Love and Pollywogs from Camp Calamity (6 page)

“Want to walk over to your cabin with me and get a sneak preview before all the other girls?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“Let me just dash in and tell Cricket and the girls where we’ll be.”

I dropped my head into my hands. This was terrible! I couldn’t even make a phone call to my own mother. I might as well be in prison! Which made me think of my dad again. I wondered if his first day of prison felt this wretched. I bet his feet didn’t want to get off the big bus either.

When Sister came back for me, she wasn’t alone. She had a sweaty-looking girl in a hairnet with her.

I jumped up. “Maxey!” I’d never been so glad to see her in my life. “Have you talked to Mom today? Is she okay? Did she say anything about being lonely or anything?”

Maxey looked at me like she didn’t have any idea who I was. She leaned over and whispered something to Sister Lucille.

“Oh,” she said, looking at Maxey and then back at me. “She says that she promised your mom she wouldn’t talk to you at camp.”

“Oh! But it’s okay. Tell her I don’t mind, Sister!”

Maxey looked up at Sister and shook her head. “May I be excused, please? I have an awful lot of work to do.”

Sister sighed. “Fine, but will you tell me, then, so that I can tell her, that you think your mother is going to be just fine this week?”

“I think our mother is going to be just fine this week,” she recited back to Sister, not even looking at me.

“Maxey! Did you ever stop to think what could happen if Mom has all this free time while we’re gone, and gets lonely for Dad? I read on the Internet that some prisoners can have cojugular visits in trailers with their wives! Do you really want our mother doing that while we’re at camp?”

Sister cleared her throat. “I think you mean ‘conjugal’ visits, Effie.”

Maxey crossed her arms across her chest, then tilted her head up skyward. “Sister, you might want to remind your camper that Mr. and Ms. Maloney are divorced and they would not be entitled to any visits in a trailer.”

“All right, you two—”

“Excuse me, Sister,” Maxey said. “I really need to get going. Coco needs me in the kitchen.” She turned on her heel and sashayed off.

Maxey was loving this. I wanted to put my hands around her scrawny neck and shake her.

Sister put her arm around me and led me down the short stairs. “Sorry, Effie. I thought that might help. I didn’t realize when your mother told Maxey not to talk to you this week that—well, that she would be on complete mute. But I suppose that will make things a bit easier for you this week at camp, now, won’t it?”

Week! A week? I couldn’t even imagine lasting the day stuck out here in this puny air that didn’t have enough oxygen in it. And what if Coco put peas in everything? I was sure picky eaters didn’t get Outstanding Camper of the Week! Neither did girls who were freaking out about their mothers and their old cat.

I just had to pull it together, even if it killed me.

T
he cabins looked exactly the same as they had in all the pictures I’d ever seen of them. They were made out of logs, and you wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Abraham Lincoln coming out of one any minute. Mom had a picture of her Angel Scout group sitting out in front of hers.

“You’ll be here in Coyote cabin with Cricket and Phil,” Sister Lucille said, her voice excited. “Since we have enough staff for the girls, we’re going to spread out in two cabins instead of piling everyone in just one. It gives us a bit more elbow room. I’ll be with the rest of the girls next door in Elk.”

She threw open the creaky door of Coyote and led me inside. The floor was made of old wood planks, and there was a potbellied stove in one corner. Metal beds
were lined up in two rows, with a small dresser next to each one. And there was a tall locker next to each bed, too, for hanging up stuff and storing your suitcase. Or hiding in, like Mom did once. Each dresser had a little bottle on it with cut wildflowers, and a gift bag with our names written on the outside in glitter.

“See?” Sister said. “Here’s your bunk. Your suitcase is right here, all ready for you to unpack and settle in.”

I drug my feet over to where she pointed. The mattress was extremely skinny—not like the one I had at home with the sinky space in the middle. The pillow was flat as an envelope. I’d never be able to sleep there. And Maxey once told me that you can go permanently insane if you don’t sleep for four straight days. What if you didn’t sleep for seven days?

I swallowed hard and licked my lips, which were dry as dust. My bed was right under a window too. That was bad. If any of those wild animals I’d read about broke in at night, I’d be their first snack! I think I’d rather go insane than get pulled apart limb from limb by a grizzly or licked to death by one of those hog-nosed skunks.

“You can take a peek in your gift bag, Effie, if you’d like, but you need to wait until the rest of the girls come to open it. Cricket made them for you. Wasn’t that thoughtful of her?”

I shivered. “I’ll just wait. Can we go back now, Sister? It’s cold in here.”

She picked up my hands. Rubbed them quickly
between hers, which were warm, just like Mom’s. “Effie, mark my words, by next Saturday, I am going to have to pull you out of here kicking and screaming.”

Probably because I will have gone insane by then! “Will you let me call my mother tomorrow?” I asked. “We could call her early. She gets up at five a.m.”

“If I say yes, will you stop frowning?”

“Yes, Sister,” I said, baring my teeth in what was meant to be a smile but didn’t feel like one at all.

“Did you notice who you’re bunking next to?” she asked.

I turned to look. I had Nit on one side and Aurora on the other.

“Could anything in the world be better than that?” she asked.

Yeah, those same three beds and our gift bags lined up in my bedroom on Comstock Lane. Except that I was pretty sure that would put me out of the running for Outstanding Camper of the Week.

I was not ready to give up my big dream. I just didn’t know how I was going to survive it.

•   •   •

Thirty minutes later we were all back in Coyote, and it was nearly as noisy as Mess. Seven girls could make a lot of noise. Well, make that six girls. I sat on my bunk pretending to look through my gift bag while everyone else squealed like piglets and unpacked their things.

Besides me and Aurora and Nit, in our cabin we had Kimber and Georgia, Naomi and Drew. Kayla, Missy and Sissy (the Issys), Mary Peters and Mary Paul (the Marys), and Becca were in Elk cabin. That made seven girls in Coyote and only six in Elk, but Kayla was as much trouble as two kids. I was so relieved that she was not in our cabin. I think Sister must have picked to be in Kayla’s cabin on purpose so she could keep her in line. Good luck with that!

The gift bags were super nice, and normally I would have been over the moon about them. Cricket had given us each a water bottle with our name on it, lick-on tattoos, sugarless gum, earplugs, a sparkly gel pen for writing home, and a single-serving envelope of hot chocolate mix, the kind that comes with marshmallows already in it.

Cricket’s bed was closest to the door on our side of the cabin, and Phil’s was on the other side.

“Girls, gather round!” Cricket called. “We need to have a meeting before swim time.”

Everyone cheered, but I think it was about the swimming part, not the meeting part. We all sat down cross-legged on the floor in a circle.

“Welcome to Coyote, everyone!” Cricket said. “I’m so happy I get to be here with all of you. This was my cabin when I was in fourth grade.”

“It was my mom’s cabin!” Kimber said.

“My mom’s too,” Naomi added.

“Phil and I wanted to take a few minutes to get to
know you each better, and to go over a few things,” Cricket said. “We thought what we’d do is go around the circle and you can each tell us the one thing about camp you’ve been looking forward to the most. I’ll start. And then, Phil, you can go, okay? So, let’s see, the one thing I’ve been looking forward to the most is getting the chance to play some of the wicked tricks on all of you that my counselor played on me!”

“Oh,
no!”
we squealed.

“We better watch out, everyone!” Drew warned.

Cricket laughed and said, “Aw, I’m kidding. Honestly, I just can’t wait to get to know each of you. That’s going to be the biggest treat of all for me.”

“And I’m looking forward to growing and maturing this week,” Phil said with perfectly glossed lips, “so I can be a regular counselor like Cricket someday. I hope at the end of the week you’ll all want to give me a good recommendation.”

I knew Nit was working very hard not to make gagging noises.

“I’m looking forward to not having my mom tell me what I should wear every day,” Kimber said. “Or making me go back and brush my hair again!”

Georgia scooched closer to Kimber. “I’ll go next. Kimber and I have been best friends since kindergarten, but I don’t ever get to see her except at school. I’m too busy with debate club, riding lessons, and mother/daughter book club. We just want the chance to hang out together every day!”

“I want to be with my best friends, Effie and Nit, too,” Aurora said, “and I’ve been looking forward to no cooking or cleaning up after boys for a whole week!”

Cricket laughed. “Unless you get KP duty!”

“I’ll take it if you get it, Aurora!” I said.

“So will I! You deserve a week off,” Nit added.

“Well,” Drew said, “I’m hoping I’ll get my first kiss at Camp Wicki. My big sister did. But no one here better tell Sister Lucille!”

“Omigod!” Naomi said. “Who are you going to kiss?”

“I don’t know that part yet!” Drew grinned back.

“I’ll go next,” Naomi said. “Gosh, now mine seems lame. But I’m looking forward to the campfires and all the singing. And s’moooooores!”

“Oh, just wait until you try my deluxe version, Naomi,” Cricket said. “They are totally uptown. You’re in for a huge treat.”

Deluxe s’mores, I thought with a shiver of excitement. Maxey only had the plain old-fashioned kind when she came. Wait till I tell her!

Nit said, “I can’t wait to be with my friends all week too. And now I can’t wait to learn more about Gypsy!”

Cricket looked around the circle with a big smile. “I don’t think any of you will be disappointed on any account here. Well, except maybe for Drew. I can’t make any promises about your first kiss. My first kiss was a disaster, if I recall.” She made a face like she’d just licked the bottom of an old shoe.

We all cracked up at that.

“Was it at camp?” Drew asked. “Was it with anyone who’s here now? Oh, tell us, please, Cricket?” she whined.

“I’ll take that to my grave,” Cricket vowed. “Now, let’s see, did everyone have their turn yet?”

“Effie, you haven’t had yours,” Nit said.

“Go ahead, Ef,” Aurora said, giving me a gentle shoulder butt.

I pinned my lower lip with my teeth. I couldn’t confess that I was most excited about free swimming classes. How about I was super excited to go home? Uh, that sounded terrible. Lord, now everyone was waiting. I took a deep breath and just plunged in. “Wull, I’m really excited about the armadillos. I’ve never seen one in person before, and they’re so interesting and I can’t wait to study about them this week, and of course, I’m looking forward to getting to know everyone better!” That was a total mouth fart about the armadillos. I didn’t know where that came from!

“Excellent, Effie, thanks! Now,” Cricket said, looking around seriously. “Let’s talk about the biffy.”

“Who’s Biffy?” Aurora asked.

Nit and I both grabbed and poked Aurora at the same time, giggling. “We
told
you on the bus!”

“But I must have forgot!” she said.

“It’s the
bathroom!”
everyone hollered.

“I thought you said that was the jiffy! Gosh, there’s so much to remember!” she laughed.

“So,” Cricket said, trying to get us to listen, “the number one rule about the biffy is that after dark, you are
never to go alone. Number two, you take a flashlight. And number three? No bare feet. Ever. Put your tennies on. No flip-flops to the bathroom at night. Everyone got that?”

Naomi’s hand shot up. “But what if you have to go in the middle of the night and everyone is asleep?”

“You wake somebody up to go with you,” Cricket said.

“Oh, no!” Naomi wailed. “Everyone is going to just hate me by the end of the week. Because I might have to go every single night.”

“Don’t wake me up,” Drew said, even though she was Naomi’s best friend. “I’m not walking in the forest at night. My sister told me all about the Weeping Widow.”

“Who’s the Weeping Widow?” Nit asked, sitting up a bit straighter.

“She’s the topic of conversation for another time,” Cricket said. “I don’t want us to be late for swimming. One last thing, though. Some of the girls from Elk approached me at lunch about Outstanding Camper of the Week. They wanted to know what kinds of things you could do to ‘win.’”

My heart skipped a beat. I wondered who brought that up. Kayla, probably!

“I don’t want Outstanding Camper to become a big focus for any of you this week. Camp isn’t a contest. You’ll all learn different things here. I don’t want anyone to try to do something just to gain attention, and try to win.”