Love and Pollywogs from Camp Calamity (17 page)

T
he news about Maxey and me getting called into Ms. Marshall’s office that morning was the day’s headline at Camp Wicki. It was even better than a boy barfing up green in Totem Village. Nit and Aurora stuck close during chow, and Aurora didn’t even want to go play basketball and leave me. Which made me feel really good. The three of us tried to find a private place at Mess so we could talk, but the girls from both cabins kept scooching over to our table to eavesdrop and get the scoop.

“I’ll tell you everything later, okay? Promise! Aurora, go to basketball. I’ll be fine. Are you coming to Farts and Craps, Nit?” I asked. I loved saying that.

I saw the torn look that flashed across her face for just a split second. “You bet!” she said.

“You really don’t have to. You can go hang out with Gypsy. Really, I don’t mind, Nit. I’ll sit with Cricket and Phil so no one will bug me. We’re making lanyards today, and I’ve wanted one of those forever.”

“Oh, me too,” she said. “Darn!”

“I’ll get extra stuff, don’t worry. I can teach you later.”

“Really? You don’t mind? Ms. Hawkins said she’d let me be her assistant while she files Gypsy’s talons. I’ll have to wear special gloves to help, though. I can’t wait!”

“Go! Both of you—go! I’m fine!”

Truth was, I wanted to make lanyards today about as bad as I wanted ringworm. But I knew Aurora and Nit wouldn’t leave me if I didn’t have something that sounded fun to do. I looked over toward the boys’ tables to check on Donal. He and Bryce had their heads together and were drawing something on a pad of paper. Donal looked pretty excited. I was so glad that he was having fun finally at camp.

“Hey, Iced Tea!” Swat said as he came by with his cart to pick up trays. “Ready for a refill?”

“No thanks,” I said, not even trying to sound cheerful.

He made a skidding sound with his cart. Then he pretended he was putting it in park, turned an imaginary key, and plopped down across from me. He was so tall, he couldn’t fit his knees under the table. “Okay, what gives? You have a fight with your buddies?”

“No—they’re great. They just do other stuff in the afternoons than I do.”

He paused a minute and then asked, “Is this about your visit with your sister to Ms. Marshall’s office? I’m not asking what it’s all about,” he said, putting his hands up. “But is everything okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I guess. It’s just that—well, Ms. Marshall is ‘a little disappointed’ in me.” My face burned remembering what she’d said the day before. “I wish she wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Effie. Wow. Well, I happen to know that Ms. Marshall does not hold a grudge long, and if you don’t give her any more reason to call you into her office this week, by Saturday, you’ll be old friends.” He leaned in close. “Just for the record—when I was a camper, I was in her office three different times in the same week. She still sends me a Christmas card every year!”

“Really?” I said. “You’re not just making that up?” I remembered how on the first day Phil had made up feeling homesick to try to make me feel better.

“Honest! And I’ll tell you something else about her that not many people know.”

“What’s that?”

“Have you seen those big chocolate-dipped macaroons they sell over at Totem Village?”

I nodded.

“She’s completely addicted to them. If it were me, and if I had done some time in her office today, I might get her one, and leave it for her with a nice note.”

“Swat! I could use a hand over here!” Coco yelled from the chow line.

“Better go, or I’ll be in his office later,” he said with a laugh.

“Thanks, Swat,” I said as he wheeled away.

Made me kind of wish he would fall in love with my sister! I could use a boy like Swat in my life. With my luck, my sister would end up with Booger Boy. I’d be auntie to a herd of Booger Nieces and Nephews.

I shuddered.

•   •   •

Chica was waiting for me on the dock at four o’clock on the dot. Mr. Bucko was there too.

“Hi, Effie! We’re so glad to see you!” she said.

“I’m glad to see you too!” I said. “You ready for some more swimming?”

“Yes!”

Mr. Bucko put his hands on his hips. “How about you two work on kicking today? Just the regular scissor kick, Effie, not the dolphin kick. Why don’t you start holding on at the dock, and then get on the kickboards and practice? And I’d spend more time reviewing breathing and bubbles today.”

“Maybe you could show us the scissor kick first? I just want to be sure it’s the same one you’re thinking about. Maybe the one we do in Tyler Wash is different than the one you do here at Camp Wickitawa.”

“Sure!” He dropped down onto the dock on his stomach and kicked his legs up and down. “Like this. You try it, Chica. See how my legs look like scissors? I’m cutting through the water, so I go forward. The faster I kick, the faster I go.”

Chica and I both got down on either side of him and practiced.

“Beautiful,” he said. “Now try it in the water. I’ll be up in my chair if you need me!” He jumped up and headed to his station.

“Chica, guess what I learned in Ms. Hawkins’s class today?”

She was wading into the water, one slow step at a time. “It’s very cold and wet,” she said.

“I learned that an armadillo can stay underwater for six minutes! I think we should try to stay in the water for seven minutes. Think we can?”

“Yes!” she said. “I think we can!”

We went to the dock and practiced our scissor kick. We made up a rhyme to go with it. “Snip, snip, we love the scissor kick!” I had a feeling Mr. Jimenez was going to have to listen to that all night long.

“Hi, Maxey!” Chica yelled.

I looked up. She was standing on the dock looking down at us.

“Hi, Chica!” she said.

“Hey, watch me! Effie is teaching me to swim! Snip, snip, we love the scissor kick!”

“Wow, you’re doing great!” Maxey told her.

I waited for her to make a smart-aleck remark about me teaching Chica anything, but she didn’t.

“Do you want Effie to teach you to swim too? Get in!”

“Thanks, but Mr. Bucko already taught me. Before you know it, you’ll be swimming too!”

“Before you know it!” Chica echoed, still kicking her legs as hard as she could. “Is it seven minutes yet?” she asked.

I looked at my watch. “It’s eight minutes!”

“We did it!” she shouted, and hurried out of the water to get to her towel.

Maxey didn’t leave. She just stood at the dock looking down at me. But she didn’t say anything either. Why was she just standing there? She started tapping her toe. Then she cleared her throat. Twice.

“Oh!” I said. “You can’t talk to me!”

She nodded like,
Duh!

“But—maybe you—you have something you want to say?”

She nodded again, up toward the sky.

“This is sort of like the time you had bad laryngitis and I had to guess what you were saying?”

She blew out a big breath and rolled her eyes like she couldn’t believe how long it had taken me to figure that out.

“Uh, okay, let’s see. You feel terrible that now Ms. Marshall thinks I’m a liar.”

She lifted one shoulder and dropped it like she didn’t much mind about that.

“Fine, you feel terrible about
you
getting in trouble today.”

She shrugged, but her face said she did feel sort of bad about it.

“But you turned yourself in because—” And then I was really stumped. I hadn’t figured that part out yet. Why did she fess up? It wasn’t like her. She mostly tried to get me
in
trouble, not get me
out
of it.

It was near impossible to figure that girl out. I turned to check on Chica, who was now drying between her fingers. “You doing okay over there? About ready to come back?”

When I turned back around, Maxey stabbed her finger at Chica, then at me, then at Chica and then me. She looked like she was about to explode from wanting to tell me something.

“What? You want to swim with me and Chica?”

Any minute she was going to start banging her head on the dock. I was not getting it! She ran over to Mr. Bucko’s clipboard, which was sitting on top of a pile of kickboards. She hurried back with his waterproof marker. She leaned over to me and pulled one of my arms out of the water. She dried it off with the bottom of her T-shirt. Then she wrote across my arm in big letters.

O
n Thursday after lunch, Sister and Phil were taking some of the girls on a hike to collect leaf samples and scat for their projects for Ms. Hawkins’s class. Scat is what animals call their poop. I was already done with my project about armadillos, but I decided to go anyway. I thought maybe a long walk might help me come up with an idea for Talent Night. Nit and Aurora were always so busy that we hardly had any time to plan for it.

I stuffed my backpack full of sunscreen, my secret-message flashlight, water in my new bottle from Cricket, and the oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies Mom had sent me in a care package. I took enough to share. Mom must have mailed them before she left for the retreat. But they were still fresh and delicious. She decorated the outside of
the package with hearts and smiley faces. I tried to share some with Maxey, but she still was officially not talking to me. Or accepting cookies. Maybe Mom sent her a package of her own.

Every single day, Kayla got a special package from somewhere fancy. But nothing was ever home-baked, and the boxes never had hearts drawn on the outside by a real mother. Kids were kind of bored with her packages, and no one even wanted any of the pineapple cheesecake that came from Hawaii that morning. They were all busy with packages of their own from home that had their favorite snacks, gum, and funny letters from their families.

As I was zipping my backpack, the cabin door flew open and Aurora stormed in. She had a big scowl on her face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Frank said I can’t play ball today, and Swat even backed him up!”

“Why won’t they let you play? Did you foul out?”

“No, Frank said that he doesn’t want me to spend the whole week of camp playing ball. He said I had to pick another activity this afternoon. I bet Sister put him up to it!”

“I’m going on the hike,” I said. “Why don’t you come with me?”

She wasn’t quite done being mad, but she said, “Okay, I guess if you’re going, then I’ll go.”

“I have homemade
cook
-ies!” I sang.

She smiled. “All right!” Mrs. Triboni had sent Aurora a box of store-bought ones, because she doesn’t like to bake things you can buy.

Phil stuck her head in the door. “Any hikers in here? We’re leaving in three minutes. Sister said to remember to bring hats.”

“Coming!” I said.

Phil gave me a friendly smile. Ever since I’d gone to Ms. Marshall to get her out of trouble, she’d been super nice to me. But like she really meant it, not just because it was in her “How to Be a CIT” book.

Aurora and I grabbed all our stuff and hurried outside. We almost hurried right back in when we saw who was going: Kayla and her entire posse—Missy, Sissy, Becca, and Drew. Oh! And Chica, too. That was nice, but I’d been pretty excited at the thought of having Aurora all to myself.

“Hi, Effie! Sister said I can come hiking too!”