“Me neither.”
She peers over her sunglasses at me. “So, are you ready for college?”
I shrug. Megan knows I’ve been feeling a little worried. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”
“Yeah, me too.”
We’re quiet for a moment.
“It’s going to be weird, being so far apart,” I finally say. Megan and I have been best friends since elementary school. “You’d better promise to call me a lot.”
She nods. “Call, text, e-mail, videoconference. You’ll be thoroughly sick of me.”
“Never.” I smile at her. Then I sit bolt upright. “Oh hey, I just remembered—I left the package from Summer Williams with the batting I need to finish Amy’s wall hanging in the cabin. Back in a flash.”
Megan waggles her fingers at me as I jog off down the path.
Opening the door to Balsam a minute later, I walk into the middle of something. What exactly, I’m not sure at first. Grace, Mia, and Brooklyn are pulling a bag out from under Amy’s bed. They look up with a guilty start.
“What’s going on, girls?” I ask, my radar switching into high alert. It suddenly occurs to me that I’m probably looking at the trio whose suspicious discussion I overheard from my cubie house the other night.
“Nothing,” says Grace quickly. “Just some, uh, peanut stuff.”
The other two exchange a glance, and my radar ratchets up another notch.
“Okay, guys, seriously, what’s going on?”
Brooklyn blushes a deep crimson. Mia looks at her feet. Grace doesn’t say a word.
“Look, I know ‘nothing’ when I see it, and this is not nothing,” I tell them, starting to feel a little angry. Especially since they’re clearly plotting something against Amy.
Grace slumps. She looks over at Mia and Brooklyn. “I guess we have to show her, huh?”
They nod. Grace holds out the bag. I look inside, puzzled at first, and then—
“Wait a minute, this is what all the whispering was about?”
The three of them nod again. Brooklyn points to Grace. “It was her idea,” she says, sounding a little nervous. Like maybe I’ll get mad or something.
Grace shakes her head vigorously. “I got the idea from the book,” she tells me. “Understood Betsy, I mean. You know, the part where they make all that stuff for Elias?”
I frown, still not quite connecting the dots.
“And I got the idea from you, too,” she finishes, her gaze dropping to the floor.
“Me?”
“Back on that first night, when you got mad at me, remember? When I said Amy was a crybaby. You told me to be a leader.”
I look at her, shocked. Those words I’d said in haste and anger had sunk in? She’d actually remembered them? I look back in the bag again. “So does everyone in the book club know about this?”
“We didn’t tell Nest yet, because we didn’t think they could keep it a secret,” says Brooklyn. “But Freddie and Nica and Carter all know.”
“And everybody from Balsam,” Mia adds.
“Do you think she’ll like it?” asks Grace, looking worried.
“Like it?” I smile. “She’ll love it. It’s perfect.”
“You won’t tell her?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Grace flings her arms around my waist and gives me a big hug. I hug her back.
When I get to Minneapolis next month, I’m definitely signing up for an education class.
CASSIDY
“The girls took turns in carrying the big paper-wrapped bundle, and stole along in the shadow of the trees, full of excitement, looking over their shoulders at nothing and pressing their hands over their mouths to keep back the giggles.”
—Understood Betsy
I lean my head back, trying to peek underneath the blindfold. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Total darkness.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask. The only response is excited giggles. “C’mon, you guys!”
From the moment my campers ambushed me outside the Biffy, I could tell they had something up their sleeves. I’m willing to go along for the ride, but I just hope it doesn’t involve total humiliation. Or a skunk.
I stumble on a root or a rock or something and nearly do a face plant, but instantly I feel many little hands grabbing me and setting me upright again.
“Almost there,” says someone—Grace, I think. From the sounds of it, whatever is going on is a joint operation between Twin Pines, Balsam, and Nest.
Finally, after another big helping of whispers and giggles, we come to a stop. The blindfold is whisked away, and I look around, blinking, at—nothing. It’s still pitch-black.
“On the count of three,” says a voice to my left, Carter’s this time. “One, two, THREE!”
A whole bunch of flashlights switch on, illuminating the last thing I ever expected to see.
My mouth drops open.
Directly in front of me, on the dance platform overlooking the lake, are a pint-size bride and groom.
I peer at them. “Freddie? Nica? What are you guys doing?”
More giggles.
As I stand there, something is draped around my shoulders, something soft, like a quilt. I glance down. It is a quilt. Another something is thrust into my hands. Jess, who is standing beside me, shines her flashlight on it. It’s a bouquet made of pinecones. They’ve been spray-painted sky blue and sprinkled heavily with glitter, and the whole thing is ornamented with sprigs of pine and yards of white ribbon.
“Um,” I say, not exactly sure what other comment to offer. “I don’t know what to say.”
“How about ‘thank you,’ ” whispers Jess, elbowing me in the ribs.
Tara smiles up at me. “It’s because of the antelope.”
“Cantaloupe,” whispers Meri, frowning at her.
“Elopement,” Pippa corrects them both firmly.
“We know you’re sad that you didn’t get to be in your sister’s wedding—” Grace starts to explain.
“—and we wanted to do something to make you happy,” Brooklyn finishes.
I’m finally starting to get the picture. Touched, but at the same time afraid I might laugh out loud, I carefully avoid looking at my friends. “Wow,” I tell the girls. “Really? This is amazing.”
“You like it? You’re not mad?” Grace asks anxiously.
My friends are shooting me evil-witch-mother-eyes-of-death from all directions. The kind that say, Don’t blow this.
I don’t.
“Why would I be mad?” I reply. “I love it!” I look down at the bouquet I’m holding, feeling a lump rise in my throat. “And I love you all for planning it.”
I called home on my day off earlier this week—I’d really wanted to talk to Courtney, but she’s still on her honeymoon, so I figured I’d talk to my mother instead. My stepfather answered, and told me that Mom was at her Mommy & Me yoga class with Chloe.
“Guess you’re stuck with me, kid,” he joked.
The two of us ended up having a great talk. Stanley explained to me that Courtney had been feeling a lot of pressure about having a perfect wedding, especially because of my mother’s TV show. I guess Mom had been filming some of the preparations, and she even floated the idea of filming the wedding itself.
Courtney was worried that if she said no, it would come as a huge disappointment, so she’d asked Stanley for his advice.
Our stepfather is a rock star in the advice department.
It turns out he was the one who suggested the elopement! When I saw my mother recently, she didn’t know this, because Courtney and Stanley figured it was best to keep his involvement a secret. But my mother found out because Grant let it slip to his mom, and well, moms talk.
“So how come you told her to elope?” I asked, puzzled. It’s not like Stanley to go behind my mother’s back.
“First of all, I didn’t tell her to elope, I merely offered a suggestion,” he pointed out. “And second of all, it was the right thing to do. If Courtney eloped, it
would be a done deal. Sure, your mother would be disappointed. But she’d get over it, and eventually she’d understand. There’d be no question of her trying to talk your sister into something she didn’t want to do, and Courtney could just have a big blow-out wedding reception afterward, which your mother could organize to her heart’s content. All of the fun for Clemmie, and none of the pressure for your sister. Does that make sense?”
I had to admit that it did. In fact, I probably would have done the same thing if I were in Courtney’s shoes.
“Your mother was furious with me when she found out, though,” Stanley admitted.
I laughed. “Yeah,” I replied. “I can imagine.”
“She’s happy as a clam now, though, planning the party,” he assured me. “You know your mother.”
I certainly do. She’s already redesigning my bridesmaid dress into something more suitable for a reception instead of a wedding.
Now, standing here, I glance down at the “bridesmaid” outfit my campers have given me to wear, and at the lumpy, homemade, absolutely perfect pinecone bouquet. Then I look across the flashlight-lit dance platform at the shining faces of Nica and Freddie—whose face really is shining, despite the splotch of chocolate on her chin. They obviously can’t wait to play bride and groom.
I smile. “Let’s have a wedding!”
And we do.
Our campers are still talking about it the next evening, when it’s Nest’s turn for a sleepover on Dreamboat.
“Finally!” says Emma as we load her and Felicia and their girls into the war canoe. I thought it would be fun to ferry them out in style.
“Great idea, sport,” said Sergeant Marge, which was high praise, considering I still don’t think she likes me very much. The skunk episode didn’t exactly do me any favors, although I may have redeemed myself a bit with my part in the Great Toilet Seat Heist, as we’re calling it. That whole thing certainly raised the head counselor a notch or two in my eyes. Who would have guessed that Marge the Barge had such a wild streak?
The ironic thing is that Sergeant Marge is my peanut.
Talk about someone who’s hard to figure out gifts for! I’ve never once seen her in civvies all summer, so I have no idea what kind of a person she is in real life. I’ve mostly given her candy so far, but I found something at Lovejoy’s Books on my day off that I think she’ll really like—a book of historic postcards showing Lake Lovejoy through the decades—and for my grand finale present, I enlarged one of the pictures I took of the Gazebo at sunset and had it framed. I figure I can’t go wrong with a couple of mementos from camp.
Twin Pines and Balsam pile into the canoe behind the girls from Nest, and Artie and Sergeant Marge shove us off from the beach.
“Here comes the bride,” sings Tara, and the rest of us pick up the refrain as we start to paddle. I glance over my shoulder to see the head counselor and handyman watching us with puzzled expressions on their faces. Last night’s escapade on the dance platform is still our little secret.
I did manage to get a picture of all of us, though. Jess was smart enough to bring along my camera, and I set it on the railing and used the timer. It turned out really well. My family will get a huge kick out of it.
“See you guys in the morning!” I tell Emma and Felicia and their girls after we unload them onto Dreamboat. “Camp Lovejoy’s Chauffeur Service will be here at seven a.m. sharp to pick you up.”
The five of them line up behind the floating cabin’s white picket fence and wave to us.
“Let’s serenade them,” whispers Jess, so we paddle on around the Point, out of sight, and wait for a while, practicing in whispers until we figure they’re settled. Then we paddle back and quietly glide up beside Dreamboat, launching into a Nest-friendly version of “Good Night, Irene”:
Nesties, good night, Nesties, good night!
Good night, dear Nest—Good night, dear Nest
We’ll see you in our dreams. . . .
Tara, Meri, and Pippa press their faces to the screen windows of the floating cabin, smiling broadly at us as they listen to our song. Watching them, I feel that lump rise in my throat again.
I’m going to miss this place.
I’ve had a great summer. If I’m lucky—and if Sergeant Marge doesn’t torpedo my application—maybe I’ll get to come work here again next year.
Back in my cubie, I find a present waiting for me from my shell: a roundish stone painted black to look like a hockey puck, with the initials “BU” painted on top in red.
Like I said, I’m going to miss this place.
Next morning, I’m up at the crack of dawn as per usual. I’m so not in the mood for a run it’s not funny, but the thing about sports is, it’s a mental discipline. It’s about you telling your body what to do, and not the other way around. So I force myself to stumble over to my cubie, where I pull on shorts and a T-shirt, then sit down to lace up my running shoes. I’m thinking I’ll do the Pumpkin Falls loop again today, the same route I ran during Four on the Fourth.
Eva Bergson’s silver whistle catches my eye as I’m heading out the door, and I reach for it impulsively, looping the lanyard over my head. I could use a talisman this morning, a tangible reminder of someone else who knew the importance of discipline.
I use the hill as a warm-up, climbing briskly. Once I reach the main road, I turn toward town and break into a jog. I’m just approaching the covered bridge when I see another runner coming toward me. To my surprise, I recognize Jake.
“Hey!” I call in greeting.
“Hey!” he calls back. Slowing, he turns to run beside me. “Mind if I join you?”
I shake my head. “Not at all. The more the merrier.”
He matches his pace to mine, and we trot along in silence for a bit.
“So I guess we’re even now, right?” he asks finally.
I grin at him. “Even enough.”
We turn up Hill Street and are soon both panting. “So,” he says, “I’ve been meaning to ask you . . . when you get to BU—”
“Yeah?”
“—would you maybe, um, want to go out sometime?”
I nearly stop in my tracks. Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
“I’m just across the river,” he pants. “At MIT. We could go to a movie or something.”
Seriously? He’s asking me out? At 5:30 in the morning, with me dripping sweat and smelling like last week’s dirty gym socks? I give him a sidelong glance. I will never in a million years understand the male species.
“Uh, maybe,” I tell him cautiously.
“I’d love to come to one of your hockey games, too.”
I shrug. “Sure. It’s a free country.”
The thing is, romance complicates things. Not in a bad way, just in a, well, complicated way. Tristan Berkeley will be in Boston this fall too, for an international ice dancing competition, and even though we’re not exactly boyfriend-girlfriend, we’ve had a few “romantic interludes,” as Emma calls them, and I’m looking forward to seeing him again. Really looking forward to seeing him again. Do I want to add Jake to the mix as well?
Boys. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.
“So I can call you?” Jake’s voice is normal again. We’ve crested the hill and are on the long downhill stretch back toward the covered bridge.
“Why not?” I say, throwing caution to the wind, and I promise to give him my cell number before the end of camp.
Looking pleased, he sketches a wave and peels off on the road toward Pinewood. The wind starts picking up as I loop around the village green a few minutes later. The sky, which was overcast when I got up this morning, has turned a dark slate color. We’re clearly in for some rain, and I decide it’s time to head back.
It starts coming down just as I turn off the main road. I sprint past the office and into the forest, grateful for the cover of the trees overhead. I jog on down the hill, and when I emerge from under the canopy of trees, I stop in my tracks.
Down the
lake, just past Cherry Island, is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. A dark cloud is churning through the water, heading straight for camp. I look around wildly for help, but no one is in sight. It’s too early—everyone is still sleeping.
I grab Eva’s whistle and start blowing like crazy, the SOS Morse code distress signal that my father taught me years ago when we used to go sailing.
The door to Cabbage flies open and the head counselor tumbles out, looking wildly around for the source of the alarm. She spots me pelting toward her and I point frantically at the cloud, which is flattening trees on Cherry Island like matchsticks. Sergeant Marge turns to look and her mouth drops open.
Poor bald eagles, I think, hoping they managed to fly away in time.
Back at the beginning of the summer, Gwen told us that Sergeant Marge is the kind of person you can count on in a crisis. It turns out she was right.
“Ring the bell!” she hollers to me. “NOW! Get everybody into the Dining Hall and make them take cover under the tables!”
I nod.
“Give me your whistle!”
I don’t even hesitate.
“I’ll do a sweep to make sure we don’t miss anyone,” she says, and takes off at a run, desperately blowing my whistle to rouse camp’s sleeping inhabitants.
I grab the bell and start ringing it like fury. As I’m whipping the rope back and forth, I glance past Lower Camp’s cabins to the cove and see something even scarier than the black cloud.
Dreamboat is gone!
Completely gone, as in disappeared, vanished, vamoosed. The buoy is all that’s left, tethered to a big fat nothing and spinning in the wind.
Final score: I don’t know and I don’t care. My friends are missing.
Emma
“Not a thing had happened the way she planned, no, not a single thing! But it seemed to her she had never been so happy in her life.”
—Understood Betsy
I’m dreaming.
Dreaming on Dreamboat. The words float on the surface of consciousness, far above where I’m submerged in languid half-sleep.
Stretching lazily, I smile. In my dream, I’m at the skating rink in Concord, doing a layback spin. Unlike in real life, where I’ve never quite been able to master it, my dream spin is precise, flawless, a perfect 10.