I’m glad we decided it’s okay to hang out. But of course that doesn’t mean we’re friends or sisters or that we’re going to agree to anything about the future.
xo
Night Owl
P.S. Are we supposed to do all the activities as if we have parents here? We should have a plan.
* * *
From: Bett Devlin
To: Avery Bloom
Subject: Re: Thank you
We’ll figure out Family Day tomorrow. I bet the whole thing will SURPRISE us.
Also, we’re getting NEW T-SHIRTS + all the family members get 1. Becky Jansen in Poppy Pod designed them. She’s great at art. She put a POSSUM on the shirt + it looks real. I love possums because my friend Angel read a book that explained that they’re very misunderstood + she told me all about it.
xo
B
* * *
Hello, CIGIES!
Here is the schedule for Family Day, along with our song lyrics. While you will be able to have this piece of paper with you in the auditorium, please try to memorize the lyrics. We really want to put our best feet forward.
All of your family members are inspiring and uplifting, with so many leaders in their chosen fields, but we do have several well-known moms and dads showing up this summer who would no doubt love to answer a well-considered question from any of you. In particular, you may want to speak with:
Hallie Lee’s mom, Wendy Lee, who is the archaeologist whose team dug up Xerxes in Repose.
Bentley McGhee’s dad, the famed biologist James McGhee, who is on the shortlist for this year’s National Institutes of Health “Scientist of the Year” award.
Josie and Carmen Hernandez’s aunt, Maria Hernandez, the inventor of the Hernandez Nuclear Cytoscope and Self-Regulating Centrifuge™, who is coming to see both her nieces.
And we have one surprise guest who works in the very highest level of the arts! I’m personally extremely honored to have her with us tomorrow. We look forward to welcoming these visitors and all the other families and friends.
Attention, water park kids: Your bus leaves at 8:00 a.m. sharp. Please remember that your swimsuits cannot have zippers, buttons, belts, rivets, or metal ornaments, as they could damage the slides or catch on something and cause your swimsuit to rip. Also, all sunglasses and regular glasses must be secured with an elastic strap while sliding. We will be passing these out on the bus when we hand over the towels.
Everyone, have a great day!
Director Daniel
CAMP SCHEDULE—Family Day
8:00 a.m.: Parents’ staggered arrival to minimize parking issues
9:00 a.m.: Sample class sit-in for parents. Options include:
The Genome, Mitochondria, and Chloroplasts, Oh MY!
Molecular Gastronomy: The Chemical Difference, with Chef Molly
10:00 a.m.: Morning snack (gluten-free)
10:30 a.m.: The Stratford-on-CIGI Players present our version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
12:00 p.m.: All-camp lunch
2:00 p.m.: Community singing opening song: “Always True to CIGI”
(Lyric Sheet)
We are always true to CIGI
No matter where we go from here.
We are always true to CIGI,
Being smart is nothing to fear.
If you have a brain
Do not refrain
From using it to your best.
We are always true to CIGI,
Which is one big learning-fest.
* * *
From: Marlow Devlin
To: Bett Devlin
Subject: Some bad luck
Betts—
So here’s an update on our trip. First, Sam’s leather travel bag (with both our passports and my phone inside!) got jacked yesterday. We can’t be 100% sure it was stolen. There’s a slight chance one of us accidentally left it at the hotel, but we went back and it wasn’t there. Anyway, we’ll have to deal with the headache of getting replacement passports before we leave, which we’ve been told won’t be that big of a deal.
Also, we’re riding together on one motorcycle now because the second one broke down. On top of that, Sam’s phone was damaged when it fell out of his pocket during that minor fender bender, so we can sometimes receive calls—not all the time—but we have trouble making them.
To make a long story short, lots of things are complicated right now. Sam’s more upset than me (I can see that he’s on the verge of freaking out about everything), but so far he’s keeping his cool. I’ve been trying to tell him I’m using this as a great opportunity to break free from technology and live in the moment, and that maybe he should do the same. But he’s not really at that place yet.
Anyway, I don’t want you to worry. It’ll all get figured out, and the rest of our trip should be amazing.
Have fun at the Family thing! Sorry we’re not together for that, Pumpkin.
Love you so much!
Dad (or Baba—that’s Dad in Mandarin Chinese!)
* * *
From: Kristina Allenberry
To: Sam Bloom
Subject: A summer camp in the woods and the magical thing that happened there . . .
Sam—
I know it’s been a very long time since we’ve communicated. Years. I’ve respected your rules. But things have changed, Sam. I tried to call you on your cell phone in China to explain everything, but I couldn’t get through. Which is why I’m writing.
So how can I put this?
A crazy twist of fate has brought Avery to me.
Or, more accurately, me to her.
And as it turns out, you were the person behind that. Or, more accurately, the daughter of the new man in your life was behind it.
As a playwright, I explain best by setting the scene:
Michigan, July, lakeside, afternoon, high humidity, 82 degrees in the shade. I’m here as Summer Artist-in-Residence, when I receive an unusual email. It explains that our daughter, Avery, and your friend’s daughter, Bett, are together at a summer camp nearby. There is a thing called Family Day happening. I’m invited.
So what can I do? I rearrange my entire schedule and go.
My assistant, Ben, drives me, though I have no idea yet that he’s never made a left turn against opposing traffic. Still, we arrive in one piece. A stunning preteen named Bett Devlin greets us in the parking lot. She blurts out, “Avery has no idea you’re coming today, Kristina! I told her I had a surprise for her, but that’s all I said.”
Now, is this even a fair way for me to reunite with my daughter? In the moment, I feel both confused and afraid.
But I follow Bett into a meadow, where another girl waits, wearing an interesting polka-dot blindfold over eyeglasses. Bett removes the blindfold and yells (the girl has lungs), “SURPRISE!”
Avery looks at me.
I look at her.
She’s in shock. She is both 12 and 112 all at once. A wise old soul in a new Camp CIGI Family Day T-shirt. I want to wrap my arms around my child and never let go. But fearing I could overwhelm her, I don’t move a foot.
Avery then turns to Bett. “Why?” she asks. “Why would you do this?”
“Because I thought you two should be together,” Bett says. “It’s Family Day. And she’s your family.”
The tension between them is fierce. If this were a play, the whole audience would feel the betrayal as Avery shouts: “It was private, Bett! I never should’ve told you! It wasn’t your place to invite her to come here!”
“Well, you never would, so I had to!” Bett shouts back.
“You think you can do anything you want, whenever you want, don’t you?” shouts Avery. “But that’s not the way the world works!”
Then Bett says the kicker: “Come on—aren’t you glad to see her? I mean,
she’s your MOM!”
At the word “Mom,” Avery breaks. Her expression goes wobbly and she begins to cry. I rush over and pull her into my arms, and she’s suddenly hugging me back. Both of us are now crying. And then Bett joins in, but doesn’t cry. And then we’re all hugging, and we’re all talking like people with a lifetime of stories to tell.
Oh, Sam, she is wonderful. And Bett is an amazing girl, too. We three spend the afternoon taking part in the activities of CIGI Family Day. We make cricket cages. We play Science Jeopardy! We view cooking as a lab experiment. We learn a thing or two, but what we really discover is that we love being together.
Finally it’s time to say good-bye, only my assistant, Ben, is nowhere to be found. It turns out that his girlfriend called and tried to break up with him over the phone, so he took off in his parents’ car!
Apparently there’s no Uber in this remote part of Michigan, so I accept a ride to “town” from camp director Daniel. Before I get in his car, I say good-bye to the girls and we vow to all be together again soon. The camp director then drives me to Silf’s Crossing. It’s several miles away from camp and no more than a store, a diner, and a closed gas station. I’m told that Greyhound stops here only once a day. I know I can call Seelocken and get someone to come pick me up, but it will take a while, and I had given everyone the day off. Suddenly I think: No, Kristina, this is fate. You haven’t had enough time yet with your daughter.
Sam, you have to understand I was bursting with emotion, overwhelmed from the day, and also I’d been in the sun for hours. I never do well with too much sun.
So I eat dinner at the Silf’s Crossing Café, and study Google Maps. Darkness has fallen by the time I make my way back to CIGI on foot. The whole camp is asleep (they have an early-to-bed rule). I easily find both Avery and Bett, and we quietly slip away and walk to the other side of the lake, where we put down horse blankets and lie on our backs under the blue-black sky.
A moon appears. We make wishes on shooting stars. Words beyond words are spoken. It’s now really late. We’re suddenly so tired. We start to sing, and then, totally accidentally, we all fall asleep. That was never my intention, Sam. But then when we wake up it’s already light out, and I say: “Girls, we have to hurry and get back before anyone finds out you’re missing.”
It almost works.
But just as we reach the clearing in front of the dining hall, someone cries out, “There they are!”
A crowd of counselors appears, all of them carrying flashlights. “Ms. Allenberry—how dare you!” This is Camp Director Daniel, a mustachioed man with anger even in his eyebrows. When he’d dropped me at the roadside diner the night before, he was full of compliments, but whoa, not now. “You took the girls from their pods without permission!” he shouts at me.
“We were just looking at shooting stars, Director Daniel,” Bett pipes up.
“It was dark out and I could see animal eyes, but I wasn’t even scared,” adds Avery.
The girls are led away by the counselors. I go to the office, where the camp director continues to yell at me. I’m so sorry, Sam. The long and the short of it is that both girls are now permanently expelled from CIGI. And there’s more bad news. They have a “no money back” policy. I checked.
So I step in to help. I make a snap decision. I call Seelocken and they agree to send out a production assistant immediately. I return to the girls and say, “Avery, you’re coming with me!” Her face lights up in a way that just stops my heart. She’s happy, through and through. I then sign the necessary release forms (she is my biological daughter, after all) and Avery is ready to get packing.
But Bett starts to cry. She doesn’t look like someone who cries often. So I start to cry, too, but that doesn’t help. Bett’s really letting go. “Well, what am I supposed to do?” she says through tears. “I have nowhere to go. My dad’s somewhere in China.”
I say that she can come with me. The girls are so happy at the idea that they jump up and down and scream. But Director Daniel has other plans.
“No. Absolutely not,” he says. “We’re calling Bett’s grandmother. She’s the emergency contact, not you.”
Bett is wide-eyed. “What? Gaga hasn’t gone anywhere outside Texas in years. She hates to fly.”
Director Daniel won’t even acknowledge me after that. I try. I really do. But he refuses to release Bett to anyone but her grandmother Betty Devlin (who for some reason is called “Gaga”).
So the bottom line is that after a Family Day at CIGI and a night of absolute magic, the girls are forced out.
But I rose to the occasion.
And now I’m taking care of our daughter.
That’s really the headline of this story.
KA
* * *
From: Bett Devlin
To: Marlow Devlin
Subject: IT WAS NOT MY FAULT
Daddy,
What just happened here is TOTALLY UNFAIR. I know that if you were with me you would agree + take my side. Kristina (Avery’s mom) hadn’t seen Avery in so long + we all had such a great Family Day together that she wanted to turn it into Family NIGHT, which totally makes sense. So she came back to CIGI after dark + we all snuck out together.
Just so you know, it was one of THE GREATEST NIGHTS OF MY WHOLE LIFE. Avery said the same thing + neither of us is EVER GOING TO FORGET IT. In fact, Kristina wants to write about all of it, so that means that Avery + I are probably going to be in a famous play. I gave her permission to use my REAL name.
Anyway, the trouble started when I guess Benita (my counselor) had to go to the bathroom at 3:00 a.m. + realized I was gone from the pod. She got FRANTIC, which is what she’s paid to do.
Then she found out that Avery wasn’t in her pod, either. That started all the counselors + staff going crazy about kidnapping. But that is ridiculous, Daddy, because we were safe + just totally sound asleep on the other side of the lake, so we didn’t hear them calling our names.
A kid named Lana Dewey started saying that she thought she saw SLENDER MAN in the woods. That didn’t help.
Anyway, they didn’t EVER even find us. We woke up really early + walked back to camp for breakfast. That was when we got kicked out.
What’s weird is that I was just getting to like it here + today they were finally going to reopen the zip line.
Right now Gaga is flying up from Texas to get me. So this emergency situation ended her no-flying thing. That’s good news—right? You’ve always said that one day she will just decide to fly again. Well, now we have the day. She’s going to rent a car at the airport in Detroit + come straight here.
Avery went to a theater institute called Seelocken with Kristina.
DAD, here’s the thing: I WANT TO GO to Seelocken so bad.
That’s REALLY WHAT I’M WRITING ABOUT.
If you get this soon, DO YOU THINK YOU COULD CALL DIRECTOR DANIEL + say I can go to SEELOCKEN instead of with Gaga (no offense)? You know I love her so much, but Texas in the summer is a million degrees + I really want to be with Avery. Plus, Kristina is an amazing person + she said it would be great to have me learn theater stuff because it’s useful in life.
Write back RIGHT AWAY. Gaga could drive me + get me settled in + then fly back to Texas. That’s a really great plan I think.
I hope China is super fun + that SPECIAL THINGS are going on with you + Sam in your relationship, which I’m sure you’ll both tell us about when you’re ready.
Love,
Bett
P.S. It was true when you said that the experience of CIGI would make my life bigger. It feels SO BIG right now. Also, I did make friends here. Avery (who is interesting + nice, even though she’s afraid of a lot of things) + a bunch of other kids. Some of the girls in Peace Lily Pod started to cry when they found out I had to leave + this guy named Simon gave me his hoodie.
I’m not going to
say good-bye to my pigs, Minnie + Wilbur. I just can’t do it. We had something really special. I can hear them squealing for me right now.
* * *
From: Daniel Birnbaum
To: Sam Bloom, Marlow Devlin
Subject: Exercising Universally Accepted Best Practices
Dear Mr. Bloom and Mr. Devlin,
I’m writing to you jointly as this involves both of your daughters. I made attempts to contact each of you by phone, and have left messages. I have yet to hear back from either of you.
As of the writing of this letter, Avery Bloom is off camp property and with her biological mother, Ms. Kristina Allenberry, who was not listed on the emergency form but who is clearly in the first circle of relation.
Bett Devlin is off premises, too, and is now with Betty Devlin, her grandmother (and listed emergency contact).
A full report detailing the violations of our code of conduct will be sent to both of you.
Should you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Daniel Birnbaum
Camp Director, CIGI
Author of The Gifted Camper: New Approaches for the Next Generation, published by Birnbaum House and available exclusively online
* * *
From: Avery Bloom
To: Sam Bloom
Subject: Here’s what happened
Papa,
I think by now you heard about the camp problem. And probably you’re really mad. But what you should be is happy, because I’m really, really happy.
At first I was so angry with Bett for breaking the cone of privacy. But then I saw that what makes her great is that she doesn’t look at the world the way most people do. Instead, she figures things out in her own way. Sometimes that’s a problem (zip line), but sometimes it’s life changing, like today, which is why I’m with Kristina at the Seelocken Institute right now.
To Night Owl From Dogfish Page 7