The Secret Cookie Club (2 page)

Lucy said, “What a coincidence! Happy birthday!”

After that, everybody sang, and Grace blew out her candles.

From that night on, every girl in Flowerpot Cabin loved every other girl in Flowerpot Cabin every moment all summer long.

Not.

But Emma, Olivia, Grace, and Lucy did have a special flour-power bond, which paid off when they won the cabin competition for cleanest bathroom, got second place at the talent show and the girls' prize in the egg-and-spoon relay on Game Day.

Thursday, August 11

The night before the last day of camp, the girls of Flowerpot Cabin were in their bunks. There was a lot for the counselors to do at the close of the season, and Hannah had been up since six that morning. She was exhausted, but she couldn't help overhearing her campers' whispered conversation.

“What if we all go home and forget each other?” Emma said. “What if we don't stay friends?”

“That would be really, really, really
sad 
!” said Olivia.

“Three
really
s,” said Lucy.

“When is it we first started to like each other?” Emma asked.

“Oh, Emma. Not another quiz. I am
too
sleepy,” said Olivia.

Grace spoke up. “It was on my birthday—when we made the cookies with Vivek.”

“With
Vive-e-ek
,” Olivia teased.

“Leave her alone, O,” said Emma. “She can't help it that she thinks he's cute.”

“Is he cute?” asked Lucy.

“According to some people,” said Olivia.

“Listen, do you want to hear my idea or not?” said Emma. “Here it is: What if all year long we send each other cookies?”

“Okay,” said Lucy. “And I'll go first because otherwise I'll forget.”

“Hello-o-o?” said Olivia. “We didn't even agree to do it yet.”

“When school starts—and piano and dance—I'm
going to be really busy,” said Grace.

“That's what I'm worried about,” said Emma. “Even though we're all superbusy, we have to take time out to stay friends. We have to make a commitment.”

“I won't be that busy,” said Lucy.

“Lucky,” said Grace.

“What kind of cookies?” Lucy asked.

“Sugar,” said Olivia. “I mean,
if
it's happening, they should be sugar.”

“Doesn't have to be,” said Emma. “It can be whatever kind you think goes with whoever's getting the cookies.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Grace. “So, like, if I have a piano recital coming up, and it's Emma's turn to send cookies, then Emma sends me the best kind of cookies for practicing piano.”

“Or if my mom has another new boyfriend, I get the best kind of cookie to survive a mom romance,” said Lucy.

“Or if my brother's baseball team loses the state championship, I get cookies for when my whole family is in mourning except I don't actually even care,” said Olivia.

“Exactly,” said Emma.

“We need a name,” said Olivia.

“I'm bad at naming things,” Lucy said. “How about the Cookie Society?”

“The
Secret
Cookie Society,” said Grace, “because we're not going to tell anybody. It's just us.”

“My aunt Freda's in a society,” said Lucy. “They do projects to help people.”

“We don't have to help people, do we?” Olivia asked.

“We helped Vivek when we shared our cookies,” said Grace.

“He can't be in the club. He's not in Flowerpot Cabin,” said Emma.

“Also, he's a boy,” said Olivia.

“I noticed that too,” said Lucy.

“We could send him cookies, though, couldn't we?” said Grace. “Like, without telling him who they're from. Like a prank, only a nice prank.”

“Grace, do you have a crush on Vivek?” Emma asked.

“
No
!” said Grace.

“That means you do,” said Olivia.

“It should be ‘club' instead of ‘society,' ” said Lucy. “ ‘Club' is easier to spell.”

“Time to vote,” said Emma. “All in favor of Secret Cookie Club, say ‘aye'!”

“Aye!” said everybody.

After that, they figured out the schedule. Lucy would send the first batch of cookies to Grace in the fall. Grace would send cookies to Emma around New Year's. Emma would send cookies to Olivia in the winter, and Olivia would send cookies to Lucy in the spring.

“How will we know what kind of cookie to send?” Olivia wanted to know.

“That's the whole point,” said Emma. “The only way we know is if we stay in touch.”

“And Vivek?” Grace said.

But Hannah didn't hear the answer. She had fallen asleep, smiling. She was dreaming of flour power.

Saturday, August 13, Grace

“Grace, sweetie, are you okay? It's getting late!” Hannah, our counselor, called through the bathroom door, which, unfortunately, did not have a lock. If Hannah or anyone found out I had just vomited my breakfast, I would die of embarrassment.

“Yes. Fine. Don't come in.” I flushed the toilet, rinsed my mouth out, splashed water on my face, and looked around for my towel before remembering it
was packed in my trunk, just like everything else.

“Grace?” Hannah sounded worried.

I opened the door. My face was dripping.

“Hold on. I think I saw paper towels.” Hannah found a crumpled-looking roll in Flowerpot Cabin's mostly empty cupboards and handed it over. “Now tell me what's the matter.”

Usually I appreciated Hannah's TLC. We all did. But right then I wanted to be left alone.

“I am
fine
,” I said, then realized how that sounded and added, “Sorry.” I took a final swipe at my face, wadded the towel, and threw it away.

Would we lose points for the wastebasket not being empty?

Oh, right. The Chore Score didn't matter now. Camp was over. Today we were going home.

“I'm just upset about saying good-bye,” I said.

This was true, but it wasn't everything. A few kids had already been bused to the airport in Phoenix, but most people's parents were coming by car this morning to pick them up. That included the parents of us
four campers in Flowerpot Cabin—Emma, Olivia, Lucy, and me.

More than anything else, I was freaking out—as Lucy would say—about my parents meeting everyone else's. My parents aren't like other people's. My parents have accents. My parents dress too nicely. My parents are ten to the tenth power more embarrassing than anyone else's parents in the entire United States of America.

The worried knot in my stomach persisted even though now the pancakes were out of the way.

Hannah stepped back, looked at me, and shrugged. “Okay, Grace, my friend, if you say so.” Then she steered me toward the door with a hand on my shoulder. “Everybody else is on the oval waiting for their parents already. I bet yours will be superglad to see you. They must have missed their only daughter.”

Outside, the dry desert air hit me like a blast from a hair dryer, and the sunshine made me blink. Tomorrow I'd be home in Massachusetts, where the forecast was cloudy and humid.

Along with most of the other campers, Emma, Olivia,
and Lucy were sprawled on the oval-shaped lawn in front of the nurse's office. Emma spotted me first and waved. “Where
were
you?”

Olivia sat up and tugged her hat to shade her face. “We thought you were dead.”

“Wait.” Lucy looked around. “Are you just getting here?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Yeah, she's just getting here. Where did you think—?”

“—I dunno.” Lucy shrugged. “Over with Vivek or something.”

“Leave me alone about Vivek,” I said.

Lucy said, “Okay,” but Olivia said, “Sor-
ree
!” and Emma asked, “Grace, are you okay? Do you want a glass of water?”

“She's gonna miss Vivek,” Lucy said.

“Will you please
stop
—” I started to say, but then, with no warning, I burst into tears.

There was a surprised pause, followed quickly by a collective cooing sound—
oh-h-h-h
—followed quickly by a group hug. I closed my eyes, feeling better because
my friends loved me and worse because I was about to lose them forever.

“Excuse me. Grace?” The voice was muffled but familiar. “Is that you? And are these the girls about whom you speak so often?”

Oh no. I should have remembered another embarrassing thing about my parents: They are always early.

Grace

I introduced my parents to the Flowerpot girls, who were friendly even though they must have been in shock about how my parents' outfits
practically matched
: Khakis, polos, and loafers all around, except my father's polo was baby blue and my mother's was pink.

Then my parents wanted to put my trunk in the car and leave. Once they had seen that my friends were clean with no visible tattoos, that was all they needed
to know. My parents don't really believe in small talk.

But Hannah—who could earn a gold medal in small talk with grown-ups if there were such a thing—explained that parents' staying for lunch is traditional, and after that mine settled down because tradition is something they understand.

My dad, Joe Xi, was born and raised in Singapore, where his family still lives. My mom's name is Anna Burrows, and she grew up all over the world because her dad was in the U.S. government. They met in college in Massachusetts, and now they are both very brainy scientists, the kind who expect their only daughter to be brainy too.

Olivia's parents arrived next. They are tall and glamorous and African-American, and they look just like their picture on the bottles of Baron Barbecue Sauce you see in every supermarket. Also, they were dressed exactly right for picking up their daughter at summer camp in Arizona—jeans and a polo for him, jeans skirt, a T-shirt, and a turquoise necklace for her. Like movie stars, they smiled a lot. Unlike movie stars—my idea of them anyway—they
also gave everybody big warm hugs.

Emma's parents turned out to be huggers, too, and the second they saw her they glued themselves to Emma like they'd never again let her out of their sight. Emma's dad is a doctor, I remembered, and her mom is a lawyer. For parents they are kind of old—almost grandparent-age. I liked them, though, and anyway you would never call them embarrassing. Here is something cute: They were holding hands.

After that it was time for lunch, and Lucy's mom still wasn't there.

All of us could see Lucy was unhappy, and I thought she was worried something might have happened to her mom. But it turned out she was mad.

“You never get mad,” Emma said. We were in the dining hall by then, filling water glasses to carry back to our table for the grown-ups.

Lucy said, “At my mom I do.”

Emma looked over her shoulder at me, and I shrugged. We knew Lucy lived with her mom and her grandma in Beverly Hills. We knew Lucy's family didn't
have a lot of money. We knew Lucy's aunt Freda had been a camper at Moonlight Ranch when she was a kid.