by Meg Cabot
Which was how, by the time supper rolled around, I had five boxes of Fiddle Faddle, two bags of Double-Stuff Oreo cookies, a ten-pack of Snickers bars, two bags of Fritos and one of Doritos, seven Gogurts in a variety of flavors, one bag of Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies, a box of Count Chocula, a two-pound bag of Skittles, and a six-pack of Yoo-Hoo locked in my room. The parents, thankfully, had left, chased off the property by the sound of the dinner gong. The goodbyes were heartfelt but, except on the part of Shane's mother, not too tearful. Somewhere out there, a lot of champagne corks were popping.
As soon as the last parent had departed, I informed the boys that we were headed to the dining hall, but that before we went, I wanted to make sure I had all their names down. Once that was settled, I told them, I'd teach them the official Birch Tree Cottage song.
Shane and Lionel I was already well acquainted with. The skinny kid who played trumpet turned out to be called John. The tuba player was Arthur. We had two violinists, Sam and Doo Sun, and two pianists, Tony and Paul. They were pretty much all your typical gifted musician types—pasty-skinned, prone to allergies, and way too smart for their own good.
"How come," John wanted to know, "you told us you aren't that girl from TV, when you totally are?"
"Yeah," Sam said. "And how come you can only find missing kids with your psychic powers? How come you can't find cool stuff, like gold?"
"Or the remote control." Arthur, I could already tell, was going to make up for his unfortunate name by being the cabin comedian.
"Look," I said. "I told you. I don't know what you guys are talking about. I just look like that lightning girl, okay? It wasn't me. Now—" I felt a change of subject was in order. "Shane, you haven't told us yet what instrument you play."
"The skin flute," Shane said. All of the boys but Lionel cracked up.
"Really?" Lionel looked shyly pleased. "I play the flute, too."
Shane shrieked with laughter upon hearing this. "You would!" he cried. "Being from Gonorrhea!"
Now that his mother was gone, I felt free to walk over and flick the top of Shane's ear with my middle finger hard enough to produce a very satisfying snapping noise. One of my other issues, on which I'd promised Mr. Goodhart to work during my summer vacation, was a tendency to take out my frustrations with others in a highly physical manner—a fact because of which I had spent most of my sophomore year in detention.
"Ow!" Shane cried, shooting me an indignant look. "What'd you do that for?"
"While you are living in Birch Tree Cottage," I informed him—as well as the rest of the boys, who were staring at us—"you will conduct yourself as a gentleman, which means you will refrain from making overtly sexual references within my hearing. Additionally, you will not insult other people's countries of origin."
Shane's face was a picture of confusion. "Huh?" he said.
"No sex talk," John translated for him.
"Aw." Shane looked disgusted. "Then how am I supposed to have any fun?"
"You will have good, clean fun," I informed him. "And that's where the official Birch Tree Cottage song comes in."
And then, while we undertook the long walk to the dining hall, I taught them the song.
I met a miss,
She had to pi—
—ck a flower.
Stepped in the grass,
up to her a—
—nkle tops.
She saw a bird,
stepped on a tur—
—key feather.
She broke her heart,
and let a far—
—mer carry her home.
"See?" I said as we walked. We had the longest walk of anyone to the dining hall, so by the time we'd reached it, the boys had the song entirely memorized. "No dirty words."
"Almost dirty," Doo Sun said with relish.
"That's the stupidest song I ever heard," Shane muttered. But I noticed he was singing it louder than anyone as we entered the dining hall. None of the other cabins, we soon learned, had official songs. The residents of Birch Tree Cottage sang theirs with undisguised gusto as they picked up their trays and got into the concession line.
I spied Ruth sitting with the girls from her cabin. She waved to me. I sauntered over.
"What is going on?" Ruth wanted to know. "What are you doing with all those boys?"
I explained the situation. When she had heard all, Ruth's mouth fell open and she went, her blue eyes flashing behind her glasses, "That is so unfair!"
"It'll be all right," I said.
"What will?" Shelley, a violinist and one of the other counselors, came by with a tray loaded down with chili fries and Jell-O.
Ruth told her what had happened. Shelley looked outraged.
"That is bull," she said. "A boys' cabin? How are you going to take a shower?"
Seeing everyone else so mad on my behalf, I started feeling less bad about the whole thing. I shrugged and said, "It won't be so bad. I'll manage."
"I know what you can do," Shelley said. "Just shower at the pool, in the girls' locker room."
"Or one of the guys from the cabins near yours can keep your campers occupied," Ruth said. "I mean, it wouldn't kill Scott or Dave to take on some extra kids for half an hour, here and there."
"What won't kill us?" Scott, an oboe player with thick glasses who'd nevertheless been judged Do-able thanks to his height (a little over six feet) and thighs (muscular) came over, followed closely by his shadow, a stocky Asian trumpet player named Dave … also rated Do-able, courtesy of a set of surprisingly washboard abs.
"They reassigned Jess to a boys' cabin," Shelley informed them.
"No kidding?" Scott looked interested. "Which one?"
"Birch," I said carefully.
Scott and Dave exchanged enthusiastic glances.
"Hey," Scott cried. "That's right near us! We're neighbors!"
"That was you?" Dave grinned down at me. "Who waved at me?"
"Yeah," I said. But you waved first.
I didn't say that part out loud, though. I wondered if either Dave or Scott had a convertible. I doubted it.
Not that I cared. I was taken, anyway. Well, in my opinion, at least.
"Don't worry, Jessica," Dave said, with a wink. "We'll look after you."
Just what I needed. To be looked after by Scott and Dave. Whoopee.
Ruth speared a piece of lettuce. She was eating a salad, as usual. Ruth would starve herself all summer in order to look good in a bikini she would never quite work up the courage to wear. If Scott or Dave or, well, anybody, for that matter, did ask her to go with him to the dunes, she would go dressed in a T-shirt and shorts that she would not remove, even in the event of heat stroke.
Ruth eyed me over a forkful of romaine. "What was with that dirty song you had those guys singing when you all came in?"
"It wasn't dirty," I said.
"It sounded dirty." Scott, who'd taken a seat on Ruth's other side, instead of sitting with his cabin, like he was supposed to, was eating spaghetti and meatballs. He was doing it wrong, too, cutting the pasta up into little bite-sized portions, instead of twirling it on his fork. My dad would have had an embolism.
Scott, I decided, must like Ruth. I knew Ruth liked Todd, the hot-looking violinist, but Scott wasn't such a bad guy. I hoped she'd give him a chance. Oboe players are generally better humored than violinists.
"Technically," I said, "that song wasn't a bit dirty."
"Oh, God," Ruth said, making a face at something she'd spotted over my shoulder. "What's she doing here?"
I looked around. Standing behind me was Karen Sue Hanky. I hadn't seen Karen Sue since school had let out for the summer, but she looked much the same as she always did—rat-faced and full of herself. She was holding a tray laden with grains and legumes. Karen Sue is vegan.
Then I noticed that beside Karen Sue stood Pamela.
"Excuse me, Jess?" Pamela said. "Can I see you for a moment in my office, please?"
I shot Karen Sue a dirty look. She simpere
d back at me.
This was going to be, I realized, a long summer.
In more ways than one.
C H A P T E R
3
"It wasn't dirty," I said as I followed Pamela into her office.
"I know," Pamela said. She collapsed into the chair behind her desk. "But it sounds dirty. We've had complaints."
"Already?" I was shocked. "From who?"
But I knew. Karen Sue, on top of the whole vegan thing, is this total prude.
"Look," I said, "if it's that much of a problem, I'll tell them they can't sing it anymore."
"Fine. But to tell you the truth, Jess," Pamela said, "that's not really why I called you in here."
All of a sudden, it felt as if someone had poured the contents of a Big Gulp down my back.
She knew. Pamela knew.
And I hadn't even seen it coming.
"Look," I said. "I can explain."
"Oh, can you?" Pamela shook her head. "I suppose it's partly our fault. I mean, how the fact that you're the Jessica Mastriani slipped through our whole screening process, I cannot imagine. . . ."
Visions of steam tables danced in my head.
"Listen, Pamela." I said it low, and I said it fast. "That whole thing—the getting struck by lightning thing? Yeah, well, it's true. I mean I was struck by lightning and all. And for a while, I did have these special powers. Well, one, anyway. I mean, I could find lost kids and all. But that was it. And the thing is—well, as you probably know—it went away."
I said this last part very loudly, just in case my old friends, Special Agents Johnson and Smith, had the place bugged or whatever. I hadn't noticed any white vans parked around the campgrounds, but you never knew. . . .
"It went away?" Pamela was looking at me nervously. "Really?"
"Uh-huh," I said. "The doctors told me it probably would. You know, after the lightning was done rattling around in me and all." At least, that was how I liked to think about it. "And it turned out they were right. I am now totally without psychic power. So, um, there's really nothing for you to worry about, so far as negative publicity for the camp, or hordes of reporters descending on you, or anything like that. The whole thing is totally over."
Not even remotely true, of course, but what Pamela didn't know couldn't, I figured, hurt her.
"Don't get me wrong, Jess," she said. "We love having you here—especially with you being so good about changing cabins—but Camp Wawasee has never known a single hint of controversy in the fifty years it's been in existence. I'd hate for … well, anything untoward to happen while you're here. . . ."
Untoward was, I guess, Pamela's way of referring to what had happened last spring, after I'd been struck by lightning and then got "invited" to stay at Crane Military for a few days, while some scientists studied my brain waves and tried to figure out how it was that, just by showing me a picture of a missing person, I could wake up the next morning knowing exactly where that person was.
Unfortunately, after they'd studied it for a while, the people at Crane had decided that my newfound talent might come in handy for tracking down so-called traitors and other unsavory individuals who really, as far as I knew, didn't want to be found. And while I'm as anxious as anybody to incarcerate serial killers and all, I just figured I'd stick to finding missing kids … specifically, kids who actually want to be found.
Only the people at Crane had turned out to be surprisingly unhappy to hear this.
But after some friends of mine and I had broken some windows and cut through some fencing and, oh, yeah, blown up a helicopter, they came around. Well, sort of. It helped, I guess, that I called the press and told them I couldn't do it anymore. Find missing people, I mean. That little special talent of mine just dried up and blew away. Poof.
That's what I told them, anyway.
But you could totally see where Pamela was coming from. On account of the fireball caused by the exploding helicopter and all. It had made a lot of papers. You don't get fireballs every day. At least, not in Indiana.
Pamela frowned a little. "The thing is, Jess," she said, "even though, as you say, you no longer have, um, any psychic powers, I have heard … well, I've heard missing kids across the country are still sort of, um, turning up. A lot more kids than ever turned up before … well, before your little weather-related accident. And thanks to some"—she cleared her throat—"anonymous tips."
My winning smile didn't waver.
"If that's true," I said, "it sure isn't because of me. No, ma'am. I am officially retired from the kid-finding business."
Pamela didn't exactly look relieved. She looked sort of like someone who wanted—really, really wanted—to believe something, but didn't think she should. Kind of like a kid whose friends had told her Santa Claus doesn't exist, but whose parents were still trying to maintain the myth.
Still, what could she do? She couldn't sit there and call me a liar to my face. What proof did she have?
Plenty, as it turned out. She just didn't know it.
"Well," she said. Her smile was as stiff as the Welcome to Camp Wawasee sign had been, in the places it hadn't been eaten away. "All right, then. I guess … I guess that's that."
I got up to go, feeling a little shaky. Well, you would have felt shaky, too, if you'd have come as close as I had to spending the rest of the summer stirring steaming platters of rigatoni bolognese.
"Oh," Pamela said, as if remembering something. "I almost forgot. You're friends with Ruth Abramowitz, aren't you? This came for her the other day. It didn't fit into her mailbox. Could you hand it to her? I saw you sitting with her at dinner just now. . . ."
Pamela took a large padded envelope out from behind her desk and handed it to me. I stood there, looking down at it, my throat dry.
"Urn," I said. "Sure. Sure, I'll give it to her."
My voice sounded unusually hoarse. Well, and why not? Pamela didn't know it, of course, but what she'd just given me—its contents, anyway—could prove that every single thing I'd just told her was an out-and-out lie.
"Thanks," Pamela said with a tired smile. "Things have just been so hectic …"
The corners of my mouth started to ache on account of how hard I was still smiling, pretending like I wasn't upset or anything. I should, I knew, have taken that envelope and run. That's what I should have done. But something made me stay and go, still in that hoarse voice, "Can I ask you a question, Pamela?"
She looked surprised. "Of course you can, Jess."
I cleared my throat, and kept my gaze on the strong, loopy handwriting on the front of the envelope. "Who told you?"
Pamela knit her eyebrows. "Told me what?"
"You know. About'me being the lightning girl." I looked up at her. "And that stuff about how kids are still being found, even though I'm retired."
Pamela didn't answer right away. But that was okay. I knew. And I hadn't needed any psychic powers to tell me, either. Karen Sue Hanky was dead meat.
It was right then there was a knock on Pamela's office door. She yelled, "Come in," looking way relieved at the interruption.
This old guy stuck his head in. I recognized him. He was Dr. Alistair, the camp director. He was kind of red in the face, and he had a lot of white hair that stuck out all around his shining bald head. He was supposedly this very famous conductor, but let me ask you: If he's so famous, what's he doing running what boils down to a glorified band camp in northern Indiana?
"Pamela," he said, looking irritated. "There's a young man on the phone looking for one of the counselors. I told him that we are not running an answering service here, and that if he wants to speak to one of our employees, he can leave a message like everybody else and we will post it on the message board. But he says it's an emergency, and—"
I moved so fast, I almost knocked over a chair.
"Is it for me? Jess Mastriani?"
It wasn't any psychic ability that told me that phone call was probably for me. It was the combination of the words "young man" and "em
ergency." All of the young men of my acquaintance, when confronted by someone like Dr. Alistair, would definitely go for the word "emergency" as soon as they heard about that stupid message board.
Dr. Alistair looked surprised … and not too pleased.
"Why, yes," he said. "If your name is Jessica, then it is for you. I hope Pamela has explained to you the fact that we are not running a message service here, and that the making or receiving of personal calls, except during Sunday afternoons, is expressly—"
"But it's an emergency," I reminded him.
He grimaced. "Down the hall. Phone at the reception desk. Press line one."
I was out of Pamela's office like a shot.
Who, I wondered, as I jogged down the hall, could it be? I knew who I wanted it to be. But the chances of Rob Wilkins calling me were slim to none. I mean, he never calls me at home. Why would he call me at camp?
Still, I couldn't help hoping Rob had overcome this totally ridiculous prejudice he's got against me because of my age. I mean, so what if he's eighteen and has graduated already, while I still have two years of high school left? It's not like he's leaving town to go to college in the fall, or something. Rob's not going to college. He has to work in his uncle's garage and support his mother, who recently got laid off from the factory she had worked in for like twenty years or something. Mrs. Wilkins was having trouble finding another job, until I suggested food services and gave her the number at Joe's. My dad, without even knowing Mrs. Wilkins and I were acquainted, hired her and put her on days at Mastriani's—which isn't a bad shift at all. He saves the totally crappy jobs and shifts for his kids. He believes strongly in teaching us what he calls a "work ethic."
But when I got to the phone and pushed line one, it wasn't Rob. Of course it wasn't Rob. It was my brother Douglas.
And that's how I really knew it wasn't an emergency. If it had been an emergency, it would have been about Douglas. The only emergencies in our family are because of Douglas. At least, they have been, ever since he got kicked out of college on account of these voices in his head that are always telling him to do stuff, like slit his wrists, or stick his hand in the barbecue coals. Stuff like that.
