Love and Pollywogs from Camp Calamity (19 page)

Whatever Mr. Jimenez had brought in that jar did the trick. Before we knew it, he and the paramedics were pulling Kayla’s leg out. Which got her screaming again. We all backed up farther. The girl has some lungs.

When her leg was all the way out, I sucked in a breath. Her ankle was broken, for sure. Even I could tell that! It was facing in a funny direction.

“Girls!” Ms. Hawkins shouted from the other side of the street. “Anyone want to come look at this beautiful coral snake? I promise it’s dead. Been dead a while. But what a
gorgeous
creature!”

B
y the time we got back to camp, it was too late for Chica’s swim lesson, but I headed right for the dock anyway.

Mr. Bucko was packing up all his equipment for the day. “Hey, Effie! I just heard about all the big excitement on the hike. I’m glad everyone is all right! Well, except for poor Kayla’s leg.”

“I don’t know how to swim!” I blurted.

He picked up his T-shirt from the dock and pulled it over his head. Then he smoothed down his hair. “I know, Effie. Your sister told me the other day.”

“You already
knew?”

“Yep.”

“But why did you keep letting me teach Chica to swim?”

“Because you’re doing an excellent job! You’ve gotten her to stay in the water a lot longer than I ever have. That was the hard part, and you did it!”

“But she thinks I’ll be able to teach her really to swim, and really, I’m a big fake.”

He laughed. “No, you’re not. You’re a survivor. You figured out a way to get out of swimming class
and
help someone. I thought it was pretty ingenious myself.”

“Mr. Bucko, I really want to earn my Pollywog badge. It’s one of my biggest dreams for camp. Will you teach me how to swim? Teach me
and
Chica?”

He squatted down in front of me. “Absolutely.” He reached across and shook my hand. “And from now on, whenever I have a new group of campers, I’ll make sure no one feels embarrassed about not knowing how to swim. I’m sorry that the way I asked in Ms. Hawkins’s class that day made you feel like you couldn’t admit it.”

“It’s okay, Mr. Bucko. I know Ms. Hawkins makes you a little nervous.”

He laughed. “You noticed, huh?”

I nodded. “You should ask her for a date. I bet she’ll even show you her new dead snake.”

“I’ll tell you what. If you can swim from here,” he said, pointing to the dock, “to that rope there by Saturday when you leave, I’ll ask her to have dinner with me.”

“You will?” I bit my lip in excitement and I measured the distance from the dock to the rope. “Do you think I’ll be able to do it, Mr. Bucko?”

“I dunno. Depends how badly you want to play
matchmaker,” he said, smiling. “I’ll give you three lessons. One right now—well, I’ll give you ten minutes to suit up—one tomorrow with Chica, and one Saturday morning.”

“Five minutes!” I yelled as I ran off the dock toward my cabin.

Matchmaker! I’d never matched anyone in my whole life. Maybe that could be my new talent!

•   •   •

Chica and I were near zombies at Thursday night campfire. Between tearing through the brush running for help that afternoon and my late-afternoon swim lesson, I was plumb wore out. Mr. Jimenez played his guitar until Chica fell asleep sitting between his knees. He picked her up and carried her home. She was going to be so disappointed that she missed Cowgirl Stew. She had told me earlier it’s her very favorite. I would save her some.

I was not disappointed to be missing the moonlight canoe ride after campfire. Even if I could have gone, I’d probably have fallen asleep in the middle of it. Cricket was going to stay back with me since I was grounded from it, and Kayla wouldn’t be going because of her accident.

On our packing list for camp, Sister had told us to each bring one canned food item. Cricket had us all bring our cans to campfire. Missy brought Kayla’s can because Kayla was still at the hospital getting her ankle put in a cast. Ms. Marshall was staying with her because Kayla’s parents couldn’t come until the next day. They were in
Aspen on a business trip. I heard Missy tell Drew that Kayla’s parents traveled a lot, and Kayla saw her housekeeper more than she saw her own mother. I know it was gossip, and I shouldn’t have listened. But it helped me understand a little why Kayla might be so mean all the time. I know when Mom travels too much with her basketball team, Maxey and I get pretty cranky.

Sister and Phil were busy taking all the lids off the cans. I think we all noticed at the same time there was only one pot on the grill.

“You’re not going to—” Mary Peters said.

“All together?” I gasped.

“That’s right!” Sister said.

“In the same pot?” Becca asked, worried.

“Yup.”

“You’re gonna
mix
them?” Mary Paul asked.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Did anyone ever, you know—” Georgia stopped. “Well, sick up from it?”

“Not on my watch,” Sister said.

Sissy shuddered. “It’s scary, Sister.”

“No,” she said with a grin, “it’s Cowgirl Stew!”

“Yum!” Aurora said. “I’m so hungry!”

“Okay, who’s gonna start the stew?” Sister asked.

“I’ll go!” Drew said, and she poured a big can of vegetarian chili into the pot.

“Me next!” Missy sang, and dumped in a can of garbanzo beans.

“Well, so far I can eat that,” Becca said, peering into the pot. She poured in a can of tomatoes. She lowered her voice as she always did before she made her announcement. “You know I’m—” she started.

“Vegetarian!”
we chorused, and then burst into a fit of giggles.

Cricket put an arm around Becca and gave her a squeeze. “Ignore them. You’re going to outlive all the carnivores!”

“I’ll go next,” I said. “You can eat these!” I poured in my can of spicy black beans, and then Nit came behind me and dumped in black olives. Kimber poured in a jumbo can of pineapple, and we all shrieked.

Sister gave the pot a big stir with an evil laugh, which cracked us up.

“Sister, are you sure no one ever got sick from eating this?” Georgia asked again.

“Positive!” Sister crowed.

While we were waiting for the stew to get hot, we sang the “Hole in the Bucket” song, but Phil had us change it so we sang “Hole in the Stew Pot” instead. Phil had turned out to be a good CIT for real! She was super at leading songs and getting us all organized, and did try to be helpful. Maybe someday she’d turn out to be as nice a counselor as Cricket. I wondered if she and Maxey would ever make up. Nit said they were still not talking to each other.

Sister put two big loaves of buttery garlic bread on the
grill, which was a big relief. In case the stew tasted too disgusting, I could eat bread. And s’mores! Sister was letting us have them again. Yum. I was super hungry from my swimming lesson today. I had worked hard.

I kept practicing in my head like Mr. Bucko told me to do. He said I needed to imagine myself swimming, instead of imagining myself
not
swimming, or even drowning. I pictured myself over and over in my head making it all the way from the dock to the rope. And maybe earning my Pollywog badge! It wasn’t the same as Outstanding Camper of the Week, but it was going to be pretty sweet all the same.

Sister handed the spoon over to Cricket, then reached into her back pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She kept it on vibrate so it wouldn’t interfere with our back-to-nature experience. “Hello? Yes? Oh, excellent! Thanks!” She snapped her phone shut. “I told Ms. Marshall to call us when she was about five minutes away. She’s got Kayla! We’re going to leave our stew for just a few minutes. Let’s all go stand under the Camp Wickitawa sign with our flashlights and give Kayla a big welcome home!”

“I’ll stay and watch the stew!” Phil yelled.

Sister called Frank next and before you knew it, the whole camp was lined up in two long rows under the Camp Wickitawa signs like we were waiting for a parade to come through. I turned my flashlight on to get ready, but it didn’t go on. I smiled. I knew what that meant! I couldn’t wait to see what my new secret message said.

“There!” Donal yelled at the first flash of headlights.

We all waved our flashlights overhead and stomped and hollered as Ms. Marshall drove under the sign. Kayla was in the backseat with her face pressed up to the window. She looked like she couldn’t believe it all.

Maybe she hadn’t had her parents at the hospital, but she had twenty-four kids here who were glad to see her back. And strangely, even I really was glad!

E
ven though Thursday was a very long day, no one had any trouble getting up Friday morning when we heard the Blasted Annoying Bugle. I told Nit and Aurora that I’d seen the intercom in Ms. Marshall’s office, and it must be her playing the bugle every morning. Aurora said it could just be a recording, but she didn’t know that for sure.

We all jumped up and got right to our chores, and lined up for our turns in the biffy, like we’d been doing this for months instead of just five days.

“Thanks for getting up with me again last night, Effie!” Naomi said from behind me in the line.

“Yeah, thanks, Ef!” Georgia said.

“Omigod! It was so dark when Effie and I went,”
Kimber said. “I heard this noise and I thought it was the Weeping Widow! I nearly jumped out of my skin, but Effie said it was just an old cat in heat.”

“Gosh, you’re so brave, Effie!” Mary Peters said.

I shrugged. It was no big deal, but everyone was really nice to me about it. Cricket kept telling me that I could wake her up so I didn’t have to be the one to go all the time. Phil said the same thing. I didn’t mind. I like being helpful.

Drew leaned out of the line and gave a quick look around. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Well, guess who Effie and I ran into?” She shot me a secret smile.

“Who?” Georgia asked.

“Keenan!” she whispered.

“What was Keenan doing over here?” Kimber asked.

Drew clutched her hands to her heart, and sighed. “Meeting me at three a.m. like we planned.”

Everyone around us gasped. Except me, of course, because I’d been there for the whole thing. Drew had told me not to look, but I couldn’t help myself.

“You got your first kiss!” Naomi breathed.

Drew grinned. “Told you I would!”

“What was it like?” Mary Peters asked.

“Very winter fresh,” Drew giggled. “I think he must have eaten a whole roll of mints before he got here!”

I was at the sink laughing and brushing my teeth with Naomi when it hit me: I hadn’t had a lick of altitude sickness all day Thursday! Just like Cricket said. I’d been so busy I hadn’t had time to even think about it. And maybe I wouldn’t have any today!

After breakfast, we headed over to Ms. Hawkins’s for our class. Since it was the last day, we were sharing our projects. Ms. Marshall came to listen and brought her clipboard. Everyone knew why. But I wasn’t nervous, since I knew I couldn’t be her Outstanding Camper. Which was okay.

Becca’s twin, Bryce, got up to give his report and all the girls sat up and looked at each other. Bryce was the strongest competition from the boys for Outstanding Camper.

Bryce’s report was about soil and what kind of food you could grow here. His idea seemed to be that if you cut down a lot of the trees, you could grow tons of soybeans. It sounded pretty smart. He knew just about everything you would want to know about all the dirt at Camp Wickitawa. He had about twenty-five soil samples from all different parts of camp. But as Kayla had predicted, it was deadly boring. Least to us kids. Ms. Marshall might have been thinking he was a bloody genius.

There was a lot of very polite clapping when he was done, but there were no questions from anybody.

“Effie?” Ms. Hawkins called. “It’s your turn.”

I went to the front of the room. I cleared my throat and looked around. Donal gave me a big thumbs-up, and Nit and Aurora were in the front row smiling at me. Ms. Marshall gave me a nice nod. I think that macaroon helped, like Swat said it would.

“The title of my report is ‘Armadillos: Not Built for Racing
or
Dodging Cars.’” Ms. Hawkins handed me some
gloves, which I put on. Then she handed me Kappa, who we had decided in advance would be less shy in public.