Ann Martin - Mary Anne And Camp

"Don't you like this camp?" asked Becca.

"Well, sure. I guess. I mean…" Hannie's voice trailed off. She looked confused.

"Why don't you like this camp?" persisted Becca. "Just because you're not at circus camp doesn't mean you can't have fun at this camp. It's just a different camp, that's all."

Hannie said, "Maybe." She quickly bent over her paws again.

Claudia said, "Thank you, Becca, Carolyn."

"For what?" asked Becca. Carolyn looked puzzled.

"For being cool kids," said Claudia. "In fact, you are all cool kids. And we are going to have a one hundred percent cool circus. Okay?"

Nancy and Hannie looked up and exchanged glances. Then Nancy smiled. "Okay," she said.

"How are you doing, Alicia?" I asked softly, resting my hand on her shoulder.

. "Okay." Alicia barely even looked up from the special "camel decorations" she was gluing together. As it turned out, Alicia already had a camel costume from Halloween. But she was making new and beautiful circus accessories for her camel to wear in the wild animal act. Andrew and Claire were going to be lions and Jamie was going to be a tiger, but Alicia had insisted on being a camel.

Feeling oddly rejected, I wandered back toward Karen.

Immediately she gasped dramatically and flung her body across the prop on which she was working. "You can't see it yet! Go away!" she said.

"Fine," I snapped. It was a good thing Camp BSC was almost over for the week. Because I was clearly a candidate for the crankiest camper award.

After Camp BSC was finished for the day, Dawn said, "Let's hang out on the steps for awhile."

I shook my head. "I'm kind of tired."

I went to my room (trying to ignore the chaos I passed) and closed my door and lay on my bed. I stayed there until Sharon came home and it was time for dinner.

"Only one more day to go in the work week," she sang as I walked into the kitchen. "Let's do something extravagant."

"Clean the kitchen?" I muttered.

Dawn heard me and gave me a puzzled look, but Sharon didn't. "We'll order take-out and since we're using the good china and the good silver, we'll light candles and get out the fancy tablecloth and everything."

"Great idea," said Dawn. "Can we have pizza again?"

"Pizza it is — unless… Mary Anne, what' would you like?"

Q/l

"Go on and order pizza," I said. "Whatever."

I took some hamburger out of the freezer (my father called it the Spier emergency hamburger stash). I thawed it in the microwave. I made a salad.

The pizza arrived and Sharon dashed to the door and dashed back again, holding it aloft.

"Mmm," said Dawn. "This is great. Pizza twice in one week. A person can never have too much pizza."

"Maybe," I said.

Dawn looked at my hamburger and said, "Maybe so." She grinned. "I'll snag the ketchup and mustard out of the fridge and put it on the table for you."

When I carried my hamburger and salad into the dining room, the candles were lit and the tablecloth was spread and the good china and silver were set out. It looked very elegant — except for the large pizza with olives, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, eggplant, and garlic in the middle of the table.

Sharon and Dawn cut huge slices and then Sharon raised her slice up. "Here's to the bachelor girls," she said. "And to the magical question no bachelor girl should ever forget."

Then she and Dawn said in unison, "Do you deliver?"

They cracked up. I raised a forkful of salad in a sort of toast, too, so I wouldn't seem like a spoilsport.

But my heart wasn't in it.

Not that anyone noticed. Or cared.

Chapter 9.

The Camp BSC cookout for all campers ages seven and up was a success from the moment it was mentioned. Whether the kids were SMSers or SESers, "real" circus camp graduates or beginners, they all stayed on after five-thirty for the cookout. A temporary camper had also joined the group: Jackie Rodowsky (the walking disaster). His parents had called the BSC to see if they could take on a babysitting job that night (the Rodowskys had been away on vacation). Of course the BSC had said yes. Jackie's good for a disaster or two on almost any occasion, but he's a super kid.

So with Jackie's help, the campers pitched in.- They enthusiastically dug a.shallow space in the ground and cleared away the grass and anything that might catch fire around it. They helped look for twigs and small branches so the fire would start. They helped haul logs to put on top of the fire so it would burn longer.

They helped carry the cookout food to the table Dawn and I had pulled up near to where the campfire was going to be (Jackie dropped the napkins in the dirt but no one seemed to mind).

And they cheered when Sharon arrived home, because that meant that now the camp-fire could be lit and the cookout could begin.

The menu was pretty simple: hot dogs (tur-

key dogs, actually, because Dawn wouldn't eat beef or pork hot dogs and the kids wouldn't notice the difference anyway), baked beans, coleslaw, and for dessert, s'mores.

"Do you tell good ghost stories?" Ricky asked Logan. Logan was sticking hot dogs onto skewers and showing the campers how to hold them over the fire.

"I do," said Logan. Then he wondered if the stories he was thinking of telling were maybe too scary. "Sort of," he added.

Ricky looked disappointed. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Wellll, not exactly," said Logan, not wanting to disappoint Ricky any further. "What about you?"

Ricky's eyes grew very big. "Yes!" he exclaimed.

"Ghosts are everywhere," said Karen, taking a hot dog. She looked over her shoulder. "There are even ghosts who eat hot dogs!"

"Not here there aren't," said Logan firmly. He'd encountered Karen's world-class imagination before.

"But we are going to tell ghost stories, aren't we? You always tell ghost stories at camp," Jackie insisted. Jackie was slowly turning his hot dog into a blackened, bubbly mess that, to Logan's eyes, looked like something out of a ghost story. Or a horror film. Deciding that

it might not be a Jackie disaster in the making, Logan said, "Um, yeah, sure, Jackie."

"Of course we are," said Kristy. "We're a real camp. Real camps always have cookouts and they always have ghost stories at the cookout."

If Kristy was expecting a challenge from Karen or one of the other "real circus camp kids," she didn't get it. Everyone was busy concentrating on their hot dogs and not spilling too much coleslaw and baked beans around on the ground. Jackie ate his blackened hot dog and smacked his lips. "Mmmmm," he said. He gestured and baked beans flew off his plate.

"Too bad we couldn't bring Pow," said Nicky, looking at the coleslaw he'd just dumped off his own plate accidentally. "He's a great vacuum cleaner when you spill something."

"Noodle, too," said Hannie.

Charlotte shook her head. "Carrot won't eat anything until you tell him to."

"Shannon will steal food right off your plate when you aren't looking," David Michael told everyone proudly.

Kristy rolled her eyes.

Shannon (the person, not the dog) said, "Yes, Bernese mountain dogs are very smart.

That's why it's important to train them carefully."

Kristy rolled her eyes again, but she was grinning.