Mother-Daughter Book Camp

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  “The know-it-all stuff,” I murmur. “Remember how we talked about that back in your cubie?”

  She flushes.

  That was a difficult conversation to have, but someone had to do it.

  “Felicia, nobody—I’m talking guys and girls—likes a know-it-all,” I’d told her as Megan was applying her mascara.

  “What’s wrong with being smart?” my cousin had grumbled.

  “Nothing,” I’d replied. “I’m smart, you’re smart, a lot of us here at camp are smart. The thing is, you don’t need to rub everybody’s noses in exactly how much you know all the time.”

  She’d reddened at that, and I worried that maybe I was being too mean. “Look, you’re my cousin and I love you. You know that, right?”

  Felicia had shrugged.

  “I’m just trying to help. That’s what cousins—and friends—are for. Right, guys?” I looked at my book club friends for support.

  Megan stood back, surveying her handiwork, then leaned in again with the mascara wand. “Absolutely,” she told Felicia. “You should have been there back in sixth grade, when I almost got kicked out of our book club for some mean stuff I did. The moms actually made me sign rules of conduct before they allowed me to stay. It was mortifying, but it made me a better person.”

  Becca laughed. “Megan almost got kicked out, but I wasn’t even allowed in!”

  “You were such a pill,” Emma told her, smiling broadly.

  “Shut up,” Becca replied, but she was smiling too. “Megan’s right, Felicia. If I hadn’t had to face my flaws, I’d probably still have them.”

  “It’s kind of like when you’ve got spinach in your teeth, or toilet paper stuck to your shoe or something, you know?” Emma added. “It’s embarrassing, but you’re glad somebody said something.”

  Felicia didn’t look convinced. “But what if I think I’m fine just the way I am?”

  My friends and I exchanged a glance.

  “It’s not that you aren’t fine, Felicia,” I told her. “But you know what they say: The biggest room in the house is the room for improvement.”

  My cousin looked down at her yoga top with a sigh. “I guess.”

  The limbo music starts and Chase grabs Felicia by the hand. “Come on, let’s limbo!”

  She snatches it away. “I don’t limbo,” she says huffily.

  I shake my head in disbelief. This is a lost cause.

  Jake grabs Cassidy, who wins, of course, contorting herself until she’s nearly flat on her back as she snakes her way under the bar each time it’s lowered.

  After the limbo, I lean over to Felicia. “Time to get your lute,” I tell her. She nods and trots off toward the bus. I approach Pinewood’s head counselor, meanwhile, and tell him my plan for the serenade.

  “What a great idea!” He leads me up onto the front porch. “I’ll introduce you when you’re ready.”

  I watch as everyone mills around, waiting for the dance to start. After Felicia returns, I give Pinewood’s head counselor a thumbs-up, and he nods.

  “And now, directly from Camp Lovejoy, it’s the Camp Chorale!” There’s a polite spattering of applause, but people aren’t really paying attention. As the head counselor passes me the microphone, I signal to Felicia, who strums the opening chords. This is the signal for our chorale group to step forward. The audience finally quiets down as I begin to sing. The first part is a solo, but as the campers come up on the porch one by one to join me, the song gradually shifts into an ensemble piece. Before long the words and the melody work their magic. People are swaying in time to the beat, and everyone is smiling. “Over the Rainbow” is that kind of a song.

  When it’s time for the final verse, I motion to the chorale, and as we rehearsed earlier this afternoon in secret, our voices all drop to a quiet hum. Suddenly, the spotlight is on Felicia. Her eyes are closed, she’s really into the music, and at first she doesn’t notice that she’s the center of attention. Then she opens her eyes, and they widen in alarm. I give her an encouraging smile and nod.

  She finishes to wild applause.

  “You’re a rock star!” I whisper to her.

  Sergeant Marge and Pinewood’s head counselor lead the younger campers into the lodge for games, and the DJ fires up the dance music. This time Chase won’t take no for an answer. Felicia’s face flushes with embarrassment as he takes her hand and sweeps her out into the middle of the crowd. The music starts and she begins to dance, stiffly at first, but if there’s one thing Felicia loves, it’s music, and eventually she relaxes.

  I lean over to Emma. “Our work is done,” I tell her. “I think we can safely say she’s launched.”

  Emma laughs. “Just wait until she starts lecturing him on the history of the hula,” she says, then adds, “Hey, do you have a minute?”

  I nod, and she leads me away from the party, past the lodge and on toward the parking lot.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  We stop in front of Artie’s truck. Emma reaches under the tarp in the back and fishes out a couple of screwdrivers. She hands one to me.

  I look at it, mystified. “What’s this for?”

  “Cassidy’s not the only one who knows how to play a prank,” she says smugly. “It’s Pinewood’s fault that my best friend had to cut off her braid, and it’s time they paid for it.”

  I gape at her.

  “Am I right, or am I right?” Emma continues. “If these guys didn’t steal our bell, Cassidy never would have tried to move that skunk.”

  Actually, knowing Cassidy, she probably would have. A potential weapon of mass stinkification would have been way too tempting for her to resist.

  “So what is it you have in mind?”

  Before Emma can explain, the gravel crunches behind us and we turn to see Cassidy and Becca and Megan crossing the parking lot.

  “What are you two up to?” asks Cassidy.

  “Payback,” Emma tells her. “We’re going to steal Pinewood’s toilet seats. Every last one of them.”

  We’re all quiet for a minute, staring at her. This is so not like Emma.

  “That’s pretty brilliant,” I say finally.

  She smiles. “I know, right?”

  “Except for one thing,” Becca notes.

  Emma looks over at her. “What’s that?”

  “Boys don’t use toilet seats.”

  “Sure they do—some of the time, at least.” Cassidy grins. “Jess is right, it’s a brilliant plan. What do you want us to do with the seats once we remove them?”

  Emma points to Artie’s truck. “Stash them in the back, under the tarp. We only have two screwdrivers, so we’ll have to work in teams. Jess and I will take the cabins and buildings on the lake side of the lodge; you guys take the rest. We’ve gotta work quickly, or they’ll notice we’re gone.”

  Fifteen minutes later, it’s done. Every single toilet seat at Pinewood is now stashed in the back of Artie’s pickup truck.

  “That’s that,” Emma says with satisfaction, pulling the tarp over them.

  “That’s what?”

  We all freeze.

  Sergeant Marge is standing behind us. And worse, Gwen is with her.

  “Um,” Emma says weakly.

  The two women step forward and peer under the tarp, then turn and look at us, their mouths twin O’s of astonishment.

  “They took our bell,” says Emma, by way of explanation.

  Gwen nods slowly. “Indeed they did.” She glances over at Marge. “I’m thinking this might qualify as a memory-maker. How about you? Stretch the rules this once?”

  The head counselor purses her lips, considering. “I’m thinking maybe we should take all their toilet paper, too.”

  Now it’s our turn to stare at them in astonishment.

  Gwen grins broadly. “I know where the supply shed is,” she says. “And where they hide the key.”

  “What are we waiting for?” says Marge.

  As the two of them trot o
ff across the parking lot, I look over at my friends.

  A slow smile spreads across Emma’s face. “I think we’re going to get our bell back.”

  Megan

  “It was great fun, sewing all together and chatting as they sewed.”

  —Understood Betsy

  We get our bell back.

  Pinewood totally caves first thing the following morning.

  “Well, look who’s here!” crows Cassidy as Jake and Chase walk in during breakfast. They’re carrying our bell, and looking sheepish.

  Gwen and Marge play it for all it’s worth.

  “You’re missing what?” Gwen asks loudly, as Jake mumbles something to her. “Toilet seats? And toilet paper?”

  As her questions register with the campers, most of whom haven’t heard about the prank, laughter begins to ripple through the Dining Hall.

  “How many toilet seats are missing, exactly?” Marge’s brow furrows as she pretends to be puzzled. Jake mumbles something else, and the head counselor cups her hand to her ear. “What’s that? All of them?” By now everyone is howling. The head counselor winks at Gwen. “Good heavens—who would do such a thing?”

  Eventually, after all but making Jake and Chase get down on their knees and beg, Gwen and Sergeant Marge finally relent.

  “I think these boys have learned their lesson, Marge, don’t you?” says Gwen.

  Marge crosses her arms over her chest and regards Jake and Chase skeptically. “Have you learned your lesson, boys?”

  They nod vigorously.

  “Good. In that case, I suppose we can let you off the hook,” says the head counselor.

  Gwen turns to her husband. “Artie, sweetheart, would you mind driving these gentlemen back to Pinewood? Now that our bell is safely home again, I think you’ll find what they’re looking for in the back of your truck.”

  Jake and Chase follow Artie out of the Dining Hall, accompanied by loud catcalls and the drumming of many feet.

  Cassidy can’t resist a parting shot. “That’s what you get for messing with Camp Lovejoy!”

  “Tell us again how you did it,” pleads Freddie a while later, when fourth period rolls around.

  “Seriously?” My friends and I have spent the day retelling the story of the prank. We have all rocketed to superstar status here at camp, thanks to our part in it.

  “Please, Megan?” Nica begs. “We really want to hear it again.”

  The other girls all nod too.

  “Okay, then,” I say, handing them each a length of purple fabric. We’re in the Art Studio, working on accessories for Queen for a Day, yet another in the seemingly bottomless pile of Camp Lovejoy traditions. Tomorrow at breakfast, each cabin will draw a name from a hat, and the camper chosen will dress up as royalty and rule her fellow cabinmates for the day. It sounds kind of childish and silly to me, but everybody who’s been here before says it’s really fun.

  “Especially at the end,” Brianna told me at our staff meeting, “when the queens get dunked in the lake.”

  Freddie and Nica are helping several other girls and me sew purple capes for the queens-to-be, while out at the tables on the deck, Becca is supervising the crew crafting crowns and scepters out of cardboard and paper towel tubes. There are lots of plastic jewels and sequins and glitter involved, along with barely suppressed excitement. The younger campers love anything involving glitter.

  “So, it was all Emma Hawthorne’s idea,” I begin, and the girls hang on my every word as I relate in elaborate detail how we fanned out around Pinewood, hunting down every last toilet and removing every last toilet seat. I don’t tell them about Gwen and Marge’s involvement. I figure maybe that piece of information should remain confidential.

  “What would have happened if you had gotten caught?” asks Pippa Lovejoy’s older sister Lauren, her eyes wide.

  “Something dreadful, I’m sure,” I tell her, with a dramatic shiver. “We were lucky that everyone was having such a great time at the luau.”

  During free period, my fashionistas and I set our own projects aside—quick and easy miniskirts glammed up by my most sumptuous leftover fabrics—and put the finishing touches on the royal robes and other adornments. When the bell rings, signaling the end of the period, my campers help me transport everything down to Cabbage for safekeeping. Sergeant Marge will distribute them at tomorrow’s crowning ceremony.

  Afterward, I stop by my cubie to change and grab a few things. Tonight is my night off, and I can’t wait. Cassidy said I could borrow her car, but I don’t really feel like going anywhere. Simon and I are planning to videoconference, so I’ll do that first at the Counselors’ Cabin; then I’m thinking maybe I’ll spend some time by myself in the Art Studio. I haven’t had much time this summer to do any sewing on my own, and I’m itching to get back to it.

  There’s a new issue of the Birch Bark waiting for me on my dressing table, along with a note from Emma: “Handing these out at dinner tonight—knew you’d want one hot off the press.” She signed it with a smiley face. I stuff it in my shoulder bag to read later.

  Even though I’m staying here at camp, I decide to change into my civvies. I dig through my trunk, ending up with yoga pants and a T-shirt—a pretty tangerine-colored one, since Simon will see that part of me—plus a fleece for later, since it’s been getting colder at night. Becca pokes her head in as I’m changing and starts to laugh.

  “Yoga pants? You’re turning into your mother, Megs!”

  “Hey, it’s camp!” I protest. “Nobody’s going to see me.”

  “So what are you going to do tonight?”

  I shrug. “Talk to Simon and then just hang out.”

  “Sounds perfect. Wish I could join you.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Co-counselors don’t get days or nights off together though, unfortunately. “What’s the plan for you guys?”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Evening activity is square dancing.”

  I grin. “Wow, sorry I’m going to miss that.”

  She grins back. “Yeah, I’ll bet.” The dinner bell rings and she waggles her fingers at me. “Gotta go round up the troops. See you later!”

  Peering into my teeny mirror, I see Mirror Megan peering back at me. The shade of tangerine she’s wearing gives her face a nice glow, and she looks happy.

  “You should be happy,” I tell her. “Only ten more minutes until Simon!”

  I’m way too old to be talking to Mirror Megan. I made her up when I was younger and desperate for a sister. But once in a while I still can’t help myself.

  I put on mascara and a swipe of lip gloss, brush my hair one more time, then grab my shoulder bag and head out. I’m hoping that if I’m quick about it, I’ll have the Counselors’ Cabin to myself—at least for a while. There isn’t much privacy around here, and it would be nice to be able to talk to Simon without having a bunch of other people listening in. Earlier today I heard some of the other counselors talking about going to the movies, so maybe I’ll be in luck.

  I am in luck—the cabin is deserted. Flipping on the lights and crossing to the desk, I boot up the computer and wait.

  “There you are!” I hear Simon say a few minutes later.

  “Hang on a sec,” I tell him. “I can’t see you.” I tap a few keys and his face appears on-screen.

  “Hi,” I murmur, feeing suddenly shy. His eyes are so brown and warm! Like velvet.

  “Hi,” he replies.

  We smile at each other, and neither of us says anything for a long moment. Then we both start talking at once. We stop, laughing.

  “Ladies first,” he says.

  “Okay. How are you?”

  “Wonderful! Amazing! Fantastic!” Simon has been interning with a video production company this summer.

  “So you don’t like it at all,” I reply somberly, teasing him. “That’s too bad.”

  He grins. “How about you?”

  “Things are going well.” I catch him up on all the news, including last night’s prank and Jess’s run-in
with the skunk.

  “Epic prank!” he says when I’m finished. “Well done! But I do pity poor Jess.”

  “I know! It was awful. I had to cut her hair, and I practically had to hold my nose as I did. It looks cute short, though.”

  “Jessica Delaney would look cute even if she had no hair at all,” Simon remarks, and I feel a pang of jealousy until he adds, “Not as cute as you, though.”

  Pleased, I feel my face go pink. Simon is such a good boyfriend.

  “How’s Amy doing?” he continues. “She’s the one who’s been so terribly homesick, right?”

  I nod. “Better. She seems to have settled in, for the most part at least.”

  “And you’ll be heading to New York in just a few weeks! Excited?”

  I nod again. “Definitely. How about you? Oxford doesn’t start until later in the fall, right?”

  “That’s right. Michaelmas Term begins mid-October. I’ll probably go up a week early to get settled.”

  We continue to make small talk for a while, and then there’s a long pause while Simon just looks at me with that open, cheerful expression of his. “I miss you,” he says finally.

  “I miss you, too!”

  Before either of us can say anything else, the door behind me opens. I glance over my shoulder and see Felicia walk in.

  “Oh hey, Felicia, I’m videoconferencing with my boyfriend,” I tell her.

  “That’s okay,” she says, flopping onto the sofa and opening a book. “You won’t bother me.”

  My mouth drops open. Can she seriously be this clueless? “Um, maybe you could give me a couple of minutes here?”

  Flapping her hand at me, she says, “Really, I don’t mind.”

  Furious, I turn back to Simon, who’s smiling broadly.

  “We’re no longer alone, I take it,” he whispers.

  I shake my head.

  “It’s all right; we’ll have plenty of chances to chat again before you head to New York.”

  I’m so mad right now I could cry. There was so much more I wanted to say, and so much I wanted to hear him say. He blows me a kiss, and I blow him one back. Then the screen goes black.

  Spinning around in my chair, I leap to my feet. “What is wrong with you?” I yell at Felicia. “Couldn’t you see I was on a private call?”