May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor at Summer Camp

Remember the things you’d say to your friends at summer camp?

It was this friendship that made Rylee Miller, 12, feel a little conflicted. “I don’t want to kill you,” she told Julianna Pettey. Julianna, also 12, looked her in the eye. “I will probably kill you first,” she said. She put her hands on Rylee’s shoulders. “I might stab you.”

Tampa Bay Times reporter Lisa Gartner dropped by the Country Day School in Largo, Fla., which was in the midst of a Hunger Games-theme week. The kids wore flags around their waists, which could be ripped away flag football-style to simulate the taking of another child’s life (“to simulate the taking of another child’s life” — yowza). Such is The Way We Live Now.

The only kind of summer camp I went to (besides band camp, which was in winter and another story), was the religious kind and we spent most of our time praying and less of our time thinking about murdering each other, though I’m not 100 percent sure that’s true.

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