by Abby Cooper
“Do you really need all this stuff, sweetie?” Mom asked, taking three long-sleeved shirts out of the bag, unfolding them, refolding them in the exact same way I had already folded them, and carefully putting them back.
“Yeah. I really do,” I said.
A little later, I finally agreed to remove one roll of toilet paper, four nail polishes, and the fuzzy green knee-high socks. Excuuuuse me for wanting comfort in the frozen wilderness. I didn’t think it was so outrageous.
Mom folded the socks and set them gently on my bed.
“I promise you’ll have them if you need them.”
“Mo-om. I’ll be gone for less than three days. By the time I get them in the mail, it’ll be time to leave.”
“I’ll find a way,” she said, a goofy smile spreading across her face. BABY sprang onto my lower leg and made itself right at home. Ugh. Maybe I was a baby, but if being a baby meant your mom would send you your fuzzy green knee-high socks if you wanted them, fine. I’d be a baby. Even though it was a pretty itchy thing to be.
An hour later, Mom pulled into the school parking lot and drove in circles forever until she found a spot she liked. Mr. Todd stood in front of the bus with a blue clipboard, looking very official and a little bit like a troublemaker. There had better not be any blue papers on that clipboard. I shot him my very best you-better-not-have-any-blue-papers-on-that-clipboard-and-I-mean-it look.
I’m on to you, dude.
“Hi, Rodney!” Mom smiled widely as we made our way from the car to the bus. I cringed. Your mom should not call your principal by his first name. Your mom shouldn’t even know your principal’s first name, if you can help it.
I glanced at my phone to read a text from Dad while Mom chatted away with Mr. Todd like they were BFFs.
Good luck. Enjoy. Wear a hat. Love you.
* * *
I was going away for three whole days, and that was all he had to say? He hadn’t said much more in person before he left for work in the morning. I guess some people just weren’t that chatty. Maybe it was time to accept that Dad might be one of them.
“It’s been so wonderful seeing everyone!” said Ms. Sigafiss. “We need to get going now, so please give your children a final hug and kiss, then let them get on the bus.”
“Well.” I turned toward Mom, my heart suddenly beating really fast. I rocked back and forth as INSECURE sprouted across my ankle. I felt the prick in my sock, then the familiar itchy jolt of the letters. I am too secure! So what if I’m a little nervous about how all this Explorer Leader business will go and how annoying Liam and Jeg will be and what it will be like being away from home for the first time ever? And how I don’t know what the rooms will be like or if the beds will be comfy or if the food will be good? So what if I’ve been excited for this all week—all year, almost—and now I kinda just want to go home and snuggle between Mom and Dad on the couch and watch a movie? That doesn’t mean I’m not confident as a person. That just means that at the moment I’m a teeny-tiny bit worried. Yeah. That’s all it is.
But if that’s all it was, why did I feel like I was going to burst into tears any second?
I expected Mom to pull me in for one of her squish-the-bejeebers-out-of-me hugs, but instead she said, “Be right back!” and jogged away before I could ask what was going on.
“All right, people, you heard Ms. Sigafiss!” Mr. Todd hollered. “Everyone on the bus!” He turned to me.
“How are you doing, Elyse? Ready for some Explorer Leader-ing? This is what it all comes down to. This is your moment! Remember, if you’re ever feeling blue, you can always come talk to me. I won’t have my couch with me this trip, though. It didn’t quite fit in my suitcase.”
“Mm-kay.” I didn’t smile.
Mom rushed to the bus, an oversize duffel bag in her hands. Wait, why does Mom have a duffel? I told her I wasn’t allowed to have a second bag.
Then it hit me. The bag was not for me.
“Surprise!” Mom threw her free arm around my shoulders. “I’m coming with you!”
“You’re … what?”
“Rodney—er, Mr. Todd—called me yesterday. Apparently there weren’t enough chaperones signed up, and he thought I might be interested.”
I glared at Mr. Todd. What was this? It didn’t make any sense that he’d do all that work with the notes to make me Explorer Leader and then go and invite my mom along on the trip. If he had written the notes, he must have changed his mind about me. Maybe he didn’t really think I could do it on my own after all.
He was still standing in front of the bus, smiling away, checking names off the list on his clipboard like it was the most fun he’d ever had in his life. When he caught my eye, he smiled and waved like we were old pals.
“I thought it’d be a fun surprise … I thought you’d want me to come.” Mom sighed. “It’s a scary new experience for you. I called Dr. Patel about it, and he agreed that it would be smart. Wouldn’t it be nice to have me around, you know, just in case? I won’t embarrass you.”
Usually when she said she wouldn’t embarrass me, it was a sure sign that she was going to embarrass me. Like really bad. But I looked at her face; she was so hopeful, and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her feelings.
And there was the annoying fact that a teeny tiny, microscopic part of me might maybe want her around maybe for a little teeny tiny bit of time. Like an hour. Or two. Two and a half, tops. Just till the annoying lump in my throat went away.
“Fine.” I shrugged. “If that’s what you want to do.”
Her face lit up. “It’s going to be so fun, sweetie!”
Yeah, fun. Or something.
27
ROOMIES
“It appears that my mom is a last-minute chaperone,” I told Olivia after I slid into a seat next to her.
“Oh,” she said sympathetically. “Sorry.” I noticed she didn’t pat my leg. That was nice. Then she changed the subject and started talking about a funny show she’d seen on TV last night. That was pretty nice, too.
It was hard not having Jeg as a best friend anymore, but I was beginning to think that maybe Olivia would be a good replacement, even if it wasn’t quite the same.
We played MASH the rest of the way to Minnesota. (MASH stands for mansion, apartment, shack, house. When you play the game, you find out which one you’re going to live in when you grow up, and you find out a lot of other important things, too.) By the end of the drive, we had discovered that when we grew up, Olivia was going to live in a mansion in Hawaii with her husband (Nice Andy—ha, ha!) and her seventeen kids and her pet llama named Ferdinand Wellington the Third. I was going to live in an apartment at the North Pole with my husband (Kevin—ew), our thirty-three kids, and two pet unicorns named Fifi and Gigi. The future was looking weird.
After several hours, the bus slowed down as it turned onto a dusty, gravelly path. Big brown snow-covered trees lined both sides of the road. The bus went slower and slower. Each time I thought it was going to pull over, it kept on going, like the little engine that could.
After what seemed like a billion years, the bus finally came to a stop in an empty parking lot.
“Everyone stay seated!” Mr. Todd instructed as he got off the bus, but no one did. We were way too antsy. The drive had been six hours, after all.
I shook out my foot a little bit. It still felt itchy from INSECURE. After Mr. Todd had invited Mom, UNABLE was there, too. He didn’t truly believe I could do it on my own. Neither did Mom.
So maybe they were right, and I couldn’t.
I guess I’d find out soon enough.
Kevin stood and ran up and down the bus’s aisle. Mike stuck out his hand for a high five as Kevin passed, and soon everyone else did, too. I stretched my arms in both directions, careful not to accidentally smack anyone in the face. I was a very polite stretcher. You could not say the same for most people. Like Liam. Liam, I noticed, was kind of an inconsiderate stretcher. He was doing, like, some kind of yoga thing (show-off) with
one leg going sideways and one arm poised behind his head with the elbow sticking out, practically jabbing Olivia in the ear.
“Okay,” said Mr. Todd, as he climbed back on the bus. “I appreciate your patience. Let’s everyone get ready to head to our cabins. There will be two people to a room and eight to a cabin, plus a chaperone. Jeg and Elyse, cabin one, room one. Hannah and Hannah, cabin one, room two…”
His mouth kept moving, but I couldn’t hear anything after he said my name. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping no one would see the tears that had welled up way too fast. I thought being Explorer Leader guaranteed me my own room. Sure, no one had ever told me officially, but it just seemed like a natural perk of the job. Kings and queens of school dances got crowns. Captains of sports teams got special sweatshirts. And Explorer Leaders of wilderness adventures should get their own rooms. It was simple as that.
And of all the roommates in the entire world I could get—Jeg? It would be so awkward. We had hardly said a word to each other since her party. Being trapped in a room together for three days would be torture. And that meant I’d have to change in front of her, too. She hadn’t seen my words since last year, when she was nice. Now she was the kind of person who might make fun of them, threaten to tell other people, and try to make them worse. On purpose.
I felt Mom’s eyes on me from the way front of the bus. She didn’t know everything, but she had definitely noticed Jeg and I weren’t hanging out much—or at all—anymore. Mom pushed her way back to my seat and slid in next to me, forcing Olivia to scoot all the way over to the window.
“Mom! What are you doing?” Practically everyone was looking at us as they lined up to get off the bus. Mom stood out like a fuzzy orange sock in a basket of green ones.
“I’m just checking on you, sweetie,” she whispered. “I know the roommate announcement caught you off guard. Do you want me to talk to Mr. Todd about it and see if we can figure something out?”
I sniffled. I did, but wouldn’t that prove exactly what both of them thought, that I couldn’t do anything for myself? Even though I was the Explorer Leader?
Yes, I said in my brain. “No,” I whispered back, and sniffled again.
Mom looked at me for a long time, but finally got up and went back to her real spot on the bus.
Olivia turned to me as soon as Mom went away. “Are you okay? I know you and Jeg aren’t BFFs anymore, but it’s only for a few days. And we’ll be outside most of the time anyway!”
It was easy for her to say. As nice as Olivia was, she still didn’t know the truth about me. She didn’t get why this was such a huge problem. And I was still too scared to tell her.
I tried to smile. “Yeah, you’re right. I know.”
When everyone was off the bus, Snotty Ami dragged Jeg up to Mr. Todd. I didn’t realize that other people would be as upset about the roommate assignment as I was. Snotty Ami didn’t know she was doing me a favor, but that’s exactly what was happening. I felt a very small twinge of appreciation for her.
“There has been a mistake,” she insisted, with Jeg nodding in agreement and me watching from not too far away. I had never seen Snotty Ami look so upset. Her face was bright red and I could practically see steam coming out of her snotty ears. “I’m not supposed to be with some random person I barely know. Jeggie was supposed to be my roomie, not that loser’s.” She muttered those last three words under her breath and glanced in my direction. I looked down, not wanting anyone to see me scowl as LOSER formed sharply on my thigh. Ouch. There wasn’t enough anti-itch cream in the universe for that one. Of course Snotty Ami couldn’t just do me a favor she didn’t know she was doing and be nice about it. She had to be the only person in the world who didn’t care that I was the Explorer Leader and it was basically the rule that you were supposed to be nice to the Explorer Leader.
“Are you okay?” Mom popped out of nowhere and stroked my arm. “I saw you wince. What did she call you? I am going to have a word with that girl’s mother when we get back. Here, I brought the extra-strength kind.” She pulled a gigantic tube of something gross and embarrassing from her purse.
“Mom!” I jerked away, super aware of everyone looking at the Explorer Leader about to be gooped up by her mommy. Sitting by her on the bus for a few minutes was one thing, but this was not okay. “I’m fine. I’m used to it. I don’t want the lotion.”
“There weren’t any mistakes,” Mr. Todd told Snotty Ami. “Your roommate is your roommate. No changes. It is what it is. Don’t be blue. And don’t be so mean, either. I think you and I need to have a chat when we get back to school.”
Snotty Ami snottily sulked away. For once, I wished she had gotten what she wanted.
“Should we go?” Jeg crept up to me and pointed to the big brown cabin on our right.
“I guess.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. Plus, LOSER was driving me crazy, and all I could think about was getting into our room so I could sneakily unpeel some layers and scratch the bejeebers out of it.
Ms. Sigafiss finished unloading the bags, so we grabbed ours and walked together in silence. Jeg held the door open for me, and I went through without saying thank you for maybe the first time in my entire life. I was just not in a thank-you kind of mood.
The cabin was huge. It had a wide entryway, a giant living room when you first walked in, and rooms going every which way. We found the door with a big “Room 1” sign on it and went inside. It was a teeny space, like the size of my bedroom. There were skinny bunk beds along one wall and two dressers along the other. The whole room—the whole cabin, really—practically screamed, If you forget to close the door, you’ll get eaten by a bear. Have fun! Looking around the room, I decided that it might not have been so fun on my own after all. In fact, it might have been the creepiest thing ever. But I was still more worried than relieved.
“I like it in here,” Jeg said. “It’s cozy.”
“Yup.” I couldn’t think of what else to say, so I pretended to be really interested in my suitcase. I unzipped it, thinking maybe I could show Jeg some of the nail polish I brought.
But that’s not what was right on top, like it was supposed to be.
I stared for a second in complete disbelief. Another one? I was so surprised that I didn’t even notice Jeg come up behind me.
“You okay?” She peeked over my shoulder. “OMG, that’s not, like, another one of those creepy notes, is it? Like the one you got at the beginning of the year?” She nudged me. “You never told me what that note said.”
And I never will.
Although she wasn’t acting totally snotty at the moment.
And it might be okay to tell someone else. She might think of something that Olivia and I hadn’t. And I was kind of about to burst; it was just too weird that this was still going on.
I quickly read the note to myself, then turned around to face her. This was either a brilliant idea or a huge mistake.
“I’ve been getting them all year. They say nice things. Sometimes they tell me things I have to do.”
I held this one up so she could see it.
Have a great trip, Elyse! You’ve worked hard and deserve to enjoy every minute. Remember, someone is always going to have something bad to say. But can you remember the good you’ve done? The good you ARE?
“Olivia and I think it’s Mr. Todd,” I said once she finished reading.
For once, Jeg was totally speechless. “Oh … em—” she started, but was interrupted when the door to our room flung open.
It was Ms. Sigafiss, looking like a bear in her super-long, dark winter coat. If only there were a way to make sure she stayed out of our cabin.
“First activity is outside in two minutes,” she growled.
Jeg and I looked at each other and smiled.
“Gee!” she whispered as we followed Ms. Sigafiss out the door.
Oh-em-gee was right.
Jeg and I had a secret for the first time in months.
And it felt really, really good.
> 28
FACECICLES
Outside, everyone gathered around a tall silver flagpole. Except for dozens of small cabins scattered around, there were no buildings to be found—only open spaces, covered in fluffy white snow. If I had been less cranky, I probably would have liked it. It might have reminded me of a perfect winter wonderland like the ones you see in snow globes and in amazing movies like Frosty the Snowman.
“All right, people.” Mr. Todd faced the group. “Welcome to the sixth-grade adventure! We have a lot of fun challenges planned for you this weekend. I’ll let our Explorer Leader come tell you about your first activity.”
Everyone cheered like crazy except for Snotty Ami. Her snotty face snarled like someone told her she could never go shopping ever again. A small smile tugged at my lips and my ankle started feeling like an ankle again instead of one giant mosquito bite. I rushed up to stand by Mr. Todd, energized by everyone’s excitement. Even if no one really believed I could do this, here I was, doing this.
“Hi,” I said. “Um—”
“Speak up, sweetie!” Mom called in such a loud voice that probably all the animals in the woods could hear.
I shot her a look. Really, Mom?
Now everyone was looking at me, waiting.
“Come on, Elyse!” Jeg started clapping again, so everyone else did, too.
Okay. I could do this.
“We’re going on a scavenger hunt,” I said in a louder voice. “The camp ranger hid a bunch of clues all over the place. Working with a partner whose name you’ll draw out of a hat, you have to follow your clues, and whoever gets back first wins. Oh, and”—I smiled—“you can only bring a walkie-talkie to communicate with the adults, a small snack, a compass, and a water bottle. That’s it. No phones.”