The Sign in the Smoke (Nancy Drew Diaries Book 12) (7 page)

“
What?
” Bella asked, scowling. “Who died and made you camp police, Nancy?” She leaned toward me, like she was going to grab for the candle.

“Nobody,” I said, clutching the candle harder as I gestured around the circle at the CITs. “But these kids just got here. They’re here to help us, but it’s also our responsibility to take care of them. And tomorrow, busloads of kids are going to pull into the driveway, and it’ll be our responsibility to take care of them, too.”

Bella glared at me. “I
know
that. Unlike you, remember, I’ve been to camp before.”

“You need to let go of this ghost story,” I went on, trying to keep my voice even and low. “It’s not helping anybody, and you could seriously scare some of the kids. I don’t know what your deal is yet, exactly, but I don’t even think
you
believe it.”

Bella kept glaring at me. Her eyes looked hard in the pale moonlight. “You don’t know what I believe,” she hissed finally.

“Let it go, Bella,” George said, raising her voice to be heard from the path. “Everyone, come back to bed with us now. Or Nancy and I will wake up Deborah.”

One by one, the remaining counselors and CITs began getting to their feet. Several of them looked relieved. Maddie still avoided my eyes and looked a little embarrassed. But her CIT, Frankie, eagerly strode toward the path. Bella was the last to stand, and when she did she moved very slowly, deliberately grabbing her bag and tossing the matchbook, which was still in her hand, inside.

She took the few steps over to me, looking me right in the eye. “I’ll take the candle and Ouija board back, please,” she said icily.

“I think I’ll hold on to them,” I said, not backing down.

A flash of anger played across Bella’s face, and then her eyes hardened even more. She leaned in and whispered to me, “You’re a goody-goody and a tattletale. I thought this camp would be
fun,
but not with squares like you and your little nerdfighters screwing things up.” She held up one finger, and while I stared at it, wondering what she would do, she suddenly moved forward and poked me in the nose. “Were you looking to make an enemy tonight? ’Cause you’ve got one.”

She backed up then, raising her voice so everyone else could hear, and pasted on a fake smile. “All right, séance postponed! Let’s all get some sleep, people.”

She strutted up the path as though she were still in charge. Slowly, we all fell into step behind her.

“Nice job, Steely-Eyed Nance,” George whispered, nudging me with her elbow. “You told her who was boss.”

“But I definitely made an enemy,” I added, shooting George a concerned look. “I just hope it doesn’t come back to bite us later.”

“NANCY!” SAM SAID BRIGHTLY, HER
baseball-capped head popping up in the open door of Juniper Cabin, “I’ve got another one for you! This is Kiki.”

Sam backed away and a bright-eyed, smiling face appeared in the doorway, her braided hair held back by a colorful headband. “Hi! Is this my bunk?”

It was nine thirty the next morning, and I felt like it should be about five o’clock in the afternoon. Whole lifetimes seemed to have passed since breakfast! Four of my six expected campers were already milling around the cabin, chatting eagerly, choosing bunks, unpacking their things. Maya and I helped as much as we could and tried to keep the conversation going, not that the girls needed much help in that area.

“It sure is!” I said, jumping in front of Kiki with a smile.
Ugh, I’m so sweaty! Too much running around in too short of a time!
“Welcome, Kiki! It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Nancy, your counselor, and this is Maya, your CIT. We’re going to have so much fun this week!”

Kiki grinned. “Awesome!” she said. She looked around the room and her face fell. “It’s just, I need a top bunk. I
hate
the idea of being boxed in. And is there a place I can plug in my phone?”

“Um, how did you talk them into letting you keep your phone?” I asked. Phones were not allowed at camp. Not that we had any service out here, anyway.

“I just pointed out to them that it doesn’t
work
,” Kiki said. “So I can’t really use it. But I just like to have it with me. It’s like a security blanket, plus my camera. And I intend to take a bunch of pictures and post them to Instagram as soon as I get back to civilization! No offense,” she added quickly, reaching out to touch my shoulder.

It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. “Uh, none taken,” I said. “I don’t live here either, remember?”

“Right, right,” said Kiki, looking around at the girls milling all around us. “HEY, LADIES! Would anyone be a super sweetheart and trade me for a top bunk? I would
totally
pay you back with a pedicure. I do the best nail art, not to brag!”

The other girls all circled around Kiki, peppering her with questions as Cece, a camper from Chicago, cheerfully led her to her top bunk. I looked at Maya and slowly shook my head, impressed. The campers had such confidence so far! I couldn’t imagine walking into a cabin full of strangers like that and commanding the room—but it was a nice quality to have.

Maya moved closer. “Just one more,” she whispered.

“That’s right.” I glanced out the door again but didn’t see anyone heading in the direction of our cabin. Outside was total pandemonium. Campers climbed off buses, which had brought them from bigger cities like Chicago, or emerged from cars, surrounded by concerned parents and siblings. They met Deborah or Miles, who looked up their assignments on their clipboards and then passed them on to Sam or Taylor to bring to their correct bunks. The next hour had been reserved for a “getting to know you/unpacking” period, followed by a special hike and picnic lunch, led by each bunk’s counselor and CIT. Maya and I had already looked over the camp map and planned a long hike to Mushroom Creek, way on the north border of the camp property.

“How are you holding up?” I whispered to Maya. When we’d returned from the lake the night before, it had been clear to me that Maya was scared by all the ghost talk. She wouldn’t admit it, but she seemed pale and edgy, not her normal bubbly, excited self. We’d talked it over a little, and I’d explained to her again that I strongly felt that the story was not true. I tried to downplay my own incident in the lake too, repeating that I wasn’t sure what I had seen. But Maya still seemed a little nervous. She’d tossed and turned for a while before finally falling asleep.

I shouldn’t have listened to Bella and gone to the stupid lake in the first place,
I chastised myself now.
Oh well. Next time I’ll know.

Maya shrugged. “I’m okay. Everything seems different in the light of day.”

I knew how she felt. Even though the past two nights had been filled with creepy, ice-cube-down-the-spine moments, it was hard to recall those feelings when the sun first shone into our cabin. Even more so now, when our cabin was full of giggling, smiling campers.

A light knock on the cabin door turned my attention away. It was Taylor, smiling eagerly. “Last one, right?” she asked, holding up a clipboard.

I nodded but looked around Taylor for the camper. Where was she?

Then Taylor gently said, “Go ahead—don’t be nervous!” and nudged a small, blond-ponytailed girl into the doorway. She hugged a dark-green backpack and had large, tortoiseshell-frame glasses.

“Hi,” I said warmly, sensing that she might be shy. “I’m Nancy, your counselor. Welcome!”

The girl just nodded and looked at the floor.

“What’s your name, honey?” Taylor prodded her.

“Harper,” the girl whispered, without looking up.

I glanced at Taylor.
Okay—so she’s going to be a little bit of a challenge.
“Come on in, Harper,” I said, moving closer and taking her backpack from her. “Whoa—what’s in here? It weighs a ton!” I added, smiling.

She glanced up shyly. “It’s full of books,” she said. “My parents said I shouldn’t bring them all, but I didn’t want to leave them behind.”

“I like books too,” I said, leading her into the cabin. “I think you’re our final camper to arrive. Which means you’ll be bunking here, with . . .” I put Harper’s heavy bag down on a bottom bunk and looked at the girls, who stood around, watching us with openly curious looks. “Kiki?”

Kiki tossed her hair and walked forward confidently, holding out her hand as if to shake. “Hi there, I’m Kiki Pendleton,” she said. “Who are you? Where are you from? Do you wear the glasses all the time? They’re kind of cool. Are you from the city?”

Harper glanced from Kiki to me, then seemed to shrink into herself a little. She looked down at the floor and said softly, “Harper. Um, excuse me.”

She walked around me to reach her bag and carefully unzipped it, pulling out a thick blue book with pictures of dragons on the cover. Then she pulled out another book, this one green, but clearly from the same series, with the same dragons zooming around the jacket.

A frown played across Kiki’s face, and she looked from me to the other girls, who still stood in a cluster around her. “Um . . . cool. You must like books, huh? So where are you from?”

Harper lifted two more books out of her bag and then piled them all into a stack. She carefully lifted them and carried them around the bed to the dresser at the end.

“Um, I put my stuff in the three bottom drawers there,” Kiki said. “There’s only four dressers for eight people, so we’ll have to share. There’s some closets near the bathroom, though. Is that okay?”

Harper didn’t even look up. She hefted the books on top of the dresser. Then she shrugged—the only sign she’d heard Kiki—and began carefully arranging the books, lining them up along the dresser’s top edge. When she had them carefully placed, she tapped her lip and then switched the two on the outer edges. Then she nodded to herself, went back to her bunk, and began pulling out her clothes.

Kiki looked a little taken aback. I could tell she was trying to be friendly, but she seemed to have reached the end of her patience. “Oookay,” she said quietly. “I guess we’ll get to know each other later. Um, anyway”—she turned back to the others—“have you guys ever seen that show
Camp Confessional  
? It’s, like, my
favorite
!”

“Oh yeah!” one of the other campers, Winnie, cried. Winnie was Asian, with gorgeous glossy black braids, and had arrived with a curly-haired brunette named Katie. The two seemed to be BFFs. “Katie and I, like, totally binge-watched that on Netflix last weekend! We wanted to prepare. This is our first time at summer camp.”

As the girls chatted, Harper finished arranging her clothes in the dresser and carefully closed the top drawer. She folded her backpack with military precision and tucked it between the dresser and the wall.

I walked over to her. “Did you have a long drive to get here?” I asked. I knew it was a lame question, but I was desperate to get this girl talking.

Harper shrugged again.

“An hour? Less?” I prodded.

“About an hour.” She twisted her lips to the side, then looked away from me, back at the line of books. “Is it okay if I read until lunch?”

I struggled not to look too disappointed. I knew we’d just met, but I
so
wanted this girl to open up! The other girls were already chattering away like they’d known one another their whole lives.

“This is, um, sort of a ‘get to know you’ hour,” I said, gently putting a hand on Harper’s back and guiding her over to the rest of the girls. “Girls, why don’t we all have a seat on the beds and get to know one another? We have an hour before our hike and picnic lunch.”

“Oh, cool!” cried Katie, twisting some curls behind her ear. “Can we play Truth or Dare?”

I cringed. “No,” I said, “but we can definitely ask each other some get-to-know-you questions!”

Maya ran over, clutching a book and bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. “Nancy, here’s that book I told you about,” she said, holding up a small paperback titled
100 Great Questions.
“Maybe we can use some of the questions in here, and go around the bunk?”

“That’s a great idea,” I said, smiling. Maya, who was a total extrovert, had told me the day before about a book she’d brought full of icebreaking questions to help the campers—and the two of us—get to know one another. I knew I was lucky to have such an enthusiastic CIT.

But as we all settled down on the bunks, I noticed that Harper sat cross-legged on the floor rather than sit on a bed close to Cece. And she wore a distant expression as we all chatted eagerly, like she’d rather be someplace else. When someone asked her a question directly, she answered politely but rarely used more than a few words. As soon as she’d finished speaking, she turned her attention back to the floor in front of her or out the window.

I could understand being a bit of an introvert. Crowds sometimes made me uncomfortable, and I always loved returning to the quiet of my room at the end of the day. But this seemed a little more extreme.

How am I going to draw Harper out of her shell?