by P. J. Night
Ali quickly scanned Bunk 9’s benches but saw right away that Sam wasn’t there. She’d probably already eaten, Ali figured, and was back in the kitchen working hard to earn extra brownie points. She thought about sitting down with her bunkmates at their table—but just for a second, then she changed her mind. It was a lot easier to skip breakfast or just eat some cereal standing up than to sit there knowing everyone wished that she weren’t there. Besides, she wasn’t that hungry, and she almost turned to leave. Then she heard a “Yoo-hoo! Sleepyhead!” behind her. She turned and saw Sam waving through the wide window between the camp kitchen and the dining room.
“I’ve been waiting for you!” Sam called to her. “Come here. Hurry up.”
Ali sighed and crossed the mess hall and went through the wide swinging door that divided the two rooms. Sam was standing by the deep stainless steel sink, in which a huge stack of dirty dishes was precariously piled.
“Guess what?” Sam said, smiling brightly.
“Ah, the other Harmon twin. Hello Ali,” greeted Kay, the camp cook. Ali chose to ignore her and turned to Sam.
“Kay and I made blueberry muffins this morning, and you almost missed them. You’re lucky I saved you one. Here.” She wiped her hands on a towel and pulled a muffin carefully wrapped in a napkin down off a shelf.
Ali took it and unwrapped it. The muffin was still warm. “Thanks,” she murmured, already weary of the word she’d probably be telling Sam all day.
“Oh, don’t thank me. Thank Kay!” Sam said. She turned to the short, suntanned woman who was scraping the grill. A faded red bandana held back her graying hair. “These are so good, Kay! Next summer, can you make them every day? Please?” Sam begged.
“For you, I wish, Sam,” Kay told her. “But where am I going to get all those blueberries? They don’t grow on trees, you know,” she joked.
Sam slipped her arm through Ali’s elbow. “Ali and I could pick them for you! Couldn’t we, Ali?” she said.
“Uh . . .” Ali shrugged and took a big bite of muffin, since picking berries in the buggy woods was about the last thing she wanted to do. Then she jumped and looked down, surprised to feel something soft and warm wind around her leg.
It was the cook’s glossy black cat, Magic. “Hey there.” Ali reached down and rubbed her hand along his soft back.
Kay smiled as he arched it appreciatively. “He likes you, Ali,” she said. “I can hear him purring from all the way over here.”
At least someone here likes me, thought Ali, though she couldn’t help but grin. Then Sam bent down and scooped him out from under Ali’s hand.
“Oh, who’s a cutie?” she cooed, rubbing noses with him. “You like me, too, don’t you, Magic? Yes, you do!”
Ali looked down at the half muffin she still had left and tossed it into the big black trash can.
“Hey, can I get you anything else, Ali?” Kay asked her. “Grill’s still hot. How ’bout some eggs?”
“No.” Ali shook her head hard from side to side. “I hate eggs,” she declared.
“Okay, well, if you want anything else, just let me know. You’ll probably be glad to get back to home cooking, won’t you?”
“Yeah.” Ali nodded. “I guess.”
“Well, just two more days!” Kay reminded her warmly.
“Aw, don’t remind me!” Sam pouted, raising her head from Magic’s ears. “I already can’t wait for next summer. I’m going to miss it here so much!”
Ali rolled her eyes. Of course Sam is going to miss camp, she thought. From archery to zip-lining, she’d won certificates in everything. Plus all the counselors adored her, and she’d made a million friends. Ali, on the other hand, had made exactly none. And the really sad thing was that she’d actually tried this time. In the beginning, at least. Kind of.
Who knew? Maybe if she and Sam been in different cabins she might have made her own friends. But with Sam around, it was hopeless. She always felt like some kind of big, flat fifth wheel. Plus sleeping in a bunk in a cabin in the middle of nowhere just wasn’t Ali’s idea of fun at all.
But Kay was right. It was almost over. Just two more days, then she’d be home. And what was the first thing Ali was telling her parents when they came to pick her up? That she was never coming back to Camp Minnehaha ever again! Of course, she knew they’d just find somewhere else to ship her off to next summer. They couldn’t wait to send her away. But whatever, that was fine. Just so it wasn’t back here with Sam and a bunch of girls who didn’t get her and never would. And maybe it would be good to get out from under Sam’s shadow at long last—though Sam’s shadow was huge. Ali always dreamed of their trading places, but that was a dream that never came true. Perhaps if they were apart, at least, she could have her own life and discover who she really was.
“How ’bout you, Ali? You gonna miss it here?” The cook eyed her, and Ali replied with a half-hearted shrug.
Sam squeezed her sister’s arm. “Oh, Ali! Don’t mind her, Kay. My sister’s a girl of few words. Hey, thanks for letting me help. We’d better be off to pottery now. They were supposed to fire our pieces last night, and I can’t wait to see how the glaze on my fruit bowl turned out.”
“See you girls later,” the cook replied, shaking her head as the twins walked off. Boy, those girls couldn’t look more alike—or be more different, she thought.
“So!” Sam said as soon as they got outside. “How did you sleep last night?”
Ali groaned, remembering the nightmare that she’d almost erased from her brain. “Terribly,” she told Sam. “Thanks a lot for reminding me. Why?” She suddenly turned to her sister. “Hey, did you have a crazy dream last night too?”
Sam stopped in her tracks and nodded. “I did!” She smiled.
“Wow . . . weird,” said Ali slowly.
“Weird awesome!” Sam gushed.
“Awesome?” Ali’s nose wrinkled. She didn’t understand. “What do you mean by ‘awesome’? Scary awesome?” she asked.
Sam looked at her a little cockeyed. “No, awesome as in wonderful!” she said. “I mean, yeah, maybe it was a little scary at first, when I was walking through the woods.” Then she chewed her lip and considered it. “No. You know, actually, even that part was pretty great too. Want me to describe it?”
Ali opened her mouth to speak, but Sam kept going.
“I remember it perfectly!” Sam took a deep breath and rubbed her hands. “It was kind of late, almost twilight, and I was hiking down that Old Stump Trail—you know, the one our bunk hiked yesterday—but I was hiking it all alone. The woods were really peaceful and the birds were singing and the sun was shining down through all the trees. It was just like the woods in a princess movie. Seriously! And then I suddenly found this other trail by accident. But it wasn’t an accident either, I guess, because it was like it was put there for me to find. So of course I took it, and I followed it for a while, and then I came to this really beautiful clearing full of flowers, and there was this cute little cabin.”
Ali’s lip had been slowly curling. “Cute?” she managed to get in at last.
Sam nodded. “Adorable! But not half as cute as what I found inside.” She wiggled her eyebrows and grinned.
Ali frowned. “A boy,” she said.
“Yes! How’d you guess?” said Sam. “I went up to the window and peeked in—the cabin was so sweet, I just had to, you know—and there he was, sitting there, this cute boy, and when he saw me looking in, he smiled the cutest, sweetest smile—and his eyes, they were practically silver, and magnetic, I swear.”
“Magnetic.” Ali’s nerves began to tense as she tried to make sense of what she was hearing. So her sister had basically had the same dream as everyone else, but instead of being superscary, hers had been supergreat.
Sam, meanwhile, giggled. “Ali, why are you repeating everything I say?”
Ali clenched her jaw and ignored her. “Okay, so this ‘cute boy.’ Did he chase you? Or anything?” she asked.
Sam shook her head d
reamily. “I wish!” she laughed. “In fact,” she went on, “I’ve been thinking ever since I woke up that I should try to find that trail this afternoon. I mean, what if the dream’s a premonition and he really is there? I could use our free time after swimming.” She noticed Ali’s expression and sighed. “Okay, I know I’m crazy. But honestly, Ali, the dream felt so real! I can’t think about anything else. You know how that is. I feel as if I have to try to find it. What do you think?” She looked at her twin with wide, hopeful eyes. “Well? Anything? Hmm? Say something, please!”
But Ali said nothing. She couldn’t even begin to tell Sam what she was thinking, which was basically No way, not again. Leave it to her sister to have a sweet dream when everyone else in the cabin had a nightmare. So great a dream, in fact, that it was tempting Miss Goody Two-shoes to go off hiking by herself, which they both knew very well meant breaking one of Camp Minnehaha’s top-five do-not-break rules.
Yes, Ali knew all too well what it was like to think about one thing and nothing else. She was actually thinking about one thing right then, in fact: how her twin sister’s life was charmed, and hers was cursed.
Sam wrung her hands. “Oh, I know. You don’t have to say it, Ali. I’m getting carried away. I think if you’d had this same dream, though, you’d kind of understand. Hey, what made you think to ask me about my dream anyway? Did you have a vivid dream last night too?”
Ali stared straight ahead, toward the arts-and-crafts hut coming up on their right. “Nope. Nothing. No dream,” she muttered. “And, for the record, I think believing in dreams is just plain dumb.”
CHAPTER 4
“I’m going to do it.”
Ali groaned as her sister caught up to her on the path back from the lake. They’d just finished swimming, their last “official” activity of the day. The girls were in different groups, however, since Sam could do all the strokes and dive. Ali, on the other hand, had pretty much decided on the first day of camp not to bother even trying.
They now had a few hours of free time before dinner, and the sun was still bright overhead. Clusters of girls trotted past them, wrapped in bright towels and chatting happily away.
“Hi, Sam! Congrats on passing the lifesaving test today!” a bunch of them called.
“Thanks! Thanks a lot!” Sam grinned and waved back to them, while Ali kept her eyes down and trudged on ahead.
“What are you going to do?” she asked Sam finally. “Swim the English Channel now that you’ve passed every other test?”
“Uh, no,” Sam replied patiently. She was used to her sister’s sarcasm. Still, sometimes she wished she’d give it a break. Just like she wished Ali didn’t always try to make her feel bad for simply trying to do her very best.
She draped her damp towel around her shoulders, where it caught the cool lake water dripping from her hair. “I’m going to go look for that trail,” Sam said. “The one I saw in my dream. I just decided we’re only here two more days and we have this free time today, and, well, I might not get another chance to get away—so why not?”
Ali turned to her with raised eyebrows. “And what if Gwen finds out?” she asked.
Sam sighed at the mention of their cabin counselor, who’d told them specifically not to ever go hiking alone. She actually couldn’t believe she was even considering breaking such a basic rule. Her stomach clenched in a tight knot at the thought of Gwen finding out. But at the same time, all the rest of her was urging her to go.
Half smiling and half wincing, Sam knit her fingers together and held them just below her chin. “That’s kind of why I’m telling you, Ali. I was hoping you could cover for me? Please?” she begged.
Ali grinned. This is interesting, she thought.
She slowly raised her own chin so that she was looking down her nose. It wasn’t often Sam asked her for favors, and she couldn’t help enjoying the feeling—a lot. Usually she was asking Sam to cover for her. It seemed Ali was always being grounded, or at least on the verge. In fact, she was currently “on probation” at camp for skipping her animal care chores four or five too many times. (And it would have been a lot more if Sam hadn’t gone ahead and done them in her place.) But really, could Ali help it if the smell of the chicken coop made her sick? It wouldn’t help the chickens much to throw up all over them.
“I mean, I don’t want to get you in trouble,” Sam added quickly. “And if you don’t feel right, I understand. But if she asks you where I am, and you don’t mind too much . . .”
Ali laid her hands on Sam’s damp shoulders. “Of course I’ll do it,” she assured her sister. “After all the times you’ve helped me out. And you know me,”—she grinned—“I’m pretty good at making things up.”
Sam nodded. It was true. Few things came to her sister quite as easily as telling lies. “Thanks, Ali.” She sighed. “Really, you’re the best! And don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll bet Gwen doesn’t even ask about me.”
“Yeah, probably not,” Ali agreed. “It’s not like you’re her favorite camper or anything.” She watched Sam’s eyes dim with worry, and she gave her arm a pat. “I’m just kidding, of course. Don’t sweat it. I bet she’ll be way too busy getting ready for the dance at the boys’ camp tonight.”
“The dance!” cried Sam. “Oh, that’s right. I’ll have to hurry back. Do you know, I’ve been thinking about this dream so much, I almost forgot about it.”
“Really?” Ali frowned and wanted to kick herself right then for even bringing the subject up. How great would it be, she suddenly thought, if Sam didn’t go. The dance was the “big event” of the end of their four weeks and was being held at the boys’ camp. But if it was anything like their school dances, Ali knew exactly how it would be. All the boys would flock around Sam like pigeons around a big bag of birdseed. And whom would they completely ignore? Her. Ali.
“Well, hurry back so you can get ready!” Ali said, smiling the sweetest smile she could. Only she knew that she didn’t mean a single word.
Sam left Ali and hurried back to Bunk 9. She wanted to change out of her swimsuit and head off into the woods before any of her bunkmates returned. She didn’t want to have to explain where she was going, or why she didn’t want to hang out and spend the rest of the day getting ready for the dance. She wasn’t a very good liar for one thing (despite the fact that she won I Doubt It almost every time they played), and she wasn’t sure how they’d take the truth if she told them. Ali, she could tell anything. Sam didn’t have to worry about what she thought. But she had a certain image to maintain around the rest of the world. She could just hear herself saying, I’m going to go chase some cute boy from a crazy dream I had last night. Yeah, right. They’d either think she was insane, or they’d want to go along. And if they went and they didn’t find anything, she’d feel like a total idiot.
Dressed in long jeans (in order to be extra safe traipsing through the woods) and a plain white T-shirt, she soon headed back outside. She quickly cut through the volleyball court and the campfire circle until she reached the head of the Old Stump Trail. The sun shone brightly where she stood, and she paused as she gazed down the mossy path. It curved almost immediately, disappearing into the dark woods. Was she really about to hike down it right now all by herself? It was so unlike her to go and break a rule. Plus there were reasons why campers weren’t allowed to go off in the woods by themselves. Good ones, she knew. But she’d be fine, she told herself. She’d be very, very careful. After all, she was probably the most careful and most accomplished hiker in the whole camp.
She set off, at once enjoying the peace and shade of the gentle trail. After four weeks at camp, she’d come to think of the tall oaks and pines all around her as old, faithful friends. From their graceful braches high above, songbirds called back and forth, and off somewhere in the distance Sam could hear a woodpecker hammering steadily, hard at work. This wasn’t a nature walk though, she knew. She didn’t have all day. She focused on finding a second trail—the one she’d dreamed of—and picked up her
pace.
Before long she came to the spot where the trail was blocked by an old fallen tree. She remembered finding it the day before and how she’d stopped and done the little balance beam routine. It was a bit show-offy, she knew, but she loved gymnastics so much. And everyone seemed to appreciate her perfect walkover and clean round-off. This time, though, she simply hopped over the trunk and continued on her way. She had to be getting close. Yes! There was the trail marker pointing right. In her dream she was almost positive that the other trail started just about there. But as she took a few more steps she began to doubt herself.
Was it just a silly dream after all? she thought. She was beginning to be very glad that she didn’t gush about it to anyone but her sister.
But wait! She hurried forward. There was a trail. Maybe it is real! she told herself.
Sure enough, where the main trail bent right, a much narrower trail went straight. It was overgrown and, if a person wasn’t looking for it, extremely easy to miss. But it was just like in her dream—right down to the tangle of spidery ferns reaching all the way up to her knees. She picked up her feet and carefully stepped through them. She stayed on her toes. Please don’t let there be any snakes! she thought. The needle-like briars were bad enough anyway. They stretched from spindly brambles on either side. They grabbed like hooks on to her hair and her clothes, as well as the bare skin on her arms. She kept one hand in front of her eyes, worried that any minute a rogue thorn might poke one out.
“Ouch!” she cried as a thin branch she’d pushed aside whipped back, straight into her chin. Determined, though, she kept going, ducking and dodging as best she could. She hadn’t remembered this part of the trail being quite so excruciating in her dream the night before.
She tried to peer ahead through the tangle of limbs for a clearing, but it was no use. All she could see were more and more branches—and less and less trail. For a moment she actually froze, afraid that she might have lost her way. But no sooner had she stopped than her feet began to move again. Her mind had no idea where she was going, but her body didn’t seem to care. She felt like a leaf in a river being carried steadily out to sea by the current. She had no intention of turning back, but somehow she knew it would have been hard—impossible even—if she tried.
