How to (Almost) Ruin Your Summer

by Taryn Souders

  Pogo nodded but grinned. “Wait here,” she said and scurried to her top bunk. Seconds later, she was back with a paper bag. She reached in and pulled out…Mr. Snuffles?

  A hand-sewn chef’s hat covered the gaping hole in Mr. Snuffles’s head and ear. Instead of a chewed-up T-shirt, he wore a small apron. His little gray body had been sewn up and restuffed. Gone were the dirt and slobber stains, and in his now-slightly-shorter trunk, he held a miniature wooden spoon. More than ever, he reminded me of Grandpa and the times we cooked together.

  It was love at first sight.

  I plucked Mr. Snuffles from her hand and held him close. “He’s amazing! How did you do this?”

  “I had to work fast. I grabbed him after lunch while you were on KP duty.” Pogo giggled. “I was so afraid you’d come back to the cabin and notice he was missing and get even more upset!”

  “But how did you sew him?”

  “I took a sewing class a while back,” Pogo said. “Ms. Jacqueline said I could use an old dish towel for fabric.” She pointed to a line of stitches on Mr. Snuffles. “I used cotton balls to add stuffing and closed it up here. I figured a chef’s hat was the perfect thing to cover the hole in his head since you like to bake.”

  “He’s perfect.” I gave Mr. Snuffles a big hug and kiss. “Thank you.”

  Thursday, June 24

  8:52 p.m.

  Pogo repaired Mr. Snuffles! He looks AWESOME!! I think she should’ve been awarded the Distinction of Recognized Kindness!! But it went to someone named Mark for teaching everyone in his cabin CPR.

  On a totally separate note, today was officially Make Chloe Die of Embarrassment Day.

  I drank Nathn’s sea monkey experiment. At least he was a good sport about it. He is soooo sweet.

  King Arthur escaped AGAIN, and this time he rammed me down Mess Hall Hill with a tub of frosting.

  To make things even worse, when the cake decorating class dashed out to find me on the ground, covered in chocolate frosting, Victoria took the opportunity to snap a few photos on her phone. Rumor has it she asked Director Mudwimple if she could use the office printer to print out a cake design—yeah right! The next thing I know, photos of me with the words “Goat Girl” scrawled across them are plastered all over cabin doors and pine trees!!

  According to Nathn, the pictures are even in the boy’s bathroom in the mess hall!

  My humiliation is complete.

  Of course, Victoria denied it. She even showed Director Mudwimple her cake printout (like that’s some form of proof of her innocence or something), but I know she did it.

  She’s had it out for me since day one.

  And so has the stupid goat! Why should he hate me so much? It seems every time I turn around, King Arthur is following me—or ramming me down a hill or something. Doc thinks King Arthur likes my scent. He said goats have a terrific sense of smell and hearing. It’s even been proven that goats can remember people for over a year, maybe even longer.

  Then Doc said something HYSTERICAL. He said, “If you come back next year, he’ll remember you.” Like I would EVER come back here!!!!

  The good news is, I’m finally finished with kitchen patrol duty. I bet this was the first time Victoria ever washed dishes—her chef probably does them at home. Must be nice.

  Friday, June 25

  Swallow Some Shower Gel

  “Rabies!” screeched Victoria. “The goat has rabies!”

  I shot up in bed. Where was I? Why was Victoria screaming? What goat?

  King Arthur stood in the bathroom doorway. His four legs were spread wide and foam dripped from his mouth. His eyes were glazed over and he didn’t look so hot.

  “Where’s Mindy?” I said.

  “She’s not here,” Leslie squealed. “She had a meeting this morning!”

  Sunlight was just beginning to pour through the cabin windows and our door stood open.

  “She must not have pulled the door tight behind her,” I said, swinging my feet out of bed. “Quick! Shut the cabin door, so he won’t escape!”

  “No way!” Marcie said. “Get him out!”

  “We can’t just have him running loose! Again.” Pogo jumped down from her bunk.

  Charlotte pushed the door shut with her foot. “Now what?”

  “Catch him!” Victoria bounced on her knees on the top bunk. “Before he bites me.”

  “If you want him so bad, you come down and get him,” I said.

  King Arthur belched, spewing a waterfall of foam.

  “Oh, gross!” Marcie scurried up to a top bunk.

  “Poor guy,” I said. “We gotta get him to Doc.”

  “Here.” Pogo thrust her bathrobe belt into my hand. “Use this for a leash.”

  I walked toward King Arthur. “Here, boy…come here,” I coaxed.

  King Arthur shook his head, spraying slobbery bubbles in every direction.

  Charlotte squealed, Ruth cried, and Leslie sat shaking on her top bunk in the corner, as far away from the action as she could get.

  I let out a huff of disgust and walked toward him again.

  King Arthur kicked out his back legs and charged. I yelped and jumped out of the way as he galloped toward the center of the cabin, leaving a trail of foamy bubbles.

  He jumped onto a lower bunk. His eyes looked crazed and foam was flying everywhere. He bounced from the bed to the floor and zoomed around and around, transforming our cabin into his personal racetrack.

  “Look! The rabies must be getting worse,” Anna said. “The bubbles are changing colors!”

  Sure enough, the foam had turned pink and was becoming darker by the second.

  He tried to make a tight turn, and his legs slipped out from underneath him. He stood and then stumbled. The foam was bright red now.

  “Oh no,” I said. “He’s dying.”

  But instead of kicking the bucket, King Arthur wobbled over to the far corner, steadied himself, then barfed…right into Victoria’s suitcase.

  “Nooooooo!” Victoria wailed.

  The unexpected, sweet smell of strawberries filled the cabin as a flood of multicolored bubbles and bright-pink gel erupted from his mouth.

  Marcie’s jaw dropped.

  Charlotte’s hand flew to her face.

  Anna’s eyes almost popped out of her head.

  Pogo grabbed my arm in shock.

  King Arthur dropped to his knobby knees and rested his head on the floor. I was no vet, but even I could tell he didn’t feel good. I rushed over to him and slipped Pogo’s bathrobe belt through his collar.

  “That stupid goat!” Victoria screeched, climbing down from the top bunk.

  “That puke looks and smells an awful lot like your shower gel!” I said, rubbing his neck to soothe him. “You know you’re supposed to put your stuff away each night.”

  She stared blankly at me and then ran to the bathroom. A shriek vibrated the cabin windows.

  She emerged from the bathroom moments later, clutching the empty, mangled bottle of her expensive shower gel. I waited for her to spontaneously combust in a fury-filled ball of fire as we giggled. “Losers,” she hissed. “You’re all losers. How dare you laugh at me!” Her eyes were wild with anger. “And my luggage! You’re all a bunch of—”

  “Enough!” Pogo stepped forward. “All you’ve done since the moment you arrived is treat us like dirt.” Her hands clenched into fists. “I’m sick of it! If you want to talk to us like that, fine. But we don’t have to stay here and listen.” She turned around. “Come on, girls. Let’s take King Arthur back to the barn and have Doc Mulholland check him out.”

  Victoria gaped as we walked out the door, all of us still in our pajamas—even Anna came. I led the way with King Arthur on the bathrobe leash. I know Victoria deserved everything she got—vomit and all—but I couldn’t help feeling at least a teensy bi
t sorry she had such a gross mess to clean up. It was nasty.

  Doc was already in the barn when we arrived. He raised an eyebrow in amusement when I handed him King Arthur’s bathrobe leash. I started telling him what happened, and his expression changed to concern. He removed the stethoscope from around his neck and knelt beside King Arthur…who belched.

  We all huddled in our jammies in a group as Doc listened to the goat’s heart.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked Doc. “He looks so pathetic.”

  Doc didn’t answer right away but moved the stethoscope from King Arthur’s heart to his belly. After a few minutes, he stood. “He’ll be fine. He has a stomach of iron.” He patted King Arthur’s head. “Serves him right for eating stuff he shouldn’t.”

  “That goat spends more time out of his stall than he does in it,” I muttered.

  Doc shut the stall door and double-checked the latch. He leaned over the top and rubbed one of King Arthur’s ears. “Stay here, you rascal, understand?”

  The goat belched again and a bubble floated out and up toward the rafters. I swear, King Arthur looked ashamed.

  “Will he still be blowing bubbles when I show him to my parents tomorrow?” I asked.

  Doc laughed. “No. I think most of the shower gel is out of his system. He might still smell like strawberries though.”

  “I’m cool with that—strawberries smell a lot better than goats.”

  He led us out of the barn. “Y’all get changed and grab some breakfast before they stop serving.”

  Victoria and her vomit-filled luggage were nowhere to be seen when we returned to get dressed.

  “I wonder where Victoria went,” said Pogo.

  I shrugged. “I’m just glad she took the suitcase out of here. That is not something I want to see or smell right before I eat.”

  Our whole cabin, minus Victoria, sat together for breakfast for the first time, which was kind of sad. We had finally gotten close and camp was practically over.

  Mindy and Director Mudwimple came over and joined us.

  “I understand there was a bit of a catastrophe in the cabin this morning,” Director Mudwimple said.

  Charlotte told her everything.

  Mindy held her hand over her mouth as though she was trying not to laugh. “I didn’t want to wake you girls, so I gently shut the door. I guess I should’ve pulled a little harder—I am so sorry.”

  “No complaints here,” I said.

  Director Mudwimple raised her eyebrow at my comment.

  “I mean because King Arthur’s going to be okay, of course.”

  “Hmm,” Director Mudwimple murmured, but she smiled.

  I looked around for Victoria and didn’t see her. “Where’s Victoria?”

  “The morning’s event proved to be a bit much for Victoria,” Director Mudwimple said. “She’s in the nurse’s office resting with a cool compress. Once she’s calmed down, I’ll let her use the laundry facilities to wash her things.” She tapped her chin as though deep in thought. “It might take several washes to get everything clean.”

  I felt a stab of guilt. “I don’t know how he could’ve gotten out. I promise I locked his gate last night.”

  “Don’t fret, dear,” Director Mudwimple said. “Doc was in the barn early this morning and saw the whole thing. He came around the corner just in time to see King Arthur leap from his climbing platform right over the fence.” She sighed. “By the time Doc ran outside, King Arthur was long gone. Maybe that’s been King Arthur’s trick to escape these past few days. Doc has since moved him to another stall with no climbing structure.”

  That might explain how he was roaming free on the first day of camp and the incident with the frosting, but I seriously doubted King Arthur had jumped his pen the day of poor Mr. Snuffles’s demise. I think he had help from Victoria.

  Friday, June 25

  Presume Everything Will Be Fine

  I met Pogo in the science lab just before lunch. She wanted me to bring her one of King Arthur’s collars, so she could attach the tracking device to it.

  “Here’s the collar,” I said, setting it down. Her workstation was covered with colored wires, pliers, and bits and pieces of what I think used to be a cell phone. I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

  Pogo laughed when she saw my expression. “Don’t worry—that’s all from my old cell phone.”

  “You brought both your old and new phone to camp?”

  “I didn’t mean to bring my old one. My little brother was playing with it on the car ride up here and must have stuck it in my bag. I discovered it when I unpacked—he’s always putting stuff in my schoolbag. Last year, he shoved his Darth Vader action figure in with my pencils. Each time I reached for a pencil, Darth Vader would say, ‘You underestimate the power of the Dark Side.’” Pogo picked up a small box that had various wires and techy stuff attached to it and held it up to the collar.

  “Is that the tracking device?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been working on it like crazy. I found a free tracking app. I just need to link it to a sim card from my old phone. Then, I can load the app onto my new phone.” She set it down.

  “You’ll be able to show your dad that you’ve put your daddy-daughter dates in the garage to good use.”

  She smiled. “If I can get it working in time.”

  “I bet you will—according to Sebastian, you’re pretty smart.” I winked.

  She blushed. “C’mon. Let’s get some lunch.”

  We walked toward the mess hall. In the distance, I could see large, gray clouds gathering. The air was thick with humidity and the wind had picked up. Rain was holding off, but I could tell it would pour at some point that day. I was actually looking forward to the storm—the rain would hopefully bring down the photos of me plastered all over the camp.

  Garlic smells from the mess hall mixed with the scent of detergent as we passed by the laundry building. The door was open. Victoria wore rubber gloves and one of those masks that doctors wear on TV shows as she hosed out her suitcase. I figured the nurse gave it to her to use. An extra-large Camp Minnehaha Rocks! T-shirt hung down to her knees, and a pair of athletic shorts showed beneath.

  “Wow,” Pogo said under her breath. “I bet those clothes aren’t what she’s used to wearing.”

  “All her things are in the wash, I guess.” I stole another look. “It looks like she had to scavenge the lost and found for something to wear.” I nudged Pogo in the side. “I can’t help but think King Arthur is good for something after all.”

  Pogo let out a laugh.

  Victoria’s head shot up at the sound of Pogo’s laughter. She glared.

  I returned to the barn after lunch to bathe King Arthur, who had fully recovered from his breakfast à la shower gel. Doc wanted all the animals groomed for the parent preview tomorrow. (I was the only camper whose animal had been soaped up both inside and out.)

  After toweling him dry, I brushed his white, hairy coat until my arms ached. That goat never looked or smelled so good. While I polished his horns with horse hoof polish Doc gave me, King Arthur nibbled at my shoelaces. I danced my feet around, but he chased them like a kitten. I laughed and gently pushed him away. Dumb goat.

  After his bath, he spent the rest of the afternoon secured in his paddock. I tackled the stink of King Arthur’s stall one last time. Cleaning his pen was toward the top of my list of many things I was not going to miss when camp ended. A three-day-old rotted cheeseburger smelled better than his stall. My eyes watered each time I plopped a shovel full of sopping, stinking wood shavings into the wheelbarrow.

  I was almost done when Pogo sprang through King Arthur’s door.

  “I did it! I got it to work!” She thrust a collar toward me with the small box secured to it. Then she wrinkled her nose. “Man! What a smell.”

  “You’re telling me,” I said.r />
  She pranced into the paddock and knelt next to King Arthur, who nibbled away at the grass. She fastened the collar around him, yanked her phone from her pocket, and pulled up the tracking app. “This will track him in real time, so you’ll know right where he is,” she called over her shoulder.

  My final scoop of poop plopped into the wheelbarrow. “Great! Even if he does run off before my parents see him, I can find him now.”

  Doc popped his head around the stall door. “Hi, Paulie.” His eyes lit up when he saw the collar and Pogo’s phone. “Did you get it to work?”

  “Yep, gone are his days of disappearing.”

  I grabbed a bag of clean wood shavings, emptied it into the stall, and started raking the shavings out to make a soft, sweet-smelling covering across the floor—a bed fit for a king.

  Doc joined Pogo in the paddock and bent down to examine King Arthur’s collar. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll still disappear. We’ll just know where he’s disappeared to.” He rubbed behind King Arthur’s ear and gave him a pat on the head. “Don’t tell the other animals, but this little guy is my favorite.”

  I looked up from raking. “Why?”

  Doc laughed. “When I was a kid, my dad was prone to seizures and blackouts. My mom read an article about goats helping a lady with her seizures, so they got a couple for my dad. The goats could sense when he was about to have one, and they’d circle around him. He’d then go lie down, so he wouldn’t bump his head. My dad called the girl Daisy, and I got to name the boy. I chose Roger.”

  I stifled a laugh. “Roger?”

  “That doesn’t really sound like a goat name,” said Pogo.

  A gust of wind swept through the barn, creating little dust tornadoes.

  Doc nodded. “I know, but that’s what I wanted to name a dog, so that’s what the goat got. And he followed me everywhere and even came when I called. He was very affectionate and playful—just like a dog.”

  “So King Arthur’s your favorite because he reminds you of Roger?” Pogo said.

  “Yeah—but he also reminds me of my dad.” He looked sad. “He died last year.” Doc gave King Arthur one more pat on the head and stood. “I know this little guy’s been a bit of a rascal for you.”