“Thank you,” Lucy said. “I guess you’re really brave too.”
“I am?” Jamil said.
“Probably,” said Lucy.
From what I could see, Jamil and Lucy were going to get along great—or better than Jamil and me anyway. Since my first try at small talk hadn’t gone so well, I pulled back on Sunshine’s reins to slow her down. This way, Jamil and Lucy could ride side by side while I tried to think up new questions.
As we rode on, the counselors pointed out landmarks, and Matt explained the differences between a butte, a mesa, and a plateau. Meanwhile, I fell in next to Kate, whose horse was a black named Lightning. I had heard she was homesick, so I asked if she was feeling better. I told her I was homesick last year at first too.
“I am feeling better,” she said. “Thanks for understanding. I think some people thought I was being a baby.”
“The weird thing is, when you get home, you’ll probably miss camp,” I told her. “That’s what happened to me.”
“Can I ask you something?” Kate said. “How come you guys call yourselves ‘the membership’?”
“Where did you hear that?” I asked, surprised.
“Brianna told us. No offense, but she thinks that proves you’re all stuck-up.”
“We’re not!” I said.
“Oka-a-ay,” Kate said. “So what does it mean, then?”
“I guess I see how it sounds bad,” I admitted. “But it’s more like a joke we have than anything. Do I seem stuck-up?”
“No,” she admitted. “Not right this second anyway.”
“Want some sunscreen?” I asked, and one-handed, took the tube out of my fanny pack, then reached across and handed it to her. “I think your nose might be getting burned.”
Kate took the tube, applied a white blob to her nose, and handed it back. We were almost to Cider Creek Wash by then. There, we reined in our horses, dismounted, stretched, and ate apples and granola bars from the counselors’ saddlebags.
“Now drink some water!” Gail commanded.
As always, somebody had to complain that the water in our canteens was warm, and somebody else had to make a joke about ice cubes and refrigerators in the desert.
“Drink up or shrivel up,” Cricket said. “Take your pick.”
Along with everyone else, I took a good long drink. Then—to be on the safe side—I reapplied sunscreen too.
Lucy and Jamil stuck together on the way back to camp, so I talked to Kate some more and also to another girl, Mallory, who lived in Stirrup Dot Cabin.
Back at the barn, we returned our saddles and saddle blankets, rubbed down the horses, led them back up to the corral, and removed their bridles.
I patted Sunshine’s rump, and she snorted.
“See you tomorrow!” I said. Then I looked around for Jamil. This was it, my last chance to find out what I wanted to know. When I saw him, he was still talking to Lucy. Why was she hogging him? Had she forgotten I had a job to do? That would be just like her.
On the path down to the barn. I caught up with them and cleared my throat. Lucy looked over and smiled. “Oh, hi, Emma. Are you getting a cold?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Uh . . . so . . . Jamil . . .”
“Now what do you want to know?” Jamil asked.
The way he said it made me want to apologize for breathing air and occupying space on the planet, but I couldn’t afford to be snarky. “I have this seventh-grade boyfriend and he’s not Jewish and—”
Lucy started to laugh.
“What?” I scowled at her.
“Nothing.” She squelched her smile. “I’m sure that boy is nice. Doesn’t he sound nice, Jamil?”
“Uh . . . right,” said Jamil.
What the heck? Did clueless Lucy even know she’ d foiled my last chance to find out Lance’s romantic status?
Worst of all, I’d have to tell Olivia and Grace that I’d failed.
I was fuming when I hung up Sunshine’s bridle, and the second I got Lucy alone, I was going to tell her so, too.
Only that didn’t happen.
I caught up with her on the way back to central camp, but before I could say a word, she did: “Lance doesn’t have a girlfriend, Emma. He told his campers he used to, but they broke up right before he came to Arizona. So the coast is clear for Hannah.”
Here’s something weird about anger. It stays around even after its cause has gone away. So now I was left sputtering. “How did you find that out? You’re not even sneaky!”
“I know I’m not, so I just asked him.” She sounded hurt. “I thought that you’d be happy.”
“I am,” I snapped.
“You don’t sound like it,” she said.
“I know.” I exhaled a long breath, and some of my anger went with it. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But didn’t he think it was weird when you asked him?”
Lucy shrugged. “He did, but he said it was less weird than when you asked about party decorations in Silver Spur Cabin. What was that about?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Vivek
Two strange things happened the third Friday I was at Moonlight Ranch.
First, my bunkmate Jamil came over to our table at lunch and sat down with his plate of food, and started talking all “hot Lucy this” and “hot Lucy that,” and he would not shut up.
Luckily, I had constructed a generous and filling turkey sandwich with provolone on a kaiser roll. It was delicious; it kept me busy and diverted. Without it, I don’t think I could have put up with Jamil’s nonsense.
At last, Jamil said, “So she likes me, right? That means she likes me?”
I chewed and swallowed and sipped my ice-cold milk before answering. “I don’t know very much about girls.”
“Why else would she bring up Lance’s girlfriend?” Jamil asked.
“Maybe she likes Lance,” I said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Jamil said. “He’s a counselor. I think she was trying to be sneaky by bringing up girlfriends. She was hoping I’d volunteer information about myself. See?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh-h-h, so now I understand,” Jamil said. “You’re jealous!”
“No,” I said again.
“Look, Vivek, don’t feel bad,” said Jamil. “Some of us got it, and some of us don’t.”
The kid sitting across from us was Luke, another of my bunkmates. He is from Phoenix—and even so he hates the heat at Moonlight Ranch. Phoenix is hotter than here, so you’d think he’d be used to it, right? But not at all, and go figure. Now Luke started to laugh. “Got what, exactly, Jamil? Germs? Fleas? Cooties?”
I laughed too, and Jamil scowled. “You don’t have to be insulting,” he said.
“That wasn’t insulting,” Luke said. “Trust me, if I want to insult you, there’ll be no question. Anyway, dude, seriously, I hope you and Lucy are very happy together.”
This shut Jamil up, and I got to enjoy the last bites of my turkey and provolone in peace. I made a mental note: Thank Luke.
It was after lunch that the second strange thing happened. It also involved the girls from Flowerpot Cabin.
Something was up with them. It’s like they were haunting me.
Always before, I had liked Grace Xi because she is serious and good at things. I even gave her a present on the last day of camp last summer, a very small one. That yelling incident in the mess hall was strange, but since then she had seemed as normal as any girl. I had been thinking sometime I’d go over and say hi during free time before dinner, but there was always some distraction.
Anyway, forget that. Now I know that she is crazy too. Never mind Lucy. Grace and Jamil ought to team up.
After lunch ends, there are fifteen minutes till siesta. That equals thirteen minutes to hang out with your friends and two minutes to sprint for your cabin so you don’t get demerits. I was sitting on the top rail of the fence in central camp with Luke when Grace came up and said, “Hi, Vivek. Can I talk to you?”
I said, “Y
ou are already are,” and smiled. At this point I did not yet realize she’s crazy.
“Just us, I mean,” she said, and blushed, which was when I became suspicious.
Luke hopped down from the fence. “I guess I know when I’m not wanted.”
“Hey!” I tried to call him back, but he waved without turning around.
Now Grace was really blushing.
“What is it?” I said.
“If I asked, would you do me a favor?” she said.
“Are you going to ask? Or is that just hypothetical?” I said.
“I’m going to ask,” she said. “And it’s not just for me. It’s for all of us in Flowerpot.”
“Okay,” I said. “Ask.”
Grace swallowed and looked at her feet. Finally, she said, “One day soon, someone will give you a plate of cookies and a sealed envelope. We want you to put them on top of your counselor’s pillow.”
Whoa! Did I just walk into a spy movie or something?
In fact, the request was so weird I might have laughed out loud except that Grace looked super-serious. So I said something entirely reasonable: “Why?”
“It doesn’t matter why,” Grace said. “It’s just a favor.”
“I can’t do it if I don’t know why,” I said.
“Why can’t you?” Grace said. “Don’t you trust us?”
“Trust is not the problem,” I said. “I might be happy to do it. But it’s bad policy to agree to do things you don’t understand.”
When she had blushed, Grace’s cheeks had turned pink. Now they glowed positively red. “I can’t tell you!” she said.
“So I won’t do it!” I said.
I had mimicked her tone of voice, hoping she’d laugh, but this was a bad miscalculation. She stomped her foot—actually stomped her foot!—glared at me, and said, “Stupid boys!”
Then she turned and marched toward Girls Camp.
“Sorry,” I said to her retreating back. But I wasn’t really sorry. I was thinking that girls sure can be unreasonable.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Olivia
Boys sure can be unreasonable.
Even a mostly nice one like Vivek.
It was the start of siesta, and we four members of the Secret Cookie Club were on our bunks. Grace had just told us Vivek’s reaction to our request. Hannah could walk in anytime.
“I’ve got bad news too,” Emma said. “I checked with Mrs. Arthur, the cook, and she said she can’t give campers permission to use the kitchen, only counselors.”
“That problem at least is easy peasy,” I said. “We will ask a counselor to help us.”
“But what counselor?” Emma asked.
“I have an idea, and I’ll let you know at dinner,” I said. “The real problem is who’s going to put the cookies on his pillow, and I’m afraid there’s only one solution.”
“What?” Grace asked.
“We do it ourselves,” I said.
“But girls aren’t allowed in Boys Camp!” said Grace.
“Are you forgetting the sentries?” said Emma.
“They’ll never catch us,” I said. “We will move like the wind.”
“And by ‘we,’ you mean who exactly?” Emma asked.
“I mean all of us—duh. We are in this together.”
My bunk was on top and Emma’s was beneath me. I rolled onto my belly and hung my head over the edge of the mattress to look at her. Just as I suspected, she was rolling her head side to side on her pillow, shaking it no.
Ever since we started PFHL, I had been waiting for Emma’s natural-born bossiness to come roaring back.
Now—at last—it had.
“With all due respect, O,” she said, “it doesn’t make sense for us to trek through Boys Camp in a big galumphing herd, carrying a plate of cookies.”
“Galumphing?” Grace said.
“So we’ll tiptoe,” I said, “tiptoe really, really, really fast.”
Across the room on her own bunk, Lucy giggled.
And Grace said, “I don’t like that plan, O. Emma, what’s yours?”
“You go,” Emma said.
“Wait, what?” said Grace. “By ‘you,’ do you mean me? Tell me you don’t.”
“I can’t tell you that because I do,” said Emma.
“Wait, what?” said Lucy.
“And she’s not the only one who’s confused,” said Grace.
“Look,” said Emma, “of all of us, Grace is the most coordinated, not to mention the most agile, and the strongest.”
Grace said, “Uh . . . thank you? I think?”
“Plus you’re the smallest,” Emma said. “You can get in and out of that window no problem.”
“You want me to break in through the window?” Grace said.
“Well, how else?” Olivia asked. “It’s not like they’ll be leaving the door open and the welcome mat out.”
Grace was on the bunk above Lucy. Now she rolled over and propped herself up on an elbow to see my face. “O, don’t tell me you like this plan too?”
“Emma is making a lot of sense,” I said.
“Thank you,” said Emma.
Grace rolled onto her back and spoke to the ceiling. “Emma would be making a lot of sense except for one crucial fact. I am a coward. Not courageous. Not brave. In other words, freaked out at the very idea of crossing the border to Boys Camp.”
“That does pretty much define ‘coward,’ ” said Emma.
“Don’t be silly. You’re not a coward,” I told Grace. “You told me off in front of everyone in the mess hall at lunch.”
Grace shook her head. “That was bad temper, not courage.”
“I know—maybe you could harness the power of your bad temper to make you brave,” Emma said.
“You want me to get mad at a plate of cookies?” Grace asked.
“Get mad at Vivek,” said Emma. “He’s the one who didn’t do a favor for us; he’s the reason you’re running a terrible risk.”
“Grace could never get mad at Vivek,” said Olivia. “Right, Grace?”
“Oh yes, I could,” said Grace. “I don’t even think I like him anymore. And I don’t want to be sent home.”
“You don’t have to do it at all, Grace,” said Lucy quietly.
“Yes, she does too!” I insisted.
“Romance is overrated,” Lucy said. “Hannah is better off without Travis or Lance.”
I sat up straight and eyeballed Lucy, who looked totally innocent lying there on her bunk. “Can the rest of you believe what you are hearing?” I said. “Where would we even be without romance?”
I meant this to be a rhetorical question, which is the kind that doesn’t need answering, but Grace started to answer anyway, something about how the word “romance” used to be from Rome.
I ignored this, swung my legs off the bunk, dropped to the floor, and began to pace. In case you can’t tell, I was channeling every lawyer that was ever on TV.
“Without romance,” I began, “there would no Prince Charming and no fairy tales. There would be no plots to Disney movies. On Halloween, little girls would be forced to dress up as ghosts and vampires and the Mario Brothers because—hello-o-o?—what would be the point of princesses?”
I paused for breath, then raised my eyes to heaven . . . or anyway, the white plaster ceiling.
“Without romance”—I pivoted to pace the other way—“what kind of a world would it be? I will tell you what kind of a world. A world without proms! A world without Valentine’s parties! A world in which candlestick makers and florists and clerks in chocolate shops are broke and homeless and living on the street!
“And what about the poets?” I raised my hands overhead. “Think of the poor, poor poets! In a world without romance, they would have nothing to write about except the trees and the weather. And who would read those poems? Not me!” I pointed at myself. “And not you either!” I pointed at Emma, who dutifully shook her head.
“Without romance,” I continued, “there
would be no weddings, people! And you know what that means: No flower girls!”
I paused again, just like Mrs. Wanderling taught us in After-School Acting Studio, to gather myself for the big conclusion: “Where would the human race be without romance? I will tell you where! The human race would be . . . extinct!”
For a moment, there was appropriately awestruck silence. Then Emma applauded, and Grace murmured, “Wow.”
Only Lucy seemed unimpressed. She began to giggle.
I put my hands on my hips and called her out. “How can you laugh? I deserve at least an Oscar for that!”
Lucy stifled her laughter. “You do deserve an Oscar,” she said. “But ‘extinct’ made me think of dinosaurs, and then I pictured them with valentines and red bouquets of flowers.”
“Maybe dinosaurs are actually extinct because they lacked romance,” said Emma. “Maybe it wasn’t a meteor at all.”
Lucy said, “Wait—it was a meteor that killed the dinosaurs?”
“Yes, Lucy,” Grace said patiently. “And how did you not know that?”
“I guess I missed that day,” Lucy said.
“We all did,” I said, “because it happened sixty-five million years ago.”
Emma started to explain. “Lucy doesn’t mean that day—” But the explanation was cut short by the door opening.
“Hannah!” We all welcomed her.
“Hello, girls.” Hannah smiled, closed the door, and threw her keys on the desk. “This looks like a pretty active siesta you’ve got going on.”
“Not really,” I said. Then I closed my eyes, reached in front of me, and spoke in a robot monotone. “I am sound asleep and nap-walking.”
“Ri-i-i-ight,” said Hannah. “So nap-walk right back to your bunk, please, Olivia. I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and I’m looking forward to closing my eyes for a few minutes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Olivia
Afternoon riding starts right after siesta. That day, Grace and I walked to the horse barn together. On the way, I tried to convince her that she was, too, brave and totally capable of carrying out her new and improved PFHL assignment.
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