Maddie's Camp Crush

by Angela Darling

  contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Lindsay’s Surprise Crush Excerpt

  About Angela Darling

  chapter 1

  “MOM, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO TURN LEFT, NOT right!” Maddie Jacobs said impatiently as her mother turned down a lonely looking dirt road.

  “Recalculating,” announced the cool computer voice of the GPS.

  “See? I told you!” Maddie said.

  Mrs. Jacobs brushed a strand of brown hair from her face. “I’m just doing what the stupid machine told me to, Maddie,” her mom explained in a voice filled with frustration.

  “Actually, that is not what the stupid machine told you to do,” Maddie pointed out. “By the time we get to camp, the season will be over!”

  Her mother gripped the wheel. “Maddie, I’m doing my best, okay? Just let me concentrate.”

  Maddie leaned back in her seat and resisted the urge to make another comment. Mom had been such a mess since Maddie’s father died in the fall. Losing Dad had been hard on everybody, but her mom just didn’t seem to be getting any better. It sounded harsh, but sometimes Maddie wished she would just get it together already.

  Sighing, Maddie turned to look out the window. Camp was an hour and a half away from home, in the woods of Pennsylvania. The roads were lined with green trees, and the sky above was a perfect July blue. But looking at the familiar scenery only made Maddie feel sad.

  When Dad was alive, the trip to camp had been one of the most fun parts of the whole summer. Dad would sing songs that he’d learned at camp when he was a kid, and he’d roll down the windows and they’d all sing along with him loudly. Then he’d make corny jokes about camp, and even though he told the same ones every year, Maddie would still crack up.

  “Why did the camper put a snake in the other camper’s bed?” Dad would ask, and Maddie would pretend she didn’t know the answer.

  “Why?” she would say.

  “Because she couldn’t find a frog!” Dad would finish, and he and Maddie would laugh while her mom rolled her eyes—but she was always smiling.

  Then when they got to camp, he would give Maddie the biggest, tightest good-bye hug ever, and he would even pretend to cry, making all her camp friends laugh. In truth Maddie was always a little sad when her parents left, but she never missed them for long because her dad always left a funny note hidden somewhere that Maddie would find—under her pillow or tucked in her slipper or even in the pocket of her bathrobe. Her throat tightened as she thought about the fact that there wouldn’t be a note this year. She started to tear up, and she turned to the window to make sure her mom wouldn’t see her.

  After a deep breath, Maddie glanced at the clock. It was 11:03, and she started to feel anxious. Check-in had started an hour ago, and the girls who checked in first got to pick their beds first. If she didn’t get to sleep near Liza, Libby, and Emily, her best camp friends, it would be terrible.

  I’ll probably end up with a bed next to the shower or the bathroom or something, she thought gloomily. Liza had said she would try to save her a bed, but they weren’t supposed to do that, so Maddie was sure she’d be stuck. She wouldn’t be surprised, considering how things had been going wrong ever since last night. After Maddie had packed her duffel bag with everything she needed for six weeks of summer camp, her mom realized that she couldn’t lift it and drag it down the stairs to the car. That had never been a problem for Dad. He would always hoist it high over his head and say, “Oof, Mads, what did you pack, brick bathing suits?”

  So this morning Mom had called Mr. Donalty from next door and he’d put the bag in the car for them. He was really nice about it, but the whole thing made Maddie miss her dad even more. Besides that, Mom had forgotten to make her special going-away breakfast. Dad had always made her French toast or pancakes.

  “Eat up, Mads,” he’d say. “You’re going to be eating that icky camp food for weeks!”

  All Mom had said this morning was, “Are you hungry?” Maddie had answered no, but Mom handed her a bagel as they left the house.

  Now she snuck a look at her mother, who was leaning close to the steering wheel and gripping it tightly. She knew that Mom hated driving far from home, but she didn’t accept Uncle Jay’s offer to drive them up this year. Maddie wasn’t sure why, but her Mom had been funny about accepting help from anyone lately.

  Maddie’s thoughts shifted to her camp friends, Liza and Libby and Emily. They’d come to the funeral last fall, but that whole thing was a blur. Maddie had been texting them all year long, but it wasn’t the same as seeing them in person. She couldn’t wait until they could all hang out together, laughing and talking like they always did. Just as long as they didn’t want to talk about her dad . . . . She didn’t care if Libby told that story about when the possum surprised her in the bathroom that one summer, even though Libby had told it a million times already. She’d rather talk about anything but her dad.

  “Camp is going to be good for you, Maddie,” her mom had said when Maddie had talked about skipping it this year. “It’ll take your mind off things.”

  Maybe Mom was right, Maddie thought. The excitement of seeing her camp friends again was a really good feeling, a feeling she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “Recalculating,” announced the GPS again.

  “Mom!” Maddie yelled, and her mother jumped in her seat.

  “Don’t yell while I am driving, Madeline!” she yelled back.

  Maddie pouted quietly while her mom made another turn. Finally, Maddie saw the familiar sign down the road to the right: CAMP WIMOWAY ENTRANCE A.

  “Finally!” Maddie cried, and a look of relief came over her mom’s face as she turned down the narrow winding road to camp.

  The tree-lined road emerged into a clearing of rustic wood cabins. Cars filled the parking lot as parents dropped off their campers, but Maddie didn’t recognize any of them . . . because they were all boys!

  Maddie and her mom exited the car, confused. A male counselor wearing a red Camp Wimoway shirt approached them.

  “Here for drop off?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Jacobs replied, anxiously looking around. “She’s in the Hannah bunk this year.”

  Camp Wimoway was divided into a boys’ camp and a girls’ camp, and each camp was divided into bunks, or cabins. In the girls’ camp the bunks were named after former counselors from a long time ago: Hannah, Sarah, Betty, and Gail.

  “We’ve rearranged camp this year,” the counselor informed them. “We sent out a map and a note, but some parents didn’t get them, I’m afraid.”

  Mom looked a little guilty. Great, Maddie thought. More changes.

  “You should have gone to Entrance B,” the counselor explained. “It’s about a quarter mile down the road and then you make a left.” Mrs. Jacobs took a little notebook from her purse and he started to draw a map for her.

  Maddie remembered that Entrance B led to the camp where the “baby” camp division was—the camp for kids who were, like, six to eight years old. And now that was where the girls’ camp was? How embarrassing! Why couldn’t Mom have read that e-mail? She started to slink back into the car before anyone noticed she was in the wrong place, but curiosity took over and she looked around at her old camp once more. It was weird to think that
the boys were now living where the girls used to live.

  A mom and dad walked past with a crying little boy, and Maddie knew how he felt. She had cried her first year in camp too. She looked at her cabin from last year and saw a couple of the boys her own age hanging around on the steps: Jared and Evan. They both looked so much taller than they were last summer! Then Brandon walked up to them. He lived only one town over from Maddie back home, and they had taken a tennis class together in the spring. He nodded at her, half-waving, and she looked away.

  He’s probably wondering why I’m standing in the middle of the boys’ camp like a loser, she thought, and then she turned to open the car door, eager to become invisible before anyone else noticed her.

  The sound of a voice coming from a nearby bunk made her pause. It was a boy’s voice, a really cool, deep voice with a British accent. She turned slightly and saw a boy about her age—a boy with the most beautiful face she had ever seen.

  chapter 2

  MADDIE FOUND HERSELF JUST STARING AT THE boy, something she had never done before. He had dark hair and dark eyes and a few freckles across his cheeks. He looked even taller than Jared and Evan, with long arms and legs, like a swimmer. He was leaning against the rail of the bunk looking exasperated as he talked to a red-haired woman who Maddie guessed was his mom.

  “Mum, I’ll be just fine,” he was saying. “I’ll get along swimmingly, I promise.”

  Swimmingly? Maddie cocked her head. Maybe he was a swimmer—or was that some British term?

  The boy’s mom was weeping now, and dabbing her eyes with a tissue. The boy looked like Maddie had felt a few minutes ago—like he might die of embarrassment.

  “Oh,” his mother said, sniffing. “I know you’ll have a wonderful time, but I’ll miss you so much!”

  That’s odd, Maddie thought, intrigued. She talks like an American—no accent.

  Then the boy’s mom hugged him tightly, and when he spotted Maddie looking at him, his face turned bright red. She froze—caught!—then smiled shyly and shrugged to show she understood how embarrassing parents can be. He grinned at her and rolled his eyes as he hugged his mother back.

  “Okay, Mum, that’s enough!” he said. “You ought to be getting along now!”

  That only made his mom break out in a fresh round of tears. But Maddie didn’t get to see how the boy’s plight ended because her mom came back to the car.

  “Okay, Madeline, I’ve got it now!” she yelled, waving the paper over her head. It was Maddie’s turn to roll her eyes, and the boy laughed. Maddie grinned and shrugged again, and got into the car.

  As they pulled away from the boys’ camp, Maddie couldn’t help looking back to get one last look at the boy. He was the cutest boy she’d ever seen—even cuter than that actor who played the werewolf in that movie. Way cuter, maybe because of the freckles, or the British accent; she couldn’t decide.

  She was lost in thought when her mom finally pulled up in front of the Hannah bunk in the girls’ camp. Except for the carved wood sign above the door, which read HANNAH, it looked like the other bunks in camp: a simple wooden rectangular building with an open porch, screened windows, and white paint peeling from summers in the sun.

  “Maddie!” a voice squealed.

  Maddie hurried to get out of the car as her friend Liza Harry raced off the porch to greet her, jumping up and down and screaming. Liza hadn’t changed much since last year; she was still two inches taller than Maddie, and her straight blond hair was pulled back in a blue headband. Like Maddie, she wore a red Camp Wimoway T-shirt and shorts, only Maddie’s were black and Liza’s were light blue, her favorite color.

  “I’ve been here for hours already!” Liza said, practically dragging her up the cabin steps.

  “Well, yeah, my mom kind of got lost,” Maddie muttered.

  A young woman in her twenties came out of the bunk. Her camp T-shirt read COUNSELOR across the front and back, and her black hair was braided into dozens of thin, tight braids and then wrapped into a ponytail.

  “I’m Tara,” she said, smiling at Maddie, and then she extended a hand to Mrs. Jacobs. “I’ll be Maddie’s counselor this summer.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Maddie’s mom said. “Um, do you think you could please help me get Maddie’s duffel out of the car?”

  “No problem,” Tara said with a grin, and she headed to the car as Liza pulled Maddie inside the cabin.

  The room erupted into happy shrieks as Maddie’s friends Libby and Emily ran up to her.

  “Oh my gosh, Maddie, I love your haircut!” Libby shrieked.

  Maddie’s brown hair had always hung halfway down her back, but getting the tangles out was always a chore. After Dad had . . . well, she decided on a change. Her hair wasn’t short, exactly, it was more medium length, but she liked the way it swung against her shoulders now.

  “Yours too,” Maddie said. Libby always had her thick, glossy black hair styled in some new way. This year was a straight bob with really cute bangs.

  “Thanks,” Libby replied. “I don’t know how long it’s going to last, though. The bangs get in the way when I play tennis.”

  “You should just cut all your hair off then,” chimed in Emily. “And dye it bright yellow, like a tennis ball.”

  “Gross!” Libby squealed, and Emily’s green eyes looked slightly hurt behind her glasses.

  “I was serious,” Emily said. “That would be cool!”

  “Coming through!”

  Tara and Mrs. Jacobs came through the door, each carrying one side of Maddie’s enormous duffel bag.

  “Over here, Mrs. J,” Liza said, motioning to the second bed from the door. The main room of the cabin was sparse, with three bunk beds jutting out from opposite walls, and a small dresser next to each one. Along the back wall there were shelves where each girl could keep her clothes.

  Liza leaned over to Maddie and whispered to her, “Tara let me save a bed for you. She’s pretty cool.”

  Grateful, Maddie went to open her bag but her mom held up a hand.

  “I’ll unpack,” she said. “You spend some time with your friends.”

  Maddie didn’t argue. Mom always loved to fold her underwear into tiny, neat squares. Maddie always thought it somehow helped her deal with the idea of saying goodbye for a whole summer. Like if Maddie’s shelves were neat, everything would turn out fine.

  Maddie turned back to her friends to see Emily standing next to a girl Maddie hadn’t seen before.

  “Maddie, this is Samantha,” Emily announced.

  “Nice to meet you,” Samantha said shyly.

  “Is this your first time at camp?” Maddie asked.

  Samantha nodded. “Yeah, it’s a little weird.”

  “Only Emily is a little weird,” Liza told her. “The rest of us are fine.”

  “What can I say? It’s true,” Emily said, and everyone laughed.

  It felt so good to Maddie to be talking and joking around—better than she’d felt in a really long time. She was surrounded by friends and it felt good to be away from home, where it seemed like a gray cloud had hung over everything since her dad died. At home, people still talked in soft voices and always asked her, “Is everything okay?” with sad eyes. Here, in camp, things finally felt normal again.

  The girls were talking a mile a minute, and all at once. Liza told her about the new pool at camp. Libby complained about the mandatory swim instruction that had been worked into the daily camp schedule. Emily was kind of mad that the boys got the girls’ old camp.

  As they talked, a girl with long, light-brown hair and blue eyes breezed into the cabin, trailed by a man carrying five bags of luggage.

  “So, they said I could pick my own bed,” the girl announced when she came in, and then she just kind of stood there, like she was waiting for something.

  “Well, we all got here first, so that’s the only one left,” Liza said, pointing to the third bed on the right wall. “I’m Liza, and this is Libby and Emily and Maddie and Samantha.”
>
  The girl didn’t introduce herself. “Oh,” she said, not moving. “I think there’s been some mistake. I was supposed to be able to pick my own bed. Dad?”

  Her father shrugged helplessly, but just then Tara walked up and gave the girl a big smile. “You must be Amelia,” she said, and then nodded to Amelia’s father. “Follow me, and I’ll make sure you settle in just fine.”

  Maddie and her friends exchanged glances. Every year, there always seemed to be one difficult camper. Was Amelia going to be the one?

  “Oh, I almost forgot!” Libby said. “I have the best news. I’m going to be staying for the whole summer this year, and so is Emily.”

  “Really? No way!” Maddie squealed happily, hugging both of them. Every year, camp lasted for two three-week sessions from July to August. And every year, all of Maddie’s friends had to leave after the first three weeks, leaving Maddie alone with the new campers.

  When the girls stopped celebrating, Maddie noticed that Liza looked a little bit sad.

  “I wish you could stay too,” Maddie told her.

  “Me too,” Liza said glumly. “But you know how it is. I have to go on that family vacation to see my boring cousins in California every year.”

  Maddie nodded sympathetically. “It stinks, I know.”

  Then Maddie noticed that her mom had pulled Tara into a corner and was intently whispering to her. Tara had a look of concern on her face.

  Oh great, Maddie thought. She’s probably telling her how Dad died, and now Tara and everyone else around here is going to be whispering and giving me the sad look.

  Then Maddie’s mom saw her watching them and broke away from Tara.

  “Okay, Madeline,” her mom said. “Time for me to get out of here.”

  Maddie was surprised to feel a well of sadness rise up inside her. Sure, she had cried when she was a kid, but the last few years the first day of camp had been easy because she knew she was going to have so much fun.

  Maddie followed her mom outside. “What if you get lost again?” Maddie asked, suddenly worried. “And what will you do in the house all by yourself for six weeks? Six weeks!” Suddenly it felt like an eternity.