by Andrea Beaty
“Geez,” said Joules. “Way to trash the joint.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Kevin.
Joules pointed her flashlight on the ground outside the door, where a dozen shredded candy wrappers littered the path.
“It wasn’t me,” said Kevin. “There was something out here. Something big and noisy that went
Besides, where would I get candy this time of night?”
“Whatever,” said Joules. “It was probably one of the other campers.”
“I don’t know,” said Kevin. “It sounded pretty weird for a camper.”
“What else would hang out by the spa eating candy in the middle of the night?” she asked. “Aliens?”
And speaking of aliens …
Let’s take a moment to fill in some gaps about the Fluffs and what happened after they boarded the rocket on the far side of their planet and pushed the comically large red button to be used in case of flaming meteor attack, tennis elbow, or invasion by Swedes.
Pushing this button initiated the Unexpected Return Protocol (URP). The URP in the rocket’s computer triggered a homing beacon designed to guide the rocket back to its starting point on planet Earth.
The Fluffs traveled farther and farther from the Starburst at the center of their galaxy. The Starburst whose sweet sugary goodness provided them energy and carried the telepathic waves that allowed them to communicate. As the distance from their home grew, the Fluffs shrank. And so did their telepathic ability.
Small, unable to communicate accurately, and craving something sugary, the three shrunken Fluffs hopped off to find a snack. Preferably something very, very sweet. And Swedish.
Joules and Kevin woke early the next morning and breathed in the pine needle and campfire–scented summer air. A faint aroma of frying bacon drifted from Café du Lac.
Ahhhh, camp.
They unpacked their bags, which they had dumped on the floor of the tent the night before. Joules tossed the plastic tubs of sauce and sandwiches under her cot, and they headed to the dining tent, where the other campers were already eating.
There were ten kids at Camp Whatsitooya, including the twins. Joules recognized SmellyCat and Nelson from the day before. SmellyCat sat with a new girl with braids. Nelson sat with three younger boys. He waved wildly at Joules, who ignored him.
Ms. Jones and two men were cooking in the camp kitchen. One was a short, nervous-looking middle-aged man with very pointy hair and a long white lab coat. He also wore long rubber gloves and lab goggles. He cautiously poked at the bacon with a long pair of tongs and ducked at each pop and snap of grease on the griddle.
The other man was extremely handsome and in his early twenties. He was tall and tanned with his dark hair pulled into a ponytail. He wore a “Surfers get Board” T-shirt, long surf shorts, and flip-flops. He was flipping pancakes and jamming to his iPod, but smiled when he saw the twins.
The smell of the pancakes and bacon filled the tent with the most delicious aroma. This was heaven.
“Good morning, campers. This is Counselor Blech,” said Ms. Jones, gesturing toward the pointy-haired man as he cautiously prodded a piece of bacon. “And that’s Counselor Jammer.” She waved her hand at the pancake-flipper. “Welcome to Café du Lac,” she continued. “After breakfast, you’re on my team for crafts, then boating with Counselor Jammer.”
“All right, dudes!” said the surfer chef, who gave them the “hang ten” sign.
“Cool,” said Kevin, grabbing a plate of food and heading over to sit by Nelson.
Joules grabbed a plate and headed to the table with SmellyCat and the girl with braids. SmellyCat were chattering together and seemed to have developed a whole language of their own that involved all the girls talking at once, followed by giggling and occasional snorting. It was a kind of gigglesnort dialect.
The girl in braids had a sparkling smile. Literally. She had two flakes of silver glitter stuck to her front tooth. Joules thought about saying something to her, but the girl also had flecks of glitter stuck to her hair. Joules smiled and started eating. The girl smiled back. Sparkle. Sparkle.
“Hi. I’m Mitzy,” she said, though Joules was too distracted by the glitter to pay attention. All Joules could think was, Sparkletooth. Sparkletooth.
“I heard you are coming to do crafts after breakfast. That’s so exciting. Today I get to be Junior Craft Leader! Some of the kids do boating first and then do crafts, but that’s no fun. It’s always best to start the day with crafts. Crafts are the best part of camp. I could do crafts all day. I think blah blah crafts blah blah crafts—”
Sparkletooth … Sparkletooth … At this point, Joules stopped listening entirely and ate her breakfast. She went back for seconds and was almost done eating when Sparkletooth finished talking.
“—blah blah crafts. Won’t that be awesome?”
She let out a dreamy kind of sigh.
SmellyCat sighed, too, then they said something in GiggleSnort that sounded like “GlitGlueFun,” followed by a round of giggles and snorts. Clearly, the four girls shared a love of all things sweet, glittery, and crafty. Joules groaned. She hated crafts. Next to watching golf on TV, there was nothing more boring than trying to glue shiny gluey things to other shiny gluey things so you could take them home to put in a massive pile of shiny gluey things you made last year and the year before and will never ever ever ever use in a million years. Crafts with Popsicle sticks were the worst. What was the point of a Popsicle stick without the Popsicle?
Joules finished eating and was about to leave when SmellyCat said, “CanTentThief!”
“No way!” said Sparkletooth. “Did they find out who did it?”
“What?” asked Joules.
“StoleLotsCan,” said SmellyCat, and they shot a glance at Kevin.
“Wow!” said Sparkletooth.
“What???” asked Joules.
“Someone stole candy from Avery’s tent last night and took it up by the spa and ate it all and left the wrappers all over the place and now Avery is in trouble because you’re not supposed to keep candy in your tent because of the wild animals around at night. The counselors are saying a raccoon ate it, but who knows really? Maybe it’s a robber. That kid looks sort of suspicious.”
“They said all that?” asked Joules. “Hey wait! Do they mean that kid??? Kevin didn’t do it. He found all the trash on the ground.”
SmellyCat glanced knowingly at one another and Sparkletooth.
“Sure.”
And somehow, that one word said it all.
The original Camp Whatsitooya was established in the 1940s as a vacation spot for homesick Norwegians, but failed when the Norwegians remembered that Norway, while cold, had actual plumbing. The homesick Norwegians returned to their homeland, which permanently cured their homesickness but did little for Camp Whatsitooya’s finances.
Ms. Jones purchased the camp a few months before Joules and Kevin arrived. She had dreams of transforming it into a crafting resort and amusement park for all ages—just like Disneyland, but with more Styrofoam balls and fewer talking rodents. Ms. Jones hoped that Craftland would become a vacation destination for glue-gun gurus everywhere. For now, it was two picnic tables covered in craft supplies beneath an elm tree on the shore of Lake Whatsosmelly.
At 9:30, Kevin and Joules arrived at the tables beneath the hand-painted sign: “Craftland—Creating Smiles One Project at a Time.”
SmellyCat sat at a table chatting and giggling. Nelson plopped down on the seat next to Kevin.
“I heard you’re a suspect in the Case of the Missing Candy,” Nelson said to Kevin.
“It’s not a case and I’m not a suspect,” said Kevin.
“That’s what I told the other kids,” said Nelson. “I said you’re a lot nicer than most thieves.”
“Well, you’re a lot nicer than most kids I stuff into garbage cans,” said Joules, though she had never actually stuffed anyone into a garbage can. (The closest she had ever come was “helping” a bully in fou
rth grade explore the inside of his gym locker.)
“You think so?” asked Nelson. “Mom says going to camp every summer has helped my interpersonal skills a lot.”
“It shows,” said Kevin, shooting a look at Joules.
Nelson beamed.
“I know!” he said. “I always make a lot of friends, and everyone is really excited at the end of summer when I say good-bye and promise to write them. And I do, too. But they aren’t very good at writing back. I don’t know why. What do you think?”
“No idea,” said Joules and Kevin at the same time.
Three younger boys arrived and sat at the opposite end of the twins’ table. They whispered to one another and looked nervously at Kevin.
“That’s Avery and his friends Jack and Eric,” Nelson said to Kevin. “They think you’re going to beat them up for their candy.”
“What?” asked Kevin. “I wouldn’t do that! Hey, kid! I didn’t take your candy.”
Kevin smiled his friendliest smile, but the younger boys looked frightened. They pretended to be fascinated by a pill bug walking across the table.
“Tell them, Joules,” said Kevin.
She did not answer. Joules was too busy gawking at Ms. Jones, who was walking toward Craftland with Sparkletooth. The two wore matching pink safari outfits with rhinestone buttons, beaded collars, and glittery hiking boots. Glue guns were slung to their hips like a gunslinger’s six-shooters. Scissors, pliers, Styrofoam balls, glue sticks, fringe, and vials of glitter were jammed in their tool belts.
“Wonderful!” cooed Ms. Jones. “So pleased that all of you could come to Craftland to enjoy a morning of personal growth and well-being through glitter. Mitzy will be Junior Craft Leader today, and I know she is very excited about it.”
Sparkletooth smiled her shiniest smile ever.
“I am overjoyed,” she said. “Ever since my parents died in that unfortunate toast accident, it has been my greatest dream to have a new family and lovely friends just like you. And to bring happiness to the world through glitter! This is a dream come true.”
Sparkle. Sparkle.
“Awwwww,” said SmellyCat, jumping up and hugging Sparkletooth in a blob of pink glittery giggles.
“I think I’m going to be nauseous,” whispered Joules.
Kevin nodded.
“That’s probably from all the bacon you ate,” whispered Nelson. “Mom says that too much bacon can make your tail curly. I don’t think that would be good, do you?”
Joules and Kevin just shook their heads. It was going to be a long morning.
After what seemed like hours of hugging and gigglesnorting, craft class finally began.
“Today we’re making lanyards,” said Ms. Jones. “You can’t get too many of those.”
Nelson whispered to Kevin, “Actually, you can. I have seventeen at home, and I’m pretty sure that’s enough. Though maybe one more won’t hurt. What do you think?”
Perhaps you have not been to camp and are asking yourself, “What is a lanyard?” or “Why would I need a lanyard?” or, more important, “What’s for lunch?”
Here are the answers:
1. A lanyard is a fancy string for carrying things like keys around your neck.
2. Lanyards are useful because it’s always fun to wear things around your neck so they can get caught on branches while you hike. And …
3. We just had breakfast. Try to focus already!
Ms. Jones and Mitzy distributed bundles of twine and plastic bags of beads and feathers to the campers, who knotted and threaded and twisted the twine into lanyards, then glued feathers to them.
Kevin actually liked crafts. The slow pace and attention to detail suited him. He had spent many hours creating detailed maps and models and always found the process of creating things relaxing. Joules, on the other hand, hated it. It bored and annoyed her.
The longer she sat trying to thread her twine through the beads, the crankier she got. The third time she trapped her finger in a knot of twine, she’d had enough.
“I need to visit the spa,” she said, and got up from the picnic table.
“Of course, dear!” said Ms. Jones. “Enjoy your scenic stroll to our historically significant facilities, and hurry back to join us. You won’t want to miss any of the fun. We’re going to learn all about the history of lanyards!”
“I’ll rush right back,” said Joules, by which she meant, “I’ll rush right back to my tent and take a nap, then pretend I got lost when you ask where I was for two hours.”
Joules left Craftland and headed toward the spa. Just as she passed the Café du Lac, she heard a series of thumps and a lound inside. She reached for the door.
Joules stepped into the unlit tent and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. For just one instant, she saw a white bear-sized creature squeeze through a rip in the tent canvas. She ran after it and tripped over a pile of pots and pans strewn across the floor. She fell face-first onto something sticky. And that’s when someone turned on the light.
“Girl dude!” said Jammer. “Why are you all—like—bodysurfing in the syrup? That’s so not cool.”
Joules was lying in a giant puddle of pancake syrup.
At that moment, the door opened and Ms. Jones came in, followed by the campers from Craftland.
Ms. Jones gasped.
“What on Earth did you do?” she asked.
“It wasn’t me!” said Joules. “There was a big hairy thing and it ripped the tent and went that way. I think it was a bear.”
She pointed at the gash in the canvas, but Ms. Jones didn’t even look. She was livid. She grabbed her glue guns like a cowboy with itchy trigger fingers.
“Miss Rockman. Go to the spa and get cleaned up, then return to your tent while I contact your parents.”
“But—,” said Joules. “I—”
“Now!” said Ms. Jones.
Joules peeled herself out of the sticky puddle as Sparkletooth cried, “Ms. Jones. She ate all the marshmallows!”
Indeed, the crates of marshmallows were gone. The only sign of them was a lone marshmallow stuck in the puddle of syrup on the floor.
Joules sat on her cot, poking the tent canvas with a stick she had found on the way back from the spa. It had taken her forever to get cleaned up. Being drenched in syrup was bad enough, but on the way to the spa, she had tripped on a root and fallen into a pile of pine needles. By the time she reached the showers, she looked like a porcupine and smelled like a pancake.
Camp was definitely not turning out as she had planned. But the worst part was knowing that Ms. Jones was calling her parents. Joules was now doomed to spend the rest of the week at the Festival of Chunky Funkiness for a crime she hadn’t committed. The thought of it made her blood boil, and she jabbed harder at the tent roof.
“Hey! You’ll poke a hole in it, and we’ll get wet if it rains!” said Kevin.
He and Nelson stuck their heads into the tent.
“Nelson saw some big footprints outside the mess tent and found these stuck on a tree at the edge of the woods by Craftland,” said Kevin, holding a small clump of short white hairs. “We tried to follow the trail, but lost it in the ferns. Whatever ripped that tent was big and fast.”
“And hungry,” said Nelson. “That was a lot of marsh-mallows. It’s a real mystery! I love mysteries. Mom says I could grow up to be a great detective since I like to watch mysteries on TV so much. Almost as much as I like to watch shows about plumbing. I think they are really interesting. What do you thi—”
“Shhhh,” said Kevin. “Here comes the Craft Queen. Let’s get out of here.”
“Chickens!” yelled Joules as Kevin and Nelson ran off to the canoe launch.
A moment later, Ms. Jones arrived at the tent and asked Joules to step outside.
“I am extremely disappointed in your behavior, Miss Rockman,” she said. “I have never witnessed such disregard for crafting and the enjoyment of other crafters.”
“But—” said Joules.
“We have attempted to contact your parents, but they are not answering their phone at the moment,” said Ms. Jones.
Hurray for International SPAMathons, thought Joules.
“We shall keep trying to reach your parents,” said Ms. Jones. “Until then, I am sad to say that you are not to participate in any more crafting activities at Camp Whatsitooya.”
“Awwww,” said Joules, trying very hard to look disappointed.
Ms. Jones continued.
“I know this is hard for you,” she said. “And it saddens me deeply because I know the joys of attaining personal enlightenment through the crafts. Still, I cannot put the happiness of others aside for the needs of one who has shown utter disdain for glitter.”
“You mean I can’t finish my lanyard?” asked Joules. “Well, I’ll stick around here and try to do better.”
She made a sad little “sorry” face.
“See that you do,” said Ms. Jones, walking away from the tent.
Joules lay back on her cot. Three seconds later, she got up and walked around the tent three times, tapping the canvas with her stick as she walked.
“That ought to count as sticking around,” she said to herself.
Joules Rockman headed into the woods to solve a mystery. A big mystery with white fur and a taste for marshmallows.
Nelson had chores to do at Café du Lac, so Kevin headed to the canoe launch alone. Avery, Sparkletooth, and SmellyCat were at the launch watching Jammer polish a blue-and-white surfboard. He was telling them about Hawaii, where they had the best surf in the world.
Working at Camp Whatsitooya had not been Jammer’s original plan. He had been a little confused about the distance from Atlantic City to Hawaii. After all, it was only four inches on the map he kept in his wallet. How long could that take? As it turns out, a lot more than a day when you are riding a bike and trying to haul your surfboard. Jammer stopped to work at Camp Whatsitooya for a few weeks to earn some cash to buy a plane ticket or at least a bigger bicycle.