Love and Pollywogs from Camp Calamity (8 page)

I
was the first one awake in Coyote cabin Monday, and it wasn’t because I couldn’t wait for the day to get started. I was hoping the crack of dawn would qualify as my time to call Mom. I wanted to catch her before she left for her retreat. I leaned over Cricket’s cot and tapped her shoulder to get permission to go to Elk cabin. She yawned and said I had to wait until something called revery.

“Okay—um, how will I know when it comes?”

“Oh, you’ll know!” she said, putting her pillow over her head.

I went back to my bunk and sat down. It was already made, so I didn’t get back in it. I’d worked very hard on making it perfect for inspection. When Ms. Marshall came by, she’d see right off that I was an Outstanding Bed Maker.

Everyone else was still sleeping. Guess they were worn out from all the fun they were already having. Nit was buried under her covers, and I couldn’t even see her face, just some poky hair coming out the top. Aurora would twitch now and then in her sleep like she was probably dreaming about playing you-know-what. They both looked very cozy, and I felt jealous, because I had been truly uncozy all night long. I wanted to be home sleeping in my own bed with Pretty Girl. Even thinking about her gave me a gut ache. She was probably standing on my bed right now, wondering what the heck had happened to the girl she usually slept with. I shut my eyes and sent her a mental kiss on the top of her head. That always made her do a little happy march. I hoped Mrs. Korn didn’t forget to kiss her every day like I put on my instruction sheet.

Pretty Girl was super old. What if she
croaked
while I was here? What if she thought I was never coming back, and died of a busted heart? How could I have been so selfish to even think about going to camp and leaving her? They should have mentioned this in the camp registration form.
Attention: If you have a very old cat or dog, perhaps you should skip camp
.

“Effie!” Nit whispered. “What’re you doing up so early?” She rubbed one eye and then looked at her watch. “It’s not even six o’clock yet.”

“Too excited to sleep,” I whispered back, with fake enthusiasm. I was not going to ruin my best friends’ time at camp by letting them know how miserable I really was.

“What are you guys whispering about?” Aurora asked, forgetting to use her quiet voice.

“Nothing! Just go back to sleep.” Aurora didn’t need any encouragement, but Nit kept an eye peeled on me. She was a little harder to trick since she was so good at figuring things out.

I went over to my dresser and pulled out the top drawer as quietly as I could. I needed the folder I’d brought from home. I’d made some special cards in advance to give to the girls in my cabin. The cards had fun stickers on them and said things like
You’re a winner!
and
Have a fun day at camp!
and
Thanks for being a nice cabin-mate!
I had taped a piece of bubble gum in each one of them. I thought it might help me win Outstanding Camper. Even though Cricket said we weren’t supposed to try. I’m not the kind of kid who has great things happen to her by accident, like Cricket. I have to work extra hard. That’s just the way it is for the Maloneys.

I pulled the cap off my new gold gel pen from Cricket and wrote everyone’s name on their card. I started to sign my name, but then I stopped. Frank says that when you’re doing something nice for someone, you shouldn’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. That’s one of those very confusing things from the Bible that’s meant to teach you a lesson
if
you can figure out what it means. I sighed and scratched my nose. Since I’m right-handed, I
could
sign the cards without my left hand knowing what I was doing. But I thought there was a secret trick to it, and
I was trying to remember what it was. I’d ask Sister later what it meant.

I looked over at Nit, but her eyes were closed now. I knew what she’d do. She would not sign the cards. She’d just give them out to make people happy, and not really care if they knew where they came from.

Aurora wouldn’t give out cards at all. She’d just offer everyone a piece of her bubble gum. Which was nice too!

Gosh, this was hard.

Then I thought about what Maxey would do. She would sign her name in fancy letters and make a big deal about it. And she’d squawk about it all day until you just wanted to woof up.

That sealed the deal for me. I closed the cards up without my name and then tiptoed around to each girl, laying the card up on her dresser.

Cricket snuck up behind me as I was putting the last one out. “I spy someone doing something nice!” she whispered. “I won’t tell a soul,” she promised. “Cross my heart.”

“Well, if you have to tell, you know—if Ms. Marshall asked you about how things were going in the cabin, you know—well, you could tell her. I wouldn’t get mad.”

“How’s your head this morning?”

“Better,” I lied, crossing my fingers behind me so the lie wouldn’t count.

I had decided in the middle of the night as I was trying to fall asleep on the flattest pillow that was ever made that
starting today, I wasn’t going to talk about how I was feeling with
anyone
. Having them fuss over me wasn’t going to make my altitude sickness go away any faster.

“Oh, good, Effie! I hated seeing you looking so pasty yesterday.”

All of a sudden a very loud trumpet blasted through the intercom! Everyone jumped and nearly fell out of their bed. It went on for a long time, and no one liked it. At all.

“That is reveille, Effie!” Cricket smiled. “Our daily friendly wakeup call.”

“May I go to Elk cabin now, then? I need to talk to Sister before it gets too late. I did most all my chores except the biffy sink. I wanted to wait until everyone is done spitting their toothpaste out.”

“Good idea, Effie. Hurry back. A big fun day is waiting for you!”

•   •   •

Turned out Sister Lucille had pulled a fast one on me. She had told me that I could call Mom on Monday. What she really meant was I could call Mom Monday
after
rest period, which was nearly all the way to dinner. Which was so many hours away it might as well have been the next week.

I had a whole day to get through first. Which had been Sister’s sneaky plan the whole time. She’d figured I’d get busy and I’d forget I even wanted to call. She was using psychology on me, which I hate a lot.

This was pure torture. But I’d been through worse, and I’d get through this. Sister Lucille would be very surprised to see me the very first second rest period started, ready to make my call!

I was also disappointed that none of the girls in my cabin recognized my handwriting on the cards I’d left on their dressers. They would all make terrible detectives. But they were excited about it when I returned from Elk, and were trying to guess. Aurora and Nit knew my handwriting, of course, but since I didn’t sign my name, they assumed it was top-secret. They were ready to take the truth to their graves. Just this once, I wished they weren’t quite so loyal. To make it even worse, Kimber said it must have been Kayla because she liked to use fancy gold pens.
No! Not Kayla!
I nearly screamed. Thankfully, Cricket chirped up, saying it was definitely someone from our own cabin.

We were all kind of shocked to see what Sister Lucille was wearing when she came in and rounded us up for breakfast. The day before she’d been wearing her regular nun habit with a camp T-shirt over that. Today she had on jeans, a camp T-shirt, and a red do-rag covering her hair.

The boys all nearly sprained their necks ogling her when we went into Mess, since she looked like a regular lady now. Sister wasn’t wearing any makeup or jewelry, but she still looked pretty. Nit elbowed me in the side when Sister walked by with her tray. “Did you notice, Effie?” she whispered. “Sister Lucille has black Converse on—just like yours.”

“Cool,” I said, but I knew it would seem cooler to me if I didn’t feel so lousy.

“Maxey!” I yelled, popping back out of my seat like a jack-in-the-box. She walked by our table wheeling a cart full of dirty dishes. I raced around the table to meet up with her. “Look, I know you aren’t supposed to talk to me, but you
can
. I’m taking that whole thing back. It’s okay! Plus, I have to tell you something extremely urgent!”

“Excuse me,” she said, acting like I was just another camper and not her very own sister. “I need to get these to the kitchen. Have a Wicki day!” She wheeled right around me and left me in her dust.

I was so telling on her for this! I plopped back down in my seat.

“Still won’t talk to you, huh?” Aurora asked.

I shook my head and stared down at the big lump of oatmeal in a bowl on my tray. I picked up the plastic honey bear on the table and squeezed its neck until I’d nearly wrung the life out of it. Till I couldn’t even see the oatmeal anymore. I stirred it all up until it was a giant sticky mess. Not having Maxey talk to me, or even boss me around, made me feel worse than ever. Maybe the altitude was sucking the bossiness right out of her!

“You should be glad, Effie,” Aurora said. “Man, I wish my parents would forbid my brothers to talk to me. That would be heaven.”

“You know what, guys? We are going to have such a blast today!” Nit said in a very enthusiastic voice, and then she kicked me hard under the table.

“Owww!” I winced.

“Ef, sorry! I meant to kick Aur—I mean, I just—well,
sorry!”

“Right! No kidding! Fun!” Aurora broke in. “After class with that falcon chick and swimming class, Cricket said I can go shoot hoops over on the boys’ side. She worked it all out with Frank.” Aurora took a big sip of her steamy hot cocoa, put it down, and sighed. I could tell she liked camp a lot.

Seeing her this way made me feel better. Maybe if I couldn’t have a good time, I would just enjoy hers. I’d follow in her happy jet stream. I took a big sip of my hot chocolate too. Burned my tongue so bad it felt like a scorched piece of bacon. I smiled through the pain.

“Don’t forget, Aurora,” Nit said. “We have crafts after lunch. You don’t want to miss that, do you?”

She shrugged. “If you make anything good, make an extra one for me, will ya? I’ve got to practice. I promised my team I would every day. Fancy will kill me if I go back with a stiff arm.”

Fancy is the captain of Sam Houston’s sixth-grade team, and she’s even bigger than Aurora. You would never, ever want that girl mad at you! Even boys are scared of her.

Phil swung by just then. “How’s everyone doing? Ready for a fabulous day?”

Nit raised her hand like we were in class and not sitting around having breakfast.

Phil looked startled, but said, “Oh—well, yes, Nit?”

“Do you think you’ll ever stop being so completely annoying?”

Phil gave her a tight little smile and said, “Five more minutes, girls! See you outside.”

Aurora clapped Nit on the back and they giggled.

I was still watching Maxey move around Mess. Wishing like anything she’d look at me. Even once! I’d even take one of her
Die, you little freak
looks.

“Effie! Hellooo? Are you there?” Nit asked, standing with her tray. “Ready to go?”

“Oh, sorry! Yes! I’m ready!”

Ready for Maxey to get over her amnesia. Without her, I felt as tipsy as a three-legged cow.

M
s. Hawkins’s science and nature center was super big, with indoor and outdoor sections. In the outdoor section, she had some animals in big pens—a mother and baby deer, a couple of armadillos, some goats that smelled really awful, a llama, and a lot of bunnies. Inside there were snakes, iguanas, and tons of rats and mice. There were even some dead stuffed things, which the boys went near insane over. One whole part of the room was just for bones, fossils, and different kinds of rocks. She had a big telescope too, by the back window, with charts about stars you could see from Camp Wickitawa.

She gave us a whole half hour just to wander around and look at everything. She knew kids couldn’t concentrate on anything, she said, with so much cool stuff to see.
Plus, this was one of the classes we had with boys, so there was a lot of teasing and stuff that had to happen first. Boys just have to get that out of their system or I think they’ll explode. The class twins, Bryce and Becca, were talking together a mile a minute, like they hadn’t seen each other since the birth canal.

Donal had seats saved for Nit, Aurora, and me. He looked like he was ready to defend them to the death. I noticed his counselor, Matt, wasn’t there to make him sit with boys. His CIT, Jeb, had his nose glued to the snake aquariums.

“I’ll hold the seats for us if you want to go look at stuff, Donal,” I said. I had mostly wanted to pet the armadillos, but they were very busy trying to bury themselves in the dirt.

“Naw, I’ll sit with you, Copperknob.”

Everyone in our class was all lit up. Except me and Donal. Gee, maybe we’ll win Biggest Camp Wet Blankets, I thought. Buck up, Effie, I told myself.

“How do you like your cabin?” I asked, making my mouth into a smile shape. “You’re in Wolf, right?”

“Aye,” he said, yawning.

“Well, how is it? Does it stink pretty bad in there?”