Molly nodded. “Okay. Okay, we’ll learn the accordion. Together.”
“Excellent.” Mal looked into the flames, a small smile on her face.
“I’m going to get us some s’more stuff,” Molly said. And she gave Mal a small kiss on her forehead before heading off looking for marshmallows. “Thanks for asking me to play music with you.”
Zodiac switched from “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean” to The Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” which is slightly harder to play but, Mal thought, a way cooler song.
CHAPTER 46
By the time April had taken her seat on a log next to the fire pit, the flames were greedily dancing on the big logs, reaching up into the sky with little flame fingers.
Jo helped Ripley rig up a multi-toasting-stick configuration so she could roast five marshmallows at a time.
April put her chin in her hands, feeling the heat on her face, the cold night air on her back.
After she was sure Ripley wasn’t going to burn everything to a crisp, Jo came back and plopped down next to April on her log. “Hey,” April murmured.
“Hey,” Jo said. “You okay?”
“I’m just in my brain replaying the worst plan in all of Lumberjane history,” April said, not looking up, “which almost got some of the most important people in my world squished or stranded on top of a cloud. Rosie even told us . . . BE PREPARED . . . KNOW as much as possible before heading out on an adventure, and I didn’t do any of that.”
Jo patted April on the back. “Yeah, okay, but it’s also because of you we ended up saved, right? Because of your wicked lasso skills? If it wasn’t for your quick thinking, we’d be pancakes.”
Mal and Molly arrived with more snacks and plopped down next to April on her log. “Hey, what’s going on?” Mal asked.
“I’m apologizing for almost getting all of you squished and getting your arm hurt,” April said.
Mal grabbed April in a hug with her good arm. “It’s okay. Look, the nurse said my wrist is just a little bruised. I’m going to be fine.”
“You didn’t know it wasn’t going to be a mountain long enough for us to climb all the way up and all the way down,” Molly said, jumping up to give April a squeeze.
“I would have if I’d read the signs,” April grumbled. “If I’d looked up . . . the weather.”
“Well, none of us read the signs,” Jo said. “I mean, we didn’t see the signs, but we should have looked. So we all blew it on that one. You know what else?”
“What?”
Just then, Ripley bounced over, her hands full to bursting with toasted marshmallows. Bubbles bounced in with paws full of marshmallow roasting sticks. “HEY!! Hey, what’s going on?”
“We’re talking with April about the most important part of being a Lumberjane,” Mal said. “Which is what?”
Ripley jumped up in a perfect starfish formation, tossing the marshmallows in the air. “FRIENDSHIP TO THE MAX!!!”
“That’s exactly right.” Jo stood and started gathering the marshmallows. “Even if things went wrong, even if we made some bad decisions, we were still totally FRIENDSHIP TO THE MAX, and that’s what being a Lumberjane is all about!”
“Hey,” Mal said, “if it wasn’t for FRIENDSHIP, we’d all still be up in the clouds with Old Cranky Pants Swimming Costume and her band of Cloudies. We all worked together in perfect harmony in the end, right?”
“When we work TOGETHER,” Molly said, “WE come up with awesome plans.”
“Let’s never stop making plans,” Ripley sighed. “I love our adventures.”
April smiled a little smile. “Group hug formation?”
“YES!”
“GENIUS!”
“TWO POINTS FOR GENIUS!”
“HOORAY!”
On the other side of the campfire, the makeshift band of accordions and tambourines and the Lumberjane choir broke into a Lumberjane favorite, Sleater-Kinney’s “Get Up.”
It’s not the official Lumberjanes camp song, but it’s a good song for a campfire and group hugs.
CHAPTER 47
The fire shifted into glowing ember mode and the stars twinkled (which is stars’ main mode). Campers full of s’mores and other fireside snacks drifted back to their cabins until only Roanoke remained.
April munched her fourth and possibly final marshmallow of the night.
“So Lady Dana was the most record-holding Lumberjane in the history of all time,” Mal said. “When was she even a camper?”
“I don’t know,” April said. “When there were swimming costumes and whoopee cushions.”
“She might not be the record holder anymore.” Jo picked a little bit of marshmallow off her finger. “I think a lot of Lumberjanes are the types of people who do a lot of stuff. Plus the thing about records is they’re kind of made to be broken. Also, DUDE!” Jo shook her hand violently. “Cooked marshmallow is like GLUE.”
“Cloudy,” April said.
“My pancakes record will never be broken,” Ripley grinned. “MY RECORD IS UNBREAKABLE!”
“Yes, because the human stomach has its limits,” Jo agreed.
“Mmmmmm.” Molly was also trying to get the marshmallow off her fingers, using the log as a wooden dish towel. “I will say, records or not, for a Lumberjane, Lady Dana was not Friendship to the Max.”
“Yeah,” Mal said. “Also BTW, the archway out front says HARDCORE LADY TYPES. It doesn’t say, MOST BADGES EVER, FASTEST RUNNER.”
“Good point.” April wondered if there was a pun in there. She was just about to take a stab at it when—
“Evening, campers,” Rosie hooted, arriving with an armful of wood. “That was quite a day! My first unicorn ride!”
Dropping her hefty pile next to the fire, Rosie wiped her forehead with her bandanna.
April raised her hand.
“Yes, April.”
“Um. Hey. Question. Did you ever end up like that, um, ever?” April asked Rosie. “I mean, stuck, like that.”
Rosie cracked her back and stretched. “Like any good explorer, I have been lost many times.”
Ripley looked over from her roasting spot. “Does one of the times have a really good story?”
“Yes,” Rosie said, taking a seat next to Jo on the log.
CAMPFIRE STORY TIME!
FINALLY!
“It was in my earlier scouting days,” Rosie said, leaning back, the flames reflecting in her glasses. “Goddess, this was so many years ago. My friend Abigail and I heard these other scouts at lunch, talking about a certain raging water dragon.”
“Raging water dragon?” April said, her ears pricking up.
“Yes.” Rosie raised an eyebrow. “Linus. A particularly ornery raging water dragon.”
April was practically leaning over Jo’s lap, her eyes like saucers. “Ornery? Please continue!”
Rosie shifted on the log. “We headed out, Abi and I; we had a raft and some rope and a giant jar of jelly beans. So we were prepared.”
“Jelly beans?” Mal asked.
“For Linus,” Rosie said, like everyone knows that, which maybe they do.
“JELLY BEANS,” Ripley waved her arms ecstatically, then added in a hushed voice, “Rosie is telling a story.”
Rosie continued. “We got to where the waterfalls were supposed to be; that was a good long hike. Way longer than I expected. Also we ran into a colossal herd of transfixed turtles on the way, transfixed SNAPPING turtles, and that was a whole heap of to do, as you can imagine.”
Everyone nodded.
“So there we are lugging around this huge jar of jelly beans and it’s getting dark, and there’s a hole in my bag, and the jelly beans have leaked out, and it’s getting cold, when I realize . . .” Rosie chuckled, slapping her knee. “We’d been using the wrong map!”
“Whoa,” April breathed. “WHAAA?”
“So we were nowhere near Linus AND we were lost. Holy cats, we were lost. Abigail was pretty steamed.” Rosie grinned wickedly. “Fortunately, be
cause we’d been spilling jelly beans the whole way we were able to Hansel and Gretel our way back to camp.”
“Lucky,” Molly breathed.
“Did you go back to find Linus?” April asked. “Is that how you got your Extraordinary Explorers medal?
Rosie shrugged. “You know, I don’t know when we got that medal. After a few badges, it all kind of blurs together. Mostly I remember the adventures, not accolades. Medals are just medals. It’s not like they’re going to help you over a cliff or find you drinking water in the desert.”
“True,” April said.
Rosie looked at April and snapped her fingers. “Almost forgot.”
Reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out April’s notebook and handed it to her. “I believe this is yours.”
“Hey! I didn’t even know I dropped it! Thanks!” April hugged the book to her chest.
“All right then.” Rosie stepped away from the fire. “Good night, scouts.”
Jo looked at April’s notebook. “You know,” she said, “the thing that’s amazing about you, the thing we all think is so great, isn’t just the amazing things you do, or your badges or any of that, it’s how much you love all this stuff.”
April tucked her notebook under her arm. It felt good to have it back. “Yeah?”
“YEAH!” The other members of Roanoke cried out in chorus.
“Well, I love you guys the most,” April said.
“YEFF!” Ripley agreed, her mouth full of marshmallow.
Jo looked up at the sky. “Also . . .”
“ALSO!” April squealed, jumping up. “THERE’S A WATER DRAGON NAMED LINUS!”
“Right,” Mal said, “but before we go looking for him, I’m going to crash and sleep the sleep of a thousand Mals.”
“Good idea,” Molly added.
“I guess we don’t want the night to DRAG-ON!” April grinned.
Jen arrived just in time to help carry Ripley, who was totally sugar-crashing, back to Roanoke for a well-deserved rest.
CHAPTER 48
“Get some sleep,” Jen advised, as she stood in the doorway with her hand on the light switch. “You guys have a ton of stuff to do tomorrow, since you did nothing from my carefully prepared list.”
Mal, Molly, and Ripley were dreaming the moment their heads hit their pillows. Bubbles, who was curled up in a bunch of laundry on the floor, was snoring the loudest.
April sat on her bed with flashlight in hand, her notebook in her lap.
Next to the drawing of the mountain she wrote, “This is not a mountain.” Also, “Last known sighting of the great Lady Dana Deveroe Anastasia Mistytoe.”
Then she flipped the page over and wrote, “LINUS THE WATER DRAGON????”
Then she closed her book.
First, sleep.
There are a lot of places an adventure—and lessons—can go, once you’re done with them. Into a notebook is one place. Or a book of any kind is handy, because that way you can always remember it.
This time, as April lay in bed, the adventure seemed to be settling somewhere else as well.
April put her hands over her heart.
She reached her toe up and poked Jo’s bunk.
“Good night,” she whispered.
“Night,” Jo whispered back.
Jo had already clicked off her flashlight. She was looking out her window, at the big moon shining so brightly she didn’t even need a flashlight.
Of course, Jo knew how far away the moon was from Earth. Still it was interesting to note how close it seemed tonight. Like Jo could almost reach out and touch—
Jo leaned forward and pressed her hands against the glass of her window.
Was it closer tonight? It was. But that’s impossible, Jo thought.
But it was closer. In fact, the trees shuddered as something that looked very much like the moon settled closer still, pushing down through their branches like a giant ship parting the waves. Jo closed her eyes. Was she dreaming? Can you close your eyes in a dream? There was a shudder, a small earth shake. When she opened her eyes again, the moon . . . was there, maybe twenty feet away, glowing.
And something, or someone, stepped off its cratered surface, into the dark of night.
SOME LUMBERJANES BADGES!
ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDANT
Cake decorating is the art of creating flora and fauna in sugar form. Yum!
GET ON UP!
Get ready, mountaineers! It’s time to reach new heights! With this badge, Lumberjanes learn the basics of knots, ropes, and gravity to surmount the mountain face.
GOURMET IT OVER WITH
Fine dining is for everyone! Lumberjanes take on the basics of the three-, seven-, twelve-, and twenty-course feast, including everything from charcuterie to aperitifs!
FIRST THINGS FIRST AID
Tourniquets, larger bandages, splints, and Band-Aids. Learn how to apply a little possibly lifesaving care to your fellow scouts!
I SAW THE SIGNS
Reading is knowledge and knowledge is power. Learn to read the signs marking your path and make sure you’re on the right one!
KEBAB’S YOUR UNCLE
Meat on a stick. This badge covers every-thing from spices to the fine art of grilling.
KEEP IT TOGETHER
Lumberjanes stick together! What else do you need to know?!
LIVING THE PLANT LIFE
Learn the basics of what’s green and grows in the amazing natural world.
MAY THE FORGE BE WITH YOU
Harness the power of fire to manipulate metal! With this badge, Lumberjanes discover the joys of metalsmithing.
MY FAIR LASSO
Rope ’em up with this possibly lifesaving skill. All you need is a rope and a lot of time to practice getting that rope around another object.
PEACE AND QUILT
Every quilt tells the story of a bunch of pieces of fabric carefully stitched together. Plus quilts keep you warm!
S’MORE THE MERRIER
Become the toast of your campfire with the mastery of this, the finest of desserts.
SOUND OF MUESLI
Grains! They do a body good! Make your own healthy breakfast, or feed a hungry camp with this fine food.
THAT’S ACCORDION TO YOU
Whether you’re playing alone or in a quartet, the accordion song is sweet to any ear. With this badge, Lumberjanes study every-thing from scales to compositions.
VIEW TO A KILN
Want to know the secret to great pottery? Just add heat!
MARIKO TAMAKI
is a writer known for her graphic novel This One Summer, a Caldecott Honor and Printz Honor winner, co-created with her cousin Jillian Tamaki, among other notable novels. See her work at marikotamaki.blogspot.com.
BROOKLYN ALLEN
is a cocreator and the original illustrator of the Lumberjanes graphic novel series, and a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. Their website is brookeallen.tumblr.com.
Unicorn Power! Page 12