Campfire Cookies (5 page)

“Flowerpot Cabin, I know,” Lance said. “The one with the celebrities.”

“Celebrities?” Hannah repeated.

“The barbecue heiress,” said Lance. “The coyote killer.”

“Is that how people think of my campers?” Hannah shook her head. “I'd rather they thought of what's on our flag—you know, cookies.”

“Uh-oh. I hope they don't think of us as
our
flag,” said Lance.

Hannah wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, tarantula.”

“Like every other boys' cabin,” Lance said. “Maybe I shouldn't have talked them out of saddle sore.”

Hannah laughed and Lance did, too. He had a nice smile, and his green eyes seemed more interesting than her own blue ones.

“Look.” Hannah got to the point. “One of your campers, Vivek. My girls are asking where he is.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lance said. “Is he some kind of preteen heartthrob?”

Hannah let that question go. “They know him from last summer. Is he okay?”

“I don't know exactly,” said Lance. “Maybe don't tell your campers this, but Paula in the office said family
emergency. I guess it's not too bad, because he's supposed to be here soon.”

Hannah was puzzled. “Is there such a thing as a not-too-bad emergency?”

Lance shrugged. “Details to come. Okay, you knuckleheads”—he said this to his boys—“we go thataway, remember?” They were back in central camp by now, boys' cabins to their right, girls' to their left.

“Thanks for the info,” Hannah said.

“Sure,” said Lance. “Oh, hey—I've got evening riding. How about you?”

“Evening too,” said Hannah.

“That's cool,” he said. “I guess—” But she would never find out what he guessed because one of his campers grabbed his arm. “Come
on,
Lance!”

“Yeah, say good night to your
girl
friend,” said another one.

Rolling his eyes, Lance allowed himself to be pulled away. “
Real
mature,” he said to Hannah, who shrugged.

“That's boys for you,” she said.

It took Hannah forever to get back from the campfire. When she did, I was waiting for her right inside the Flowerpot Cabin door. “What did Lance say?”

“Grace!” Hannah jumped. “You startled me!”

“Sorry,” I said. “What did Lance say? Where's Vivek?”

Hannah took a breath. “He said there's nothing to worry about. He said there was some kind of a, uh . . . delay. Vivek will be here soon.”

If you ask me, this sounded suspicious, and I was ready with another question . . . but stopped. Hannah was giving me a certain look I knew well. It was the same look my teacher Mrs. Keeran gave me the time I went up to her desk after school to argue about getting a ninety-nine instead of one hundred on the “Rip Van Winkle” book report.

The look meant: “Further discussion will not be productive.”

“Your turn, Grace!” Emma came out of the bathroom.

“Okay, Emma, thanks,” I said, and five minutes later I was climbing into my nice clean bed and hoping the other girls would not be noisy and keep me awake.

Don't get me wrong, I love Emma, Olivia, and Lucy.

Along with Shoshi Rubinstein at home in Massachusetts, they are my best friends in the whole world.

But a person doesn't always want to stay up talking. A person sometimes is tired.

My bunkmates must have been tired too, because I heard very little giggling before the sounds of even
breathing won out. Still, I could not allow myself to fall asleep immediately. I had worrying to do.

First, there was Vivek. I do not have a crush on him the way the other girls think I do. I
do not!
Vivek is just a nice, handsome boy like any other nice, handsome boy who is also polite and smart and funny. Also, I think he is actually my friend. I don't have that many friends who are boys. In fact, he is the only one. I would like to keep him.

Also, I won't lie. I had been very surprised when Lucy said that she had talked to Vivek on the phone. Why would Vivek have called Lucy?

I mean, it is perfectly okay that he called Lucy. It is a free country. Vivek may call anyone he wants. But why would he call Lucy? He has never called me.

I had asked Lucy this question earlier that evening, when we were walking to dinner. I had chosen a moment when no one else could hear, so no one else (Olivia) would tease me. I was pretty sure Lucy would not tease me. I was pretty sure I could have a crush on SpongeBob, or Oz the great and powerful, or a giraffe at the zoo, and Lucy would not tease me. She would not even notice.

Apparently, Lucy notices wild animals that threaten triplets. Other than that, she mostly sees what is going on in her own head.

“He called to ask if I had sent him cookies,” Lucy said.

“
Did
you send him cookies?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Lucy. “Did you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Me too,” said Emma, coming up behind us.

“So did O,” said Lucy. “At least, I think she did, because Vivek said he got four boxes of cookies, each at a different time, and one was from Kansas City.” Lucy giggled. “He sounded pretty confused.”

•  •  •

There are several things you have to get used to if you are going to be happy at Moonlight Ranch. One is heat. One is your sore thighs and rear end from riding a horse every day. And one is the sound of the bell.

The bell I mean is not electronic. It is a real bell attached to a rope and hanging at the top of a wood tower in front of the dining hall. A live person
rings it. The sound is clear and musical and loud.

The bell rings to announce the start of activities. It rings to announce meals. It rings to say lights-out, and most importantly, it rings to announce wake-up, which is at six forty-five.

Some people (Olivia) complain all summer long that this is too early, but I am used to getting up early. If you do not get up early, how are you supposed to get everything done?

At camp that first morning, Monday, I woke up before the bell and automatically reached for my phone.

Then I remembered.

So while I waited for the bell to ring, I worried about Vivek. What did “soon” mean anyway?

I worried about my parents after that—home alone without me.

Then I devoted a couple of minutes to Shoshi Rubinstein. She had asked me to send pictures of camp. Her family was saving money for her sister's college and could not afford a vacation. I told her sure, I would send pictures.

But I had forgotten I wouldn't have a phone!

Was Buck's new no-electronics policy going to ruin Shoshi's summer?

Just before the camp bell rings, there is a faint sound like a warning. I had not remembered this sound till that moment when I heard it again—the distant creak of the wooden tower responding to the first tug on the bell rope.

Then . . . ding
-dong!
Ding
-dong!
Ding
-dong!

The first full day of camp had begun!

I threw back my sheet and got out of bed. I went into the white tiled bathroom. I washed up. I brushed my teeth. I came back out. I put on Levi's shorts and a plaid short-sleeved blouse, which is like a camp uniform on days you don't go riding. At home it would be a tank top, but in the sun here, sleeves are better.

I folded my pajamas and put them away. I made up my bunk.

I did all this quickly and quietly, keeping out of everyone else's way.

Meanwhile, Hannah had to wake up Lucy three times.

And Olivia had curled up in a ball and moaned, “I am
never coming back to this horrid, horrid place!”

Emma sat down at the foot of Olivia's bunk and consoled her: “You'll feel better when you've had some orange juice.”

On the way to breakfast, I could not help it. I was grinning. It was a normal morning in Flowerpot Cabin. I was really back at camp.

•  •  •

When the bell for start of activities rang at nine a.m., Lucy looked at Hannah. “What now?” she asked.

“We covered this at breakfast!” Hannah said.

“Riding assignments and sign-ups,” Emma told her. “We can walk over together, okay? But first you should put on more sunscreen.”

At camp, your riding assignment—either morning, afternoon, or evening—is a big deal because which of the other activities you can do depends on it. Like, there is no photography if you get morning riding because photography only happens in the morning, and there is no archery if you ride in the afternoon because archery only happens in the afternoon.

We had all submitted our riding requests from home, and now the assignments were posted on the side of the barn. By the time we got there, other kids were already clustered around the printed sheets, trying to find their names.

Vivek was not one of them.

“I got morning!” Olivia pumped her fist. “Yes!”

“Me too.” Emma grinned. “What horse did you get?”

Olivia looked back at the sheet. “Shorty. Huh. Who ever heard of a horse called
Shorty
? My boots will be dragging in the dirt! What riding did you get, Lucy?”

“Afternoon,” she said.

“Me too,” I said. “And my horse is Katinka.”

“Oh, I had her last summer,” said Emma.

I remembered something about Emma's horse last summer. “Is she the one that bit you?”

“Only once, and it wasn't her fault,” said Emma.

“What do you mean it wasn't her fault? Did she think you were a carrot?” I asked.

Emma laughed. “You just have to watch out when you saddle her.”

Emma is too nice,
I thought. If you ask me, one bite is one bite too many. But it's tough to switch horses. Maybe Katinka had learned better manners since last summer.

Activity sign-ups took an hour. I picked leatherwork and—it was Lucy's idea—watercolor painting. After that, we had a hydration break, which is how they say “juice boxes” at camp. Then it was time for me and Lucy to go out to North Corral to meet our horses, and for Emma and Olivia to go to the pool for the mandatory swim test.

If you are getting the idea that Moonlight Ranch is almost as organized as school, you are getting the right idea. This is why my parents like it. It is not possible to laze away your summer at Moonlight Ranch.

To get to North Corral, you go to the campfire pit and keep going. Then you turn left up a steep path till you come to a big flat place surrounded by aluminum fencing, and that is it. You are there.

That afternoon, about fifty campers were making the short hike. None of them, if you are wondering, was
Vivek. Apparently, “soon” meant later than right now, late morning on the first full day of camp.

The sun felt powerful on my back, but I knew it was not nearly as powerful as it would be later in the day. The sky was as bare of clouds as the corral was of plants. The horses had gnawed to nothing any green that had ever dared sprout here. All of us—kids and counselors—were wearing hats and carrying water.

Ten counselors met us. In charge of them was Cal. I remembered him from last summer because he was tall and a real grown-up, not a college student like most of the others. Even so, he had chubby cheeks like a baby.

“Hey,” he greeted me. “It's Grace, right? Good to see ya back again.”

Cal had never been my leader for anything, but I was not surprised that he knew my name. There are some Indian-American kids at camp (Vivek, for example), but I am the only girl who looks like me, and I was the only one last year too. Here at camp, I am used to being memorable.

Meet-Your-Horse works like this. Each counselor
takes five campers and, one by one, finds and halters their horses. I had only ridden a few times before I came to camp last year, but I had learned a lot in one summer. Now I knew how to catch a horse, bridle it, groom it, saddle it, and ride it. I knew the parts of the horse, the parts of the saddle, and the parts of the bridle.

When I put my mind to something, I am usually good at it.

Cal put a halter on Katinka and brought her over. She turned out to be a red paint, which means a white horse dappled with strawberry-brown markings. She was fourteen hands high, Cal told me. One hand equals four inches, and fourteen of them is small for a horse, but that meant we fit. For an almost eleven-year-old, I am small too.

Katinka greeted me by dipping her nose and flicking her ears forward; she was interested but not annoyed. I rubbed the velvet softness around her nostrils, and she snuffled at me, probably hoping for oats or a carrot. I thought of bringing up the biting thing, but Katinka and I had just met, after all. I didn't want to be rude.