Church Camp Chaos (11 page)

July 11

Macy and her mom are coming to our house this morning. Our moms have started clipping coupons together, and they seem to think it’ll be good mother-daughter time if Mace and I help them. Cutting and organizing coupons sounds like the number one most boring thing I could possibly be forced to do. But I figure once Macy and I help for a while, they’ll let us go play outside, and I can show her the tree house!

Tonight after supper we have a family game night planned, with all of our favorites: Chickenfoot (a game played with dominoes where the pieces are arranged in a way that looks like a bird’s talons), Uno (the best card game there is), and Mouse Trap (a crazy board game that ends up with a chain reaction in which you try to capture other players’ mice in a cage).

And I’m pretty much the best at all of them.

Here’s something you should know about me, Diary: I love playing games. Well, actually, I like winning DOMINATING games. Mom and Dad are always trying to get me to be a better winner, and I tell them I’m a great winner—I win all the time! But I guess that’s not what they mean by “better winner.”

The truth is, Diary, it feels so good to rub the loser’s (Isaac’s) nose in his loss! Anyway, aren’t adults always saying that losing builds character or something like that?

EJ

EJ stuck out her tongue while she concentrated on cutting out a fifty-cent-off coupon for dish soap.

“EJ, you don’t have to worry about the edges being perfectly straight,” Mom said as she filed a coupon in her binder.

“I’m trying to make my coupons as perfect as Macy’s,” EJ said, breaking her concentration when the paper caught in the scissors, ripping the coupon in half. “Oh rats.”

Perfectly cut coupons were just the beginning of the differences between EJ and her best friend. EJ wished she knew Macy’s secret to looking and acting so cool, calm, and collected. Macy’s shoes were always tied (EJ usually tripped over her shoelaces), Macy’s coffee-colored hair always lay perfectly in its adorable bob (EJ’s unruly not-quite-straight-but-not-quite-curly hair had a mind of its own).

“I just try to take my time,” Macy said. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, though.”

Macy laid a precisely cut paper rectangle on her stack of coupons on the Paynes’ kitchen table. EJ looked at the hot mess of paper in front of her and wrinkled her nose.

“Will these still work even though they aren’t cut straight, Mrs. Russell?” EJ asked Macy’s mom.

“As long as we can still see the complete scanner code, they’ll work just fine.” Mrs. Russell picked up the two halves of the ripped dish soap coupon in front of EJ. “This one just needs a little tape and it’ll be good as new—there!” She added the mended coupon to EJ’s pile.

“You girls have been a big help cutting out the coupons,” Mom said. “Thank you.”

“We’re done?” EJ looked at Mom expectantly. “Does that mean we can go outside and play?”

“You may,” Mom said. “I’ll call you in when lunch is ready in a bit.”

“Have fun in the new tree house, girls!” Mrs. Russell called as EJ and Macy made a beeline for the backyard.

“That cloud looks like a snail—see its shell?” Macy pointed to the fluffy cloud through the tree house’s open sky hatch. The girls were lying on their backs in the beanbag chairs, looking for interesting clouds.

“Good one!” EJ said. She pointed to a smaller dark cloud to the right of the snail. “I see a hummingbird there.”

“This tree house is so great, EJ,” Macy said, sitting up and looking around the room. “I think I could live here.”

“So, Miss Russell, what will it take to get you into this house today?” Realtor EJ smiles at her potential home buyer—a young gymnast and Olympic gold-medal winner looking for her very first home away from her parents’ house
.

“Well, I’m not sure I need quite so much living space,” Macy says, looking uncertain. “It’s just me who will be living here. But I do really like this skylight that’s in the bedroom.”

“Perfect for stargazing,” EJ says. “Let’s go take a peek at the gym. Surely that’s a must-have for every athlete.”

The two walk downstairs to the fully furnished gym—uneven bars, pommel horse, balance beam, tumbling floor, and trampoline
.

EJ sees Macy’s face brighten and the wheels turning in her brain
.

“If this was my house, I could give lessons to boys and girls who might not have enough money to pay for lessons,” she says, already imagining a dozen little kids practicing their tumbling on the padded floor. Macy thrusts her hand toward the Realtor. “I’ll take it.”

“I would be awesome at selling houses,” EJ said, mentally adding Realtor to her list of possible career options.

A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, and a few moments later EJ felt a sprinkle on the top of her head. She reached up to tug on the rope that pulled the sky hatch closed.

Macy stood up and looked out the window as big raindrops fell from the sky. “If I had a tree house just like this, then maybe I could move there instead of Milwaukee,” she said.

“Oh yeah! Living in this tree house would be aweso— Wait. What?” EJ said, sitting up, hoping she had misunderstood what Macy said. “Did you say
move
to
Milwaukee
?”

“Yes. We might be moving there.” Macy didn’t make eye contact with EJ but instead fidgeted with the star curtains. “I found out last week.”

“How’d you find out?” EJ asked, still soaking it all in.

“Mom and Dad had been acting funny the past few weeks.” Macy looked at her toes. “Dad left unexpectedly for a business trip, and when he got back it seemed like he and Mom had a secret between them—a couple of times when I walked into the kitchen and they were in the middle of a conversation, they’d start using code words for what they were talking about.”

Secrets? Code words?
Macy’s explanation reminded EJ of the phrases she had been trying not to think about:
“Situation … opportunity …” “Some stuff … about the thing …”

“Then last week, I caught Mom crying while she was making salad for dinner,” Macy continued, “and I couldn’t take it anymore—I had to ask what was going on.”

Mom—crying
. Things seemed awfully familiar to EJ. Suddenly a terrible thought popped into her head:
We’re moving. Maybe Dad is being called to another church—a new ministry far away. That has to be it
.

“That’s when she told me Dad’s getting transferred to Milwaukee for work,” Macy finished miserably.

“But … Mace, but you can’t
move
!” EJ willed herself to stop thinking about her own problems and focused on her friend. “We’re going to be in the same class next year!”

Macy looked at EJ, her eyes swimming in tears about to spill onto her cheeks. “I didn’t want to tell you, EJ—because when I say it out loud it makes it feel even more real.”

EJ’s mind whirred. She wanted so desperately to change what was happening—to fix the problems. But even though she could order off of the adult menu now, the fact was that she was still just a kid, and these things had to do with adult decisions.

She suddenly felt very helpless.

“I don’t want to leave my friends—but I especially don’t want to leave my best friend!” Two streams of tears forged their way down Macy’s face. EJ wasn’t used to seeing her friend out of sorts like this. It was usually EJ who was having some kind of drama and Macy was the one with the calming words.

EJ’s perfect summer was turning out to be way less than perfect. She didn’t know what to do but give Macy a hug, so that’s what she did.

“Don’t worry, Mace.” EJ tried to make her voice as encouraging as she could, even though she felt crummy, too.
I’m worried enough for the both of us
, she thought.

Sea Fleet Naval Commander EJ Payne glances at the blinking lights on the radar screen. The enemy has been particularly hard to engage in this battle, and she’s beginning to feel the pressure
.

She picks up a glass of ice water, and her hand shakes a bit, causing tiny ripples to form on the surface of the water
.

“Take it easy, Payne, “she whispers to herself. “You’ve done this a hundred times before.”

EJ presses the glass to her forehead and enjoys the coolness, closing her eyes for a moment
.

“Where are yoooooou, Commander Payne?” an evil-sounding voice mocks EJ over the console speaker. The person behind the voice is Sea Fleet’s biggest enemy—a bad guy known simply as “The Invader.”

“Your move, Commander … unless you want me to just go ahead and destroy you now and end your misery—”

“No!” EJ shouts back. “Just give me a second to think.”

“Tick-tock,” the voice sneers
.

EJ rubs her eyes with her fists and tries to focus on the screen in front of her. The Invader has already destroyed four of her ships. One more hit to the final ship—the aircraft carrier that she is currently aboard—and the battle will be lost
.

EJ takes a deep breath and says “E-nine,” her voice sounding more confident than she actually feels
.