Revenge of the Happy Campers

by Jennifer Ziegler

  When Mrs. Kimbro spotted us she waved and wished us a good morning. “How can I help you?”

  Even though she’s probably one of the nicest people I’d ever met, I was still feeling shy and hesitated before replying. Just as I was opening my mouth to answer, Delaney jumped in. “She needs more stamps for all the letters she’s going to write,” she said, pointing at me.

  “Here you go, darling. I’ll put it on Jane’s tab.” Mrs. Kimbro placed a book of stamps on the counter, and I managed to look her in the eye, smile, and say thanks. “So what adventures do you three girls have planned for today?”

  “Nothing yet,” Dawn said.

  “Also, we don’t usually plan our adventures,” Delaney said. “They just seem to find us.”

  “I see. Is Jane with you?” she asked, glancing around.

  Dawn shook her head. “Nope. Aunt Jane runs a tavern, so she is used to staying up late and not getting up really early.”

  “That’s right. She did tell me that. She said it was good to be out here seeing lots of daylight for a change. Poor thing.” Mrs. Kimbro made one of her semi-sad smiles. “Now if y’all will excuse me, I’m still shorthanded and need to finish some tasks.”

  Mrs. Kimbro’s words jostled a thought in my brain. Something that I’d ponder anytime I wasn’t busy. As soon as we stepped back outside where Mo was waiting, I glanced around to make sure no one was listening and then put a hand on each of my sisters.

  “Y’all, listen. I’m worried about Aunt Jane,” I said. “You know how you notice things when you watch people?”

  “You mean like spying?” Dawn asked.

  I hunched my shoulders. “Not exactly. I mean the way people look when they don’t know you’re looking at them.”

  “So … a little bit like spying?” Delaney asked.

  I let out a sigh. “What I mean is I’ve been observing Aunt Jane when she thinks no one sees her, and she doesn’t seem very happy.”

  “She has looked rather glum,” Delaney said.

  Dawn nodded. “Forlorn.”

  “And I think it’s pretty clear what’s wrong,” I said.

  “What?” Delaney asked.

  “It’s because she sees how different the campground is, how rundown it’s getting, and it makes her sad.”

  Dawn shook her head. “I think it makes her bored. What we’re seeing is homesickness. She could be doing more exiting and important stuff in Boston. She’s used to a big city, and a half-empty campground just can’t compete.”

  “You’re both wrong,” Delaney said. “Aunt Jane is worn-out from taking care of us. Think about it — she has to spend her vacation from work babysitting us instead of relaxing. We need to show her that we’re old enough and responsible enough to take care of ourselves. Then she can have some fun. And maybe she’ll tell Mom when we get back that we can take care of ourselves.”

  “I’m all for that,” I said, “but how are we going to convince Aunt Jane that we’re mature and reliable?”

  We stood there, silently contemplating. I looked at Dawn, Dawn looked at Delaney, and Delaney looked at Mo, who started snuffling around the ground for something to eat.

  Suddenly, Delaney started hopping up and down. “I know! I know! I know!” She lifted her chin triumphantly and said, “We’ll make her breakfast today!”

  We wanted breakfast to be a surprise, and maybe even serve it to Aunt Jane in her bunk — but she was already sitting at the picnic table when the three of us (four, if you count Mo) got back to the campsite. Her hair was sticking out in all directions again, like a brown sea anemone sitting on her head.

  “Good morning, girls!” she greeted us, lifting her cup of instant coffee. “What do you want for breakfast?”

  “To make it,” I replied.

  Aunt Jane’s eyebrows went up so high they disappeared under the soft tentacles of her curls.

  “It’s true,” Dawn said. “We’ve decided to take care of the meal, so don’t worry about a thing.”

  Aunt Jane looked like she might be worried about a thing. Maybe two. “What brought this on?” she asked.

  “We’re just being nice,” Darby said.

  “And responsible,” Dawn said.

  “And older,” I said.

  “Well, all right, then,” Aunt Jane said with a shrug. “Can I help?”

  “Nope,” we all said.

  “What should I do while you three make breakfast?”

  “Go back to sleep?” Darby suggested.

  Aunt Jane shook her head. “Nope, I’m already wide-awake.”

  “I would say go watch cartoons. That’s what I do when I’m waiting for breakfast back home. Only we don’t have a TV. So maybe …” I tried to think of a grown-up task — things Mom and Dad usually tell us they need to do. “Check the van’s tire pressure?”

  Dawn rolled her eyes at me. “You can do whatever you like,” she said to Aunt Jane. “The point is that we’ll take care of everything.”

  Aunt Jane grinned. “Well, that’s mighty thoughtful of you girls. I guess I do have some tavern business to tend to. But y’all come fetch me if you need me. Deal?”

  After she went back into the trailer, we held a brief meeting to decide what we should make. Darby suggested cereal, but Dawn said that wasn’t impressive enough to show how responsible we are. Dawn suggested pancakes, but I reminded her of the Mother’s Day Pancake-Making Fiasco of two years ago. (Mom still points to stains on the ceiling in our kitchen back home and grumbles about it.) Pancakes look light and fluffy and easy, but they can make huge messes. So I suggested another round of Spam and eggs, and, after tapping her chin a few times, Dawn declared that it was high protein and healthy, but not too difficult. Darby agreed.

  I was so excited that my idea won, especially since I already knew how to make it.

  Only we couldn’t find any Spam. I poked my head into the trailer to ask Aunt Jane, and she told me she’d just bought one container — the one we used the day before.

  So then we were back to square one. Dawn resumed pacing about, and Darby sat down at the picnic table and rested her chin on her hand. Meanwhile, I looked through the big cardboard box we were using as a food pantry and spied a couple of cans of beans. That gave me a new idea.

  “I know!” I cried out. “Let’s make a bean-and-egg scramble!”

  Bean-and-egg scramble is what Dad likes to make for breakfast when he has time to cook. I didn’t know the recipe, but I figured it couldn’t be hard. It’s basically scrambled eggs with beans in them. Dad likes to use black beans and top it with lots of grated cheese. It’s pretty yum.

  Dawn and Darby agreed that this would be an acceptable substitute for Spam and eggs. That meant I got two ideas approved! I was so thrilled, I did a little skippity-hoppity dance step. It reminded me a bit of Mynah and how we bounce around together in the mornings back home. I sure missed that rabbit, and I started wondering if maybe donkeys liked to bounce.

  My thoughts were interrupted by Dawn waving her hand in front of my face and saying that if we wanted to help Aunt Jane and show we’re responsible, we should make breakfast before lunchtime. Then she stood on the picnic table bench and started hollering out orders. She announced that I would be in charge of the eggs, Darby would be in charge of the beans, and she would set the table and pour the juice.

  None of those tasks seemed very difficult, but for some reason everything went wrong.

  First off, cracking eggs is hard. Well … the cracking part isn’t. But the part where you open them up and get the eggs out is tricky. I kept getting bits of shell in the bowl along with the eggs. I tried to dig them out, but gave up after a while. “Eggs are going to be a tiny little bit crunchy,” I said as I added them to the pan.

  Once the eggs were almost cooked, I told Darby I was ready and she dumped the can of beans into the pan. Only it wasn’t beans. The next thing I knew, lots of small fish in a red sauce was oozing over the eggs. It was the canned sardines Aunt Jane likes to snack on. The fishy smell hi
t us at the same time and Darby and I looked at each other in horror.

  “Should I set out salt and pepper?” Dawn called out from the table, unaware of our big mistake.

  “Uh … I don’t think we’re going to need it,” I said.

  I tried to sound matter-of-fact, but Dawn immediately guessed something was wrong and ran over to peer into the skillet.

  She gasped. “What on earth is that?”

  “Breakfast?” I said with a smile.

  The look she gave me. Sheesh! You’d think I rigged an election or something.

  We explained to her what happened, and I thought Darby was going to apologize for four score and seven years. But right at that moment, Aunt Jane came out of the trailer and took a big sniff. “Something is smelling loud,” she said. “Is it time to eat yet?”

  None of us said anything. We just stood there feeling sorrowful. Then Aunt Jane walked up, grabbed a plate, and scooped up a sizeable portion.

  “Mm-mm. Hearty,” Aunt Jane exclaimed after she took a bite. I couldn’t believe she was eating it.

  I guess that’s love — eating whatever your family cooks, even if it’s not a real recipe and tastes like cat food.

  The three of us weren’t sure what else to do, so we each ladled out a share and started eating — or trying to. Darby ate up hers, but then Darby will eat everything — except raisins or marshmallows. Dawn seemed to finish it, too. Of course, her serving was about the size of a donut hole.

  I tried to eat my helping. I really did. But after a few bites it was like my stomach shut itself up, put on a padlock, and hung an OUT OF BUSINESS sign. I just couldn’t get down another morsel. I pretended to accidentally leave my bowl out where Mo could get to it, but even he wouldn’t eat it. After a few snorts he turned and tramped off to the other end of the campsite. I felt bad that our cooking scared him away.

  “Sorry that the breakfast was kinda lousy,” I said to Aunt Jane as we started clean-up.

  “Yeah. Darby didn’t mean to bungle everything,” Dawn said.

  “Your fish had a red label, just like the beans. I should have read it more carefully,” Darby said in a sorrowful voice.

  “Hey now.” Aunt Jane’s eyes went worried looking. “What’s all this apologizing?”

  The three of us hung our heads.

  “We wanted to cheer you up and demonstrate our independence,” I mumbled.

  Aunt Jane stood up from the table and clapped her hands together twice. “All right, triplets. Huddle up!” she said, holding her arms outstretched.

  I stepped into her left arm, Dawn stepped into her right and Darby stepped in between us. Then we all stepped forward and pressed our heads together.

  “The point of breakfast is to nourish our bodies, and the point of doing something nice for someone is to show them you care,” Aunt Jane said. “Therefore, the mission was accomplished.”

  “So … are you feeling happy?” I asked.

  “I am!” she said, and we all shouted hurrah. “Today is going to be a great day. I just know it.”

  “You were going to take us swimming and boating today, right?” Darby asked.

  “And we still have to do our Morning Cartwheels!” I reminded them.

  “Yes to both of those things,” Aunt Jane said, and we cheered again. “But … not just yet, okay?” She put her hands on her belly. “I’m going to need a little time to digest first.”

  It took about an hour to recover from breakfast. Eventually, Aunt Jane said it was time to go to swimming and boating. We did our Morning Cartwheels, changed into our swimsuits, applied sunscreen, and packed up a bag with towels, bottled water, and some granola bars and fruit.

  Delaney tried to pretend that she wanted five apples as a snack, but Aunt Jane didn’t fall for it.

  “Mo is not our donkey, so we shouldn’t feed him anything unless Mrs. Kimbro says it’s all right. It might make him sick, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  Delaney bowed her head. “No,” she said in a teeny-tiny voice.

  It didn’t last, though. Soon she was skipping out of the camper ahead of me, Darby, and Aunt Jane, chattering about swimming. Delaney has fast feet and an even faster mouth, but she can shake off a bad mood quickly, too.

  We followed Aunt Jane down a winding path toward the lake. Mo was with us most of the way, but once we got to the beach, we realized he was gone.

  “He’ll be back,” Delaney said. “He loves being with us, but he’s probably not much of a swimmer.”

  The swimming area was at a bend in the lake that had a long stretch of pebbled beach. The water was still and peaceful — and a lot cleaner looking than that mossy feeder creek I’d fallen into on the day we arrived.

  “Wow. This place sure looks different than the last time I was here,” Aunt Jane said.

  “How?” Delaney asked.

  “Well … the beach is bigger.”

  You could tell the lake level was down because of the old watermarks on the rock ledge across the cove and the dilapidated dock to our left. On our right, three scratched-up looking gray canoes sat on the beach. As soon they’d set down their stuff and kicked off their shoes, Darby and Delaney went to investigate.

  “That’s not a good sign,” I said.

  “What isn’t?” Aunt Jane looked all around us.

  “That sign,” I said, pointing. Stuck in the gravel was a wooden plank with the following words painted on it:

  NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY

  Swim at your own RISK

  She grinned. “You’ll be fine.”

  “I likely will be. But the sign says swim at your own risk. Darby’s definition of risk is very different from mine or yours or any normal person. You know her. There could be gators in there and she’d probably still jump in.”

  Aunt Jane hunkered down so that her head was right next to mine. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “I’ll keep an eye on all of you, especially Darby. I just want you to have fun.”

  Hopefulness was all over her face. I knew Aunt Jane wanted us to enjoy ourselves here, just like she and Mom did when they were little. But I also I knew that she was bored being away from Boston. If spending a few hours at a dangerous beach was her idea of a good time, I wouldn’t stand in the way.

  “I will,” I assured her.

  “Guys, come here!” Delaney hollered from down the beach. By the time Aunt Jane and I caught up with them, she was already trying to shove one of the canoes into the water. “Come on and help. There’s enough seats here for all of us to go!”

  I bent over to scratch my ant-bitten ankle, but otherwise stayed put. My nervousness was growing stronger — like turning up the volume on the car radio. I couldn’t help noticing that the water looked murky and the boats looked rickety. I could see myself taking another deep plunge again, this time getting nibbled by snapping turtles.

  I couldn’t shake these feelings of impending doom, but I was also tired of being a big baby and I didn’t want to ruin Aunt Jane’s visit here.

  “You guys go ahead,” I said, trying to sound casual. “I just want to relax.”

  Before Delaney could do that bouncy pleading thing she always does, I turned and headed back to the swimming section. Soon I could hear fast footsteps behind me. I knew who it was before I saw her.

  “Dawn, are you okay?” Darby asked. “Do you want us to tell Aunt Jane we want to go back to Mom’s house?”

  “No!” I hollered. I knew Darby was just trying to help, but I wanted to feel crabby instead of sorry for myself. At least when I’m mad, I feel powerful.

  “Okay. It’s just … you seem all woebegone. Yesterday you wanted to leave, but then changed your mind when you saw Jay, Robbie, and Nelson.”

  Thinking about those know-it-all boys increased the energizing, angry feelings. “So?” I said.

  “So maybe we should just go home.”

  “No way! Aunt Jane loves it out here and she’s stuck babysitting us, so no way are we ruining her fun. Besides, you’re overreactin
g. All I said was that I was going to lie down on the beach for a while. Just because I don’t want to go on a broken-down boat doesn’t mean I’m ready to pack up my stuff.”

  Darby waited before saying anything. She had that watchful, oh-so-patient look on her face that people use when talking with lunatics or toddlers. “So … you really do want to stay?” she asked finally.

  “Of course,” I said, with another nod.

  “This isn’t just you being prideful?”

  “No,” I said. There might have been a slight hesitation in my response.

  Darby looked like she wanted to point at me and shout “Aha!” but she didn’t, because she’s Darby. Instead, she said, “Okay. But if you change your mind, let me know.” Then she jogged back down to the canoes.

  I knew she thought I was being bullheaded. And she knew that I knew that — but she still wasn’t going to challenge me on it. Sometimes having an understanding sister can be annoying.

  I spread my towel out on the smoothest, least pebbly stretch of ground I could find and lay down on it. I felt tired and hot. The sun was behind the tops of the trees, so my spot was shady, and every now and then a breeze would whoosh over me, cooling any sweaty parts. That’s what made me think the hot was coming from inside me as much as from outside me.

  I was just so mixed up. Perhaps I hadn’t been thinking straight the day before when I said I wanted to go home. That was probably my embarrassment and frustration talking. Or maybe that was me being sensible? Maybe I hadn’t been thinking straight when I swore to the boys yesterday, and to Darby just now, that I wanted to stay at the campground. That was probably pride and pigheadedness talking.

  All that contemplating was making me feel worn-out and drowsy — or it could have been the antihistamines Aunt Jane made me swallow for my ant bites. I closed my eyes and tried to broker peace between my battling thoughts. They didn’t stop fighting, but they did get farther and farther away. Even the ground beneath me seemed to dissolve, and all around me sounds grew fainter …