by Will Taylor
Because my whole entire life was about to change.
Last year all I’d had to worry about had been starting middle school. And sure, yeah, that had been a lot. Middle school was . . . middle school. But I had Maggie, who kept us both busy going over every single tiny detail of our pillow fort adventures, making plans and drawing maps from memory of the NAFAFA Hub and all the forts. And I had my brothers and their terrible middle school advice, and my dad and his sweet boyfriend, Tamal. And, of course, Samson, the best cat in the world. So everything was going okay.
Then bam, Dad and Tamal got engaged over spring break, and things started changing fast. I mean, it was definitely exciting! I adore Tamal, and my dad was so happy it was ridiculous, and helping with all the wedding planning was fun. But then came the big family meeting where my dad announced that our house was too small to add one more person, and he and Tamal had been looking around, and they’d found a great place they could afford four blocks over, and basically they were putting our house up for sale and we’d be moving August first.
Mags and I had an emergency meeting on her roof that night. We’d been next-door neighbors all our lives, and four blocks wasn’t that far, but it wasn’t nothing. Mags made me promise to still come over every day, and I made her do the same, and we agreed there was at least a chance the trapdoor might reveal some way to link up our houses like the pillow forts had done last summer. But the only thing I was certain of anymore was that after Camp Cantaloupe everything was going to be different. Whether I liked it or not.
That feeling kicked into high gear just recently, because as the school year wound down, my family started packing. The twins dismantled their broken bike “art installation” on the patio; my dad donated most of his old books that had been spilling off the shelves in the living room; and one sort of traumatic May morning, we rented a truck and turfed out everything we didn’t use from the garage, including the orange-plaid sofa that had given us the pillows for Fort Comfy last summer.
Mags agreed it was sad when I told her, but she didn’t really get it. That sofa had been in our garage as long as I could remember. I used to hide my Halloween candy under it when I was little. And now it was gone.
Dad and Tamal were gone too, on their honeymoon while I was away at camp. They said it was perfect timing. The twins were still home, in charge of getting the house and yard ready for whoever was going to live there next. When I got back in six weeks, I’d have a few days to pack up the last of my room, help with the very final cleaning, and say goodbye to the house and all my memories, and then we’d be starting over in our new place. A whole new family.
Was I kinda happy? Yes. Was I kinda sad? Yes. Was I completely confused about what I was supposed to be feeling when everything about my life back home was changing? Oh, yeah. That was why I needed this time at camp. Maggie was excited about epic adventures, but I was excited about a good long stretch of easygoing, predictable Camp Cantaloupe before I had to face the world again. And the sooner we got this treehouse explored, the sooner that could start.
A loud clanging pulled my brain back to the mess hall. “Attention! Children, attention please!”
I looked up. Director Haggis was standing at the front of the room by the garbage cans, hitting a coffee can with a metal spoon. The hubbub died away.
“It has come to my attention that I already need to clarify one of our camp rules,” Director Haggis said, eyeing the room disapprovingly. “This should go without saying, but part of maintaining a safe, secure camp experience is staying where adults can check on you twenty-four hours a day. This includes at night!” He put a lot of emphasis on that last part, and Maggie and I shared a glance. “So consider this your one and only warning: Any camper caught sneaking out of their cabin during bedtime hours will be expelled and sent home immediately. And there will be no refund!”
Gasps and chatter filled the hall. Most people had probably never even considered sneaking out, but being sent home was the very worst punishment possible.
Maggie’s hand clamped on my arm. “Look,” she said, pointing. “Look look look!”
I looked, and there was Charlene, standing off to the side behind Director Haggis, looking pleased with herself again.
“Whoa!” I said. “I can’t believe it. She went and told the director what we said!”
Maggie gave a grim nod as Director Haggis left. “Definitely seems like it.” She squeezed my arm harder and turned to me, the fire back in her eyes. “We cannot let them win, Abs. Those two are not allowed to stop us from getting to step six of our plans.”
“But you heard what he said about sneaking out! Mags, I cannot get sent home. My dad would freak out and cut his honeymoon short to come home too. I can’t do that to him and Tamal.” And I can’t miss out on my last summer here, I shouted in my head. I’m not ready for what’s next.
“Hey, don’t forget we’re experts at sneaking around!” Maggie said. “Anyway, my mom’s gone at that medical conference in France. Getting kicked out would mean she’d have to come back too, and that’s almost as bad as spoiling a honeymoon. We just won’t let it happen. We’re in this together.” She beamed. “By our powers combined, Abs!”
Oof, she would bring out that old catchphrase. But she had a point. It was too late to back out. And Maggie would never settle into life at camp until we’d tried the key at least once.
“By our powers combined, then,” I said, hitching up a smile in return. “But if we get kicked out because of this, you’re buying me ice cream for the rest of the summer.”
“Deal,” said Maggie, snagging another crouton from my plate. “But seriously, Abs, nothing bad is going to happen. I’ve thought of everything. We are absolutely, completely, foolproof-level ready to head through that trapdoor tonight.”
Three
Maggie
The rest of the afternoon plodded by full of orientation stuff, including a visit to the camp store, where Abby made me buy a Camp Cantaloupe journal and a stack of postcards like the ones she’d sent me almost every day the year before.
“Abs, this is pointless,” I told her. “My mom’s all the way in France, and you’re literally right here. Who else am I gonna be writing postcards to?”
“Seriously?” she said. “Your uncle Joe, for one! He’s researching up in Alaska again, right? And I’m writing to Kelly, since she’s catsitting Samson, so that means you are, too. And then there’s Matt and Mark, and—”
“Okay, okay, fine! I get the picture.”
After dinner there was an incredibly embarrassing sing-along around the safety-barriered campfire, and a performance of the camp dance by some of the other senior kids. I was kind of annoyed they didn’t ask me to join in. Not that I wanted to dance in front of everyone, but after that incident with the moose last summer, I knew every move by heart, and it would have been nice to have that acknowledged.
Back at the cabin we had the excitement of Charlene coming around in her golf cart, driven by one of the teenage counselors. We all refused to speak to her as we handed over our cantaloupes, watching as they got added to the laundry rolly bin tied to the back.
Charlene returned to the cabin a little before lights-out, smiling an extra-wide smile for reasons I was totally unable to understand, and we all finished getting ready for bed while pointedly ignoring her.
I honestly thought our cabin would never go to sleep. I lay in my bunk, twitchy with nerves, listening as one by one the other girls dropped off, until . . . finally! It was time! I tapped twice on the bed frame, Abby tapped back from overhead, and I jumped up, grabbing my supply pack.
“Where’s your bag?” I breathed as Abby started for the door empty-handed.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot.” She headed back to her bunk, half climbed the ladder, and began quietly rummaging around. I crossed my arms. Honestly, forgetting her supply pack? Where was her head? Charlene was breathing softly in the bottom bunk right across from mine. One wrong move and we’d be so busted.
But soo
n Abby was ready, and we were slipping out of the dark cabin—two super-spy secret-agent adventurers in sneakers, pajama pants, and yellow Camp Cantaloupe T-shirts—into the cool summer night.
And the night was gorgeous: a bright half-moon hung like a lamp in the star-dusted sky, and the air coming up from the beach smelled like salt and wet rocks and pine needles.
I’d never been happier in my life. I was twelve and a half years old, on an island, with my best friend, plans, gear, backup plans, more gear, and a possibly magical key, evading the authorities on a covert operation to a forbidden treehouse. Somewhere in the trees a night bird sang a few notes, and I whistled back a reply.
Abby led the way along the tree line, avoiding the other dorm cabins and the admin building. We passed a green wooden sign marking a path that led down to the beach, where the moose had first been sighted. Fifty-plus years ago some kid had salvaged a locked piece of wood on that beach and carried it all the way up here for the treehouse. And tonight, half a century later, we were finally going to open it.
We tiptoed behind the teacher cabins—Abby would not stop flapping her hands at me and shushing every time I stepped on even a pine needle—and I realized all the grown-ups were basically camping here too. That must be weird, coming to sleepaway camp as a grown-up, settling into your room and resigning yourself to six weeks of screaming kids and camp food. I wondered if any of them liked the cucumber casserole.
We reached a bend in the path, and Abby stopped and held up a hand.
“We’re almost there,” she said in an impressively formal tone, which I appreciated. A whole hurricane of butterflies began swirling in my stomach. “Welcome, Maggie . . . to the Shipwreck Treehouse.”
We took three steps forward. And there it was.
It was enormous, way bigger than I expected, like someone had wrapped the deck of a ship right up against the trunk of the tree. We were out of sight of the cabins and field, so I pulled out my flashlight as we tiptoed forward.
The tree’s leaves and branches floated above a wide plank floor, with a wall of driftwood curving around it like a fence of twisted bones. And every inch of that driftwood was carved and painted and decorated with shells, rocks, beach glass, and braids of seaweed. Forget the deck of a ship; this thing looked like an underwater temple to some octopus sea god had wandered up out of the ocean and decided to try being a bird’s nest for a while. My hurricane of butterflies fluttered straight up into my heart. The Shipwreck Treehouse was perfect.
Something yellow flapped in the night breeze, and I lowered my flashlight to see security tape staked up all around the base and a big sign saying STAY OUT nailed to the trunk above. Someone must have climbed partway up the plank ladder to put it there, so it looked like that part at least was safe. The whole thing actually looked pretty sturdy. What was Director Haggis’s problem? I bet he just didn’t like the idea of kids having fun.
“Where’s the trapdoor?” I whispered to Abby, who’d been politely hanging back and letting me take it all in. It felt right to whisper. An entire school year had come and gone, and I’d spent most of it thinking about this . . . moment . . . right . . . here. I patted my pocket. The key was safe.
Abby raised her own flashlight. “There,” she whispered, pointing to the underside of the treehouse.
“Wait. For real?” I stared. “That?”
“Yeah. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Well . . .” I waved a hand upward. “It’s . . . a door.”
And it was. All this time I’d been picturing a traditional trapdoor: a wood panel with a hinge on one side and a padlock holding it in place. The padlock was there, all right, but it was attached to a real door. A door door, like the one in my bedroom, with a handle and everything, set into a dark frame in the floor of the treehouse, just off the trunk.
The only unusual things were the metal bands running sideways across the wood and the fancy design on the padlock linking the door and the frame. Abby had called it old-timey, and she was right. I couldn’t make out the details from down here, but I didn’t have to. I knew what I was looking at: the sun-carved lock.
“You never told me it was a regular door,” I said to Abby. “Not in any of our planning meetings.”
“Didn’t I? Oh, sorry.” Abby looked over, and a smile spread across her face. “Anyway, we’re here! I’m guessing you have a speech prepared?”
“Ha! Funny!” She was joking, but I actually did have a speech prepared. Just a short one, for after we got through step seven: go through the trapdoor.
“What’s the best way up there?” I whispered. The ladder in the trunk led up and over the side through a gap in the driftwood wall, but our target wasn’t so easy to get to.
Abby pointed her flashlight at a knot below one of the lowest branches. “Start with one foot there,” she said, “and I’ll talk you through it.”
With Abby directing, I worked my way up the tree until I was perched on a branch just beside and below the door. Bending my neck at an angle gave me a good look at the lock. It was weathered and dirty, but the oak-and-sun pattern showed through the grime. I pulled the key from my pocket and held it up. Oh, my confiscated cantaloupe, Abby had been completely right. It was a perfect match.
A wave of nervous expectation sloshed through my limbs as I got a good solid grip on the branch, making sure I was clear of where the door would swing down. This was really happening! “Here we go,” I said. “You ready?”
“Ready,” said Abby, giving her whole body a shake, making her supply backpack wiggle. “Do it!”
I took a deep, slow breath and let it out silently, then pushed the key into the lock.
It fit.
Instantly I flashed back to my visit to le Petit Salon the summer before. The Oak Key had fit that door too, but I hadn’t been able to turn it, and the door stayed closed. There was no way that could happen this time. Not here. Not now.
I held my breath. I turned the key. It slid neatly to the side, and the lock opened with a satisfying click, swinging gently from the frame.
Abby gave a cheer.
I waited for five thudding heartbeats, but there was no boom of magic, no sparks, no sizzling explosion. I turned the handle and pulled. The door above me stayed solidly shut.
“Why isn’t it opening?” asked Abby, pointing her flashlight.
“Maybe it’s stuck. You know, from being old and getting rained on all the time?” I jerked the handle back and forth, tugging hard. Nothing. I might as well have been trying to tear off one of the branches.
“I don’t get it.” I bopped the door with my fist, getting a sprinkle of dust in the face. “It’s unlocked, and those hinges mean it should open this way. . . .”
There was a rasping sound right by my ear, and I looked over in time to see the key slide out of the lock and tumble to the dark earth below.
“On it!” Abby said, leaping forward with her flashlight. She retrieved the key and tucked it safely into her pocket. “Hey, idea,” she said, directing the light back at me. “I’m going up in the treehouse. Maybe I can kick it open from above.”
“Aw, why do you get to do that?” I said.
“Because you got to use the key,” said Abby brightly, already heading for the ladder. I lost sight of her as she climbed, but a few moments later there were footsteps creaking above my head.
“Stay clear,” Abby called. There was a wham, then another wham, and more dust sprinkled down. “Oh, come on,” I heard her say. And the next kick did it. The trapdoor of the Shipwreck Treehouse burst open.
Disappointment crashed over me. I could see Abby through the opening, her dark shape clear against the leaves of the tree. There was a telescope pointing out toward the ocean behind her. She put her hands on her knees and looked down.
“Wild!” she said. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Just you,” I said sadly.
“Really?” said Abby. “’Cause I’m not seeing you, Mags.”
“What?” Hope seared th
rough my chest.
“There’s nothing but darkness from this side. Here, try shining your flashlight up at me.”
I fumbled for the flashlight and shone it right through the open door. It hit Abby full in the face. I could see every detail of her skin and hair and perfect eyebrows. Only she wasn’t squinting. It was like she couldn’t see the light at all.
“Any time,” Abby said.
“Um, I’m already doing it.”
“You are?”
“Yup, flashlight to the face.”
“Whoa.”
Whoa was right.
“Wait there,” I called. “I’m coming!” I was not about to let Abby go through that door first. I got to use the key, she got to kick the door open; we were back to my turn. I grabbed a branch and started pulling myself up.
“Hey, what are you doing?” asked Abby. I heard footsteps. “Are you seriously climbing? Just go back down and use the ladder, Mags.”
I kicked off the branch and grabbed the treehouse wall with both hands. “No way. I’m almost there. I just need to get over this—” A dull creak cut me off, then a crack, and the wood in my left hand snapped, coming away completely. I swung free, my legs flailing fifteen feet above the ground.
“Mags!” Abby yelled. I dropped the broken wood and scrabbled at air until my fingers caught something solid. Then Abby was there, half over the treehouse wall and tugging on my hands, my arms, my supply pack, my shoes, until I was up and over the side and safe.
“Whew!” I panted, sprawling out on my back. For some reason I felt like laughing. “Well . . . I finally . . . made it . . . to the treehouse.”
“Don’t you scare me like that,” Abby said, looming over me. “That was the most—”
But before she could finish, there was a toothaching squeal, a sickening snap . . . and with a heave, the whole octopus-temple treehouse broke free from the trunk.
There was not one single thing I could do as it all went down in perfect . . . slow . . . motion. As the planks lurched and disappeared beneath us. As the falling floor twisted, giving me a glimpse of the darkness filling the open trapdoor. As Abby staggered, fell, and vanished with a terrified gasp into that darkness. As I choked out a scream in the cool summer night.
