The Sign in the Smoke (Nancy Drew Diaries Book 12) (8 page)

BOOK: The Sign in the Smoke (Nancy Drew Diaries Book 12)
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“Are we there yet?” Cece asked for the twenty-seventh (or at least, that’s how it felt) time, and the rest of the campers cracked up over what had become a running joke.

“Almost,” I replied, just as I had every other time she’d asked the question so far. “But really this time. It’s just”—I unfolded my map and stared at the upper right corner—“right over this hill.”

“Didn’t you say that half an hour ago?” Winnie whined.

Nina, a tall, skinny girl with freckles and short blond hair, scoffed, “We’ve only been hiking for, like, forty minutes, guys. Toughen up!”

“Easy for you to say,” Kiki said with a sigh. “You’re, like, some kind of amazing basketball player or whatever. But I’m just a
regular girl
!”

“What does
that
mean?” Nina asked, frowning. “Athletes are regular girls too!”

I glanced at Maya and sighed. We’d been hiking longer than I’d thought we would—we might have been a little overambitious in choosing Mushroom Creek as our destination—and the girls were getting cranky. All the getting-to-know-you good vibes seemed to have dissipated, and the girls were focusing now on how much they
didn’t
have in common.

“All I mean,” said Kiki, turning to Nina with exaggerated patience, “is you’re, like,
conditioned
to do this. At home, the most I walk is around the mall with my sister!”

Nina cocked an eyebrow. “Have you ever thought that might make
you
the abnormal one?” she asked. “Maybe you should get more hobbies.”

Kiki whirled around, clearly ready to give Nina a piece of her mind. But before I could figure out what to say to defuse the situation, Katie suddenly pointed ahead of us and shouted.

“OMG, you guys!” We all turned in the direction she was pointing. “Is that the creek?”

I checked my map.
Oh, thank heavens, yes.
“It is!” I said happily. “See, I told you! We
were
almost there.”

“Thank goodness,” Cece said. “I’m hungry enough to eat my sneakers. I was too excited to eat much breakfast this morning.”

“Me too,” Winnie added.

“Me too,” said Nina with a smile.

I glanced back at Harper, all the way in the back, but she remained silent, looking into the woods around us. She hadn’t said a word the whole hike, except one “excuse me” when she bumped into Cece.

“So guys,” I said when we’d reached the edge of the burbling creek, “let’s spread out our blanket and settle down here. This looks like a good place for lunch.”


Any
place would look like a good place for lunch right now,” Maya pointed out, holding out the bag that held our sandwiches. “Nancy, shall we lay everything out buffet-style and we can all serve ourselves?”

“Good plan,” I agreed.

Once we had the food all laid out and had each grabbed a plate, everyone tore into their sandwiches and chips. Things grew silent for a few minutes, except for the babbling of the creek and the sound of chewing. Then, suddenly, Nina spoke up.

“Are we going to do everything together?” she asked, looking pensively into the water. “Like, our bunk? Or are we going to be in different groups for different activities?”

I paused and put down my sandwich. “We’ll be together for most activities,” I said, thinking. “You’ll mix with some other bunks for some things, like swimming or sports. But for the most part, we’ll all be together.”

“Oh.” Nina crumpled her sandwich wrapper in her hand, not looking entirely happy.

“Why are you asking?” asked Cece. She’d been watching our exchange curiously, and now her voice held an edge of annoyance. “Are we not, like, what you were looking for in a bunk?”

I shook my head. “Let’s not make assumptions, guys,” I said. “Why do you ask, Nina? Did you want to mix more with the other bunks?”

Nina pursed her lips, fiddling with the balled-up sandwich wrapper in front of her. “Not
exactly
,” she said. “I mean, you guys all seem nice. I just thought . . . well, this is a Best of All Worlds camp. So I guess I thought there would be a few more sporty people in my bunk.”

Winnie put down her sandwich and tilted her head in Nina’s direction. “How do you know
we’re
not sporty?” she asked. “I happen to play tennis on, like, a competitive level.”

Nina’s eyes widened. “Really?” she asked.

Winnie nodded. “I don’t talk about it a lot. It’s just something I’ve always done,” she said. She smiled. “I kind of stink at other sports, though,” she added. “Just so you don’t get your hopes up.”

Nina chuckled.

“You
guys,
” said Maya, waving her hands in front of her as she often did, “one of the best parts of coming to camp is getting to hang out with people you never would have met back home! When I was at Camp Larksong—you know, that’s what this camp used to be called years ago—my best friend ended up being this girl named Lucy, who was super quiet and into drawing. At the end of camp she drew this amazing graphic novel about all the fun we’d had! We’re still friends now, and I still have a copy of her book.”

I shot Maya a grateful look. “That’s right,” I said. “My best friends are here at camp too—they’re counselors, Bess and George. You’ll meet them later, I’m sure. But anyway, we have
nothing
in common—except how much we like each other! You’ll see. Being
alike
isn’t what makes you friends. It’s appreciating what makes you different.”

The girls all seemed to respond to that, and soon they were chatting and exchanging questions about the different hobbies they’d each mentioned during the get-to-know-you session.

As we were munching on dessert, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, Katie looked over at Harper, who’d remained mostly silent through much of the conversation. “Hey, Harper,” she said, adjusting her position to face her quiet bunkmate. “You seem a little quiet, and that’s cool. But can I ask you a question?”

Harper glanced up, looking surprised and even a little nervous. “Um—okay?”

“What are those books you brought?” Katie went on. “Because I love to read, and I really like dragons, but I’ve never seen those books before. Are they any good?”

Harper’s eyes lit up. “They really are!” she said, with more enthusiasm than I’d heard from her the whole morning. “They’re called the Dragon’s Eye Chronicles, and you might not have heard of them because they’re only published in Britain. My dad buys them for me when he goes to London for work.”

Katie nodded. “That’s cool!” she said. “Can I look at them when we get back to the cabin? The art looked pretty.”

“Me too?” asked Cece, raising her hand like we were in class. “I just read my first fantasy book,
Seraphina
, and I thought it was way cool.”

Harper’s cheeks flushed pink. “Sure,” she said, crumpling up her trash with a shrug. “I’d be happy to show you . . . just make sure your hands are clean.”

As we gathered up our trash and started heading back to the cabin, all complaints about being tired seemed to dissolve into the air, and the girls chatted happily about their favorite books, their favorite activities—all the things that made them
different
. If the girls noticed that Harper was still a little quiet and standoffish, they didn’t seem to care. They were talking like there were a million things to learn about one another and they couldn’t wait to learn them all.

I fell into step beside Maya at the end of the line and shot her a wink. “Nice job there,” I whispered. “You might be a natural for this CIT stuff, Maya. You totally defused that fight!”

She held up her hand so I could slap her five, and I did. “Same to you,” she said. “I think we’re going to make a great team, Nancy.”

I smiled as I followed Maya and the rest of the girls down the path to the main camp.

As nervous as I was this morning,
I thought,
camp is really starting to feel like home.

“So how’s it going?” Bess whispered as she slid in between George and me. We were sitting on a log, getting ready for the first full-camp campfire of the week. George and I had just been catching up on what was going on in our bunks. To her surprise, George was
loving
working with the younger girls.

“Marcie is amazing,” she’d told me. “It’s like she has this inner voice that tells her what each girl really needs. And the kids are
soooo
sweet. You know what’s crazy about seven-year-olds?”

“What?” I asked with a smile. I’d already told her about my bunk, and the rocky start we’d had, leading into a pretty solid current situation.

George shook her head. “They don’t argue with you!” she said. “They just . . . it’s all on their sleeve. If they feel happy, they act happy. If they feel sad, they cry and need a hug. It’s so
easy
! Man, if I could deal with only seven-year-olds for the rest of my life . . .”

“You’d probably go crazy,” I filled in for her.

“Maybe.
Eventually
,” George allowed. “But for a week? This is living, Nancy.
This
is my ideal camp situation.”

Now George smiled as she turned to Bess. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she said, “but it’s awesome.”

Bess widened her eyes. “George?” She reached out and put a hand on her cousin’s forehead. George groaned and dodged away.

“I know,” she said, “embracing a bunch of seven-year-olds is maybe not
expected
for George Fayne. But it happened, and I’m not ashamed. I’m loving my bunk. How about you?” she asked Bess.

Bess tilted her head from side to side. “So far, so good,” she said. “I love my campers. They’re great. It is kind of a challenge, dealing with the whole group dynamic. Like, we had this whole battle today between the kids who are still
super
into
Frozen
and the ones who think
Frozen
is for babies.”

“Who won?” I asked. “I hope it was the over-it ones, or you’ll have to hear ‘Let It Go,’ like, two hundred times over the next six days.”

Bess snorted. “Next six days?” she asked. “You’re so out of touch, over there in ten-year-old land. I’ve heard it
five
hundred times today alone. Luckily, I like the song.” She began belting out her own version, but George quickly shushed her.

“How about you, Nancy?” Bess asked. I gave her an edited version of my adventures with the girls that day. Bess nodded. “Sounds like you and Maya are really gelling,” she said. “That’s great.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, glancing over to where Maya was sitting over on the other side of the circle with some other CITs. She was laughing and gesticulating wildly, clearly having a great time. “She’s terrific.”

Just then Deborah stood up and rang a cowbell she was holding, calling the campfire to order. “Campers, welcome!” she called. “I’m so happy to have you all here. I know that most of the campers are too young to remember, but some of the counselors and CITs may recall that at Camp Larksong, we always used to light this torch to symbolize the beginning of camp. The torch will stay lit all week, until we put it out on the last morning.”

She moved back so that we could all see a large, metal-based torch that sat up in a clear area several yards from the campfire.

“Miles, are we ready to light it?” Deborah asked. Miles moved out of the shadows, igniting a long butane lighter, the kind you would use to light a grill. Everyone grew quiet as he walked over to the torch.

Deborah closed her eyes and said, “With eager hearts and minds, we light this torch to symbolize all the good times, precious memories, and lifelong friends we will make over the next week at Camp Cedarbark. May this torch light our way to happiness!”

“May this torch light our way to happiness!” the campers—and counselors—repeated.

Miles touched the lighter to the torch, and it blazed into a huge flame. I gasped. It was surprising and beautiful. When I looked over at Bess, I saw that her eyes were wet. She glanced at me and gave me an embarrassed smile.

“Oh, shush,” she whispered. “You know this camp means a lot to me.”

I hope it’ll mean a lot to me after this week too,
I thought. For the first time since we’d arrived, I felt really grateful to Bess for convincing us to come to Camp Cedarbark.

As I was turning back to the fire, I caught a glimpse of Bella out of the corner of my eye. She was wiping her eye too, staring into the flame. And her cheeks were bright pink, like she’d just been running, or—crying?

I wondered what was going on with her.

The rest of the campfire passed in a haze of songs, games, and one “spooky” (but not really) story from Miles about a bear he claimed used to hang around “a camp just like this one!” It was more corny than scary, but still, the campers shrieked and giggled. I was glad they were having a good time.

By the time the campfire ended and it was time to lead my campers back to Juniper Cabin, I felt ready to drop. I clicked on the flashlight I’d brought and slowly trooped up the path back to the main camp. Juniper Cabin was completely dark. I noticed footprints on the dirt path leading up to the door but figured we must have made them earlier, when we’d stopped by the cabin before the campfire.

BOOK: The Sign in the Smoke (Nancy Drew Diaries Book 12)
9.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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