by Julie Bowe
Jenna puffs. “What’s it good for?”
“For building trust,” Alex replies. “The person standing on the platform falls off. Everyone catches her.”
“She just…falls?” I ask.
Alex nods. “Stiff and straight, like a domino.”
“Cool,” Randi says.
“Not cool.” Brooke hops down. “I’d get broken to bits.”
“Not if you trust us to catch you,” Alex replies.
Brooke crosses her arms. “What if you don’t?”
Alex smiles. “What if we do?”
Brooke snorts and turns away. “D-U-M dumb.”
Alex looks around our group. “Who wants to give it a try?”
Everyone gets busy studying their toenail polish. Except Elizabeth. She’s studying me. I pretend not to study her back.
“We didn’t have to do this last year,” Jenna grumbles again.
“You don’t have to do it this year either,” Alex says. “Only if you want to.”
Randi steps forward. “I’ll do it,” she says.
Brooke’s eyes go wide. “Are you crazy?”
Randi scrambles onto the platform. “Crazy or not, here I come. Catch me, okay?”
I gulp. Randi’s the biggest girl in our class. None of us have ever caught her before. Not even in tag.
Alex lines us up in two rows under the platform, facing each other.
Shoulder to shoulder.
Arms out.
Elbows bent.
Palms up.
Brooke snickers, looking up and down our row of twig-thin arms. “She is so dead.”
We all fidget and nod.
“Randi trusts you,” Alex says firmly. “Now you need to trust each other.”
She looks up at Randi. “Stiff and straight,” she reminds her.
Randi nods. “Like a domino.”
Then she turns around.
Straightens her back.
Locks her knees.
Crosses her arms.
“Falling!” she shouts.
“Fall away!” Alex replies.
Randi tips back on her heels.
Whoosh!
A moment later, she’s lying in our arms.
“Hi, guys!” she says, smiling up at us. “Thought I’d drop in!”
“Ohmygosh!” Brooke says. “We did it!”
“I knew you could,” Alex says.
“Fun!” Stacey cries. “Me next!”
She climbs onto the platform.
A moment later, Stacey falls into our arms too.
“Hey, we’re getting good at this,” Jolene says.
“I wish I would have brought my camera,” Meeka puts in.
“Anyone else?” Alex asks as we set Stacey on her feet.
“I hope not,” Brooke says, rubbing her arms. “I’ll probably have bruises tomorrow. Nat and Emillie will think I’m a sports freak.”
Elizabeth starts to raise her hand.
Jenna steps in, blocking her. “I’ll go.” She kicks her clipboard aside and climbs onto the platform. “But after this, we’ll need a schedule. It can’t be alphabetical since Randi fell first.” She pauses, thinking. “But she is tallest. Then Stacey. Then me. The falling schedule will be according to height.”
“Then consider me invisible,” Brooke says, “because I’m not falling off that thing.”
Jenna turns around and straightens her back. “If you’re on my schedule, Brooke, you’re falling.”
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Jenna pushes a button on her watch. “Quick!” she says. “Catch me. It’s time for campfire.”
Just like that, Jenna falls. We scramble to catch her.
“Are you going to fall?” Elizabeth asks me as Jenna grabs her clipboard and hurries to lead the way back to Chickadee.
I shrug, and head after the others.
But Elizabeth takes my arm, stopping me. “I will if you will.” She makes her eyes go all serious behind her glasses.
I make my eyes go all serious too. Because I’ve heard her make that promise lots of times before.
When we were finally tall enough to ride the big roller coaster at the fair.
When we discovered her sister’s diary.
When we wondered what Champ’s dog biscuits tasted like.
But, most of all, she made that promise when she asked me to be her best friend forever. Right before she moved away and wrote to me exactly zero times.
I wiggle my arm free and walk away.
I brush the marshmallows out of my teeth after campfire, change into my pajamas, and join the other girls in Alex’s room. She’s showing Stacey and Brooke some of the jewelry she’s made.
Randi and Jolene are sitting on Alex’s bed, posing with her stuffed animals while Meeka takes pictures.
Jenna is sitting on the floor, using some of Alex’s markers to draw a border around the trust fall schedule on her clipboard.
“Do you have any paper with lines?” Elizabeth asks, looking over Jenna’s shoulder at her clipboard.
Jenna looks up. “Yes,” she replies.
“Can I borrow some?”
Jenna looks down. “No. I only brought enough for me.”
“I have paper,” Alex says, glancing over from her desk. “Lined…blank…whatever!” She opens a drawer. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” Elizabeth replies, taking a few sheets of notepaper back to her bunk.
“Ida’s desk is stuffed with paper too,” Stacey says, holding a beaded hoop up to her earlobe and looking at herself in Alex’s mirror. “She’s a great artist. You should see her sketchbook!”
All the girls nod.
I do a shy smile.
“Cool!” Alex says to me. “I lead crafts every day. We draw and paint and make stuff out of beads and glitter. You should come!”
I give her a smile.
Brooke gasps, dropping one of the necklaces she’s trying on. “Did you say glitter? I’m the queen of glitter!”
“The more the merrier!” Alex replies.
Brooke squeals. “I’ll bring Nat and Emillie!”
I sigh.
Alex starts putting her jewelry away. “Time for bed, girls. Get snuggled in. I’ll read you a story before lights-out.”
Brooke sniffs, putting the necklaces back in a box. “We’re too old for bedtime stories.”
Alex picks up a flashlight and a book. “You’re never too old,” she replies.
“Make it spooky!” Randi says, hopping up from Alex’s bed.
“Not too spooky,” Meeka adds, clicking off her camera and following the others to their bunks.
“I’d love to see your sketchbook sometime, Ida,” Alex says, dimming the lights.
“Maybe,” I reply, and hurry to my bunk too while she gets ready to read.
I unzip my sleeping bag, squish George to one side, and climb in. But something pokes me in the back.
I roll over and turn on my flashlight.
A rock is lying there.
Red with white swirls.
“It’s the agate me and Jenna found,” I whisper to George. “But how did it—”
Then I see a crumpled note next to the agate. I pick it up and read the words to George.
Ida,
Here’s the rock you dropped.
I know you meant it for me, but that was before you knew who I was.
So I’m giving it back.
Liz
“Who are you talking to?” Jenna pokes her head over the edge of her bunk.
I hide the note with George. And hold the rock up for Jenna to see. “It’s the agate we found,” I whisper.
Jenna glances over at Elizabeth’s bunk. I glance too. Elizabeth’s tucked inside her sleeping bag, staring at the empty bunk above her, listening to Alex read about some girl who lives with wolves.
“Keep it,” Jenna tells me. “Agates are rare.” Then she rolls away again.
Jenna’s right. Agates don’t show up very often. But I don’t want some rare rock around t
o remind me of Elizabeth either.
I slip out of bed and tiptoe to the wastebasket that’s by Elizabeth’s bunk.
First, I toss the note.
Then, I drop the rock.
Plunk!
I crawl back into bed.
Elizabeth rolls away.
Chapter
8
Monday morning, I wake up to the sound of my dad’s coffee grinder rattling downstairs in the kitchen.
But when I open my eyes, I see Jenna’s bunk above me and remember I’m a long way from home.
I hear the sound again.
Ratta-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Rolling over, I lift the curtain that covers the open window between my bunk and Elizabeth’s. Sunshine peeks through the trees. A woodpecker is tapping on one of them.
“What’s for breakfast?” I mumble to him sleepily. “Bark juice and scrambled beetles?”
He cocks his bright red head. Then starts tapping again.
I look around the room. Seven sleeping lumps. Scattered sweatshirts and jeans. A jumble of flip-flops and swimsuits on the floor. I crane my neck and see that Alex’s bed is empty. She must have gone for her run. She told us she goes every morning.
I lie back on my pillow, pat the George-shaped lump that’s burrowed next to me, and look over at Elizabeth’s sleeping face and messy hair.
Without her glasses, she looks like the Elizabeth I used to know. The one I could talk to without any words. Not in a magic way, like me and George can. Just in the way friends do when they send messages to each other with their eyes. Stacey is good at it. Jenna too, sometimes.
But you can’t send eye messages between Purdee, Wisconsin, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. No one can see that far. Not even hawks.
Elizabeth shifts in her sleep. Her sleeping bag slips partway off the mattress. One of her arms slips too. The faded blue friendship bracelet I made for her last year dangles from it. So does the wristband Alex gave her for swimming. Tadpole pink, just like mine. When Randi asked Elizabeth how come she doesn’t want to swim to the raft, Elizabeth just said, “There’s more to do by the shore.”
Like what? Dodge snapping turtles?
Her fingers twitch and I see a chip of orange polish sparkle on each nail.
I frown and sit up a notch.
She hates orange, I think to George. It always reminds her of real oranges, which are hard to peel and have those sticky white strings.
I lean forward, squinting to see if her fingernails really are painted orange or if I need glasses too.
My bed creaks.
Elizabeth’s eyes pop open.
So do mine.
She blinks a few times. Yawns. Rubs away the sleep. “What are you looking at?” she whispers to me.
“Um…” I reply, shrinking back. “I thought…I saw something. Under your bed. A mouse maybe. Or a squirrel.”
Elizabeth pulls her sleeping bag off the floor. “Really?” she says, reaching for her glasses.
I nod. “They sneak in sometimes. Looking for food.”
“But there’s no food in here,” Elizabeth whispers. She puts on her glasses and looks around. “Is there?”
I do a very casual snort. “Duh-no.” Then I force myself not to look at Brooke’s backpack. Elizabeth doesn’t know about the snacks. I want to keep it that way.
But, sometimes, the more you try not to do something, the more you can’t help but do it. My eyes dart to the backpack on Brooke’s bottom bunk. It’s as plump as a Thanksgiving turkey. When I look at Elizabeth again, her eyes are fixed on it too. The only thing in the room that’s still zipped up tight.
Elizabeth turns to me and does a sly grin, like she’s Sherlock Holmes or something. “There is food in here,” she whispers. “That’s why Jenna spazzed last night at the campfire when Jolene wanted to save a marshmallow for the chipmunk she saw on our cabin steps. What was it Jenna said to Jolene? Oh yeah. ‘Between you and Brooke, Chickadee is going to turn into Noah’s Ark.’”
She studies Brooke’s backpack again, still grinning. “You guys brought snacks!”
I do an I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about look.
Elizabeth does an I-know-I’m-right look back.
I squint. “You better not tell.”
She grins bigger. “Why not?”
“Because those snacks are none of your business. Because friends don’t tell on each other.”
She leans in. Her grin tightens. “So we’re friends now, huh? You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”
“I wasn’t talking about—”
Beep! Beep! Bee—!
Jenna shifts above me. The beeping stops. A moment later, two fuzzy braids hang over the edge of her bed. So does Jenna’s sleepy face.
“Rise and shine,” she says in a groggy voice. “Breakfast in thirty minutes.” Then she lumbers down and starts waking up the other girls.
I turn back to Elizabeth, but she’s already out of bed, pulling clothes from her suitcase. She ducks into the bathroom.
I scramble out of my sleeping bag and find the notepaper my mom packed for me in case I get the sudden urge to write a letter home. I grab a gel pen, bite off the cap, and start scribbling what I didn’t finish saying to her. All capital letters, so she’ll know I mean business.
I WASN’T TALKING ABOUT ME.
I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE OTHER GIRLS.
IF YOU WANT THEM TO BE YOUR FRIENDS,
THEN YOU BETTER NOT TELL!
I drop the note on Elizabeth’s bed, grab my clothes, and stomp to the bathroom.
“Whoa,” Randi says, inching away as I get in line behind her. “Someone’s not a morning person.”
Stacey looks over from her bunk. Her hair is so poufy, eagles could build a nest in it. “What’s wrong?” she asks me.
“Nothing,” I grumble. “I just got up on the wrong side of the bed. The Elizabeth side.”
“Why? Does Liz snore?” Meeka asks, straightening her sleeping bag.
“No,” I reply. “She just talks too much.”
“In her sleep?” Jolene asks.
I shake my head. “In her awake.”
“So switch bunks.” Jenna gets in line behind me with her towel and toothbrush. “Take the one above her. Then you’ll be closer to me.”
“Yeah, come up to my level,” Brooke says, still lounging on her top bunk. “The view is fantabulous!”
The bathroom door opens. Elizabeth steps out. Everyone goes hush-hush.
Elizabeth looks around suspiciously. “What did I miss?” she asks.
“It doesn’t concern you,” Jenna snips.
“Ida’s moving,” Brooke tells her. “To a top bunk.” Then she slides down, grabs some clothes from the tangled heap on her bottom bunk, and slips into the bathroom ahead of Randi.
“Hey!” Randi shouts, pounding on the door. “No cuts!”
Brooke clicks the lock.
“Hold this,” I say to Jenna, handing her my bathroom stuff. Then I march past Elizabeth, gather up my sleeping bag, and throw it onto the bed above hers.
George grunts when he hits the mattress. Maybe he’s not a morning monkey. Or maybe he’s not a fan of moving.
But this is my decision.
It’s my turn to leave Elizabeth Evans behind.
I get back in line and take my stuff from Jenna. “I feel better already,” I say to her, hoping Elizabeth hears me.
Jenna nods. “I knew you would.”
Brooke bursts from the bathroom a minute later dressed in a bright orange cami and orange-striped shorts. Her hair is brushed long and smooth. She strikes a pose.
Randi scowls and shoves past her, slamming the bathroom door.
Brooke scoffs. “How R-U-D rude.” Then she struts around the cabin, modeling her orange outfit. “It’s new,” she tells us.
“Nice!” Elizabeth says as Brooke step-turns in front of her. “I love orange, see?” She wiggles her sparkly orange fingernails at Brooke.
Brooke gives Elizabeth an approving s
mile. “There’s hope for you yet, Lizbutt Evans.”
I just shake my head, watching Elizabeth giggle as Brooke glamour poses around her. Buddying up to Brooke? Pretending to like orange best? She must be desperate to get friends.
Brooke twirls back to her bunk.
Elizabeth sets down her stuff.
She sees the note on her bed.
Picks it up.
Starts to read.
I watch out of the corner of my eye, waiting for her face to pinch when she finishes. When she realizes it won’t work to buddy up to me.
“Your turn, Ida,” Jenna says as Randi comes out of the bathroom. She’s wearing a big boyish T-shirt. It’s almost as long as her cargo shorts. Sarcasm is my specialty is printed across it.
Brooke glances over. Wrinkles her nose at the T-shirt. “Where did you get that?” she asks.
Randi puffs up her chest and grins. “Swiped it from my brother. I got a whole collection. Wanna borrow one?”
“No thank you,” Brooke snips. She straightens the straps on her orange top. “And please don’t sit by me at breakfast.”
Randi snaps her fingers. “Darn.”
“Go, Ida!” Jenna says, nudging me impatiently toward the bathroom. “The bell is going to ring in seventeen minutes!”
“Yes, please do hurry, Ida dear,” Brooke adds, brushing out her already brushed hair. “I have places to go and people to impress.”
I step into the bathroom, glancing back at Elizabeth.
She’s by the wastebasket now.
Crumpling my note into a hard paper pebble.
She pitches it into the trash.
Plink!
Then she looks at me.
Does that annoying smile-grin.
“Ha-ha, beat you!” Rusty shouts fifteen minutes later as Alex leads us up to the dining hall. Quinn, Joey, and Tom are there too, standing near the door with their counselor, Connor. Pajama pants. Wrinkled T-shirts. Crusty eyes. Messy hair. They look the same as always.
Brooke crosses her arms and tilts her hips. “Haven’t you ever heard of ladies first?”
“Yep,” Rusty replies. “Show us where they are, and we’ll let them take cuts.”
All the boys snort.
Brooke squints.
“Hi, Elizabeth!” Tom says. “Good to see you again.”
Elizabeth smiles. “Same to you, Tom.”
“Did you come to camp with Ida?” he asks.
I stiffen.
“No,” Elizabeth replies quickly. “I came alone.”