“Watch this,” said Claire. She jumped out of line, stretched into a handstand, and walked on her hands.
“Hey, that’s pretty expert,” said Lakshmi.
“You’re from Los Angeles, right?” asked Claire when she came right side up again.
“Yeah,” said Lakshmi. “I took a plane here. Five hours, all by myself.” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oops! I’ve got to go to the office to call my dad and let him know I’m safe. I was supposed to do that yesterday.”
“Put your tray on mine,” said Claire, reaching for it. “I’ll dump it for you.”
Lakshmi handed over her tray. “Thanks! See you later.”
Claire waved. “Bye.” Lakshmi jogged off.
“See, Loon? She doesn’t hate you.” Claire smiled confidently. “The way I figure it, every one would always rather be buddies.”
Luna nodded. It was difficult to explain to her twin that she did not have Claire’s same knack for making friends. Claire thought friends just appeared from nowhere on a sunny day and stuck naturally, like freckles.
After breakfast, the counselors and cabins scattered for Early Meeting. That was when special announcements were made. Some counselors picked scenic spots by the tennis courts or Lake Periwinkle. Pam picked under a scrawny fir tree by the parking lot.
“Form a semicircle around me!” shouted Pam. Then she blew into her whistle. Of all the counselors, Pam seemed to be the most excited to use her whistle. She blasted it a lot.
Luna thought about sitting next to Lakshmi. Everyone would rather be buddies, she reminded herself. She sort of smiled at Lakshmi, who sort of smiled back. Chunky Penelope would be easier to sit next to, Luna thought. Penelope was so shy, and she looked like a girl who would be grateful for a buddy. Gorgeous Lakshmi would not be grateful. Luna could tell just by the way she was flopped at the edge of the grass, her ankles crossed, leaning back on her elbows and not noticing anybody.
Luna sat down next to Penelope.
“Hi,” she said. Penelope smiled gratefully.
Pam blew into her whistle again. “Listen up, sports fans!” she said. “As you know, for the next five weeks, I run Sleepy Hollow. And this summer, as a senior counselor, I’ve decided to implement a new policy.”
Luna gave Claire a thumbs-up, since implement was the word that Claire had won the fifth-grade spelling bee with this past spring. Claire was nuts about words. Claire gave a thumbs-up back.
“Twins!” shouted Pam, with a chirp on the whistle. “Please don’t send each other cutesy hand signals while I’m talking. Understood?”
They nodded solemnly. Pam continued. “Here’s my policy. We’re going to pool our resources. That means each person has to donate to the Sleepy Hollow Cabin Fund. A certain something you brought from home that will be used by the whole cabin. Nothing big. I’m talking about a bottle of hand lotion, a sun visor, or maybe some homemade brownies your parents packed. Stuff like that. It’s a great way for everyone to share! So check your trunks, your bags, or maybe even your pockets for something useful.”
Pam unfolded a white pillowcase that she had been carrying. “I’m leaving this pillowcase by the door of our cabin. Let’s have nine donations in it by lunch. I’ll go first.” She took a pair of sunglasses from her pocket. “This is my spare pair, with UV-ray protection. For the next five weeks, anyone can use them.” She dropped the sunglasses into the pillowcase. “Who’s next?”
There was a silence.
Then a voice rang out, loud and stubborn. “No way.”
The voice belonged to Lakshmi. Heads turned. Lakshmi brushed the grass from her hands. She was not smiling.
“Excuse me?” Pam fumbled at her whistle, although it was not exactly a whistle-blowing moment.
“I’m not donating to your pillowcase fund. All my stuff belongs to me.”
There was a stirring of whispers. Luna let out a breath of relief. She didn’t want to donate any of her things, either. She was a careful person, and she knew she had not packed anything for Camp Bliss that she wanted to share.
Pam smiled, but she looked annoyed. “Wow, Lakshmi, you’re a party poop,” she said in a falsely cheerful voice. “Anyone else want to be a party poop? Speak up, people!”
Silence.
Luna watched Pam, enjoying the look on her face, which was bright red and a touch scared. Maybe she was just starting to realize what a stupid idea this pillowcase fund was. Forcing people to share! As the silence lengthened, Luna bit her lip to hold back her smile.
“I have a box of saltwater taffy, and I hate saltwater taffy.” Ella spoke up. “My mom put it in my trunk instead of my brother’s by mistake.” She shrugged. “I’ll donate that.”
“Aaawwl right! Now we’re talking!” Pam whooped.
A couple of girls clapped.
“I’ve got a family-size tin of echinacea mints,” said Claire. “They ward off respiratory diseases and they taste great, too!”
She said the last part in a goofy voice, and the girls laughed.
“I’ve got three bottles of sunscreen. My family always uses it when we go to our house in Bermuda,” said Haley. “It’s made with jojoba and hazelnut extract. It doesn’t give you that greasy feel.”
Luna looked over appreciatively. She hated-hated-hated her greasy sunscreen.
Penelope offered her radio with headset.
Min Suh donated the use of her special tennis racket, the same kind used by Venus Williams.
“I already have a way-nice tennis racket,” said Haley. “How does that work for me?”
“It’s a totally awesome donation!” said Pam. But Min Suh looked worried.
“What about my coconut shampoo?” she offered.
There was a show of hands. The tennis racket won over the shampoo.
Glad offered free foot massages.
“That’s not really a donation,” said Pam. “That’s more like a service.”
So Glad offered her fruit-leather snacks. “Made with no processed sugar and lots of love,” she declared, and Luna got the feeling that everyone wanted the foot massages back.
Which left Luna and Lakshmi.
“Let me think about it,” said Luna. “I can’t figure it out right this second.”
“Like I said, I’m donating nothing,” said Lakshmi in her customary calm, loud voice.
“Then you’re using nothing, okay?” Pam said. “It’s not your fund if you don’t contribute.” Her face wore the relaxed, ear-to-ear grin of victory.
Lakshmi shrugged. She seemed completely unconcerned.
“Gosh, why does she have to be such a party poop?” murmured Penelope. Other girls looked over at Lakshmi reproachfully.
Lakshmi stood her ground. She did not seem to care a fig what people thought of her. Luna liked that, and she wished she had sat next to Lakshmi, after all. Then they would have been a team against Pam. A resistance.
After the meeting, when they were walking down to the field house to pick bikes for a morning ride, Luna screwed up her courage. She fell into step beside Lakshmi.
“I don’t want to give anything to the Cabin Fund, either,” she said.
“Luckily, it’s optional,” said Lakshmi.
“I feel really out of place here,” Luna said, clearing her throat.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Don’t you?”
Lakshmi stopped walking. “Why do you say that? Because I’m the only one here who’s Indian American?” she asked. Not in a mean way, but her voice was loud.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Luna said hastily. Her face felt hot.
“Then what did you mean?”
Luna had no idea what to answer. “I just meant … I don’t know,” she squeaked. “See ya later.” She stumbled ahead, feeling stupid and hoping that Penelope would be around somewhere.
It was too horrible. Her one chance to be buddies, maybe even to make an all-weather friend, and she’d blown it.
4
Something’s Brewing
> “AND ON THE SECOND NIGHT, Glad went upstairs to bed. As soon as she switched off her light, she heard it again … a scritch-scratch-scritching at the window.”
Small smothered screams. Swallowed giggles. In the glowing firelight, the real Glad looked as if she might faint from fear. Claire knew she herself could not laugh. The whole trick of a great ghost story was to keep your eyes slightly zombied out and your voice a few octaves lower or higher than your own. As if some spirit were channeling this awful story through you.
“Who’s there?” squeaked Penelope. “It’s the one-eared pirate, right?”
“Shhh.” Claire put a finger to her lips. “At first the scratch was very faint, but then louder. Again and again, it came … the sound of bony fingers scraaaping against the glass.” Through lowered lids, Claire sneaked a peek at the faces ringed around the campfire pit. Even Luna looked spellbound, and she’d heard the story, and the part about the scraaaping, at least a hundred times. (Claire told it at every slumber party they’d ever attended.)
“Scritch! Scratch!. Scritch!” Claire clawed the air with one hand. With her other hand, she snapped a twig between her fingers. A snap did not sound too much like a scritch or a scratch, but some of the younger girls jumped, then laughed.
“It was then, out of the darkest nowhere,” Claire continued, “that a howling wind began to blow.”
There could be no mistaking the sound of the low, howling wind that suddenly kicked up in the distance.
“Stop!” Penelope squeaked. “I’m too scared. Poor Gladriole!”
“It’s not the real me,” said the real Glad, twisting her hair. “It’s just a story me.”
Claire looked quizzically at Luna. Was she casting a spooky weather spell? But Luna shook her head. Claire raised her voice. “Glad sat up in her bed, terrified by the scratching and the wind. Had the ghost of old Wilbur, the one-eared pirate, returned?”
“I knew it!” Penelope squealed.
The wind shivered past, prickling scalps and scattering embers.
“Yipes!” exclaimed Tammy. “This weather! Maybe we should go in?”
Even Ella looked nervous.
“No, no! I’ll finish quick,” said Claire, half in her ghost voice, half in her Claire voice. “Glad ran to the window and opened it. Rain swept in, cold as a corpse and soft as tears.”
When the sprinkle of cold rain began to patter from the night sky, everyone started squealing.
“Who’s doing that? Is this a prank?” “Does someone have a watering can?” “Shhh!” Claire pressed a finger to her lips and glanced angrily at Luna, who shook her head again. But of course it had to be her sister, Claire thought. Who else? Well, she wouldn’t dare try anything for this next part. “Lightning flashed across the sky, turning the night bright as day. Gladriole could not believe what she saw, standing in the—”
White lightning jagged across the black sky. It was too much! Now came squealing and shrieking from the campers—and counselors—as they all jumped up from the campfire.
“There’s cider and graham crackers at the lodge!” shouted Tammy. “Everyone, run. Ghost stories are over!” Quickly, she tamped down the little campfire with the flat end of a shovel. Claire’s story, the one she had been waiting all week to tell at the Saturday campfire, was ruined.
“You didn’t need to send me all that extra-spooky weather!” she scolded as she came up behind Luna. “My ghost story was going great without your help. And Grandy would be mad at you for casting unsupervised spells.”
“It wasn’t me!” Luna turned, indignant. “You saw how I kept shaking my head no.”
“Oh, yeah? Then who was it?”
“It must have been some strange coincidence,” said Luna.
“Wind and rain and lightning? No way. Weather in threes is not a coincidence. I know a spell when I feel one, and so do you.”
Luna shook her head. “I promise, it wasn’t me,” she said.
Claire was not convinced. “Hook on it?” She crooked her little finger.
“Sure,” said Luna. After they hooked pinkies—because a pinkie hook is like crossing your heart, only twice as strong—Luna said, “Now that you know I didn’t do it, Clairsie, I have tell you my sneaking suspicion. I don’t think that weather was any coincidence.” She linked her elbow through her sister’s and bent her head to whisper. “Methinks there be another witch at Camp Bliss.”
“Snakes and skullcaps! Here?” Claire cried; then, when Luna pinched her arm to pipe her down, she hissed, “How can you be sure?” Claire had never met another young witch—certainly not one in the eight-to-fourteen-year-old range. All the witches she and Luna knew were Grandy’s friends. Old and cackling and opinionated.
“I’ve had my suspicions for a while. Only it wasn’t till yesterday that I believed,” Luna said, a bit mournfully. “See, my bottle of Marigold Zest has gone missing. Grandy gave it to me in case I needed zest. I memorised the spell and hid the bottle. Nobody but a witch could have sniffed it out. I’m so worried. Grandy super-extra warned me not to let it fall into the wrong hands.”
“Are you sure Pam didn’t take it and contribute it to the Pillowcase Fund?” asked Claire.
“I checked the pillowcase. I checked everywhere.” Luna chewed her bottom lip. The theft had been weighing on her.
“We’ll set a trap, then,” Claire said. “We have a right to know who this mystery witch is! Especially if she’s stealing our zest and wrecking our ghost stories.”
“I’ve been doing some detectiving already,” said Luna. “Whoever she is, she’s got it out for Pam. Just watch how much Pam trips over her shoelaces. No matter how hard she ties them together, they keep coming loose. That’s a silly, beginner witch trick.”
“But weather in threes is more advanced,” Claire argued. “The Decree Keepers would be angry if they knew such a young witch was casting unassisted weather spells.”
Luna shook her head. “I don’t think this witch is paying attention to the Decree,” she said. “She’s casting so recklessly, like she doesn’t care who catches her.” She lowered her voice to a whisper again. “Methinks she be a rebel witch.”
“Hard to believe there’s a rebel witch at Camp Bliss,” Claire said. “Everyone here is so normal.”
“Well, we probably seem normal, too, Clairsie,” said Luna. “You’d have to wake up pretty early to catch us acting witchy. We never make mistakes like yawning with one eye open.”
“Or twitching one nostril at a time.”
“Or bending our toes backward.”
“I haven’t even cast one single food-seasoning spell,” said Claire. “And all the meals here could use more oomph.”
They were almost to the lodge.
“Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled,” said Luna. “We need to find this rebel witch before she makes real trouble.”
“I’ll do better than just find her,” said Claire, her hands curling into fists. “I’ll catch her in the act.”
She had to. A rebel witch was an official problem, Claire decided that night, as she lay awake on her top bunk. (Unlike Luna, she enjoyed sleeping up so high. The thinner air made her brain function more clearly, and she liked to touch the ceiling with her toes.) Why, a rebel witch could cast herself into the fastest runner! The scariest storyteller! The strongest tug-of-war puller!
A rebel witch, with no regard for the Decree, could even vote herself Camp Bliss Girl.
But to change Destiny, such as Claire’s Destiny to be Camp Bliss Girl, could plop a witch into a vat of trouble. She could be boycotted. Fined. Her stars revoked.
“By hawthorn and the hay moon, ye shall be found, rebel witch,” Claire muttered as she drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, every single one of the Sleepy Hollow girls looked suspicious to Claire. Suspect Number One was Ella, with her witch-red hair, who butted in lines and shoved at the sink and always used “Takes one to know one!” as her standard comeback.
Or Lakshmi, who talked loud as a
judge and stalked around with her hands clasped behind her back, and who rebelishly said she would never give to the Pillowcase Fund.
Or maybe that girl, Glad, who was so dreamy and poetic. Poets and witches often overlapped.
Or even Min Suh, who laughed all the way until it was time to pitch for the softball team, and then she turned into a tyrant, slamming knuckle- and curveballs like nobody’s business.
Yes, everyone had her witching moments. And those were just the girls in Sleepy Hollow.
It was too much to think about. And soon, Claire forgot to think about it. Especially after the next morning’s nature walk, when she was the first to spot a purple-speckled blue jay, the official bird mascot of Camp Bliss. Later that afternoon, she did twelve chin-ups at the “test-your-fitness” obstacle course, making her the chin-up champ in her age division.
It was, all in all, a great day. By dinnertime, Claire decided that even if there was a rebel witch at Camp Bliss, she wasn’t anyone to lose sleep over. No, this mystery witch was not aiming to sneak off with Claire’s loving cup. She was probably just a wee witch, a Cabin One girl who didn’t know any better.
By the next morning, Claire had pretty much put the whole thing out of her mind when two incidents made her think again.
First, she saw Pam trip.
Ever since Luna mentioned that the rebel witch held a grudge against Pam, Claire had been keeping an eye peeled, waiting to see when Pam might stumble next. While there had been a million great opportunities to trip her up—especially during yesterday’s softball game—Pam stayed standing.
Luna was imagining things, Claire had decided after the softball game.
It wasn’t until the next morning, while she was checking names for roll call, that Pam suddenly and inexplicably tripped and fell. Hard.
“Ow! Dang!” Pam staggered to her feet. “It’s like my knees keep giving out!”
Which was precisely how the spell worked! A tap on each knee and a quick:
Knock, these knees—
Fall to thine!
The spell was in the Baby Book of Shadows; that’s how simple it was.
From the way Pam was rubbing her dusty knees, it also looked pretty painful. Claire glanced around. The Green Gables girls and Cabin Five’s Plum Creek girls were lined up for roll call. Just beyond, a group of junior and senior counselors were lounging in and around the oak-tree hammock.
Witch Twins at Camp Bliss Page 3
