Love and Pollywogs from Camp Calamity (21 page)

Ms. Hawkins took the microphone from Ms. Marshall. “Gypsy and I wanted to personally thank and honor Trinity for her work. We also would like to invite her to come back with us for two weeks this summer as a special assistant to the center. I’ve already spoken to your parents, Nit, and they are very pleased at this opportunity. So if you’d like to come—”

Nit grabbed the microphone. “Yes,
please!”

We laughed and clapped some more.

Ms. Hawkins said, “If I can move Gypsy off you for just one second, Ms. Marshall has something for you, Nit.”

And the medal that I had been dreaming about since first grade, beautiful and shining like I knew it would be, was placed over her head.

I felt someone come up behind me, and I turned. It was my big sister. She didn’t look at me, but she handed me a napkin with some writing on it. I sighed. She was not going to break her promise to Mom not to talk to me this week if it killed her.

I squinted in the dark to read it.

Then she butted her shoulder into mine before she walked away.

A
s he’d sworn he would, Mr. Bucko called me at home two weeks after Camp Wickitawa was over. He’d promised me a full report on his date with Ms. Hawkins.

“Did you kiss her?” I asked.

He laughed. “Wow, Effie. That’s really personal!”

“Well, did you? I get to know, since I’m your matchmaker.” Pretty Girl rubbed her head on my chin, purring, doing the happy march.

“No, I didn’t kiss her,” he admitted. “I got nervous. But I will.”

“You will?”

“Yep, we’re going on another date next week!”

“Super!” I said, with a happy grin.

I looked up at my bulletin board, which had my Pollywog badge pinned to it. I was so proud of it. I’d aced
my swimming test the last morning of camp. Chica cheered me the whole way through it.

Next to my badge was a big colorful painting she had done of the two of us swimming in Lake Cachumo. We both have beautiful sparkly mermaid tails, and we’re smiling at each other. My hair is so red it looks like it’s on fire. I love it a lot. Her painting came in the mail about a week after camp, and Mom said we’ll get a nice frame for it soon so it will last forever.

And that isn’t all that came in the mail after camp. I got a really cool letter from Cricket on her pretty stationery. I recognized the printing right away. It was the same writing that was on all my flashlight notes! It was Cricket all along sneaking me nice messages. Her letter said that when she was a fourth-grade camper, she got super homesick and wanted to go home. But then her counselor started putting secret notes in her flashlight, which made her feel so much better. She’d sworn that if she ever went back to camp, she would carry on the tradition. She hopes I’ll do the same, because she thinks I’d be a great counselor. It’s an awful lot like being a good friend, she’d said. You let people be who they are, and cheer them all the way.

I smoothed Cricket’s letter on my lap and read the best part again, even though I knew I’d be able to recite it for the rest of my life.

Nit and Aurora are lucky to have you. And I know Chica felt the same way. You are an outstanding friend, Effie! It’s your special talent
.

With behemoth thanks to Wendy Lamb, Caroline Meckler, and Erin Murphy for all their divine guidance. And to my fairy god-sisters Robin, Lee, Val, and Thalia for keeping me lucid and laughing.

I am deeply in the debt of the following former
hooligans
campers who have served as consultants in this work, sharing lyrics, legends, ghastly concoctions, confessions, secrets, and alibis: Jamie Schlueter, Beth Bierman, Jill Gass, Kim Gardner, Diane Andrews, Nikki Diaz, Neriza Aguilar, Kate Meehan, Ellen Jackson, Charlie Perryess, Devin Chambers, Loretta Redd, Jenna McCarthy, Lee Wardlaw, Thalia Chaltas, Janice Garrett, Sherrie Petersen, Becky Levine, Ann Masters, Carol Karm, Ty Saxby, Lisa Tonello, Elaine Thompson, Linda Krop, Kellie Condon, Darcey Rosenblatt, Bonnie Ferron, Pauline Brand Nelson, Danielle Shaver, Debbie Webb-Smith, Cheri Gurse, Mary Jane Kober, and Alexis O’Neill. And special thanks to Dr. Ana Maria Irueste-Montes for the Spanish lyrics to “Buffalo Gals.”

Mary Hershey
has a number of
strange
pretty
weird
fond
memories from Camp Talaki, which now rests at the bottom of a big lake not too far from her home. She swears she had nothing to do with that! The parts she loved best about camp were her afternoon snacks, reading, getting benched from swim class, and mail call, because she never gave up hope that her mom would send her a one-way bus ticket home. (Her mom did send marshmallows, and an encouraging note.)

Mary Hershey loves writing about the stuff she
endured
enjoyed when she was in middle school. She is the author of two other books about Effie Maloney:
My Big Sister Is So Bossy She Says You Can’t Read This Book
and
10 Lucky Things That Have Happened to Me Since I Nearly Got Hit By Lightning
. She lives in Santa Barbara, California, and still loves a good afternoon snack. To learn more about Mary Hershey, visit her on the Web at
www.maryhershey.com
.