Mother-Daughter Book Camp

  She looks up at this. “Jess?”

  I shake my head. “Another friend. Emma. You’ll like her, too.”

  I was kind of surprised when Emma volunteered to work at the waterfront. I know she likes to swim, but it’s not like she’s ever been on the swim team or anything back in Concord. She figure-skates a bit, just for fun, and she’s been helping Cassidy out with her after-school hockey program, too. The minute we all decided to apply to be counselors, though, she zeroed in on swimming, and spent this spring getting her Lifeguard and Water Safety Instructor certifications.

  “It’s better than having to trudge around in the woods on hikes,” she explained to us.

  “What’s wrong with hikes?” Cassidy had protested.

  Emma made a face. “Nothing, if you like mosquitoes. I just figure if we’re going to be at a camp on a lake, I want to spend as much time as possible in the water. Plus, just imagine the tan I’ll get.”

  Megan and I are pretty sure that Emma is in full reinvention mode, what with college on the horizon and all the awkwardness with my brother Stewart. We haven’t exactly discussed it with her, but we can put two and two together. For one thing, there’s the college she chose. When Stewart first went off to Amherst a couple of years ago, Emma was all hot to go to a school near him in Western Massachusetts. She applied to Mount Holyoke and Smith, and got accepted at both of them. Emma’s pretty smart. But in the end, after the breakup, she did a complete 180 and decided on the University of British Columbia, which is so far away she needs a passport.

  “It’s closer to my grandparents who live in Seattle,” she told us. “I’ll be able to visit them over my breaks,” she told us. “The creative writing program is fantastic,” she told us. Yeah, right. I’m pretty sure the real reason she chose it is because she’s rebounding from Stewart—all the way to Canada.

  I feel like I’m caught in the middle. I love my brother, and I actually like his new girlfriend, Sarah, a lot. But I know how hard this whole thing has been for Emma.

  Anyway, she’ll be working on the waterfront all day except for free period, when she’s going to teach creative writing and oversee the camp newspaper, the Birch Bark. That’s a lot for one person, but then we’ve all got a lot on our plates. Cassidy’s dividing her time between the boat dock and working with Sergeant Marge on hiking trips, and she’ll be piloting The Lady of the Lake during free period for wake tubing. Jess is teaching music, of course—under Felicia’s supervision, poor thing—and heading up the Junior Naturalists during free period. She loves science, so while dragging campers around looking at birds and bugs and stuff would be torture for me, it’s a perfect fit for her.

  Megan and I will be in the Art Studio all day, teaching arts and crafts. For free period, Megan’s doing a mini fashion design workshop, and I’m teaching quilting. Somehow I caught the bug last time I went to Minnesota to visit my grandmother. She’s a mad quilter too.

  Megan and I have had a blast this week, getting everything ready up at the Art Studio. This included a couple of shopping trips—always a favorite activity for both of us—to buy supplies. The only thing we didn’t need to get was fabric, because Megan brought a ton of it with her. She cleaned out her sewing room back at home before we left Concord.

  “I have to do it anyway before I leave for college,” she’d said. “Camp is the perfect place to make good use of my extra stuff.”

  The Art Studio is up on the Hill, way out at the end of a narrow path on the far edge of camp property. Even though there are a couple other counselors working there with us—Michele from Seattle is teaching pottery and jewelry-making, and a girl named Susie from Maine is teaching painting—it still feels like our own private domain. There’s a trio of large studio spaces inside with big windows overlooking the lake, and outside there’s a deck with picnic tables, where our campers can work when the weather is nice. I can’t wait to get started.

  “Would you like to see my cubie?” I ask Amy. “It might give you some ideas for decorating your own.”

  She nods, and I take her by the hand and lead her down the narrow central hall. Her parents are right behind us.

  “University of Minnesota!” exclaims Mr. Osborne, spying the maroon-and-gold pennant that Theo sent me tacked to the wall by the window. “Are you a Gopher?”

  “Almost,” I tell him proudly. “I’ll be a freshman this fall.”

  “My sister is an alum.”

  We beam at each other. Mrs. Osborne examines the fabric that I pleated around my dressing table and sniffs, clearly not impressed.

  “Dinner’s in a little over an hour, but we’re all meeting in Balsam beforehand so we can go together as a cabin,” I tell Amy. “Come on over after you unpack, and I’ll help you make up your bed and introduce you to everybody before you say good-bye to your parents.”

  Amy looks panicked when she hears the word “good-bye.” I give her a reassuring smile, then head outside, the screen door to the cubie house slapping shut behind me.

  Sergeant Marge is patrolling the path with a clipboard. “How many left to check in?”

  “Um, just one, I think,” I tell her. “Amy Osborne arrived a few minutes ago.”

  “Osborne,” she says, scanning the list on her clipboard. She makes a checkmark next to Amy’s name. “A newbie, I see.”

  “I’m a little worried she’s going to be homesick.”

  Sergeant Marge frowns and makes a note of this on her clipboard, too. “Another trembling leaf, eh? Well, it happens. She’ll get over it.”

  Sergeant Marge isn’t exactly the warm and fuzzy type.

  By the time the dinner bell rings, the last of our campers has checked in. Three of them—Grace Friedman, an athletic-looking girl with a tangle of blond hair stuffed under a Yankees baseball cap; Mia Jackson, a sprite with a mischievous smile and short dark curls; and Kate Kwan, the tallest of our campers—were in Nest together last year, and are already a tight little unit. I can tell we’re going to have to keep an eye on that. Amy, meanwhile, is looking paler by the minute, and I suspect that Harper Kennedy, who came up by herself from Boston, is on the verge of a homesickness meltdown too. Who sends an eight-year-old to camp on the bus all alone? I wonder, looking down at the freckled redhead with the white-knuckled grip on her backpack.

  The thing is, I totally sympathize. Six weeks is a long time to be away from home, especially for the first time. I’m not sure I could have done it when I was their age.

  “All right, Balsam!” says Megan, clapping her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Anybody hungry besides me?”

  We lead the girls up the path to the Dining Hall. Tonight is First Night dinner, another Camp Lovejoy tradition, which means spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, and cupcakes for dessert. Inside, things are already rocking and rolling. A rowdy chorus of “Blue Socks” has broken out at one of the tables of teens from the Hill, and Grace, Mia, and Kate join in gustily as we take our seats. Amy and Harper watch them, bewildered.

  Blue socks, they never get dirty

  The longer you wear them, the stiffer they get.

  Sometimes I think of the laundry

  But something inside me says don’t send them yet!

  “I didn’t know any of the songs at first either,” I tell the baffled girls, shouting to be heard above the din. “You’ll be surprised how fast you’ll learn them!”

  After we finish eating, Gwen stands up and gives a brief welcome speech followed by a few announcements. “We’ll be gathering in Lower Lodge shortly after dinner for our First Night ceremony,” she concludes. “Don’t be late, and don’t forget, swim tests are scheduled for first thing tomorrow morning!”

  Hearing this, Amy and Harper’s faces glaze over with panic again. I glance over at Megan and grimace. We’re going to need to add “pep talk” to our to-do list.

  “Anybody who needs to visit the Biffy, come with me,” Megan tells our campers as we’re leaving the Dining Hall a few minutes later. All the girls except Amy go with her.
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  “We’ll meet you at Lower Lodge!” I call after them.

  Amy grips my hand tightly as we head down the path. She was fighting back tears during dinner, and now that we’re alone, they spill over.

  “It’s okay, honey,” I tell her, handing her a tissue. Thank goodness Gwen suggested we keep some extras in our pockets these first few days. “You’re going to be fine, I promise.”

  I lead her to one of the big wooden swinging chairs that dot the waterfront and sit down, patting the seat beside me. Amy obeys, sitting ramrod straight until I put my arm around her. Then she melts against me, dissolving in tears again. The two of us swing for a bit in silence.

  I look out over the water. The lake is calm this evening, the colors of the sunset mirrored brilliantly in its still surface. It doesn’t take long for the view to work its magic. I feel Amy start to relax a little, and I hand her another tissue and encourage her to blow her nose. She does, vigorously, then gives me a tremulous smile.

  “Better?”

  She nods.

  “Let’s go have some fun, then,” I tell her as I spot our cabinmates coming down the path with all the other campers.

  Lower Lodge is an impressive place, with an enormous stone fireplace and a vaulted ceiling hung with rustic chandeliers made out of antlers. Large windows overlook the lake. It’s noisy inside, as campers and counselors alike mill around greeting old friends.

  Sergeant Marge holds up two fingers, and the room starts to quiet down.

  “Cabin circles, please, ladies!” she calls, and we all join hands with our campers, just as we were instructed to earlier today at our morning meeting, then form circles and sit down on the floor.

  The girls in Outback, the cabin for the oldest teens, lead us in a couple more songs, and then Gwen stands for some introductory remarks.

  “ ‘Broadening Horizons for Over a Century,’ ” she says. “That’s our camp motto, as you all know. You girls who have been here before know how true it is, and those of you who are new will soon discover it for yourselves. We accept no limitations at Camp Lovejoy. We expect you to challenge yourselves as well as enjoy yourselves this summer, and return home with a wider view of the world, and of what you can do when you set your mind to it.”

  She talks for a while longer, outlining some of the special activities that are in store, including my own quilting class. Finally, it’s time for the ceremony.

  One by one, each cabin is called up by Sergeant Marge, joining her in front of the fireplace to receive their nameplates and be introduced to the rest of the camp.

  Megan and I slaved over those nameplates. Two days ago, Artie came to the Art Studio and presented us with a wheelbarrow full of what looked like slices of bread. On closer inspection, they turned out to be fragrant pine branches that had been cut into slim rounds of wood.

  We drilled holes in the top of each one, threading leather shoelaces through them to make necklaces. Using a wood-burning tool, we wrote the name of each camper on one side, along with their cabin name, the year, and Camp Lovejoy’s emblem.

  “As Lovejoy girls have done for over a century now, you will each wear your nameplate for the first week,” the head counselor explains. “That will help us all to learn one another’s names. After that, you’ll only wear it to Sunday night council fires. The beads you earn for your activities will be strung on the necklace, too, and at the end of the summer”—Sergeant Marge flips one of the nameplates over and taps its blank side—“you’ll receive a special camp nickname from your counselors.”

  Amy looks over at me and smiles.

  I smile back.

  “Hers should be ‘crybaby,’ ” I hear Grace whisper behind me to one of her friends.

  Amy hears it as well. Her face falls. I cringe inside as I flash back to myself at her age. I was a Grace back then too, quick to find a person’s weak spot and expose it.

  But I’m not that girl anymore. And I haven’t been for a long time.

  As Sergeant Marge calls Twin Pines forward, I turn around. “Grace? May I talk to you?”

  Without waiting for a reply, I grip her firmly by the arm and tow her outside. “I don’t ever want to hear you call Amy that again. Or anybody else. Do you understand?”

  Grace blinks up at me, her face the picture of innocence under her baseball cap. She’s not fooling me one bit, though. It takes a former queen bee to know a queen bee.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” I tell her sternly, sounding scarily like my mother. “I heard you! You’ve been to camp before; Amy hasn’t. You know people already; she doesn’t. If I catch you picking on her, or teasing her, or making fun of her or any other camper again, I will march you over to the Director’s Cottage so fast it will make your head spin! We’ll have a talk with Gwen, and then we’ll call your parents.”

  By now Grace is looking close to tears.

  Worried that I may have overdone it, I relent a little. “Look, you and Mia and Kate have an advantage over the new girls in our cabin. You know the ropes. You have a lot to teach Amy and Harper. I can tell you’re a natural leader, Grace, and I’m counting on you to take on that role in our cabin. Kind of like a counselor’s helper.”

  She perks up a little at this.

  “Think you can do that for me?”

  She nods.

  “Great! I had a feeling I could count on you.”

  As we take our seats in the cabin circle again, Megan leans over to me and whispers, “Did I just witness you officially scaring the socks off one of our campers?”

  I grin. “Just call me Big Bad Becca.”

  Things unravel again by bedtime, though.

  As our campers trail in from one last visit to the Biffy and climb into their beds, accompanied by the mournful notes of “Taps” on Felicia’s sackbut, I hear sniffles. Amy is crying again, and so is Harper. Grace and Mia and Kate are having a hard time stifling their giggles.

  “That’s enough,” I tell them sternly.

  To make matters worse, there’s an explosion of laughter from next door, where Cassidy is showing off for Twin Pines by burping the alphabet.

  Great, I think sourly. They’re the fun cabin already, and we’re the duds, stuck with a cabin full of queen bees and—what did Sergeant Marge call them?—trembling leaves.

  The truth is, I’m starting to feel like a trembling leaf myself. Getting things ready up at the Art Studio this week, it was easy to imagine myself surrounded by happy little girls, teaching them to make things out of Popsicle sticks and glitter. But now, sitting here on my bed, listening to the chorus of sniffles, I’m struck with self-doubt.

  Being a counselor is a lot harder than being a waitress. At least when you work in a café, the customers leave at the end of the meal. Here, I’m on duty pretty much 24/7, completely responsible for five little girls.

  Including Amy Osborne, whose sniffles are threatening to escalate into full-blown wails. I slip out of bed and pad over to her as Megan goes to tend to Harper.

  “Hey, Amy,” I whisper.

  “Hey,” she manages to gulp in reply.

  “You okay?”

  She shakes her head. “I want to go home.”

  “But just think of all the fun you’d miss out on if you do!” I hand her Goldy, the stuffed gopher that Theo sent me. “I brought a friend to keep you company. He’s the mascot for the college I’m going to this fall.”

  She gulps and takes the stuffed animal in one hand, wiping her nose with the back of the other. I kneel down beside her bunk. “Goldy was homesick when we first got here too,” I tell her. “But then he made friends with a chipmunk—”

  This earns me a sniffly giggle.

  “—and he learned how to water-ski—”

  Another giggle.

  “—and now he’s having a blast. And so will you, I promise.” I hand her a tissue and smooth her hair back from her forehead, the way my mother used to do when I was little. “You two go to sleep now, okay?”

 
“Okay,” she whispers, clutching Goldy tightly to her and obediently closing her eyes.

  Megan is waiting at the foot of my bed when I return.

  “Uh-oh,” I say, spotting the tin she’s holding. I recognize it from a zillion mother-daughter book club meetings. It’s the one her mother brings whenever she’s in charge of snacks. Which is practically never. Mrs. Wong is the mayor of Concord and an extremely capable woman, but she’s a terrible cook. Plus, she has this phobia about sugar. She’s seriously trying to get a referendum on the ballot for the next election banning soft drinks from our town’s schools. She’s convinced that sugar is the root of all evil, and she’s always sneaking “healthy” ingredients like tofu and kale into perfectly normal recipes for things like chocolate chip cookies and cheesecake. We try to discourage her from volunteering for snack duty at our book club meetings.

  Megan grins. “Don’t worry,” she whispers. “It’s from Gigi and Sophie. French chocolates. They told me to save it for an emergency.”

  “I think this qualifies,” I whisper back.

  “Definitely.” She pries open the tin quietly and hands me a piece of candy. “We’d better find a cure for homesickness, or this is going to be a long summer.”

  Jess

  “Do you know, I am sorry for Elizabeth Ann, and, what’s more, I have been ever since this story began.”

  —Understood Betsy

  “Everybody got a buddy?” I glance back to check. A double file of campers are lined up along the Point behind me, each younger girl clutching an older girl’s hand. “Okay, then—Hairbrush Island, here we come!”

  Shouldering my backpack, I step gingerly from the shore into the water and head for the sandbar a few yards out. I try to avoid the sharp rocks and pebbles in the shallows, but it’s nearly impossible, and more than once I flinch, sucking in my breath when I step on one. Finally, I reach the sandbar, and my bare toes unclench as the rocks give way to soft sand.

  Relaxing, I look around. It’s another gorgeous afternoon. After the torrential rains earlier in June, which reached a peak during the downpour on the day we arrived, we’ve had nothing but blue skies and sunshine. Which is a good thing, considering the epidemic of homesickness sweeping through Lower Camp. Gloomy weather would not have been helpful.