles and he eyed the door. He wondered if Miranda would even notice if he just slipped out. He sat up a little straighter as he realized she was gazing over at their group and he hoped she wouldn't come over to ask.

JR leaned forward so the chair was on all four legs instead of just the back two and avoided Miranda's gaze. Luckily she was caught up with a question from another group and he breath a little sigh of relief. He just rolled his eyes at Wendy's defense and shrugged again. She was probably a little smarter than Teddy, but Carla was still the better counselor in his opinion. Carla probably would've picked his idea at least.

"Yeah, he was. What about it? I don't want to write a story about my parents falling in love," he scoffed, grimacing at the idea, and then shooting her a look like she was crazy. "Just write whatever your idea was. I'm sure it won't be as boring as it sounds," he offered with a wave of his hand at the paper in front of her before he leaned back on his chair again and glanced out the window, trying to see if anyone was at the rock wall that he could see from his seat.

“I know but you’re part of the group too—” she started, not really sure how to deal with JR when he was upset, not that she had ever known him to be angry. Usually, if someone was angry with her, Wendy tried to win them over with snacks or by being extra nice to them. But then being extra nice to JR would mean that she’d have to give up on her story idea for something she wasn’t inspired by and that was difficult, too. It’d be like asking JR to give up on something Quidditch related so that she could get her way and she felt like regardless of how angry she was, JR wouldn’t want to relent either.

“We’re supposed to work together,” she reiterated, looking over at the other group members, hoping that they’d somehow support her but of course, they were still quiet, avoiding her gaze as they busied themselves with something else.

“That’s not my point,” she continued, a little exasperated by the fact that JR didn’t really get what she was saying. Wendy wished she could be brave like Tomie, she’d probably do something like tell JR to be quiet or punch him in the face, or maybe that was just her imagination? But Wendy didn’t want to do either of those things, well maybe she did a little bit but that was beside the point. “I don’t think that it’s fair that I have to write all the story and you all get credit for it,” she explained, trying to approach the subject matter a little differently with hopes that he would try to be a little more accommodating. 

"I know, that's why I was trying to give ideas, but you don't want anyone else to have input so I don't even know why you asked," he said talking over, his annoyance clear in his tone. This was so dumb and getting stupider by the second. He didn't know what she was looking for here. She asked for his thoughts and he gave them and then didn't like it and said he wasn't doing his part? Nope, he didn't like that. The feeling made him hunch his shoulders a bit. "I am trying to work together," he said right back, his words sharp. He had grown up with older sisters his whole life and he didn't particularly feel like having another girl boss him around. Especially with something like a comic book he really didn't care about.

He held up his arms a little and rolled his eyes as she told him that wasn't her point. He didn't know what her point was?? Did she even have one?? She wasn't doing a very good job of explaining it. Just another reason why he wasn't sure how Miranda had chosen her as the little leader of this project. Her next comment had him frowning at her, his brows raised in disbelief. "Who said I would want to take credit for your stupid idea anyway?" he told her, irritation making his skin prickle, turning his words razor sharp. He didn't know what gave her the idea that he wasn't pulling his weight, but the idea rankled his pride. "All I'm saying is that you write whatever story you want and we'll do the rest of the comic or draw it or whatever we want to do. What's so hard about that to understand?"

JR wasn't an artist by any stretch but for a project he didn't care about, he could color with some crayons that Miranda had given them and call it a day. Wendy's assumptions didn't sit well with him though.

“I know—” Wendy said, whining just a little as she tried to find a way to reach a compromise with him and keep her idea. Maybe she was being selfish after all in wanting to keep her idea but Ms. Miranda had already said that it was a good one and Wendy had already concocted a general storyline behind it. This was her thing, Wendy knew that JR wouldn’t have liked it if she started inserting herself into his Quidditch things very much. But at the same thing, she felt overwhelmingly guilty for her feelings of anger or confusion or whatever they were because he did have a point. Wendy cursed the fact that she wasn’t more assertive when she could be.

“That’s not what I said!” she interrupted him again, feeling slightly embarrassed as she raised her voice and a few students looked over in her direction. But what was she saying, exactly? Wendy just wanted him to compromise with her just this once. Benny wasn’t nearly this difficult to explain herself to, nor were any of the other members of their friend group. But Wendy didn’t have much experience dealing with this sort of confrontation and it made her feel weird.

“…Okay,” she said finally, feeling a little dejected, now she wasn’t really feeling in the mood to write anything at all. The entire romance story almost immediately disappearing from her head. Wendy stared at the piece of paper in front of her, not wanting to meet any of her table mate’s eyes. “Then let’s just do the Quidditch thing,” she muttered, raising her hand as she felt a knot in her throat, the telltale sign of tears gathering in the corner of her eyes.

“May I go to the toilets?” she asked softly, choking up a little as she rubbed her eyes when a stray tear fell down her cheek, her cheeks reddening as she quickly stood up and practically ran out of the classroom when Ms. Miranda gave her the okay.

"Kind of sounds like what you said," he threw right back, talking over her, and not noticing until later that their argument had attracted many curious onlookers. JR's gaze skittered around from face to face as he scooted himself back in his chair, feeling the slightest start of embarrassment at making a scene. Especially at something he really didn't care about. But then Wendy was flying out of the room, but not before he had caught that glassy, tear-welled look. Bloody hell, did I made her cry? The Swedish kid and the French girl were staring at him and it made him squirm.

Miranda had thrown a concerned look after Wendy and then had turned that knowing gaze on him. "Yeah, yeah," JR mumbled as he stood up and asked silently with a nod toward where Wendy had disappeared, pushing open the door a second later and letting the screen door screech to a close behind him. A deep v had formed between his brows as he wandered, slowly but surely, toward the direction of the loos. It was a building just beside the Arts center that had an ironic sign tacked to the outside that announced it as the 'Tinkletorium' and JR sent a glare at it just on principle.

A few campers passed by, towels on their shoulders as if they were headed to the pool, or holding the odd shape of an American football and JR sighed heavily as he scuffed his foot against the grass, wondering why he had even followed Wendy out here in the first place. He didn't even really know what he was going to say to her either. Sorry your idea was stupid? He heaved a sigh and rubbed his forehead. He did feel bad for making her upset.. if that's what he had done.

He turned a bit to look at the Tinkletorium, hoping she'd emerge soon.

The young Willbond felt at a complete loss and she didn’t like it at all. It had never been her intention to make JR upset, they weren’t the best of friends but they did hang out in similar circles. It had never been her intention to make him angry but also his anger had been completely unexpected. She supposed that Tomie was assertive too but it didn’t come off like this, and it was because of this that she also felt considerably guilty for pushing him. But he had hurt her feelings too. Either way, crying in the bathroom felt a much safer solution to this problem than facing it head on in the writing workshop. Wendy just hoped he wouldn’t stay mad at her though an even larger part of her wanted to see Tomie after class and ask her what was up with her friend. She always had the answer to these kinds of concerns.

Wendy looked at herself in the mirror as she sniffled, wiping away at her tears with the back of her arm. What was wrong with wanting to write the perfect story? If this was Quidditch she wouldn’t have pretended to know more than JR, she would accept him as the authority on that. But maybe this went further than just the arts and crafts stories. Maybe she thought they all got along and they didn’t? None of those thoughts made her cry any less so she started to run the water, leaning forward to cup some of it in her hand and wash her face.

It took several minutes for her to calm down. Now she had other things to do with like the fact that she had cried in class and other people had seen her and she was terribly embarrassed. Now she’d have to drop out of the class all together. But she still really wanted to write that story.

As soon as she stepped outside, however, she froze. “JR?” she said softly, wondering if he had come to add even more fuel to the fire. “Um—you weren’t waiting for me, were you?”

JR scuffed the ground with his shoe and walked around a bit, looking at everything except the stupid Tinkletorium sign, thinking about everything except what he could possibly say to Wendy at this point. He really hadn't meant to make her cry. He folded his arms in front of him. Was it his fault she had soft feelings? If his father were here, he would have given her a speech about how emotions didn't belong on the field.. except apply those to a class situation.. or whatever. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. He wasn't sure what Ms. Miranda expected of him here, how was he going to d---

He turned at her calling his name and he could see signs of her tears in the redness around her eyes and the quiet in her voice. She almost looked as if she were expecting him to start hurling insults at her and he wasn't sure why but it made him feel lower than a snake's belly. He nodded at her question, glancing down at his shoes again, as he tried to figure out what to say next.

"I.. uhh--" he huffed a breath and brought his gaze back to her. "I'm sorry if I upset you," he managed to say, honesty coming out of him because he really didn't like the look on her face. He wasn't a bad guy here and he didn't like the fact that he had maybe given off reason for her to think of him that way. "Are you.. ok?"