Just a Boy and a Girl in a Little Canoe

by Sarah Mlynowski

  “I really need a nap,” Talia says.

  “I really need Wi-Fi,” I say. Which actually means, I really need to text Eli. My cell phone is hidden in my sweatshirt pocket and I can’t wait to hear how his trip is going.

  Immediately after yummy Chinese food for dinner, it’s Free Play.

  I sprint over to the office.

  I missed two calls and about ten texts from Eli.

  What’s up?

  I miss you.

  Did you lose your phone?

  Oops. I was supposed to call him hours ago.

  I dial his number.

  He answers on the first ring. “Heyyyyyyyy,” he says.

  “Hi! Am I waking you?”

  “Yes,” he says. “But it’s okay. I want to hear your voice. What happened? You said you would call five hours ago.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I couldn’t get away.”

  “Oh,” he says. “Busy there, huh?”

  “So busy.”

  “Having fun?”

  “Kind of?” I say. “I’m exhausted.”

  “So tell me what you’re doing.”

  “Running after the kids, mostly.”

  “Are they spoiled brats?”

  “What? No! I mean, Prague spends her Augusts summering in the Hamptons. Yes, she used summer as a verb. But Emma C. is amazing at softball—I nicknamed her Slugger!—and Em—previously known as Emma F.—carries a stuffed animal everywhere she goes. And Shira is missing her front teeth. And Lily is, like, amazing at gymnastics. You would not believe what she can do on the uneven bars.”

  “I wish you were here with me,” he says.

  “I wasn’t invited,” I say.

  “Wait, what? You could have come!”

  “I would have been such a third wheel. And anyway, I need to make money, not spend it.”

  We have an awkward silence.

  “Maybe we can do something together next summer,” he says.

  “Sure,” I say. I like that he assumes we’ll still be together then.

  “Hey! Sam!” Eric says. “I gotta call the period, ’kay? So shush.”

  “Already?”

  “Yessssss,” Eric says.

  “Sorry, Eli,” I say. “I have to go.”

  “But you just called me!”

  I close my eyes. “I know. But I have to get the kids all the way on the other side of camp and take them for Evening Activity.”

  He sighs. “Okay. I get it. I just miss you. When can you call again?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “Maybe Rest Hour tomorrow? Or Free Play. That might be too late for you. But I’ll try.”

  “I love you,” he says.

  “I love you too.” Then I take a deep breath and run back to camp.

  “Okay, girls, pajamas on, please!” I call out, still out of breath. I am on OD, which means On-Duty, which means, I am responsible for watching the kids from nine until midnight, when all staff have to be back in their bunks. So being on OD means you have to do bedtime. There are also Free Play ODs, but for that only a handful of counselors are scattered at posts throughout camp, so I won’t have that assigned too often. Anyway, tonight I know Lis, Talia, JJ, and Muffs are on their way to Slice, the pizza place down the road. Apparently, that’s where the staff goes to hang out at night when they need a break from camp. Rumor has it they are not that strict with the drinking age. Although the head staff have made it very clear that any staff members who are caught drinking on nights out will be sent home immediately.

  Janelle has gone to watch a movie in the CL.

  Which leaves me with the girls, aka the wild animals. Apparently, they do give out cookies at night for Milk and Cookies. Fabulous. Just what these kids need before bed, more sugar.

  Am I really supposed to get all these girls to go to sleep? How will I do that? And it’s not just my side of the bunk. I’m responsible for both sides. Twice as many kids!

  “Just slip Ambiens in their lemonade,” Talia told me as she cheerfully waved from the porch, hair blow-dried straight and lipstick on. She was wearing clean jeans, boots, a cute black top, and her hair down.

  “Ha,” I said, hoping she was kidding.

  Now the kids are running around both sides of the bunk, music blasting.

  “Can we have a candy party?” Em asks me.

  “No,” I say. “Come on, everyone! Why don’t you get into bed and we’ll play a game or something!”

  “Please can we have a candy party? Pretty, pretty please?” they all say at the same time.

  I sigh. “Pajamas on. Then one piece of candy each,” I say. “And then you brush your teeth!”

  “Can we keep the candy the whole summer?” Slugger asks.

  “I think you get a few more days with it,” I say. “But I’ll ask Danish. We can’t keep it for too long.”

  “Why not?” asks Fancy.

  “We’d get raccoons!” I say.

  They all gasp.

  “In the bunk?” Shira asks.

  An image comes back to me and I start to laugh. “True story,” I say. “When I was in this cabin, one night I woke up to go to the bathroom and I saw a raccoon eating a bag of . . .” I hold for extra reaction. “Gummy bears!”

  Some of them gasp and some of them laugh. “Did you scream?” Prague asks me. “I totally would have screamed.”

  “I totally did,” I say, nodding. “And then I woke up some of the other girls and they started screaming and then all of us were screaming and the counselors came into the bunk and they started screaming and then one of them got the broom and chased the raccoon out through the front door.”

  “Did he take the bag of gummy bears?” Prague asks.

  “He totally did.”

  “You really slept in this bunk when you were a kid?” Lily asks.

  I nod.

  “Is your name on the wall?” Em asks.

  “I don’t think so,” I say. I had wanted to erase my name from this place, not engrave it.

  “Can we have candy now?” Lily asks.

  “Okay, girls, pajamas and then one piece of candy each! Let’s go!” I clap my hands and stand up. “Everyone to the cubby room!”

  The girls follow me. I’m not sure how the cubby room has already become a total disaster, but it has. Clothes are everywhere.

  “Put your dirty clothes in your laundry bag!” I remind them.

  “Where’s my laundry bag?”

  “I can’t find my pajamas!”

  “Have you seen my slippers?”

  I do my best to help all eleven girls find their stuff. By the time we’re done, the cubby room looks about ten times worse than it did before. Awesome.

  “Candy time!” Fancy yells at the top of her lungs.

  “Just one each!” I holler. I take a few minutes to try to organize and then go back into the bed area.

  Danish, Jill, and Josh are standing in the middle of it.

  The girls are all stuffing their mouths with candy. What happened to one piece each? This is a disaster.

  “How’s it going?” Josh asks me, eyes darting around the room.

  “Just getting them ready,” I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

  “Maybe no candy tonight?” Danish says.

  “They’re only allowed one piece each,” I say.

  “Francie, are those peanut M&M’s?” Jill asks.

  What is Jill even doing here? Isn’t she in charge of the CITs? We don’t even get a CIT!

  Fancy has about ten in her hand and ten in her mouth. Plus she is giving them out to other girls.

  “Are you kidding me?” I say out loud. “Are you trying to kill someone?”

  Fancy’s eyes widen.

  Everyone stares at me. “Sorry,” I say. “That came out wrong. I thought I got rid of the peanut stuff before.”

  Josh confiscates the offending chocolates.

  “Sorry,” Fancy says.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Try and get them into bed soon,” Josh says
. “Tomorrow’s a big day. And get rid of the candy by end of day tomorrow, okay, Sam?”

  I nod, mortified.

  “I’ll come back and check in on you in a couple hours, ’kay?” Danish tells me.

  Please, I think, please let them be asleep by then.

  An hour later, ten o’clock, the candy has been eaten, and almost all the girls have brushed their teeth. All the girls in 6B are in their beds.

  Could it be? Are all my kids almost in bed too?

  Em, Slugger, Shira, Fancy, Prague, and . . . missing one. Who am I missing?

  Lily. Where’s Lily? I check the cubby room. Nope. Sinks. Nope. “Lily?”

  “In the bathroom!” she says.

  “Okay,” I say. “Lights out in two.”

  “Be right there,” she says.

  “Does everyone have their flashlights?” I ask. I am almost done. Woot! I am almost done!

  I wait two more minutes. I head back to the bathroom.

  “Lily?” I say softly. “You okay in there?”

  “Just trying to poop,” she tells me.

  Excellent. A little TMI, but I guess I should get used to it.

  A few minutes later she finally flushes, comes out, and washes her hands.

  “Did you already brush your teeth?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  “Then brush your teeth, ’kay?” Omigod, forget brushing teeth, this is like pulling teeth.

  She spends at least five minutes finding her toothbrush and then her toothpaste and then brushes her teeth for what must be a world-record amount of time. At least fifteen minutes.

  Finally, finally, she is in bed.

  “I’m turning out the lights now,” I say. “Everyone have their flashlights?”

  They all turn them on.

  “Lights off!” I say, and flip them. Some of them giggle.

  “I can’t believe I’m really here,” Em says. She hugs her fuzzy lion.

  “Me neither,” Slugger says.

  I silently add, Me neither.

  I change into my own pajamas—checked flannel ones that are adorable—and then wash my face and brush my teeth. I even floss. I tell the girls they have five more minutes to turn their flashlights off, and then five minutes later, I tell them to turn them off for real. Then I get into my bed. I look at my phone, even though I know I won’t have another message. I scroll through my pictures of Eli and find my favorite, when he was sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park. It’s the look he’s giving me that I love, the one that says I love you and I want to kiss you immediately.

  I wish he were here. It would be fun to have him at camp. I’m not sure if he’d be a good counselor or not, though. Everyone likes him, but he’s not exactly an early riser. He kind of does whatever he wants to do whenever he wants to do it.

  Today’s conversation wasn’t great. It was rushed; he was obviously annoyed.

  Maybe I can sneak away and call him after breakfast, during cleanup.

  There’s a knock on the counselors’ doorframe.

  “Yes?” I say.

  The curtain opens. It’s Fancy. “Sam?”

  “Yes, Fancy?”

  “Shira is crying again.” She rolls her eyes.

  I get out of bed. “She is? How come?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Okay, I’ll come back,” I say. I follow her into the room and hear that Shira is indeed crying. She’s facedown on her pillow but I can see her little shoulders shaking.

  I sit down on the edge of her bed. “Hey, sweetie,” I say. “What’s wrong?”

  Her shoulders shake again. “I miss Tamara,” she says.

  “Who’s Tamara?” I ask. I look at the family picture taped to the wall. “Your sister?”

  “No,” she sobs. “My sister is Maya. Tamara is my dog. And I miss her so much. She sleeps in my bed every night! She’s probably really lonely!”

  “I’m sure she misses you too,” I say, but that just makes Shira sob harder. “But maybe . . . maybe . . . maybe she went to sleep with Maya! Because I’m sure Maya misses you too and this way they’re keeping each other company!”

  She turns over to look at me. Her eyes are dripping with tears. “You think she’s sleeping in Maya’s bed?”

  “Yeah! For sure!” I say.

  Her sobs escalate. “Noooo! What if she wants to stay sleeping with Maya even when I get back?”

  I open my mouth but no words come out.

  “What if when I get back she loves Maya more than me?”

  Good Lord.

  The next thing I hear is more sniffling. But not from Shira. This time it’s Slugger.

  “I miss my mom,” she says.

  Oh no.

  “So do I,” sniffs Em, hands trembling around her lion.

  It’s like dominoes! They’re all going down! How do I stop this? They’re going to dehydrate!

  “What’s happening in here?” one of the 6B girls asks, popping her head around the dividing wall. “You guys are being super loud.”

  “We’re all homesick,” Em says.

  “You’re acting like five-year-olds,” Fancy says. “It’s embarrassing.”

  Shira sinks back in her bed.

  “Hey,” I tell Fancy. “Don’t be mean. It’s totally normal to feel sad tonight.”

  “It is?” Slugger says.

  “Of course it is,” I say.

  “Were you ever homesick?” Lily asks.

  “Are you kidding me? Definitely.” I think back to the first night I spent at camp. I hadn’t wanted to come, but that’s when my dad had his first tumor and my parents thought it would be better to have me away for the summer. “I remember lying in bed and staring at the ceiling and feeling so . . . weird. Do you guys feel weird?”

  They all nod.

  “Me too. Because it’s not my bed! I love my bed at home! It has clean sheets! And at camp the beds are so small and saggy!”

  They giggle.

  “And at home you sleep by yourself with the door closed,” I say.

  “I sleep with the door open,” Prague says.

  “Me too,” two of them answer at the same time.

  “I share a room with my sister,” Shira says.

  “Lucky,” Prague tells her. “I’m on my own floor and I hate it.”

  “Your own floor?” Slugger asks in disbelief.

  “But you want to know something?” I ask, plowing ahead.

  “What?”

  “This is the hardest part. Tonight. Sleeping in this bed for the first night. But if you get through the weirdness of sleeping in this new place tonight on these saggy mattresses—then after this, it’s a breeze.”

  Lily wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “Really?”

  “It’s true,” Fancy says.

  “Really,” I say. And then I think about what I used to do when I would lie in bed and hear my parents fighting.

  “I’m going to teach you all how to keep the nighttime weirdies away, ’kay?”

  “How?” Em asks.

  “Like this,” I say. And then I turn around on Shira’s bed and lie flat on my back and put my legs up against the wall. “Everyone copy me! That’s a counselor’s order.”

  There’s some giggling, but I see all the girls turn around and place their legs against the wall. Shira is right beside me, and I can see that she’s smiling a perfect toothless smile.

  “Is everyone in position?” I ask.

  “Yes,” they say.

  “Okay, now we’re going to drum our feet against the wall like this—”

  I get a good rhythm going. Thump thump thump. They all follow along. “Now we’ll go around the room and everyone has to say one thing they’re excited about for this summer. I’ll start. I’m excited for . . .” What am I excited for? “Sing-Song!” I say.

  “What is Sing-Song?” Em asks.

  “On Fridays, we all go into the Rec Hall and sing songs. They put the words up on the screen so we can all see them.”

  “What so
ngs?” Lily asks.

  “Great ones,” Prague says. “Like ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane.’ ‘Summer Nights’ from Grease. Old ones, but they’re fun.”

  “I’m excited for the ten-and-under baseball team,” Slugger says. “I play on a traveling team at home.”

  “I was on the twelve-and-under team!” I offer her an air high five. I look to the bed next to us. “Okay, Fancy, what are you looking forward to?”

  “Visiting Day,” she says.

  Everyone laughs.

  “Not just to see my parents. It’s ’cause my mother brings snacks on Visiting Day. She brings cupcakes from Magnolia in New York. Have you ever had them? They’re my favorite.”

  “I have had Magnolia cupcakes,” I say. That’s where I got Eli’s! “And they are delicious. So now I’m excited about Visiting Day too. Excellent. Something else to look forward to! Lily, you’re next.”

  “I’m excited to make new friends. My dad came to this camp when he was a kid. And he’s still friends with the guys from his bunk. Best friends. And they’re really old.”

  “Aw,” says Prague.

  “That could be us,” Slugger says.

  “It really could,” I say, and my throat feels choked up. Maybe I don’t speak to anyone from my bunk, but this bunk, these kids, they could be different. They could be friends for life.

  “Okay, ladies,” I say, after everyone has said something they’re excited for. “Time for everyone to get back under the covers. You okay?” I ask Shira.

  She nods. “Can you tuck us in?”

  “I would love to tuck you in,” I say.

  I hear them the next morning. Early. Very, very early. They are laughing and running around, and I distinctly hear the word licorice.

  The clock on my phone says it’s only six forty-five. We don’t have to be at flagpole until eight fifteen. I pull the covers over my head and pretend not to hear them for over an hour.

  Eventually, I hear the front door open and Priya pops her head into our room. “Morning, ladies! Flagpole in fifteen!”

  I sit up. The other counselors are still dead to the world. The room is cold, so I put on an extra sweatshirt, and since the floor is cold too, I step into my slippers. Then I push through the curtain-door and go see what the little monsters are up to.

  “Morning, girls,” I say, standing in the doorway. They are in the middle of the room. Their mouths are stuffed with brownies, gummy bears, and of course, licorice. At least I don’t see any peanut M&M’s.