How Dad had had fun (he even had the nerve to say he felt like a little boy again) helping Muffin and her infant friends play musical chairs and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. (Considering he’d never done that for me, I was surprised he knew how.)
How they’d ordered this gigantic pink cake from the Village Bakery. (I wondered what Mrs. Meade thought of that. She always made my birthday cakes. Dad said ordering from the bakery was extravagant.)
How Dad and Kate and Muffin had gone to the Hunt Brothers’ Circus that night where (once again) Dad felt like a little boy, and Muffin was chosen out of the audience to ride an elephant at the show’s finale.
I hoped Muffin cried. I hoped she hated it.
This was the end of Dad’s letter:
Well, sweetheart, we’ll see you on Saturday. We’re all coming up. Except Simon, of course. He has asked to stay home so he can watch TV.
I almost laughed at that, but managed to hold back.
I hope camp is better and you are enjoying yourself.
Lots of love and hugs and kisses,
Your Old Dad
Well. He had certainly left out something important. He hadn’t forgotten the deal about how I could come home on Saturday if I wanted, had he? I mean, that was the agreement, right? I wasn’t hallucinating.
Somewhere deep inside me I could feel fear nagging. Not much. Just a little. But I began to worry. What if they didn’t plan on keeping their promise? They wouldn’t do that, would they?
I didn’t think so. I would hope for the best. That was all I could do. Just hope.
Chapter 12
War on Susie
I WAS STILL BROODING over Visiting Day when I remembered that today was a Sunny Skies day. I jogged over there after Siesta, mentally planning the next row of Baby Boy’s quilt. It was a center row, one of the most important. I wanted it to be perfect.
I let myself into the cabin and nicked on the lights. Sometimes Janine was there and sometimes she wasn’t. Today she wasn’t.
In a cupboard were all my carefully cut out squares and triangles of fabric. I already knew just which ones I’d need, so I took them out and laid them down on a table. Then I went to another cupboard to get the box the partially finished quilt was kept in. I carried it carefully over to the table, lifted the lid—and stared in horror.
The quilt was shredded.
It lay in its box in ragged strips and pieces. You couldn’t even tell it was supposed to have been a quilt. Holding back hot tears, I stared at it for a few more seconds, then shoved the lid back on the box and threw the whole thing on the floor. I kicked it savagely, left it under a bench, and swept the new squares off the table, watching them flutter to the floor. It didn’t even occur to me to wonder who did it. I just couldn’t believe the quilt was ruined. I had wanted so much to give it to Kate and make her proud of me.
I swiped at the light switch until the room dimmed, banged out of Sunny Skies, and ran to our cabin.
Nancy was there reading a book called Forbidden Love. It was her afternoon off.
I burst through her curtain, sobbing.
It took a while, but I was finally able, in between a lot of gulping and hiccupping, to tell her what I had discovered.
She took me by the hand and we walked over to Sunny Skies for another look.
Sure enough.
There wasn’t really anything to do. Or say.
We just went back to Misty Mountains, where I lay down on my bunk feeling sort of ill. Nancy dug up a can of Coke from somewhere for me, and lent me her copy of The Hobbit. Even with all my disappointment and anger, I found it in me to ask her if I could borrow Forbidden Love instead. We both laughed and felt better.
Then Nancy climbed up to sit on my bunk with me and said, “I know it’s trite, but it is true that you can start another quilt. I remember when my puppy, Mocha, was killed. Everyone said, ‘You can get another puppy,’ and I hated them for it. But soon I did get another one. Popeye. And I loved him just as much as Mocha. Not in the same way, but just as much.”
“Yeah,” I said tonelessly. “I think maybe what I’ll do is forget about the quilt for a while.”
“That’s probably a very good idea.”
“You know what would make me feel a lot better?” I asked.
“What?”
“If I found the person who did that and hit her so hard she landed in Arizona.”
Nancy laughed again, but then she said seriously, “Kammy, I know you’re strong-willed, and I also know you have a strong sense of fairness. I’m sure you’d like a little revenge. But if we should find out who destroyed your quilt, would you please take it easy? Leave the punishing up to Mrs. Wright?”
“O.K.,” I said uncertainly. I wasn’t sure I could do that.
About ten minutes later all my bunkies came yelping and leaping back into the cabin. Swimming lessons were over.
They crowded around me wanting to know if I was sick or something.
Susie appeared, too, and I steeled myself for a real barrage of teasing and singing. But instead she said sweetly, “Oh, I’m so sorry about your quilt.”
Well, that brought me up short because I hadn’t told any of the girls about the quilt yet. I had only just started to explain that no, I wasn’t sick, and no, I had not gotten my period for the first time.
So I said, just as sweetly, “Why, thank you, Susie,” and went on to explain to the others about Baby Boy’s poor quilt.
After swimming, we had free time until supper, so as soon as I could, I grabbed Emily and took her aside. “I’ve got to talk to you,” I whispered urgently.
“Meet me at the amph in fifteen minutes,” she said.
The amph was the amphitheater, our small outdoor theater set on a little rise behind the boathouse. It was on the edge of the campgrounds and we didn’t use it much. It was a quiet, private place, perfect for war plans.
“Going swimming,” Emily yelled to Nancy as she dashed out the door.
“Going for a walk,” I yelled a few minutes later.
We met up at the amph. Emily was sprawled along a bench chewing gum.
“You won’t believe this,” I said angrily as I plopped down next to her. “Guess who ruined my quilt.”
Emily opened her eyes wide. “Who?”
“Susie.”
“Come on, Kammy. You’re kidding. I know she has it in for you, but—”
“No. It’s true,” I interrupted her. “Susie said something about being sorry to hear about my quilt—before I told anyone, except Nancy.”
“Gosh,” said Emily slowly.
“Yeah,” I said. “And now she’s had it. She’s really had it. She’s been mean to me all week, I ignored her, and look what she did anyway. I promised Nancy I wouldn’t take revenge on her, but I’m going to have to. This is war. So listen to this plan. We are going to give her exactly what she wants—and exactly what she deserves.”
“Kammy, I don’t know…”
“Just listen, O.K.?” I said. “It’s sort of funny. It won’t actually hurt her. And if you don’t want to be in on it, you don’t have to be.”
“All right.”
“It’s very simple. We just issue, in secret, an anonymous invitation to each girl in our cabin to come to a private party tomorrow night. We say the invitations are only for a select few of the coolest girls at camp, and not to talk about the party. The invitations will say to sneak down to Lake Oconomowoc and to bring any goodies that can be raided from the kitchen. The only thing is, all the invitations will say to come at midnight. Except Susie’s. Her time will be eleven forty-five, which will give me just enough time to scare the pants off her with a reenactment of ‘Three-Fingered Willie.’ Susie’ll look like a real fool by the time the other girls arrive for the ‘party.’”
Emily grinned. “It would be kind of funny.”
“Will be, Em,” I said. “Will be.”
“Ooooosuuuuu. Suseeeee,” Emily began to howl.
I giggled.
“But how do you know Susie will go along with this? What if she doesn’t pay attention to her invitation? She’ll have to break rules—” Emily said.
“Don’t worry. She’ll do it. She’s dying to be part of anything here at camp. Nobody likes her and she knows it. But to think she’s considered one of the coolest girls at camp. She’ll fall all over herself.”
“All we have to do is make four invitations, give them out in secret, and make sure Susie gets the different one.”
“When do we start?” asked Em.
“As soon as we get to some paper and pencils.”
Friday night. Ten-thirty.
My mind was in a whirl. In a little over an hour Emily and I would pull off a stunt to top all stunts. Just the thought of the quilt was enough to make me want to rip Susie’s teeth out. One by one. No Novocaine.
I hadn’t been within a hundred yards of Sunny Skies all day.
Tomorrow was on my mind, too.
Dad! Would he really let me come home if I wanted to?
I couldn’t wait to see him. I decided I wouldn’t even mind seeing Kate and Muffin and Baby Boy.
Funny. I still didn’t know what decision I was going to make about camp. Camp was fun now. I was tempted to stay. On the other hand, without me around, Muffin was getting an awful lot of attention from Dad. On the third hand, I bet she still cried and puked, and had Baby Boy licked his colic yet? On the fourth hand, Kate was going to teach me stuff and…
The time ticked by.
Eleven o’clock. All systems go. Invitations issued, and probably found. A lot of odd, furtive looks during dinner, and a ridiculous amount of smirking on Susie’s part.
Eleven-forty. Susie snuck out of the cabin.
Eleven forty-five. I snuck out of the cabin.
By now I knew my way around camp in the dark as well as anyone else. My feet flew along paths, over roots and stones, through the woods to Lake Oconomowoc. Without the aid of a flashlight. When I reached the edge of the woods I stopped for a moment. The moon was full and lit up the lake like a football stadium at night.
I scanned the shore for Susie.
Sure enough, there she was, standing uncertainly at the edge of the lake.
I watched her for a few seconds.
Even though we were both alone, Susie looked somehow more alone than I felt.
I was about to begin howling when something suddenly came over me. To this day I don’t know exactly what it was.
“Susie!” I called, and ran across the sand to her.
She eyed me suspiciously.
“Susie, it’s a joke,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s a joke. I just wanted to get you down here and scare you. I was going to make you think Three-Fingered Willie was after you. The other girls are coming in a few minutes for a party. They would have caught you down here screaming about that stupid horror story again. I wanted to get back at you….I know you ruined the quilt.”
Susie just stared. She didn’t say anything for a long time. In the moonlight, I could see her eyes bright with tears. She was gulping furiously. Finally she managed to squeak out, “How did you know?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I just figured it out. But I didn’t tell anyone except Emily. I’m not going to tell Nancy. And the other girls don’t know the party is a joke on you. They think it’s a real party.” I paused. “Would you please tell me why you did that to my quilt? I worked so hard on it.” Now I was close to tears myself. “I wanted to give it to my stepmother. It was for my little stepbrother. I was trying to show Kate—oh, shoot, I don’t know.” I had to stop talking before I started crying, too. “But why did you?” I demanded fiercely.
“Because,” Susie blurted out, “you were so mean to me. Everyone’s mean to me. And because you came here, a new kid at camp, and everyone liked you. Emily, Nancy, Angela, everyone. Even though you had all these problems and caused trouble. They liked you anyway. And I’ve been here forever, and I do everything right and don’t cause any trouble, and I still don’t have any friends. Except Mary. And she would have made friends with a warthog if one had smiled at her the first day of camp.”
We both laughed uneasily.
“Then that day in art class—when Janine showed off your quilt?”
I nodded.
“It was just too much. All that attention. I was so mad at you. And you had played those tricks on me.”
I nodded again.
“Now will you tell me something?” Susie asked. Her voice sounded normal again. “How come you’re getting me out of this?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I just couldn’t go through with it. It was too mean, I guess. Even if you did ruin all the work I put into that quilt. I know it would have scared you to death.”
Through the trees we could hear hushed whispers and little crunchings and cracklings.
“Here come the others,” I said. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell them. And I’ll explain everything to Emily later. But you owe me, Susie.”
“What?”
“You owe me one. I got you out of this, so now promise something. Promise you’ll quit bugging me, O.K.?”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“All right!” she cried.
We grinned at each other.
Chapter 13
Starting Over
WELL, SUSIE AND I didn’t become overnight buddies or anything after that night, but we did make an effort either to avoid each other or to be civil. Sometimes we even tried being nice, which actually was not all that bad.
What happened after I rescued Susie was that the other four girls came crashing out of the woods. (I decided that at some future date I’d have to show them how to sneak properly.) Anyway, they were delighted to find Susie and me by the lake.
“Oh, it’s a Misty Mountains party!” cried Mary with more enthusiasm than I’d heard since the morning Sunny Skies opened. I guess, like Susie, she was pretty glad to be part of anything, even if it was just her own cabin—which she was already part of, but I didn’t bother to point that out to her.
While everyone was standing around debating the pros and cons of going for a dip in the lake at that hour (there were a lot more cons than pros), Emily grabbed me by the sleeve of my GREAT ADVENTURE T-shirt and pulled me away from the group.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
“Oh, calm down,” I said crossly. “What’s going on is nothing. I couldn’t go through with it. I decided it was too mean a trick to play. So I came down here early and had a little talk with Susie. You’ll be delighted to know she won’t be bugging us—well, me, anyway—anymore. But I did promise her something before she promised that back.”
“What?”
“That you and I would keep our mouths shut about this whole thing—the quilt, Three-Fingered Willie, everything. O.K.?”
Emily shrugged.
“Come on,” I said. “I promised. And she’ll be out of our hair. That’s worth something, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Emily said at last. She heaved a great sigh. “I was all set for a little excitement.”
“It’ll be pretty exciting if we make it back into our bunks without waking up Nancy. Anyway, Jan and Angela and Mary are expecting a party. Remember? Let’s get the food.”
I walked over to the beachhouse and returned with a large bag of marshmallows I had relieved the kitchen of earlier. I also had a book of matches.
The girls had decided it was too cold to go swimming, so I handed the matches over to Susie, who built a perfect fire in record time. We toasted the marshmallows, roasted hot dogs (from Emily), stuffed ourselves with brownies and cookies and soda (from the other girls), and told ghost stories very, very quietly.
The six of us sat around for over an hour and didn’t want to leave, but we figured it might cause a stir if Nancy came to and found her entire cabin missing, so we finally put out the fire and crept back to Misty Mountains. I think Nancy did wake up as we
were all getting settled, but she didn’t say anything. Which was very nice of her.
I slept so well that night, I woke up later than usual the next morning and just barely got myself dressed before reveille.
It was Saturday morning!
Saturday at last.
Dad, Kate, Muffin and Baby Boy arrived a little after eleven.
All us campers were hanging out on the main lawn near the mess hall watching the stream of visitors pour off the little path from the parking lot.
I saw Dad first. He was carrying Muffin on his shoulders. The way he used to carry me. Kate was behind him with Baby Boy and the diaper bag.
I waved tentatively at Dad, but just at that second he looked up at Muffin, laughed, and tugged on her sandals.
I tried again.
Suddenly he saw me. His face lit up with a huge grin. He swung Muffin down, led her back to Kate, and ran to me.
I couldn’t stand it. I jumped up and ran to him, too. We crashed into each other. I grabbed him around the waist and clung to him.
Then, to my surprise, as much as to Dad’s, I started crying, and I sobbed until his shirt was all wet, with a big patch that was a darker yellow than the rest. He didn’t ask me any questions or tell me not to cry. He just held me and patted my back until I pulled away and looked up at him. I smiled sheepishly.
Muffin and Kate had caught up with us, and Muffin, looking more adorable than ever in a frilly little sundress and red sandals, smiled hugely at me.
“Hi,” I said.
“I don’t have Rose-up with me,” she said.
Now, a couple of weeks ago that comment might have really thrown me, but I was getting used to little kids.
“My goodness,” I said seriously. “Where is she?”
“At home. On my bed.” Muffin crossed her arms and sighed heavily.
“Is that where she stays now?”
“Yup.”
“I bet you can do that because you’re four years old, right?”
“Yes!” Muffin managed to look surprised and pleased and proud all at once.