The Sign in the Smoke (Nancy Drew Diaries Book 12) (2 page)

Bess squealed and turned to George, squeezing her arm. “It’s on you, cuz,” she said, looking George in the eye. “You
know
this would be fun. Come on. Everything I suggest for us turns out to be fun!”

I held up my hand.
“Actually . . .”

Ned raised a finger in the air. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to object to that one too.”

George laughed.

Bess pretended to glare at me. “We’re still all
alive,
anyway,” she pointed out. Then she turned back to George. “Cuz, will you make my summer? Come on, say you’re in.”

George took the brochure from me and looked down at the photo. A slow smile crept across her face. “Okay,” she said. “But if I get a bunkful of princessy mean girls, I am
coming for you in the night
, Bess.”

“I can live with that,” she said quickly. “I’m fast. I know how to hide. Anyway,
yay!
” She grabbed me suddenly around the waist with one hand, pulling in George with the other. “Group hug! We’re headed back to Camp Larksong!”

Six weeks and endless application forms later, I sat on my bed, cramming in my last two T-shirts into my camp duffel bag. Our housekeeper, Hannah, had helped me sew labels bearing my name onto all my clothes. Eight shirts, six pairs of shorts, two pairs of jeans, pj’s, one casual dress—I was officially ready to go!

And not a minute too soon, because as soon as I zipped up my bag, I heard the toot of Bess’s horn in the driveway. I hefted my bag onto my shoulder—
whoa, I hope I don’t have to carry this far
—and maneuvered it down the stairs and into the front hall. Dad and Hannah, having heard the horn too, were standing there waiting to say good-bye.

Dad grinned at me. “I can’t believe you’re going to
camp
,” he said, shaking his head. “You were never a
camp
type. You were a stick-your-nose-in-a-book type.”

“It looks really fun, Dad,” I said. “Besides, it’s a great excuse to spend some time outside and get to know some new people.”

He nodded. “I know you’ll have fun,” he said, and leaned in for a hug.

“Don’t forget to eat,” Hannah advised as I finished up Dad’s hug and went to hug her. “You’ll be running around a lot!”

I chuckled. “Well, I can guarantee the food won’t be as good as yours,” I promised. “I’ll miss you both. Write to me?”

Dad pulled out some folded paper and a preaddressed envelope from his shirt pocket. “Ready to go,” he promised. “Don’t worry, you won’t miss any of the big news from River Heights.”

“I love you both,” I said, opening the door and squeezing through with my bag.

“Love you, too. Have fun,” Dad said, leaning out to take the door from me and waving in Bess’s direction. “Don’t get in too much trouble.”

I grinned back at him. “When have
I
ever gotten in trouble?”

I hauled my bag out to Bess’s coupe and loaded it into the trunk, then climbed into the passenger seat. Bess was all smiley and pumped up, and couldn’t stop talking about all the fun we were going to have at Camp Cedarbark. She explained that at Camp Larksong, each week ended with a special campout on a hill by the lake, with a sunset sing-along and ghost stories around the campfire. She’d read on Camp Cedarbark’s website that they were planning to continue the tradition.

We swung by George’s house, where she was waiting in the driveway with her parents. After lots of hugs and kisses (George is an only child, and her parents
love
her), George climbed into the backseat and we were off.

“Aren’t you
excited
?” Bess asked, peering at her cousin in the rearview mirror when we were stopped at a traffic light. “Aren’t we going to have the
best time ever
?”

“Yeeeeeeah,” said George slowly. But she didn’t look like she thought we were going to have the
best time ever
. She looked a little . . . concerned.

“Is something up?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” she said. But she still wore a confused expression. “It’s just . . . I Googled ‘Camp Larksong’ and ‘Camp Cedarbark’ last night.”

The light changed, and Bess punched the gas with a little too much force. We lurched forward. “Don’t tell me you found some nasty review,” she said. “I’ve been looking at them every few weeks myself. Everyone says they’ve had an amazing time there.”

“It wasn’t a nasty review,” George said, shaking her head. “It was a newspaper article. The headline was ‘Tragedy Closes Camp Larksong.’ It was dated five years ago—the year you said the camp closed.”

Bess frowned. “That’s strange. I never heard about any tragedy. What did the article say?”

George hesitated. “That’s just the thing—I couldn’t access the article. It was taken down a year ago. I just found a link to the cached page.”

Bess looked thoughtful as she pulled onto the highway. Camp Cedarbark was about two hours away from River Heights. For a moment, we were all silent as she merged into traffic and we all thought our separate thoughts.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Bess said after a minute or two, startling me. “If there were really some big tragedy, I would have heard about it, right? I kept in touch with some of my fellow campers for years. Nobody mentioned anything.”

“I guess,” George said, but she was staring out the window with a pensive expression.

Things got quiet again for a while, and I tried to lose myself in the landscape whooshing by and ignore the little worried voice inside my head.

The voice that said,
Please don’t let there be a mystery to solve at Camp Cedarbark!

“WELCOME, COUNSELORS!”

A woman in her early twenties with long, frizzy blond hair and green eyes stepped up to the stage and grabbed the microphone. I dropped my fork back into my spaghetti, startled, and looked around at the other counselors.

“That’s Deborah Jackson, the camp director,” the person across from me, a dark-haired petite girl whose name I hadn’t gotten, whispered to the table.

I nodded slowly. I was feeling overwhelmed. We’d just pulled up the driveway of Camp Cedarbark—which, so far, looked as beautiful as it had in the photos—when a girl wearing a baseball cap had run up to the car, told Bess to park it in the “employee parking lot,” and instructed us to come into the mess hall immediately after—while we’d been stuck in traffic, dinner had already started.

We’d barely had time to grab our bags and pile them in the mess hall foyer for now. Dinner was spaghetti with meatballs and salad—Bess told us that about 70 percent of a camper’s diet is made up of spaghetti—served with “bug juice,” or some kind of red fruit punch. The food wasn’t exactly gourmet, but I was starving, so it tasted great.

Now the counselors around us all started applauding, so I looked around at my friends and then joined in.

“Welcome to Camp Cedarbark,” the woman—Deborah—went on. “We’ve been having a fantastic summer so far, and this week promises to be no exception! Thank you all so much for applying to be counselors for our Best of All Worlds camp—this week, instead of focusing on one activity, like arts and crafts or sports, our campers will get to try it all! And so will you.” She paused. “But of course, you won’t have to do it alone. You’ll all be leading a bunk of six campers, but you’ll each be assigned a CIT, a counselor-in-training, to help you. The CITs will arrive in two days and will have one day of training with you before the campers arrive. Make no mistake, though,
you
ladies are in charge. I expect you to all be responsible, and to remember that these girls’ parents have entrusted their precious children to you. Let’s make sure everybody is safe and happy—and if you have any concerns, you can always speak to me or my husband, Miles. Miles, wave at everyone!”

A stout, bearded man wearing an orange Camp Cedarbark shirt walked out from the corner and waved. We all clapped politely.

Deborah went on, “After dinner, we’re going to spend a couple of hours learning child CPR with our resident nurse, Cathy. Then you’ll get a chance to relax and unwind at the campfire. But don’t stay up too late—breakfast is
promptly
at seven thirty every morning.”

Next to me, George groaned.

Deborah waved. “All right, enjoy your dinner!”

The next two hours went by in a blur. We finished our spaghetti and bused our tables, then helped fold up the tables and roll them to the side of the room. Then we sat down with Cathy, a kind-eyed lady with short, curly gray hair, who brought out two child-size dummies and taught us the basics of child CPR. We practiced with partners—mine was Sam, the baseball-cap-wearing girl who’d greeted us in the driveway, who seemed super nice. Then, as we were all getting worn out, Cathy finally collected the dummies and said that was enough for now—we’d practice again tomorrow. She told us to leave the mess hall and walk toward the lake, where Deborah and Miles would have started the campfire.

We stumbled out of the mess hall and, in the moonlight, found our way past a row of cabins, down a small, steep path, and to a big campfire area that was right on the bank of the lake. Eight big logs surrounded a fire that was ringed by rocks. It was huge and crackly, and behind it, Deborah and Miles sat on one of the logs, smiling.

“We’re so happy you’re all here,” Miles said. “Make yourselves comfortable, please. Your work is done for tonight.”

Once we were all settled around the campfire, Miles pulled out an acoustic guitar and began playing. He asked whether there were any Camp Larksong alums there, and Bess eagerly raised her hand. Looking around the campfire, I counted two others.

“That’s great,” said Miles. “Deborah is an alum too.”

“Five years in a row,” Deborah confirmed. “First as a camper, then a CIT, then a counselor. That’s why we bought and restored this place. I just love it so much.”

Miles fingered a few notes on the guitar, and the alums all made little noises of recognition.

“Who remembers the camp song?” Deborah asked. She began singing in a clear voice:

Friends and nature, sports and fun,

Camp Larksong glitters in the sun,

We come together every year,

Some come from far, some come from near. . . .

Bess began singing along beside me, and soon the others who’d raised their hands to say they were alums joined in. The song was folksy and pretty, and it made me a little sleepy, but I could also see how happy the alums were to sing it.

From the Camp Larksong song, Miles moved on to “Kumbaya,” and then “On Top of Spaghetti,” and then I lost track. We all chimed in singing song after song, as the moon rose high over the lake and the sky got darker and darker.

After the seventh or eighth song, Miles lifted his guitar and stood. “I think that’ll do it for Deborah and me!” he said.

Deborah smiled and stood up too. “We were up at five today getting the camp all ready for you,” she said, a little apologetically. “As long as you keep the noise down, feel free to stay out here for a while and get to know one another. Until the CITs arrive, you’ll all be sleeping in Pine Cabin, which is the long, low one over by the mess hall. You passed it on your way here.”

Everyone said good night, and Deborah and Miles disappeared into the woods.

“So who is everybody again?” asked the dark-haired girl who’d spoken up at dinner. “The last few hours have been such a blur.”

We all reintroduced ourselves. There were eight of us: me; George; Bess; Sam, who was going to be the sports counselor; Bella, the dark-haired girl; Maddie, a willowy redhead; Taylor, a soft-spoken, round girl who said she was the arts and crafts counselor; and Charla, a cheery dark-eyed girl with tiny braids.

We all talked about where we were from, and what had inspired us to come here. Most of the other girls were from closer to the camp. Bella even lived in the same town. “I get to go really far away for my summer vacation,” she said, rolling her eyes. But she explained that she was a Camp Larksong alum (she’d started coming after Bess stopped), and she’d always wanted to come back.

When all the introductions were over, Bella made a big show of checking to make sure she couldn’t see Deborah and Miles, and then turned back to us. “So,” she said in a mischievous voice, “is anyone scared to be here?”