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.
ANGELA DARLING was nicknamed “The Love Guru” by her friends in school because she always gave such awesome advice on crushes. And Angela’s own first crush worked out pretty well . . . they have been married for almost ten years now! When Angela isn’t busy watching romantic comedies, reading romance novels, or dreaming up new stories, she works as an editor in New York City. She knows deep down that every story can’t possibly have a happy ending, but the incurable romantic in her can’t help but always look for the silver lining in every cloud.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SIMON SPOTLIGHT
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 2013 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Text by Sarah Albee
Designed by Dan Potash
Cover design by Dan Potash
Cover illustration by Autumn Whitehurst
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON SPOTLIGHT and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-4424-8036-0 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4424-8038-4 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4424-8040-7 (eBook)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012950722
Lauren's Beach Crush Page 11
