Lights Out!

by Laura Dower

  Aimee says ballet camp is way different because you spend all this time in a dance studio rather than eating seeds and hiking in the woods. I wish I could e-mail Bigwheels right now and tell her what’s been going on. She’s been to camp and would have something to say for sure.

  At least tonight we’ll have a campfire and marshmallows and all the stuff I’ve seen and heard about camp from the movies. Lindsay told me that a singdown is when everyone joins in songs together. Sounds okay even if I don’t know any of the songs.

  Kkkkkkkkrack!

  Madison lifted her eyes from her notebook page.

  “What was that?” she asked Aimee.

  A breeze wafted through the cabin screens.

  “Sounded like thunder,” Stacey said, pulling on her sweatshirt. The air had gotten a lot cooler, more like March than late April.

  “Guess Ivy will have to change out of those shorts,” Aimee teased.

  Madison giggled and shoved her notebook back into her duffel.

  “Do you think it will rain out the bird walk?” Fiona asked aloud, poking her nose into one of the screens.

  Lindsay looked out of the window with her. “Nah, I checked before we left and the weather channel said it’s only supposed to shower after the weekend. Some storm front from Florida, I think.”

  “You watch the weather channel?” Joan asked from across the cabin.

  Lindsay nodded. “Yes,” she answered meekly. “Is there something wrong with that? I like to be informed.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Joan snapped back, gagging a little. She turned to Rose and pretended to whisper even though she knew Lindsay was still listening. “But there’s something wrong with you,” she said.

  Rose, Joan, and Poison Ivy all cracked up.

  “I hope it rains through the roof over her bed,” Aimee said softly to Madison. “She’s acting like such a you-know-what on this trip.”

  Madison nodded. She knew what.

  “We should get down to the lakefront for dinner,” Fiona said.

  The girls walked arm in arm through the woods to the waterfront. Everyone was there. Picnic tables had been set up with food and paper plates and utensils. Staffers stood at three huge grills cooking up hot dogs and burgers. They even had gluten-free buns. The entire grade was spread out as far as the eye could see.

  Madison and her friends got in line for hot dogs. “This isn’t very vegetarian,” Aimee complained. Her parents were health food freaks and she was always on a diet of some kind, even though she was the skinniest girl in the seventh grade. She grabbed a paper plate and piled it high with tomatoes.

  “Did you see Egg anywhere?” Fiona asked.

  “You got me,” Madison said, grabbing a paper plate of her own.

  “I figured you’d know since you two are spending so much time together,” Fiona said. “He’s always talking to you….”

  Madison stopped in line. “What are you talking about, Fiona?”

  Aimee twirled around, carefully holding her plate. “Let’s go sit over there,” she said, pointing to a giant tree trunk. “The ground looks dry.”

  Madison glanced over and saw a group of boys sitting there. One of the boys was Ben Buckley, Aimee’s crush.

  “Oh, I get it. You want to be near him, don’t you?” Madison asked with a smile.

  “Who?” Aimee said, pretending not to know what Madison meant. But then she cracked a smile. “Yeah, I admit it. I haven’t talked to Ben this whole trip. And there’s space on the grass near him. Please?”

  “Why don’t you just go over there by yourself?” Fiona asked. She was still looking around for Egg.

  “Um…I don’t think so,” Aimee said. “Why can’t we go together?”

  Madison stared down at the hot dog on her plate and sighed. She had been hoping to sit near Hart, of course. But now that plan was foiled.

  Lucky for Madison, the seating opportunities for the evening had not ended. After dinner, camp staffers built a giant bonfire near the beach. All the kids were invited to sit nearby.

  Fiona immediately made sure she got the seat next to Egg, although he was too distracted to really notice. Aimee and Ben sat together, too. Hart, Drew, and Chet were goofing around nearby.

  Madison didn’t sit near Hart, however. She squished in between Dan and Lindsay.

  The air smelled like smoke and Madison’s eyes burned a little. But it was getting cooler outside, so the fire’s heat felt good. The ground was damp, too, but she didn’t mind. Madison pulled her hands up into her sleeves and squeezed her knees in front.

  “Did you feel that?” Lindsay asked. She leaned over so close, she nearly toppled into Madison. “I swear I felt a raindrop.”

  Madison had felt it, too. But just one.

  The low, steady hum of crickets was drowned out by the sound of voices echoing by the lakefront. Mrs. Goode clapped to start off the singdown.

  “I’m a little hunk of tin, nobody knows where I have been…” she sang loudly.

  The crowd of seventh graders started to sing along with her. They reached full volume on the chorus, shaking their arms in the air and making other funny faces and hand gestures.

  “Honk, honk, rattle, rattle, toot, toot, beep, beep…”

  Madison sat there, squeezing her knees tightly. She had heard the song before, but not at camp. She definitely didn’t know the gestures.

  Kids yelled out the names of their other favorite camp tunes.

  “‘Dem Bones!’”

  “‘On Top of Spaghetti!’”

  “‘Fried Ham!’”

  Aimee, Fiona, and Lindsay sang right along with everyone else. And anytime one of them glanced over at Madison, she opened her mouth to pretend like she was singing for real. Of course, “Blah, blah, blah,” was what Madison was really singing.

  Plop.

  Madison felt another raindrop. A big, fat one had landed on her wrist. Obviously someone else felt the same drop, because all at once the teachers hurried together for a powwow—and decided to call off the remainder of the singdown. Everyone was ordered back to the cabins due to the weather. The breeze had picked up, too, so now the licks of flame on the bonfire seemed a little bit dangerous.

  Everyone around Madison fussed and groaned at the news—but Madison breathed a sigh of relief. She thought sitting around a campfire would be different than this. This wasn’t like the camp movies she’d seen. It didn’t help matters that her BFFs were paired off and she wasn’t.

  “Where are the marshmallows?” Aimee blurted as they walked back to their cabin. “What a gyp.”

  When anyone spoke, whatever she said sounded ten times louder than it should thanks to the lakeside acoustics, so everyone started talking in whispers.

  “What’s the deal with Ben?” Fiona teased. She was in a better-than-ever mood since she’d been next to Egg for half the night.

  “I don’t know, Fiona,” Aimee said. “How’s Egg?”

  Madison wished that her friends knew about Madison’s mad crush on Hart so they would ask her, “How’s Hart?” in that same funny, joking way.

  But she kept her crush secret.

  The darkness on the route back to the cabin was semi-dangerous. Fiona had a flashlight but kept aiming it up into the sky by mistake. Madison and some other classmates almost tripped over pinecones and roots. One girl nearly walked straight into a tree. Someone joked that she smelled a skunk, which sent a few hysterical girls running wildly into the woods. Of course there was no skunk. All Madison smelled was rain.

  When they approached the cabin, Ivy was standing outside the door, shaking sand and pebbles out of her shoes. She winced when the flashlight shone in her eyes.

  “Turn that thing off!” Ivy shrieked. She turned on her heel, flung open the door to the cabin, and let it slam before anyone else could get inside.

  “She makes me want to scream!” Madison quietly confided to Lindsay.

  “She makes everyone want to scream,” Lindsay replied matter-of-factly.
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  “I wonder what the boys are doing right now?” Fiona asked.

  “You mean, ‘I wonder what Egg is doing,’” Aimee said.

  “Well…” Fiona started to giggle. “Maybe…”

  Screeeeeeek.

  The girls opened the cabin’s screen door and entered the land of drones. Ivy, Rose, and Joan were sitting on the edge of their beds, unpacking items they needed to get ready for bed. Lights-out was only an hour or so away.

  No sooner had Madison and her friends wandered inside than another strange voice echoed through the night air.

  “Hey, girls!”

  It was Mrs. Wing, who had been assigned to bunk duty. She circulated among the girls’ cabins before the camp shut down for the night.

  Ever since the start of seventh grade, Mrs. Wing had been Madison’s favorite teacher. Having Mrs. Wing here in the middle of this strange setting made Madison feel more comfortable.

  “Just popping in before lights-out,” Mrs. Wing said. “Has everyone got everything she needs?”

  Kkkkkkkkrack!

  All the girls—including the drones—jumped.

  “I can’t believe there’s a storm coming!” Stacey said. She already had changed into her pajamas.

  The wind was picking up. One of the shutters slammed shut.

  “I think the weather is taking a turn for the worse,” Mrs. Wing explained. “In case of heavy rain, someone will be along to shut the wooden shutters on the outside windows. Don’t worry.”

  A few girls asked Mrs. Wing questions about changes in the next day’s activities. The bird walk was probably going to be canceled, she said, but all events after breakfast were still a “go.”

  “Where do the teachers sleep?” Ivy asked.

  Mrs. Wing chuckled. “On the bus,” she joked. “No, there are cabins for the female and male staff. We have the same kinds of smelly mattresses and sleeping bags, too. No special privileges here.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Joan whispered under her breath.

  Madison heard her say it, but Mrs. Wing didn’t.

  “Remember that it gets very cool at night here, girls,” Mrs. Wing said. “I know most of you have a sweater and an extra blanket, but with the rain we’re getting, you may need both. Be prepared.”

  She walked over by Madison’s bunk and looked up.

  “You’ve got quite a perch up there, Madison,” Mrs. Wing said. “Miss the computer now that you’re out here in the wilderness?” She winked.

  Madison smiled. “Nah. I’ve been keeping a notebook, though,” she added, holding up her orange book.

  Mrs. Wing smiled back and nodded. “I see. Well, take some notes for a write-up on the school website, will you? And sleep tight!”

  As Mrs. Wing turned, her cotton jacket swished through the air with a tinkling noise. The bottom edge of it was sewn with little metal beads.

  “Good night, campers!” Mrs. Wing called out, shutting the screen door behind her. The glare of her flashlight lit up the front stoop of the cabin.

  “What is this, the Girl Scouts?” Ivy cracked as soon as Mrs. Wing had gone. “This trip is a joke.”

  Madison ignored Ivy’s comments and opened her duffel to get ready for bed. Other girls did the same.

  Plink, plink, plunk.

  Raindrops hit the roof of the cabin one by one building up to a steady drumbeat.

  “It’s pouring,” Lindsay said.

  “WAIT A MINUTE!” Ivy screeched. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “So?” Aimee said. “Go!”

  A few girls giggled. Ivy was not amused.

  “I can’t go to the bathroom in this,” Ivy said, pointing outside. “I’ll get wet.”

  Madison nodded. “Yes, that’s what rain does, Ivy.”

  Almost as quickly as it started, the rain began to slow down again. The breeze was cooler now. The storm had swept through in mere minutes. Everyone in the cabin watched through the screens as the showers stopped.

  Whoo, whoo.

  “What was that?” Rose asked.

  Everyone was getting jumpy.

  “Is it darker out there now or is it my imagination?” Stacey asked.

  “Definitely darker. Pitch-black,” Aimee said. “But now that the rain has stopped, you can go to the bathroom, Ivy.”

  Ivy made a face. “Excuse me?”

  “Yeah. Have fun,” Madison said.

  Ivy looked angrier than angry. Her bottom lip stuck out like she wanted to yell, but nothing came out. For the first time in a long time she was totally speechless. It was certainly the first time on the trip that something had shut her up.

  Madison listened for sounds from outside. Was there a giant owl lurking out there? Had the rain really stopped? What other creatures lived outside the door of their cabin in the middle of the woods?

  “I don’t have to go anymore,” Ivy said. “Isn’t that funny?”

  Aimee laughed out loud.

  “Don’t be rude,” Joan snapped.

  Aimee laughed again.

  Ivy said she would rather wait until sunrise than risk walking through the dark, wet woods to use the bathroom.

  “Why doesn’t one of your friends just go with you?” Madison asked.

  Rose and Joan looked over at Ivy and then back at Madison. This was getting interesting.

  “Hey, I don’t have to go,” Rose said quickly.

  “Me neither,” Joan said.

  Aimee laughed again. “This is perfect.” She sat on her bed, leaned back, and crossed her ankles.

  Ivy rifled through her bag, acting distracted. But everyone’s eyes stayed right on her. Madison could hear the sound of heavy breathing. It was the sound of a crowd watching the enemy on the edge of…embarrassment.

  Madison loved every moment. She knew something had to be done.

  “If you really have to go, Ivy,” Madison said suggestively, “don’t wait. I’ll go with you.”

  Aimee shot Madison an evil stare. Fiona even gasped a little.

  “Excuse me?” Ivy said.

  “Let’s go,” Madison said, pulling on her sneakers and grabbing her flashlight and toothbrush. She strolled over to the cabin screen door. “I’m not afraid to go, are you?”

  Ivy shook her head. “Of course I’m not afraid. Duh!” She grabbed Rose’s wrist. “And neither are they.”

  “But we don’t need to go… We told you….”

  “You know what? I’m going, too,” Aimee said, joining in on the fun. She leaped off the bed where she was sitting and pulled on her rain jacket.

  Fiona, Lindsay, and Stacey grabbed their stuff, too.

  Whoo, whoo.

  “Did you hear that?” Ivy asked.

  Madison shrugged. “An owl,” she said plainly.

  “Oh yeah, of course,” Ivy said. “Fine. We’ll go.”

  Madison stepped out into the damp woods first. Everyone else followed closely behind. The owl hooted again. Half the girls screamed.

  “Shhhhh!” Madison cautioned. “Mrs. Wing will come back if we don’t keep quiet.”

  “Who put you in charge?” Joan said in a gruff voice.

  “OUCH!” Lindsay cried. She’d stepped on a rock.

  Slowly the members of Maple cabin shuffled through wet leaves and pine needles down toward the outdoor facilities a few hundred yards away.

  Madison could see the one bare light bulb in the bathroom swinging in the wind.

  “How far is it?” Aimee whispered, shivering a little.

  “Yeah,” Ivy barked. “How far, Maddie?”

  Madison looked around. Trees groaned around them like dark monsters. She wondered how she got here—and why she was leading the pack.

  But it was definitely too late to turn back.

  Chapter 6

  “WOW,” FIONA SAID. “LOOK UP.”

  The group stopped momentarily to gaze at the speckles of white and yellow in the night sky. The stars were bright, even through clouds. Madison tried to spot a constellation like the Big Dipper but couldn’t find
it. The moon was like a giant, white, round egg. She could even see the craters.

  “Are we going or what?” Ivy said.

  Another tree groaned and a few girls jumped again.

  “My heart’s beating a thousand beats a minute,” Fiona said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “Oh no!” Aimee wailed. “Look!”

  “WHAT?” someone else said with a start.

  She pointed up to the light in the bathroom. The gray paint on the ceiling had peeled half off. Bugs were everywhere—big ones, fat ones, and wormy ones. Some were dead. A dirty cobweb woven years ago from the corner of the ceiling still hung there, glued together after all this time with a thick layer of camp dirt. No one has cleaned this place in centuries, Madison thought.

  “Do you guys smell that?” Aimee asked.

  Madison pinched her nose. “What is that?”

  Everyone looked at the bathroom stalls and showers. The air was musty and damp. Mosquitoes buzzed at everyone’s ears. Stacey opened a stall door and bravely stepped inside.

  Poison Ivy opened another stall. “It doesn’t look so bad,” she said, closing the door behind her. “It’s fine in here….”

  Madison smiled at Aimee and Fiona. They loved watching the enemy squirm.

  “AAAAAAAAH!” Ivy screamed. “Get it OUT!”

  Rose and Joan banged on the door. “What is it? What’s wrong, Ivy?”

  Ivy’s voice trembled. “A spider… It’s huge…. Oh my…”

  Everyone backed away.

  “You guys?” Ivy’s voice cracked. “Are you out there? What am I supposed to do? You guys?”

  “Kill the spider,” Madison said.

  “No…I can’t…move…” Ivy said. “It’s near my HEAD!”

  “It’s okay, Ivy,” Joan said. “Just open the door and we’ll shoo it away. How big is it?”

  Ivy sounded like she was about to faint. “BIG!”

  “Open the door, Ivy,” Joan said.

  “Yeah, open the door,” a bunch of girls echoed.

  All at once, the stall door burst open and Ivy pushed out, shaking herself off and jumping up and down. She nearly knocked the flashlight right out of Madison’s hands.