Grrrr.
“What is it, Madison? I’m trying to worship here.”
“I was just wondering something.”
The chorus continued.
Give to the Lord the glory he deserves . . .
“What?” I threw my hands in the air. It was out of frustration but the crowd probably thought I was praising.
“If there had been a Cabin Six, where do you think it would have been located?”
That was a question that had never entered my mind. Not one time ever, in the many times I had been out here to camp.
“I mean, all those cabins sit up on blocks on a concrete foundation, right? So, if there had been a Cabin Six, there should be a slab hidden somewhere. Concrete doesn’t just go away that easily.”
She was right. My friend Kyra’s brother Paul once worked a concrete job during the summer. He was always talking about positioning the rebar and pouring the cement, and the importance of getting it right the first time—because no one ever wanted to jack-hammer and start over again. Concrete doesn’t go away without a fight.
Tell all the nations “The Lord reigns . . .”
Madison wasn’t hearing one single word of the song.
Instead, she grinned and crossed her arms. “I’m going to find it, Allie.”
The world stands firm and cannot be shaken . . .
“I’m going to find Cabin Six.”
I stood there and my jaw dropped open. Most people would probably think I was singing, but I was trying to figure out this complicated girl next to me.
“So, I guess you don’t hate all mysteries, then?”
Madison looked right at me, and had the nerve to say, “I like the ones that matter.”
CHAPTER 12
Night of Wonders
Allie.” The smooth voice of Nathan Fremont sounded behind me as I gathered my things to head up to the cabin for our nighttime devotions.
The girls in my cabin gave me warning looks with raised eyebrows as I turned to face this cute boy who had crossed over to my side of the horseshoe.
“See you in the cabin in ten minutes, girls,” Bliss said. “I’ll grab us some snacks from my secret food room stash.”
In seconds, my cabinmates were gone, and even though a few kids still hung out in the amphitheater, I felt like I was alone with the boy who once gave me a special bag that began a string of events that proved to me God cared about every single detail of my life.
“So, it’s getting dark,” Nathan said. “This is a long shot but . . . did you happen to bring my headlamp with you?”
Nathan’s headlamp had been one of the objects in the bag he gave me in the airport. It had a desert camo design and the phrase MATT 51415 written on it with permanent marker. Kendall and I figured out that it was a Bible verse—Matthew 5:14–15—that talks about being a light in the world.
Nathan looked down at the ground. “I shouldn’t assume anything. You probably don’t even have it anymore. It was kind of old and beat-up.”
I put my hand out. “Oh, no. I do have it! It’s just—it’s back at the cabin.”
Well, actually, it’s in my left jeans pocket.
I jammed my hand in to hide the bulge.
Nathan popped his head back up and smiled. “Oh, wow. That’s great! Well, I’m sorry you’ve had to keep it for this long. If you bring it down to the campfire tomorrow, we can exchange lights.”
“Exchange?”
“Yeah.” Nathan shrugged and I think I noticed a blush. “I got you a new, pretty one.”
“You got me a headlamp?”
Nathan laughed nervously. “Yeah. To thank you, for not ditching mine in the trash. At least I hoped you hadn’t. My grandma gave me that headlamp, and it’s special to me. I felt so dumb for giving you the wrong bag that day at the airport.”
I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t dumb at all. Some time I’ll tell you how God used everything in that bag to teach me some important truths about Him.”
“Really? Everything in the bag?”
“Yes. He even used the princess Band-Aids! By the way—why were you carrying around princess Band-Aids?”
Nathan laughed. “They belonged to my little sister. She’s . . . princess-y.”
“Oh.” I glanced left and right. A few kids lingered so we weren’t alone yet. Whew.
But I would love to stay and talk for an hour or so.
“Well, I’m sorry to say that we used all the Band-Aids. It was a bloody trip for me and my cousins. Ha! And that was just on the moving sidewalk in the airport.”
“Sounds like an interesting story.” Now Nathan was glancing around.
“Well, maybe we’ll get a chance to talk about that sometime this week,” I said.
He nodded. “I’d like that.” Nathan looked around again, and then pulled something out of his pocket.
“Here. It’s dark, so you should have this tonight. I hope you like it.”
He handed me a headlamp. It was pink camo, and it had MATT 51415 written by hand on the side of the strap.
“Umm . . . thank you. It’s perfect.”
Pink camo really is my life.
“Keep moving the beam back and forth in front of you while you walk. To watch out for snakes.”
I just stood there and grinned.
“Oh, I guess since you live here you already knew that.”
I pressed the little button that switched the beam from white light, to red, to flashing red.
“Well, I better go,” Nathan said. “See you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
He turned, stepped down some steps to campfire level, and ventured out into the shadows.
“Be careful out there in the . . .”
“Owww!”
“Nathan?”
“I’m okay! Just ran into a tree, that’s all!”
I put my hand to my mouth to stifle a laugh. Then I turned, and using both headlamps, I lit up the entire hill that led back to the girls’ village.
“We’ve got popcorn!” Hayley yelled as I entered the cabin. “Bliss is the best!”
Bliss walked around the circle of girls that had formed—all sitting sideways, legs hanging off their bunks—squirting out hand sanitizer.
“Keep the crumbs off the floor or you’ll be sweeping in the morning,” Bliss said. “Now, what did you girls think about the campfire talk tonight?”
My mind went blank. What had they talked about? All I could think about was Nathan and the gift he gave me and wonder when I was going to get to talk to him again.
Ruby was right. Boys are a distraction!
“It’s amazing to think that God saw me while I was being formed in my mother’s womb . . .” Brooke said.
Ah, yes. Psalm 139. That’s what they talked about.
“. . . And that God’s thoughts about me outnumber the grains of sand. That’s a lot of thoughts. How can he be thinking all those thoughts about me at the same time he’s thinking about everyone else?”
Bliss shook her head, but had a huge smile on her face. “I have no idea. But he’s awesome like that.”
“It feels kinda weird that God knows everything about me,” Julia said. “Even the bad stuff. Makes me want to get rid of the bad stuff.”
Bliss smiled and shook her head again. “I know. It’s impossible though. We get better, with God’s help, but we’ll never be perfect. That’s why we need Jesus.”
There were a few seconds of silence, except for popcorn munches.
Bliss flipped through the pages in her Bible and then looked up at us. “Does anyone have any general questions about God?”
Madison fidgeted on her top bunk. “Yeah, I have a question.”
Bliss smiled. “Great! What is it?”
“Well . . .” Madison flipped her hair behind her shoulder and crossed her arms. “If God is thinking about me all the time, and he loves me so much, how come he let my parents break up last year? What were his thoughts about me when that was happening?”
Whoa. T
ough question on the first night. I hope you have a good answer, Bliss.
Bliss didn’t say anything. Instead, she stood up, walked over to Madison’s bed, climbed the ladder to her bed and sat down next to her. Then she hugged her.
“I’m so sorry, Madison. I didn’t know that about your parents. Can I pray for you?”
She didn’t wait for Madison to say yes. She just launched in.
“Dear Lord, thank you for bringing Madison to camp and for putting her in my cabin. She’s wondering about a lot of things, Lord. Please help her to understand your love and your ways. Amen.”
And that was it. No explanations, no looking up Bible verses, no sharing about how God had helped other girls get through their parents’ divorces. Just a prayer that Madison might understand.
“Okay, girls, go brush those teeth and let’s get to bed before they blow Taps tonight. We’re sure to have an active day tomorrow.”
“Is it going to be Survivor Day?” Shelby asked.
Bliss’s eyes got big. “No one knows! Not even me. So—sleep is crucial!”
Madison blew her nose. “What’s Survivor Day?”
Nobody tell her!
Bliss walked over and put her hand on Madison’s shoulder. “My dear, sweet Madison. You are wondering and worrying about a great many things. My recommendation is that you lay your head on your nice, clean pillow, close your eyes, and trust that your cabinmates will be here for you no matter what happens this week.”
Madison sighed. “Okay, but who has the can of prayer spray?”
Bliss laughed. “Prayer spray?”
“Yeah,” Madison said. “To keep away the spiders and the snakes.”
Ruby held up a can of Aqua Net. “Right here!” Then she sprayed a little mist in all directions and prayed.
“Lord, keep the spiders and snakes all over in the boys’ cabins!”
And Bliss laughed some more.
“I love y’all so much already! This cabin is special, with a capital S!”
CHAPTER 13
A Bunch of Weirdos
If you’ve ever been to a summer camp, you probably know that all the counselors are a bunch of weirdos. In a good way. And at Camp 99 Pines, the counselors are weirdos for Jesus, which makes for a ton of fun.
During our first recreation session the next morning, after a breakfast of sausage and eggs, we were introduced to all of them.
“Poppy, Panda, Echo, Bliss, and Ember, come on up!” Johan’s clothes looked like he’d been sleeping in them for a week straight, but his puffy face looked like he hadn’t slept at all.
The five bouncy girl counselors popped up on the box, and as they did, Johan handed them each a pack of different colored stretchy buffs. Those buffs would be worn by every member of their team for the rest of the week. I really wanted to be orange this year, but nothing was going as planned so far, so when Johan handed Poppy—the counselor for girls’ Cabin One—the orange buff, I hardly even blinked.
Next came Panda, from Cabin Two. She got the blue.
There went both my favorite colors.
Echo, from Cabin Three, got green. I was okay with not being green, since I have to wear so much green camo on the set of Carried Away with the Carroways.
Next up was Bliss, and even before Johan reached in the bag for our color, I knew what it would be.
Pink, baby. All. The. Way.
Ember, from Cabin Five, got red. And why not? Red’s a power color and everyone knows that Cabin Five rules.
The boys’ counselors came up in order next, and they received the colors of the corresponding girls’ cabins. Gizmo, orange. Storm, blue. Catfish, green. Cheddar, pink. Buckeye, red, and Blaze, the counselor of boys’ Cabin Six—the one with no matching girls’ cabin—received the yellow buffs.
The boys from Cabin Six, led by Hunter, immediately broke into a cheer. “When I say ‘Yell,” you say ‘O!’
“Yell!”
“O!”
“Yell!
“O!”
Johan pointed to the cheering bunch. “Five-million points awarded to Boys’ Six for spirit!”
Madison leaned over to me. “I think there’s been an information leak. How did they know they were going to get yellow? They couldn’t have come up with a cheer that quick.”
That made a lot of sense to me. I should have made up a pink cheer last night, because, well . . . pink was taking over my life.
“And Boys’ Six doesn’t have a partner girls’ cabin,” Madison said. “So how does that work?”
A great question. And every year, they do it different, so my answer was, “I don’t know.”
I really hoped that they would just pair Boys’ Six with Girls’ Four, because, at first glance, Boys’ Four was looking like a bunch of saps, and their counselor was named—of all things—Cheddar. As in cheese! And we already knew that Bliss was allergic to cheese.
I did feel sorry that they got the pink buffs, though.
Johan asked the girls’ and boys’ cabins to bunch up with their new teams, so Cheddar, a guy with yellowy-blonde hair, and his boys ran over. One kid had the buff pulled on his head and over his eyes.
“Hey, look! I have Pinkeye!”
Of course, all the boys laughed at that and not one girl did.
Johan yelled into his bullhorn.
“Okay—in two minutes I need a team name from each of you. Make it short and appropriate, and the first team to get their name to me on the box gets a million points.”
“And what are we going to do with all these points?” Madison asked. “Can we buy luxuries with them like you see on all the reality shows?”
I started to explain to Madison that there would be an auction at the end of the week where we would use the points to buy needed supplies for the final camp challenge. But before I got two words out, a creepy-stinker from boys’ Cabin Four had rushed the box and earned us a million points by giving Johan our “name.”
Team Pinkeye.
Seriously, people?
Other, much tougher names streamed in after ours. The orange team became the Solar Flares. The blue team, Hurricane 99. Green, Swamp Rats. Red, Scarlet Fever, and yellow—boys’ Cabin Six became the Lightning Rods.
“Okay,” Johan yelled into his bullhorn again, “this is how we’re going to do it this week. Boys’ Six will be rotating teams all week and their point total will be whatever they earn with whatever team they’re with. Got it?”
That seemed like a sure win for boys’ Cabin Six. After all, whatever team they were with they would be the biggest team.
“And for today, Boys’ Six Lightning Bolts will be paired with Scarlet Fever!”
Okay, that smarts. Hunter, Parker, Nathan, Kendall, and Lola get to be together? Lord, help me! I’m jealous!
“And today’s game is David & Goliath!”
We’re doomed.
“I’ll see you all out on recreation field two in fifteen minutes. Get your camo on and bathe in bug repellant!”
David and Goliath is your basic Frisbee tag game on steroids. The counselors are the Goliaths and the kids are the Davids. The Goliaths get two red Frisbees each and the Davids get one blue one each. If you’re a David and you get hit with a red Frisbee you have to put your blue Frisbee on your head and go to “heaven,” which is located on the west sideline of the recreation field.
The Goliaths always win, which bugs me since that’s not how it is in the Bible.
But this isn’t the Bible. This is camp, people! And nothing starts the camp recreation experience out better than getting a nice, fresh bruise from a Frisbee.
“You can stay here in the open,” Johan laughed like a villain, “but that would be foolish. You can run in the woods that way . . .” Johan waved his hand toward the east side of the field, “. . . or that way.” He pointed south. “And you can go as far as the chain-link fence which marks the end of the camp property. You may NOT go that way . . .” He pointed west. “That way’s the swamp, and you do not want to meet the bea
sts that live in the water over there.”
I looked at Madison, who had her buff wrapped around her neck with the front part pulled up onto her chin. She appeared to be shivering, maybe with fear.
“When I call, ‘Open Field,’ those who are still alive must come out onto the field for some head-to-head combat.”
I always make it to Open Field. And then I get creamed.
“The last five campers to survive Open Field will earn a million points each for their teams.”
Camp 99 Pines always awards points in the millions. We do things almost as big as Texas.
“Any questions?” Johan looked around. Madison shot her hand up in the air.
“Yes, pink girl with the buff over your mouth.”
She pulled it down.
“Do head shots count?”
Why is she asking that?
Johan evil-laughed again. “No! If you get pounded in the head, you get to stay in the game. If you’re conscious.”
The whole camp laughed.
Johan pulled an airhorn out of his pocket.
“Okay, when the horn blows, Davids get one minute to get outta here!”
The horn blew. I bolted toward the east woods. But I couldn’t run as fast as I normally do, because someone had grabbed the back of my camp shirt and was holding on for dear life.
“Allie, slow down! I can’t keep up!” Madison huffed and puffed behind me stretching my shirt out more with every step. Finally, when it was obvious I wasn’t going to shake her, I stopped.
“Madison, you don’t have to stay with me. You can go wherever you want. Find a bush or a rock, and hide behind it. When you hear the Goliaths go by jump behind a different one.”
“But what if we want to attack one of them? Isn’t it better to have a bunch of us together?”
“Davids never attack, Madison.”
“Why not? There’s way more of us than there are of them.”
Hmmm. True.
I tried to explain quickly.
“Because we might lose our team members and we’re going for points. So, it’s like we’re going against the other Davids, too, to see who can survive the longest.”
Finding Cabin Six Page 6