Hailey Twitch and the Campground Itch

  And then there is a flash of blue lightning, and Mr. Tuttle is gone!

  Maybelle falls right down into the sand. And she is crying. Very much crying, like I do when I am very, very upset about something that is very, very important.

  “It is okay,” I say. I rub her back so that maybe she will feel better. Then I take part of my towel and dip it into the lake water. I put it on her forehead to try and make her feel calm, calm, calm. That is what my mom always does when I am feeling very sick.

  “Do you feel calm from this towel on your head?” I ask her.

  “No,” she says. “I feel very wet and dripping.”

  “Hmm,” I say. That lake water is getting all in her hair. Usually when my mom does this she uses a nice washcloth. And some very warm water from the sink. But there are no washcloths or sinks on the beach. And then Maybelle goes flying up into the air. She is dripping water everywhere!

  “Please be careful, young lady,” I tell her. “You are dripping water all over my legs.”

  “I do not care,” she says. “I am not allowed to have my magic back. I am a huge disaster with magic!” She sits back down on the sand and covers up her face with her beautiful sparkly wings.

  “Maybelle,” I say. “You are not a huge disaster with magic.” That is called telling a very small lie so that you can make someone feel very better. Because if you want to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Maybelle is a very big disaster with her magic. Even more of a disaster than I am with not having tantrums.

  “Yes, I am!” she says from under that wing.

  “Maybelle,” I say. “It is time to look on the bright side! You have one more chance! And one more chance is all you need!” I am very good at making the most of one more chance. One time I had one more chance to be good so that my dad would not have to take away all my TV time. And I did it.

  “Yes, but Mr. Tuttle says it has to be something good,” she says.

  “Maybelle,” I say. “Do not look so upset. We will figure it out.”

  She looks up at me with her poor crying face. “We will?”

  “Yes!” I say. “I will help you, do not worry. Because that is what friends do.”

  When I get back in that water, Addie Jokobeck is talking to Hayden. They are talking away like they are having a very good time without me. I am feeling myself starting to get very, very jealous. I do not want Addie Jokobeck to be best friends with Hayden. She is best friends with me! Plus, I am in a very worried mood about Maybelle and her magic.

  “What is going on over here?” I ask Addie. “Why are you talking to him?”

  “He is telling me something very important,” Addie says.

  “Also, I am taking your turn at being a shark,” Hayden says. “And I won.”

  I make my eyes go very small, small, small. And that is so Hayden knows that I do not want to be messed with, thank you very much. “That is not very nice,” I say. “To take someone’s turn. That is horrible manners.” I look at him. “What grade are you in, please?”

  “Third,” he says.

  “Well, if you are really in third grade, then you should know that to take someone’s turn is horrible, horrible, bad manners.” I shake my finger at him. Taking turns is something you learn in kindergarten even. I am very good at taking turns if I do say so myself.

  “Well, you were being very slow up on the beach,” he says. “What were you doing up there anyway?”

  “That is none of your business,” I say. Then I stick my nose right up in the air. “Come on, Addie.”

  “But I am not done playing shark,” Addie says, looking very sad.

  “That is just too bad,” I say.

  “Wait!” Hayden says. He is swimming after us. But I am not in the mood. So I just take Addie’s hand and walk right out of the water and onto the beach.

  “I have a good secret to tell you,” Hayden says.

  I stop. My one true weakness is secrets!

  “What kind of secret?” I ask. I drop Addie’s hand and turn around.

  “A secret about a disaster area,” he says. And then he wiggles his eyebrows up, up, up, and down, down, down.

  “I do not need to know any secrets about disaster areas,” I say. “Disaster areas are boring, and I already know about a lot of them.” This is a very true statement. One time I made a disaster area out of our whole kitchen by trying to make French toast in the toaster. And Kaitlyn’s whole room is a very huge disaster area all of the time. So I do not need to know about those. I grab Addie’s hand again and start to pull her away and right up onto the sand.

  “Wait!” Hayden says. “This one is a disaster area of a tree house.”

  “A tree house?” I stop right in my tracks. I love hearing about tree houses! It is my one true dream to have one of my very own. Also, the meanest girl in room four, Natalie Brice, has a tree house with a pink door and a window that sees right up to the sky, and she is very bossy about it.

  “Yes,” he says. “It is in the woods, and if you meet me here tomorrow I will show it to you.”

  And then I remember something. About Kaitlyn and Maya! And last night when we were playing Russian Spies! I’ll bet that is where they were going! That is what they were whispering about that was up in one of those trees! I am about to ask Hayden all about this. But before I can, he is running over to his mom, and they are leaving right away. Geez. What a disaster of a secret teller.

  “Me and Addie are prunes,” I say to my dad as we walk back to camp. I am wiggling my wrinkly fingers at him. There is a lot of stick, stick, sticky sand in between my toes and all over my flip-flops.

  “Yes,” my dad says. He seems like maybe he does not want to talk too much. On account of missing his golf game and everything.

  “Do not worry,” I tell him. “There will be other days to play golf.” That is what my dad always tells me when I want to do something fun like practice gymnastics or hang out with my neighbor Mr. Frisk. But this does not seem to cheer him up.

  “We should put away our shovels and buckets,” Addie Jokobeck says when we get to the camper. “And then change out of our swimsuits.”

  This does not sound very fun or funny. But it is the right thing to do. So we put away the shovels and buckets. And then we change out of our swimsuits. I change into a blue tank top with a big pink heart and pink shorts. Addie Jokobeck changes into a tank top and shorts, too. But hers are black. On account of how all her clothes got black.

  And then my mom and Kaitlyn and Maya Greenbert are back! And Maya Greenbert’s hair is back to being yellow blond!

  “Wow,” I say. “Your hair is not green anymore.”

  Maya gives me a mean look. It is one of those looks I know all about. It is a look that means if parents were not around, she would say some mean things to me. But parents are around. So she does not.

  The rest of the day is not very fun or funny. That is because my mom thinks we should have some quiet time while my dad finally gets to go play golf. Which means we have to read books and take naps. I like to read books. But I have already read all the very good ones that we have. And I do not like naps, not one little bit.

  I try to get Maybelle to do some fun magic, but she does not want to listen. She just wants to lie around and be very sad. On the bright side, we at least get to have a very good campfire that night and make lots of ooey-gooey s’mores that are extremely deli-ciou-so!

  The next morning I am up and at 'em very early.

  “Good morning!” I yell to everyone. Maya Greenbert throws a pillow at me from her bunk bed. That is not very nice. So I throw it right back. That is called getting what you deserve. “It is time to get up and get to the beach!”

  I am very much excited to hear what that boy Hayden has to say about the disaster area of a tree house.

  But my mom makes me go back to sleep. And we do not even get to go to the beach until nine o’clock in the morning! What a very late start to the day.

  “I’m scared,” Addie Jokobeck says whi
le we are walking right over there. She wanted to bring her cup of baby teeth with her to the beach. But I told her it might get lost. Addie keeps all her baby teeth in one cup, and that is what she holds on to when she gets very nervous in her mind.

  “Why are you scared?” I ask. I am looking all around for Maybelle. But she is nowhere to be found. I think she is too sad to go to the beach this morning. On account of Mr. Tuttle maybe taking her magic away.

  “Because,” Addie whispers so my dad will not hear, “I do not want to go into the woods and have to look at a disaster area of a tree house.”

  “Do not worry,” I tell her. “I will protect you.”

  But when we get to the beach, we do not even have to worry. Because that boy Hayden is not there! I am upset at first, like maybe I want to have a tantrum. But then I decide to let it go.

  “That boy was a big fat liar, anyway,” I say. Me and Addie are plopping right down in the sand and making a nice sand castle. The water is very freeze, freeze, freezing on our toes, so we are not going in there, thank you very much. “He did not even know his manners from kindergarten. He might be five even. Not really eight like he said.”

  “Well, he was very nice when we were playing shark,” Addie says. “And he is very good at that game.”

  “Addie Jokobeck, I am your best friend, not that boy!” I yell. I stand up and throw my shovel right down onto the sand. “Now you take that right back this instant!”

  “Of course you are my best friend, Hailey!” Addie says.

  “BOO!” someone says right into my ear. And then icy cold water goes rush, rush, rushing and slide, slide, sliding right around my shoulders and all down my back even.

  I scream and turn around. It is that boy, Hayden. He has thrown a big pail of water on me! And now he is running away. And I am getting up and chasing him! But he is very fast! And we go run, run, running all over the beach. And Addie Jokobeck is behind us, running, too. But we are not as fast as Hayden. Probably because he really is in the third grade like he said.

  We chase him all the way into the woods. And finally, when we catch him, he is looking up at something. The disaster area of the tree house! It is very scary! It is all falling apart, and it is up in a tree with wood hanging all down and a very high ladder with missing steps!

  “Wow,” I say. “That really is a disaster area.”

  “I know,” Hayden says. “And there is even a witch that lives up there.”

  “That is not true!” I say. “There is no witch that lives up there.” But I look around just in case. It does seem very spook, spook, spooky. This looks like a very good place for a witch to live.

  “Yes, there is,” he says. “She is very scary, and she puts spells on people.”

  “What kind of spells?” I ask. It is too bad Maybelle is not around to hear this. She needs some good lessons about putting spells on people.

  “Spells that turn people into monsters and vampires,” Hayden says. “And then they have to live in that tree house with her forever.”

  “Hailey,” Addie says. She takes my hand. “I am very scared, and I think we should get out of here now, please.”

  “Hailey!” my dad yells. I turn around to see him running after us. “What are you doing back here? This is very dangerous. You cannot just go running off like that.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. I squeeze Addie Jokobeck’s hand. “We were just getting out of here.”

  “Promise me,” he says. “That you will never come back here again.”

  “I promise,” I say.

  “I promise,” Addie says.

  “I promise,” Hayden says.

  And this time, I do not even cross my fingers behind my back.

  I did not want to say it, but I am very glad we are getting out of that place. I am very glad we are going back to the beach to play. And guess what? That Hayden is not so mean after all! He is very good at building sand castles! He is very good at making gorgeous windows and doors and towers and all kinds of good things.

  “This sand castle reminds me of my own castle,” Maybelle says. She came popping right up when we starting building it. “Where I used to live. And I will never be fun, and I will never get my magic back, and I will never go back to living there!” And she sounds very upset about it.

  “Yes, you will,” I tell her. “Do not worry.” I am shoveling some sand into a bucket. Scrape, scrape, scrape. I scrape that sand nice and flat over the top.

  “Who are you talking to?” Hayden asks. He is making a very good flag for our sand castle out of a straw that he had in his picnic basket.

  “No one,” I say real quick.

  Maybelle is looking right at our castle. “Your castle would look good with a moat,” she says.

  “What is a moat?” I whisper real soft. I have never heard of this word moat.

  “It is water under a drawbridge!” she says. She is getting very excited about this idea. She is even pulling out her wand. This is making me very nervous in my stomach. But I cannot stop her. Because she is not listening to reason. I know all about not listening to reason. It happens to me lots of times, especially when we are having something for dinner that I do not really want to eat.

  And then she points her wand at that sand castle. And she tries to make it into a moat! But something goes horribly wrong! And the whole sand castle goes wash, wash, washing away right into the lake.

  “Oh, no!” I say.

  “Oh, no!” Addie says.

  “That’s life in the big city,” Hayden says. “I guess we will have to start making another one.”

  But I do not want to start making another one. I want that one! That one that was completely and wonderfully gorgeous and already done! But it is gone. It is washing away all into the water. So I start to get very, very mad. And I start to feel like maybe I am going to have a big tantrum right on this beach.

  I do not know what else to do. I am so very upset about that sand castle. I do not want to make a whole other one starting from scratch. I look at Hayden. I look at Addie. I look up to where my dad is sitting under the big umbrella that makes sure his skin does not get all wrinkly in the sun. I stand up and flip my bucket right over, and all the sand in it goes plopping onto the ground. And then I burst into tears.

  My dad takes us back to the camper. On account of that I started cry, cry, crying. And on account of that he thinks I am overtired because I was up very early. But I am not even tired one little bit! Which I try to tell him. But he does not listen.

  “I am not even tired one little bit,” I say.

  “I am not either,” Addie Jokobeck says.

  We are sitting outside our camper at the picnic table. And we are trying to think of something fun to do.

  “Hey, Addie,” I say. “I know what we could do!”

  “What?” She sits up and pays very close attention.

  “Well, if we wanted to have a very fun, fun, fun time right now, we could run over to the camper next door and knock on their front door!”

  “And then what?” Addie says. “We would try to become friends with them?”

  “No.”

  “We would invite them over for dinner?”

  “No.”

  “We would see if they knew any fun games to play?”

  “No,” I say. “We would run away and hide!” I cross my arms and wait for her to be very impressed with that idea. But she does not look impressed. Not even one little bit. She just looks confused.

  “But why?” she says.

  “Like a fun joke,” I tell her. “We would run away and hide in those bushes over there. And we would see them come out and say, ‘Yoo-hoo, who is knocking on my door, who’s there? Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoooo!’”

  “That does not sound that fun,” Addie Jokobeck says. “That sounds like being naughty.”

  I do a big sigh. Addie Jokobeck is a very good friend. But she does not get that sometimes being fun and being naughty are the very exact same thing.

  Finally it is time for all
of us to eat dinner.

  My dad pulls out his chef apron. And he puts a lot of hamburgers and hot dogs and pieces of steak right on the grill. And there is a lot of smoke, and when they are done we all sit at the picnic table to eat them, and they taste very good, good, good.

  “You should make orange sauce to put on your burger,” I tell Addie Jokobeck. Orange sauce is something very tasty that I came up with. It is ketchup and mustard all mixed together. Red ketchup and yellow mustard makes orange sauce! I love orange sauce! It is one of my most favorite foods. You should be allowed to buy it in the grocery store even.

  “Okay,” Addie Jokobeck says. So we make orange sauce to put on our burgers. And it is very fun and funny and tasty. But Maya and Kaitlyn do not look so happy. On account of the fact that Maya has poison ivy all over her. And lotion. That she keeps getting on Kaitlyn by accident. And Kaitlyn keeps screaming and saying, “Keep that poison ivy away from me, Maya!”

  “Excuse me, Maya,"Isay. “Would you like me to make you some orange sauce to put on your burger?” I decide that maybe I should try to be nice to her. Since she is very sick with poison ivy and everything. That is called knowing your manners and being polite.

  “I am not having a burger,” Maya says. “I am having a hot dog.”

  “Well, that is okay,” I say. “You can have orange sauce on a hot dog! You can have orange sauce on anything. Me and Addie can whip you some right up, can’t we, Addie?”

  “Oh, yes, definitely,” Addie says. She is squirting ketchup all over the place. Addie Jokobeck catches on very fast to things. She is a real pro at making orange sauce already. I think she is even maybe going to be a famous chef when she grows up.

  “I said no thank you,” Maya says.

  “Kaitlyn?” I try. “Would you like some?”