Lake Rescue

by Annie Bryant

  Dillon took a chance. “Would the voyage of Christopher Columbus be considered an odyssey?”

  “Certainly. I think the voyages of many curious explorers would qualify. The voyage of Lewis and Clark across the western half of the United States was an odyssey. And Powell’s trip down the Colorado River when he had no idea what he’d find around the next bend was an odyssey too.”

  “What about Leif Eriksson and the Vikings?” offered Nick. A history buff, Nick was obsessed with the Vikings. To him they were the ultimate adventurers—sailing the seas in their small, sturdy ships.

  “Yes, Nick. I would definitely think the Viking journeys would qualify as odysseys.”

  “What if I fly to Colorado next summer to visit my dad?” Avery asked. “Is that an odyssey?”

  “I don’t think so, Avery.” Billy Trentini grinned at Avery. “You get on a plane in Boston, you drink a Coke, you get off in Denver?”

  “Maybe by the time you came home, Avery, you’d have had some adventures and the trip would qualify. But as a rule, I think the word suggests a long, sometimes frightening, often difficult journey in which you learn some things about a new world and yourself. I’m looking in my dictionary.” Ms. O’Reilly thumbed through a fat, well-worn book. “Ah, here it is. The words hardship, wandering and adventurous are mentioned.”

  Katani grimaced. “That figures. Since I have to go to Lake Rescue, there will definitely be hardship involved.” Katani slapped high fives with Maeve and Isabel. All three of them had tried but failed to get out of the outdoor education trip.

  “Good. We’ll talk more about this when you return. Be sure—”

  The entire class had the words memorized. “To write down what happens all week.”

  By noon, when prizes were announced, Billy and Josh Trentini had popped all the girls’ “ball and chain” balloons, and they had taken the tape off their socks.

  “You know,” Avery said, “these pajamas are comfortable. Maybe we can wear them all the time. Except when I’m playing soccer, of course.”

  “They’re warm and cozy, too,” Isabel said. “I’ve had trouble not falling asleep in class.”

  “There’s Chelsea.” Maeve avoided pointing, but she nodded several tables over. “Hey, those don’t look like p.j.’s.”

  Chelsea Briggs wore sweatpants and a football T-shirt with a number, which probably belonged to her brother.

  “They are.” Isabel made her purple Jell-O quiver every time she took a bite. “I asked her. She said that’s really what she sleeps in every night. That’s one of her brother’s old shirts. Her brother Ben is some famous football player at the high school.”

  “All right, attention all you pajamaheads.” Henry Yurt tossed his tasseled hat out of his eyes and stood in front of the seventh-grade tables. “What you’ve waited for all morning. The awards!”

  All the BSG pretended they didn’t care if they won anything, but there was lots of punching and giggling going on around them.

  “Nice try.” Henry waved a piece of paper. “Nick and Sammy get a gift certificate to Filene’s Basement ‘cause they really need some new p.j’s. You dudes get the ‘Need Help’ award. I think the Basement has some.”

  “Or give the gift certificate to someone else.” Maeve raised her eyebrows and pretended she didn’t mean herself. The Basement was her favorite place to shop.

  “Prettiest. Who else? Joline Kaminsky and Anna McMasters. Gift certificates to Burger Barn.”

  Had Henry done that on purpose? Obviously Joline and Anna thought he had. They were sitting at the table behind the BSG so their reaction was easily overheard.

  “Burger Barn! We’d never eat there. Their hamburgers have about a thousand calories apiece.” Joline was outraged at their prize.

  “Hey, I love those burgers,” piped up Avery.

  “Well, you take the ticket then,” Joline said sarcastically.

  “Great,” Avery held out her hand, but Joline put her nose in the air and walked away.

  “Hey, let’s trade prizes with Nick and Sammy…sometimes you can find some cool things there,” Anna said, staring straight at Maeve.

  “Good luck,” Maeve whispered.

  “Most creative.” Henry waved the last gift certificate. “Big surprise. The award goes to the jailbirds, Charlotte, Avery, Maeve, Katani, and Isabel. An evening of bowling at Stardust Lanes.”

  “Bowling?” Maeve’s face fell as fast as it had lit up.

  Avery jumped up. “I love bowling—it’s so fun. You’ll see. We’ll have a great time.”

  Maeve had to admit, doing anything with Avery was fun. She had so much enthusiasm.

  The BSG marched up in their line to get the prize. Applause and cheering filled the lunchroom.

  “No more school.” “Escape this place.” “No homework.”

  “Did we win because of the costumes or the signs?” Katani whispered.

  “Doesn’t matter. We had fun. Remember the BSG oath. One of our most important rules is to have as much fun as we can.” As Minister of Fun, Romance, and Entertainment, Maeve took her position really seriously.

  Charlotte had to admit that she had never had so much fun at any of her other schools as she was having at Abigail Adams Junior High. Of course, she had worked really hard too. Mrs. Fields made sure that the Abigail Adams school was one of the top achieving in Massachusetts. That’s probably why she let kids have fun. She didn’t want the students getting too stressed out, figured Charlotte. And now, they had something out of the ordinary to look forward to…for better or worse. Four days in the New Hampshire woods. Charlotte couldn’t wait.

  “Let’s take our new pajamas to camp,” Charlotte suggested.

  “Why not? Like I said, they’re warm.” Isabel agreed.

  “Let’s leave the signs behind. But I predict that in one day, we might want to escape,” Maeve said.

  “I’ll hitchhike home with you,” Katani and Isabel said at the same time.

  “Are we the only two looking forward to Lake Rescue, Avery?” Charlotte asked, taking her lunch tray to turn in.

  “Looks that way, Char. But just wait. I predict nothing but total fun on this next adventure. Once we all get there it will be Beacon Street Girls rule!” Avery slapped hands with Charlotte and the other three joined in, not even knowing why. Avery and Charlotte were sure that the next week would go down in BSG history—their excitement was contagious.

  CHAPTER 10

  First-Night Jitters

  Oh, seven a.m. is too early for anything, especially to be ready to get on a bus and drive forever.” Maeve groaned and dragged her stuff toward the bus.

  Avery turned a cartwheel in the school driveway. “We had to leave early,” she said from her upside-down position, “so we don’t miss any lake time,” she added breathlessly.

  “I looked on the map,” Charlotte said. “It’s practically next door. And Dad and I looked at the star charts. We think the stars will be almost the same as in Boston.”

  “Are we there yet?” Maeve pushed a suitcase and two backpacks into the back of the bus.

  “Hey, girl, you cheated.” Katani put her hands on her hips. “You can only bring one small suitcase, and one backpack or overnight case.”

  “Whoever made that rule should have come and helped me pack.” Maeve yawned.

  “We’re only going to be there for four days.” Avery had given up on the cartwheels and was now dribbling a basketball around the driveway. It was like she couldn’t sit still for one minute; she was so excited.

  “That’s what I mean. We’re going to be there four days.” Maeve climbed onto the bus and looked for a window seat.

  “We’re uneven.” Avery followed Maeve onto the bus, spinning the basketball on one finger. The bus driver said that she had to leave it at the front of the bus for safety. Disappointed, Avery looked around for empty seats. “Someone has to sit by themselves.”

  “No way.” Nick Montoya walked up.

  Charlotte took the window sea
t behind Katani and Maeve, and Nick slid in beside her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chelsea Briggs in the back fooling with a camera. Charlotte had noticed Chelsea taking photographs earlier.

  “Hey, where’s Riley?” Maeve wondered out loud. “He was supposed to bring me a mix CD to listen to on the bus.”

  Mrs. Fields poked her head in through the front door as she answered Maeve’s question.

  “Unfortunately, Riley Lee is sick…with a bad cold and fever. His mother called me this morning. So, I am afraid Riley won’t be able to join us at Lake Rescue.”

  “Oh,” was all Maeve said. But she was surprised at how disappointed she felt. She and Riley had become friends when they worked together on a song for the last school dance, and Maeve had to admit he was pretty cute…in that rock star grunge sort of way.

  “Too bad,” Dillon piped in sarcastically, clearly jealous at the dispirited look on Maeve’s face. Dillon still had a crush on Maeve and didn’t quite know what to do about it. There was just something about the lively redhead that made his heart skip a beat.

  Mrs. Fields wasn’t going, of course, but she would never miss the send-off. She asked everyone to get settled so that she could make a few announcements.

  She pointed to Chelsea in the back of the bus. “Chelsea Briggs is our official photographer for the trip. If any of you sees something worth a photograph, I’m sure Chelsea would be open to your suggestions.”

  Immediately some kids struck poses for Chelsea.

  “Of course, anyone hogging the camera will be discovered when they’re put on the computer screen.” After twenty years of being a junior high principal, Katani’s grandmother had seen every junior high trick in the book. “Just go about your business. I have instructed Chelsea to try and make sure that she captures candids of everyone.”

  “Smile, you’re on candid camera.” Avery held her chocolate-covered breakfast bar as if it were a camera and she was clicking off photos. She aimed it right at Charlotte and Nick. Secretly, Charlotte wished it were a camera.

  “Save your energy for the ropes course,” Billy Trentini said to Avery after Mrs. Fields left to talk to the other bus.

  “I’ll bet you I can do it faster than you any day of the week,” Avery challenged.

  “What do I win?” Billy asked. “How about your dessert every night we’re on the trip?”

  Avery hesitated. But just for a moment. “Done. I’d love two desserts every night.” She bounced a high five off Billy’s outstretched hand.

  “Billy is going to hate going without dessert,” Charlotte whispered to Nick. They both laughed. Billy Trentini was famous for his lunches…a couple of sandwiches, soup, and his all-time favorite cookies—chocolate-chip oatmeal raisin. Though no one could ever figure out where it all went on Skinny Billy.

  Charlotte felt a little funny sitting beside Nick for the entire trip, but on the other hand, she liked being there too. Nick was really nice and he liked adventures. They talked about Lake Rescue and what might happen, until Maeve began to sing an old kindergarten song. Only being Maeve, she’d added a catchy reggae beat.

  “The people on the bus go round and round, yeah, round and round, yeah, up and down. The people on the bus go round and round, all about the town.” Nick began to sing, too. Charlotte didn’t have much of a singing voice, but she joined in anyway and soon everybody on the bus followed. She thought that they all could have been in Jamaica cruising along the beach.

  Charlotte remembered loving this song. She searched for a memory of her mother singing it to her. Sometimes she didn’t know when memories and imagination got blurred. Whether something she wished to remember so badly had actually happened, or whether she had wished it into seeming real. She was sure that she remembered her mother reading to her all the time. She must have sung to her, too. Charlotte had learned the bus song somewhere.

  “A penny?” Nick said, and Charlotte realized the singing had stopped.

  “What?”

  “Penny for your thoughts. My grandmother used to say that to me, and I wouldn’t tell her what I was thinking about until she actually gave me a penny,” he grinned.

  “Oh, I was just thinking about my mother.”

  “Must be hard. I can’t imagine my mother not being in the bakery every day, cooking up a storm.”

  “What’s your favorite…in the bakery?” asked Charlotte.

  “I can’t resist my mother’s butterscotch cookies. Package them with a latte and I am one happy customer.” Nick sighed with satisfaction.

  “Your parents let you drink coffee?”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of a Latin thing.”

  Nick couldn’t help but be a nice guy coming from his family. Every time you went into Montoya’s you got a real friendly hello from his mom and dad, or his sister Fabiana.

  Charlotte hoped that somewhere her mother was proud of her, knew that she was okay, and that her daughter had great friends, lived in a cool yellow Victorian house with a funny little dog, and had been on adventures all over the world with her father. Charlotte thought it would be so wonderful if her mother knew all of that.

  Even with a pit stop they were scheduled to arrive at Lake Rescue way before noon. Looking at the map with her father, Charlotte realized that where they were going in New Hampshire was just a couple hours’ drive from Boston. Perhaps she and her father would have more time to explore next summer, especially if he didn’t teach summer school.

  With everyone quiet and half awake, Avery entertained those close to her, not with the ghost story her brother had told her about the camp, but with another she’d made up that she liked better.

  “Years ago, when the camp had just opened, a young girl disappeared while on a cross-country hike. Although her friends and all the camp counselors looked and looked, Marie Darling was never found. The popular theory was that she wandered away from the other hikers and drowned in one of the many lakes there. Searchers dragged the lakes, looking for her body, but they never found one clue: a shoe, a piece of clothing, nothing.”

  Avery paused for effect. She knew how to tell a story.

  “Now, at certain times of the day, early morning, late at night, and especially on foggy or rainy days, she walks the camp, searching for her friends. Many have heard her cry, many have continued to look for her, but still no clues. Just her soft sobbing or occasionally a scream echoes through the woods.”

  Everyone fell silent, but then Maeve giggled. “Good story, Avery. I hope we hear her.”

  “I’d just as soon not.” Isabel yawned. She had dozed off until Avery started talking.

  They turned onto a narrow road where an old wooden sign, needing paint, read. Woods closed in around them, even brushing the sides of the bus at times. The bus bumped and bounced on the old dirt road. One huge pothole sent Avery flying to the ceiling. “Woo, hoo,” she yelled as everyone on the bus cheered.

  “What do you want to bet this isn’t a five-star campground?” Katani said. “If I hadn’t seen the sign, I’d say we were lost.”

  * * *

  “If we are, the other bus is, too.” Avery kneeled in her seat and looked out the back windows. “Think of having to haunt this place for fifty years. No grocery store, no baseball games, and no pizza.”

  Everyone was talking as the bus pulled up in front of what had to be the main building. People pushed and shoved, eager to stretch their legs and smell the pine trees.

  They were handed blank name tags and pens as they got off and asked to fill in the name tags and put them on.

  “Welcome, welcome, campers.” A tall, pretty, friendly-looking woman with a short afro greeted them. Five other counselors stood in a line beside her.

  “Whoa,” Maeve whispered, pointing to one of the male counselors. “That guy is so cute. I hope we’re in his group!”

  * * *

  Charlotte quickly grabbed Maeve’s arm. “Maeve, he can see you pointing at him,” she whispered back, blushing.

  “My name is Jody,” the woman
announced. “I’m the head counselor at Lake Rescue. And this is Nash, Kim, John, Mia, and Terry, your other counselors. We will be leading your hikes and teaching you about the wildlife at the camp. Oh, and I’m also one of the two cooks—a very important position.”

  “Who is the other cook?” somebody shouted out.

  “One of you campers,” came the snappy answer.

  Jody continued on as if the interruption had been a pesky mosquito needing to be brushed away. “As you will find out, everyone pitches in here. Everyone works.” She paused to let that word sink in.

  “I don’t do windows,” a voice from the back of the crowd spoke up.

  Jody grinned. “None of us does windows very often, but if you want to eat, you’ll get your chores for the day done on time.

  “If I had to say what was the foremost philosophy for Lake Rescue, it would be learning to get along together. We work together. We play together. We learn together.”

  “Do we dance together?” Another unidentified male voice blurted out.

  Without missing a beat, Jody continued.

  “Only if you are good. Want to come up and audition?”

  A few snickers and then silence from the peanut gallery. Jody was tough; nothing fazed her. And she was quick-witted. Katani liked that in a camp leader.

  But, Jody sounded more like a Marine drill sergeant the longer she talked. Even her stance imitated that of someone addressing new recruits. “Any questions?”

  “Can we choose bunk mates?” Betsy asked the question that Charlotte would have expected from Joline or Anna.

  “In a word, no. At Lake Rescue we like you to get to know new people…learn to accept other people…other perspectives different from your own. You may end up with a group of people who are almost total strangers to you at school. But, you may be surprised. You might even go home with new friends.”

  The BSG looked at each other. No way. No matter who they had to pair off with here at camp, they would go home the same best friends they had been since school started. Well, almost since school started. Charlotte liked meeting new people, and she had met so many interesting ones in her travels. But there was something special to her about being a Beacon Street Girl. Would new friends change their special relationship? She hoped not. She saw Isabel smile over at her and she felt better. Isabel had joined the BSG after Charlotte, and the group had survived.