Mother-Daughter Book Camp

  “That doesn’t mean they can’t tackle challenging material,” she replies primly. “Camp Lovejoy is supposed to be about broadening horizons, remember? Marge always says we should be willing to push campers out of their comfort zones.”

  I’d like to push you out of your comfort zone—right into the lake, I think sourly. I swear, if I hear our head counselor’s name pass Felicia’s lips one more time, I’m going to barf. Felicia totally worships Marge.

  “We’re talking single-digit birthdays, Felicia!” I remind her. “It’s summer camp. We’re supposed to be having fun, not torturing the poor girls.”

  I know exactly why she’s doing this. She made this huge deal about not wanting to be in the book club, but I spotted her furtively reading Understood Betsy after “Taps” a few nights ago. I’ve been reading it aloud to our campers during rest hour, and the story must have gotten its hooks into her.

  Which is what good stories do.

  Anyway, now that she’s read it, of course she quickly figured out the book’s central theme, and she wants to show off. Felicia may be smart, but she’s also kind of predictable. She can’t resist flaunting her intellectual prowess. I caught her bragging to Tara Lindgren the other day about her IQ. Tara! Like a seven-year-old who still sucks her thumb cares! I nearly died laughing when I heard Tara reply in all seriousness, “I think my mom had an IQ once, and it really hurt when they stuck it in her arm.”

  I don’t care if Felicia is a genius and belongs to that stupid Mensa society thing, she’s clueless when it comes to people.

  “Look, if you want to be in the book club, Felicia, you can be in the book club. But we’re not going to make the girls analyze anything,” I tell her firmly. “All we’re going to do is talk a little about the story, do a project that’s related to this chapter, and have snacks.”

  Felicia rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she snaps, and walks away.

  I shrug, then continue on to the cubie house. Felicia likes to act as if I’m a hopeless dunce, but I know she’s impressed by the colleges I got accepted to. She’s intrigued that I chose someplace exotic like the University of British Columbia, too. I don’t let on that I’m scared out of my wits, of course. For Felicia, I put on a brave face and pretend that it’s all incredibly exciting.

  Lunch is mac and cheese, one of my favorites, which helps cheer me up. And there’s a surprise afterward.

  “Emma!” shrieks Meri, her dark ponytail bobbing as she runs toward me. Behind her, Felicia is coming out of the Dining Hall with our mail. “You got a letter!”

  My heart nearly stops. Could it be from Stewart?

  “About time the drought ended,” says Jess, but I barely hear her. Stewart’s written to tell me that he’s coming up to see me this weekend. No, wait, he sent me a funny apology card. No, wait, he’s written to tell me that his new girlfriend broke up with him!

  Felicia hands me the envelope.

  It’s not from Stewart.

  It’s from Rupert Loomis.

  Jess spots the return address—she’d have to be blind not to see the words “Loomis Hall” in fancy engraved lettering, along with the incriminating British stamp—and cries “Moo!” in delight.

  That’s what my brother and I used to call Rupert, back when we lived in England. It’s because of his deep voice and the way he says his name—Rooopert Looomis—with the vowels all drawn out like he’s lowing. The minute my friends caught wind of it, they started calling him that too.

  Jess waves wildly at Cassidy and Becca and Megan. “You guys!” she shouts. “Rupert wrote to Emma!”

  My friends quickly come running. Rupert is prime entertainment. Cassidy tries to snatch the envelope away, but for once I’m too quick for her.

  “C’mon, Emma, you have to read it aloud,” she begs. “Do his voice!”

  We’re gathering a crowd. As our campers cluster around me, Tara pulls her thumb out of her mouth. “Who’s Rupert?”

  “Moo,” Jess says again, and my friends all collapse in giggles.

  “Shut up!” Seeing Tara’s crestfallen expression, I hasten to add, “Not you, honey. Rupert is a friend of mine from England. He’s kind of, um—”

  “A nincompoop,” says Megan.

  “Megan thaid poop! Megan thaid poop!” singsongs Pippa.

  “ ‘Nincompoop’ is a perfectly acceptable form of vernacular speech,” Felicia informs her. “It’s of British origin, and was first used in the late seventeenth century. It means a foolish or stupid person.”

  We stare at her. Felicia has a way of sucking all the oxygen out of a room, even when she’s outside.

  “He’s not a nincompoop!” I retort. “Well, okay, maybe a tiny bit, but he means well. He’s just a little, uh, kind of like—” I hesitate. How to describe the indescribable? Last time I saw Rupert Loomis, which was at Gigi’s wedding, he had improved a bit. It obviously helped that his great-aunt sent him off to boarding school, where he could be around people his own age, but he could still easily be mistaken for an ancient butler. “He’s kind of like—”

  “Eeyore?” Cassidy suggests helpfully.

  That does it. I start to laugh too. Eeyore is my brother Darcy’s other nickname for Rupert, and it totally fits him. Adopting my best mournful donkey voice, I begin to read:

  Dear Emma,

  I hope you’re enjoying your summer holidays. I’ve been accompanying Great-Aunt Olivia on a grand tour of Europe, which she felt would be educational. We are currently in St. Petersburg on a river cruise. I am the youngest person aboard.

  “Poor Rupert!” says Jess. “Stuck on a boat with a bunch of senior citizens! He must be bored silly.”

  Contrary to what you might think, I’m not bored silly. Many of the other guests are acquaintances of my great-aunt’s. She felt it would be advantageous for me to meet them, in hopes that their connections might prove valuable in the years ahead. Today at lunch I chatted with a former member of Parliament, a current member of the International Monetary Fund, the head of a media conglomerate, and a renowned barrister. They were all most informative and encouraging.

  Shaking my head, I try to picture Rupert breezily “chatting” with anyone. It boggles the mind.

  In fact, the barrister told me that after I finish my first year at Cambridge, he’d see about arranging an internship for me at his chambers in London. I would like that very much.

  “Rupert! On the loose in London! Perish the thought!” says Jess with glee, her eyes alight.

  “What’s a barrister?” asks Amy Osborne.

  “That’s what they call lawyers in England,” I explain. “Rupert wants to be a lawyer.”

  Your parents stopped at Loomis Hall for tea shortly before Great-Aunt Olivia and I left on our voyage. They told us of your plans to study at the University of British Columbia. Isn’t that a long way from Concord? Canada was a Dominion of the British Empire for many years, so perhaps you chose it because you are missing your days in England, and some of the friends you made there?

  With warmest regards,

  Rupert

  I sigh. Rupert still writes like he stepped out of the pages of a Jane Austen novel. And it would seem he still nurtures a tendril of affection for me, as Jane herself might put it. Perish the thought, indeed.

  P.S. I’m enclosing a picture taken on the deck of the Danube Princess. I’m not the one in the balloon pants. That’s a Russian dancer.

  I glance at the picture. It takes me a moment to spot Rupert. Last time I saw him was two years ago. He looks—different. He’s filled out, for one thing, and for another, he’s standing up straight, instead of the way he always used to stand, slumped over like a stalk of wilted celery. He’s grown into himself, I realize in astonishment. My mother always said that he would.

  Becca snatches the photo away from me. “Where’s Rupert?” she asks, looking puzzled. “And who’s that cute guy next to the man in the balloon pants?”

  “Um, I think that’s Rupert,” I tell her.

  She frowns. “H
e must have changed his hair. His ears don’t look nearly as big as they used to.”

  “Okay, everybody—show’s over,” I announce, tucking the photograph into the letter and stuffing both back in the envelope. “Time for rest hour.”

  Felicia heads off toward Nest with our campers. Everyone else scatters too, leaving Jess and me standing alone in the grove. We start up the path toward the Art Studio, where we have permission to spend our rest hour working on beads for Sunday night’s Council Fire.

  Beads are a big deal at Camp Lovejoy. Campers earn them in many different ways—passing swim tests, getting up on water skis for the first time, climbing a mountain peak, winning a tennis tournament, that sort of thing. Other stuff counts too, like having a perfect score chart for keeping your cubie tidy, or being caught doing something especially kind or helpful.

  All of us counselors decorate wooden beads with something that symbolizes each achievement, and the beads are awarded at the weekly Council Fire. Campers string them on the leather thong that holds their nameplates, creating a necklace to take home at the end of the summer.

  “It’s a tangible reminder of camp, and all that they accomplished,” Gwen says.

  I think it’s a cool tradition. I would have loved it when I was my campers’ age.

  In the Art Studio, I grab a box of blue beads—blue for watersports—and head for one of the tables on the deck. It’s too nice to work inside. Jess grabs a box of white ones (the arts) and green ones (Junior Naturalists) and joins me.

  “How many do you have to do?” she asks me.

  “Seventeen. You?”

  “Fifteen.”

  We work in silence for a while, accompanied by the distant drone of a motorboat. I carefully paint each camper’s name on a bead, then add her accomplishment on the other side: Big Float for the girls who proved they could swim out to the raft; Cherry Island for those who made the early-morning swim out to the island and back for the first time; and of course Sharks and Dolphins and that sort of thing for those who advanced to a new swim level.

  I finish with five minutes to spare. “I’m gonna head over to the kitchen before third period,” I tell Jess. “I have to arrange the snacks and other stuff for tonight.”

  She nods, too absorbed in her task to look up. I set my tray of beads on a high shelf to dry, then jog back down the path toward the Dining Hall, where I knock on the back door to the kitchen.

  A round-faced woman with rosy cheeks and a cap of silver hair pops out like a figure in a cuckoo clock. I take a step back, startled.

  “Ethel?”

  “I’m Thelma,” she says. “How can I help you?”

  “Um, three of our cabins are meeting in Hilltop Lodge tonight—it’s this book club thing we started—”

  “Gwen told me! She says you’re reading Understood Betsy?”

  I nod.

  “That was a favorite of Ethel’s and mine when we were growing up. So glad to know that girls these days are still reading it.”

  I explain what we need for our meeting tonight, and she nods in response.

  “I’ll have it ready for you after dinner,” she promises. “Stop by when you’re ready.”

  The sun comes out during third period, and I’m finally able to shed my hoodie. I take a short break in the few minutes before fourth period, diving into the water and swimming a couple of quick laps to cool off. Climbing back up on the dock, I notice how brown my forearms are. I’ve never spent as much time outside during the summer as I have here at camp, and no matter how much sunscreen I use, I’m still getting a real tan for the first time in my life.

  Does Stewart like tans? I frown, trying to remember if this is something we ever talked about.

  During fourth period, I find myself playing the bargaining game I used to play when I was a kid. If I spot one of the eagles from Cherry Island in the next five minutes, Stewart will come tomorrow. If Grace doesn’t fall while she’s water-skiing, Stewart will come tomorrow.

  I know it’s stupid, but I can’t help it. I have Stewart on the brain.

  Free period finally arrives, which is my favorite part of the day. Besides rest hour, that is, when I get to lie in my bunk and read. I never thought that having an hour to myself would feel like such a luxury, but then, I’ve never been a camp counselor before. After this summer, I’ll never take being able to read whenever I want to for granted again.

  “So, what have you got for me, girls?” I ask, entering the Director’s Cottage. Gwen lets me use her living room for my writing workshops, and for putting together the Birch Bark.

  The camp newspaper is a low-tech operation. Published a handful of times each summer, it’s more of a newsletter, really—just a few pages stapled together and distributed here at camp and mailed home to the campers’ families. Each issue carries brief reports about what’s going on in the cabins, along with a summary of our weekly activities, announcements about outstanding achievements, poems and stories written by campers, funny anecdotes, jokes, cartoons, other camp news and information, and even a few ads for local shops and restaurants.

  I am proud of a wildly successful new feature that I started called “Overheard.” It’s a column devoted to funny things that counselors overhear their campers say. I have to edit it carefully, and I keep everything anonymous, because I don’t want any of the girls to think we’re poking fun at them. We’re not—just at the hilarious stuff they come up with. Like mixing up “IQ” and “IV.” Or my favorite one this week, when Becca passed by the Director’s Cottage, and overheard Harper, who had been given permission to call home, telling her mother that we’d had cat food for dinner. Becca had to grab the phone away for a minute and assure Mrs. Kennedy that it wasn’t cat food but tuna noodle casserole her daughter was talking about.

  “Okay, girls, let’s get busy,” I tell them, opening up the laptop Gwen allows us to use. “We have a lot to squeeze into this week’s issue.”

  That’s an understatement. It’s the special Parents’ Weekend edition, complete with a schedule of events here at camp, a list of local restaurants, and things worth seeing in the area, such as the covered bridge in Pumpkin Falls and the church’s famous steeple, with its bell made by Paul Revere. I know my father will want to see that—he’s a big history buff.

  “So are you ready to hand it over yet?” I tease Nica, who’s been working on a poem. She reminds me of Jess at that age—incredibly shy. Nica spends a lot of time in her twin sister Freddie’s shadow, and she lets Freddie do most of her talking for her. We’re all trying to help build up her confidence. “C’mon, Nica, I won’t bite.”

  She reluctantly hands over a piece of paper. I take it from her and read the first verse:

  The loon sings a tune

  By the light of the moon

  A sad and lonely loon-y tune.

  “Hey, this is really fun! Great job!”

  This earns me a fleeting smile.

  “We’re going to put this smack-dab on the front page,” I tell her. “Right where your parents can read it and be proud of you.”

  I do just that, and then we start figuring out where everything else is going to go. There’s a lot to cram in, including a lengthy account of a trip the girls on the Hill took to the summit of Mount Washington. After we’re done, I proofread it carefully, then e-mail the mocked-up newsletter to Gwen. She’ll make sure it gets printed out for distribution when the parents arrive.

  Friday night is pizza night, and we’re shooed out onto the Dining Hall’s big deck to eat it. The CITs want to get started on decorations.

  “I can’t wait to be a CIT,” Meri tells me, watching with envy as one of the older girls passes by with a huge roll of crepe paper. “They get to do all the cool stuff.”

  “You get to do cool stuff too,” I remind her. “Stuff like—”

  “Book club!” Pippa finishes, and we all nod.

  “Exactly. Speaking of which, we’d better get going.”

  Even the wet blanket that is Felicia, who has
deigned to grace us with her presence, can’t dampen our cabin’s enthusiasm. Our trio of campers has been eagerly anticipating their turn to host the meeting, and a few minutes later, they’re scurrying around Hilltop Lodge, setting out candles in jars on the shelves and tables, and pulling the chairs and floor cushions into the middle of the room in a cozy circle.

  “Will there be snacks?” asks Tara, sounding worried.

  “Of course,” I tell her. “Book club wouldn’t be book club without snacks.”

  “They’re coming!” squeals Pippa, who’s been keeping lookout by the window.

  I glance outside and spot a line of flashlights heading toward us. A moment later, the door flies open.

  “What’s going on in here?” Cassidy growls, in her best Sergeant Marge impression. She chases my campers around the room, and they shriek in delight.

  “Let’s get this meeting started!” I holler, clapping my hands and herding everyone to the chairs and cushions. I wait for a moment until they’re settled. “Who can briefly tell us what happened in these first few chapters?”

  Brooklyn Alvarez raises her hand. “So this kid from the city goes to live on a farm in Vermont, right? And she’s super homesick and scared of everything.”

  “Everything meaning what?”

  “Her relatives, their dog, school—everything.”

  “Who else can tell me something that happens?”

  Harper’s hand shoots up. “They make her do stuff on her own.”

  “Who does?”

  “Her uncle Henry and her aunt Abigail and her cousin Ann.”

  “What kinds of stuff do they make her do?” I look around for another volunteer. “Amy?”

  She blushes. “Um, get dressed, wash dishes, stuff like that.”

  “Betsy’s kind of spoiled,” adds Grace. “She’s not used to doing chores.”

  So far, Felicia hasn’t said a single word. She’s sitting at the far edge of the circle on a beanbag chair, idly fiddling with one of the ends of her bathrobe tie.

  “Does she get to do anything fun?” I continue.

  “Like making butter?” volunteers Freddie, who still has a smear of pizza sauce on her chin.