I was starting to realize that Bea had a lot more at stake than I did. We would be out of camp by the end of the summer, but Bea was stuck going to school with people who ignored her for the next six years if I didn’t hold up my end of the pact. Because if she couldn’t find a friend group in middle school, she was going to be in the same sucky situation for high school.
I took the weighted ball from Bea’s hands and said, “You can count on me.”
Bea practically whispered, “I counted on you before, and look where that got me. Alone. Not just at school, but when I really needed to talk to someone about Dad’s Instant-Family. You abandoned me.”
Bea looked at me with that same crumpled up face she had on the first day of school, and I knew I should tell her why I did what I did. I still didn’t know what things were going to be like when I got home from camp, but it was time for me to apologize. I grabbed Bea’s hands and squeezed them. “I am so sorry about how horrible I treated you last year. I promise things are going to be different when we get back to Mapleton. You really can count on me this time.”
“I hope so,” Bea said.
BEA
“Hurry up!” I shouted. “We don’t want to be late for the bonfire.”
“Hold on. Maisy has to finish my braids,” Hannah said. Her idea of bonfire attire was a denim overall dress with a rainbow-striped shirt, knee-high athletic socks with red stripes at the top, and generic Keds that were covered in red cherries.
“I need to finish my makeup,” Poppy said. She was applying nude lipstick to her already natural-hued makeup that made it look like she was barefaced. She looked like she had stepped right out of the pages of the J. Crew catalog in her simple white sundress with gold sandals.
Even Isa had dressed for the occasion. She had traded her typical soccer clothes for a black T-shirt dress with black-and-white Adidas Gazelles. Instead of pulling her hair into her everyday ponytail, she let her thick black hair dry in natural waves. She dribbled her soccer ball while she waited.
“How does it fit, Bea?” asked Maisy through a mouthful of bobby pins.
“Perfect,” I said as I twirled around to show off the blue and white checkered dress with the ruffled sleeves I had borrowed from Maisy.
“I told you it would. We’re close enough to the same size that you can borrow some of my clothes for back to school,” said Maisy.
“Bea doesn’t care about clothes,” said Isa. “Not like you do.”
What Isa didn’t know was that I now cared about anything that would make me be seen at school.
“Middle school is different,” said Maisy. “Everyone cares about clothes in middle school.”
“Not me,” said Isa. “As long as my clothes are comfortable and I can play soccer in them, they work for me.” She bounced the ball on her knee as she headed to the door. “Let’s go.”
It was easy for Isa not to care about things like clothes. Four of Isa’s soccer teammates went to school with her. They carpooled to school and practice. She never had to worry about being alone.
“Wait,” said Maisy. “Bug spray!”
Maisy pulled out her jumbo-sized bottle of bug spray and ran around the cabin spraying everyone while lecturing about Lyme disease and unsightly mosquito bite scars. I thought the other girls would be annoyed at her anxious ways, but they all laughed and thanked her as she sprayed them.
As the girls got to know Maisy, they were starting to like her little quirks, so maybe the M & Ms would get used to mine.
“Don’t forget your bonfire item,” Poppy said.
Every year, we had to bring something to camp that was symbolic of something that was holding us back in some way. Then we toss it in the fire. Last year Poppy brought her actual modeling agency contract and her mother was livid when she found out. But then it got the wheels turning in her momager head, and she helped Poppy sign with an even better agency where she is much happier.
Ainsley ran in the door, still sweaty from her evening run. “Everyone ready?” she asked as she ran to her bed.
We all assured her we were ready, and she pulled out an old shoebox from under her bed. “Let’s roll,” she said.
As soon as we stepped outside the cabin, we could smell the familiar smoky bonfire smell mixed with the aroma of barbequed hamburgers and hot dogs. We followed groups of girls along the trails that led to the open field where the bonfire crackled. One girl was carrying a math book, and all I could think of was how sad it was for a book to burn, even if it was a geometry book. I couldn’t wait to see what my bunkmates brought this summer.
“Food first,” said Hannah.
She led the way to tables piled with foil-wrapped burgers and hot dogs and Mary Anne’s legendary grilled corn on the cob drizzled with garlic butter. Camp Amelia is usually a soda-free zone, but an exception was made on bonfire night. We grabbed stacks of food and grape sodas and walked through the crowds of girls until we found a spot that wasn’t too smoky.
We ate quietly except for the occasional exclamations about the delicious food and the sound of us chugging our soda. Twenty minutes later we were all leaning back, rubbing our bellies, and complaining about how full we were.
“I wish Mary Anne could move in with me and cook like this all the time,” said Isa. “I come home from practice and my mom has a green smoothie and broiled fish with baked sweet potato waiting for me. Every. Single. Night.”
“I would take that over chicken nuggets or frozen pizza,” said Hannah. “My mom doesn’t even cook them in the oven. She microwaves everything until it’s rubbery and gross.”
“Are you guys ready for the ceremonial burning, because I am,” I said.
I looked around the bonfire and saw small groups like ours with girls pulling things out and talking about them before they threw them in the pit. I hoped everyone followed the “safe to burn” rules. The smell was awful that time a girl burned her Barbie doll.
“I’ll go first,” said Ainsley.
She held up her shoebox, which looked like it had once housed special pole-vaulting sneakers. Then she cleared her throat in a dramatic way.
“I am no longer bound by the label of Ted’s crazy ex-girlfriend. I have moved on. No more stalking his Facebook and Instagram. No more calling him from a blocked number. No more accidentally on purpose bumping into him on campus.”
Ainsley took the lid off the box and dumped the contents into the fire. Greeting cards, movie ticket stubs, photos, and handwritten notes poured out of the box. Ainsley took a deep breath and smiled as she watched her memories burn.
“You’re up next, Hannah,” she said, as she tossed the empty shoebox into the fire.
Hannah pulled out a manila folder. “This is my original educational evaluation that labeled me as dyslexic.”
“Wait!” Poppy said. “Remember what happened when I burned my contract? My mom wouldn’t talk to me for days.”
“Relax, it’s a copy,” said Hannah. “I may be dyslexic, but I’m not stupid.” Then she covered her mouth. “OMG! I am so sorry, Poppy. I didn’t mean…”
We all laughed really hard.
Hannah clutched the folder while she stood up. “I am no longer bound by the label dyslexic. I am not a dyslexic person. I am a person with dyslexia. My learning disability does not define me. I am a good friend, a strong athlete, and I have the best fashion sense of anyone I know.”
We all clapped as she dropped the folder into the fire with a flourish so it opened and the papers fell out and turned black. Then she sat down with a huge grin on her face. “Who’s up next?”
Poppy raised her hand. “I am, if that’s okay with you guys.”
We all nodded encouragingly. Poppy stood up and showed us all a paper shopping bag. It was the Abercrombie bag with her face on it. Someone must’ve said something funny at the shoot because the photographer caught her mid-laugh. Poppy has the most beautiful smile when she laughs because it lights up her whole face. The reason she was such a great model was that she wasn’t scared to show the world
who she really was on the inside. That was something I didn’t know if I would ever learn how to do outside of camp.
Poppy held the shopping bag up. “I am no longer bound by the label of model. I am so much more than that. I am a good friend, a strong student, and an empowered young woman. Being a model is a small part of who I am, and I need to start reminding people of that when they judge me. If I want to empower other girls, I need to start with myself.”
It was weird to see her beautiful blond hair and white teeth turn black and then eventually float away in crisps of burned paper, but the ear-to-ear smile on Poppy’s real face was wonderful to see.
Isa stood up next. She held up the stack of college brochures her mother had mailed her and fanned them out so we could see the pictures of grassy quads and ivy-covered stone buildings. “I am no longer bound by the label of soccer college recruit. I love soccer and I want to play it in college and on a professional team after that. But I’m only in middle school, so I don’t want to talk about my future soccer career every single day of my life. When I get back home, I’m going to threaten to quit if my mom doesn’t stop harassing me about my playing, lecturing me about college, and coaching me from the sidelines.”
Isa dropped the brochures in the fire and then clapped her hands together.
I stood up next and held up my sixth-grade yearbook. The yearbook that represented the worst school year of my life. I cleared my throat. “I am no longer bound by the label of invisible. I am not going to spend another school year walking the halls alone, eating lunch with only the company of a book, and sitting home watching everyone else’s social lives on Snapchat. No more sitting on the sidelines for me. I am going to put myself out there this year.”
I didn’t say anything about the pact and how it was going to fix everything for me, so the other girls probably just thought I was going to work on getting my confidence up. They smiled at me as I dropped my yearbook in the fire. Then Maisy reached out her hand and squeezed mine, and I knew everything was going to be okay.
“Your turn, Maisy,” said Hannah.
Maisy stood up holding a stack of letters in her shaky hands. I recognized her mom’s handwriting right away. When we were little, Mrs. Winters was the one who wrote out all of my birthday cards. She always scribed the same message: Wishing you a year ahead full of wonderful new adventures and lots of love. When we were older, she would write out grocery lists: EGGS, ALMOND MILK, GLUTEN-FREE BREAD, GOAT CHEESE and send us to the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings with a pocketful of cash. She always gave us extra so we could buy cookies from our favorite bakery stand.
Maisy fanned the letters out in her small hands. There were ten crisp envelopes and two that looked like they had been pulled from a garbage can—all unopened. All with Maisy’s mom’s handwriting on them, and when I leaned in close I could see a return address in Minnesota.
She blinked a bunch of times, which she always does when she’s trying not to cry. “I am no longer…” she stopped. Then she took a deep breath. “Can I start again?”
“Yes,” said Ainsley. “Take all the time you need. We’re here for you.”
We all nodded in agreement. I wondered if Maisy was finally going to open up about why she ended up at Camp Amelia.
Maisy kept blinking, but it wasn’t helping. Tears streamed down her face. Her legs were shaking along with her voice. “I am no longer bound by the label of forgiver. I’ve forgiven way more times than anyone should have to and I just can’t do it anymore. I’m not a bad person just because I need more time to get over things. No one can take away my anger. I am going to stay mad as long as I want. I’m not like Dad and Addy. There are some things that saying sorry doesn’t fix.”
Maisy dropped the letters in the fire one by one with tears spilling down her face and silent sobs wracking her body. When she sat down, we all surrounded her. I wrapped her in a hug and rubbed her back. “It’s okay, Maisy. It’s all going to be okay.”
While the other campers were laughing and dancing around the fire, we tuned out everyone else and stayed with Maisy. She didn’t tell us what was going on at home. We didn’t find out how she ended up at camp, why her mother was in Minnesota, or why she was so angry at her. But we did show her that we were there for her.
As I was hugging her, I couldn’t push down the feelings of anger that were fighting the part of me that was sad for her. If she hadn’t left me behind, I would’ve been there for her just like I had been for practically her whole life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MAISY
From: @madisonave
To: @maisywintersiscoming
Hello… Where you been? You drop a bomb about fixing things with the M & Ms, then go MIA???
From: @maisywintersiscoming
To: @madisonave
Sorry!!! Camp has been crazy busy. We need to add our own girl to the M & Ms. Someone who would always be on our side. So when Meghan’s being mean to you, we won’t feel ganged up on.
From: @madisonave
To: @maisywintersiscoming
OMG!! Best idea ever!!!! What about Missy Edwards? She is looking much better since she started going to the dermatologist. Or Medford Richards? She’s kind of annoying, but her mom owns that clothing shop on Woodward and can get us all discounts.
From: @maisywintersiscoming
To: @madisonave
Maybe we should do something crazy and pick a girl who doesn’t have an M name.
“We’ve been running around camp for weeks and you guys are finally showing me the actual race course?” I said.
Poppy smiled. “We needed to focus on getting you comfortable with the ropes course. Relax, this is going to be easy in comparison.”
“Especially since you’ve been running and doing conditioning all summer,” added Isa.
Of course, Poppy and Isa thought the run would be easy. These sporty girls think anything athletic is easy. But I had to admit, this was the only part of the tournament that didn’t scare me. Running is just putting one foot in front of the other, and that’s what I had been doing for the past two years.
Ainsley stood in the center of the field. She was wearing running clothes and had her hair pulled back like she meant business. She was even wearing a whistle around her neck.
She held up a stopwatch. “I’m timing this run, so we can see where we’re at. We’re doing the full two miles, so try your best to run your race pace.”
Isa turned to me. “Run like you’re chasing those nasty Dandelion girls in your ghost costume.”
Hannah tugged on my arm. “Think about something that makes you really mad. That’s what pushes me on a long run.”
“You guys better not even think about walking in the woods because I’ll be right behind you!” Ainsley yelled.
She blew the whistle, and Isa and Hannah took the lead across the grass.
I didn’t know what running two miles at race pace felt like because I had never done it before. But I took Hannah’s advice. It wasn’t hard to make myself mad enough to run fast.
I took off after the girls and thought about the time Mom was supposed to pick me up at Madison’s house and never showed. Madison’s mom ended up driving me home, but I was locked out because Mom was passed out inside. I pretended I was going to let myself in the back door, but because it was locked, I was stuck waiting in the backyard until Addy got dropped off after practice. It was a freezing cold February night, so it took hours for my hands and feet to get the feeling back. I really thought I had frostbite, but I couldn’t ask Dad what he thought because that would mean telling him about Mom.
I stuck close behind Isa across the edge of the field into the opening in the woods.
“Pace yourself, Maisy,” called Ainsley.
Like I knew how to pace myself.
Then there was the time Mom promised to bake Irish soda bread for my social studies unit on Ireland. I didn’t believe she would actually make it, but there it was sitting on the dining room table the morning the pr
oject was due. When Mr. DeSouza bit into a piece, he gagged and spat it out right away. He said, “You were supposed to make Irish soda bread, Maisy, not Irish Spring soap bread.” The whole class laughed, and Mr. DeSouza kept it as a running joke for the rest of the semester.
My feet slapped the dirt. I thought about that last day before Mom left. I knew things were bad because Dad took the day off from work on a surgery day. All I had ever heard growing up was how he couldn’t miss a surgery day, even if that meant skipping my chorus concert or the elementary school holiday breakfast or my dance club performance. Dad missed more things than he made it to. It never used to bother me because Mom came to everything. But when Mom stopped showing up, it really sucked.
When I had woken up that morning, Dad was sitting on the chair across from my bed with his head in his hands. He was still wearing his scrubs from the night before, even though he never wore his scrubs home because—germs.
I focused on pumping my legs up and down and breathing in and out as I flew through the woods.
I thought about how Dad had swept my hair off my forehead and said, “I am so sorry, Maisy.”
Dad, who never cried because he had to keep it together when giving patients bad news, started to tear up. It was literally the first time in my life I had seen him cry. “I could’ve lost all three of you last night. All because I kept my head in the sand.”
I didn’t know what he meant about the sand, but it was making me really uncomfortable to see him cry. His nose was dripping and he didn’t even notice.
“I thought Mom was doing better. I thought she was going to meetings. Why didn’t you girls tell me?”
The words got caught in my throat before they tumbled out. “Addy and I saw a movie where the kids got put in a foster home because their mom was taking pills. We didn’t want to get taken away.”
Dad hugged me so tight I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “I would never send you away.”
But then a few days later, Mom was in rehab and Dad sent me here.
“Go, Maisy!” called Isa, when I passed her on the trail.
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