Code Name Cassandra Read Online Free PDF Page A

grass,
up to her a—
—nkle tops.
She saw a bird,
stepped on a tur—
—key feather.
She broke her heart,
and let a far—
—mer carry her home
.
    “See?” I said as we walked. We had the longest walk of anyone to the dining hall, so by the time we’d reached it, the boys had the song entirely memorized. “No dirty words.”
    “Almost dirty,” Doo Sun said with relish.
    “That’s the stupidest song I ever heard,” Shane muttered. But I noticed he was singing it louder than anyone as we entered the dining hall. None of the other cabins, we soon learned, had official songs. The residents of Birch Tree Cottage sang theirs with undisguised gusto as they picked up their trays and got into the concession line.
    I spied Ruth sitting with the girls from her cabin. She waved to me. I sauntered over.
    “What is going on?” Ruth wanted to know. “What are you doing with all those boys?”
    I explained the situation. When she had heard all, Ruth’s mouth fell open and she went, her blue eyes flashing behind her glasses, “That is so unfair!”
    “It’ll be all right,” I said.
    “What will?” Shelley, a violinist and one of the other counselors, came by with a tray loaded down with chili fries and Jell-O.
    Ruth told her what had happened. Shelley looked outraged.
    “That is
bull
,” she said. “A boys’ cabin? How are you going to take a shower?”
    Seeing everyone else so mad on my behalf, I started feeling less bad about the whole thing. I shrugged and said, “It won’t be so bad. I’ll manage.”
    “I know what you can do,” Shelley said. “Just shower at the pool, in the girls’ locker room.”
    “Or one of the guys from the cabins near yours can keep your campers occupied,” Ruth said. “I mean, it wouldn’t kill Scott or Dave to take on some extra kids for half an hour, here and there.”
    “What won’t kill us?” Scott, an oboe player with thick glasses who’d nevertheless been judged Do-able thanks to his height (a little over six feet) and thighs (muscular) came over, followed closely by his shadow, a stocky Asian trumpet player named Dave … also rated Do-able, courtesy of a set of surprisingly washboard abs.
    “They reassigned Jess to a boys’ cabin,” Shelley informed them.
    “No kidding?” Scott looked interested. “Which one?”
    “Birch,” I said carefully.
    Scott and Dave exchanged enthusiastic glances.
    “Hey,” Scott cried. “That’s right near us! We’re neighbors!”
    “That was you?” Dave grinned down at me. “Who waved at me?”
    “Yeah,” I said. But you waved first.
    I didn’t say that part out loud, though. I wondered if either Dave or Scott had a convertible. I doubted it.
    Not that I cared. I was taken, anyway. Well, in my opinion, at least.
    “Don’t worry, Jessica,” Dave said, with a wink. “We’ll look after you.”
    Just what I needed. To be looked after by Scott and Dave. Whoopee.
    Ruth speared a piece of lettuce. She was eating a salad, as usual. Ruth would starve herself all summer in order to look good in a bikini she would never quite work up the courage to wear. If Scott or Dave or, well, anybody, for that matter, did ask her to go with him to the dunes, she would go dressed in a T-shirt and shorts that she would not remove, even in the event of heat stroke.
    Ruth eyed me over a forkful of romaine. “What was with that dirty song you had those guys singing when you all came in?”
    “It wasn’t dirty,” I said.
    “It sounded dirty.” Scott, who’d taken a seat on Ruth’s other side, instead of sitting with his cabin, like he was supposed to, was eating spaghetti and meatballs. He was doing it wrong, too, cutting the pasta up into little bite-sized portions, instead of twirling it on his fork. My dad would have had an embolism.
    Scott, I decided, must like Ruth. I knew Ruth liked Todd, the hot-looking violinist, but Scott wasn’t such a bad guy. I hoped she’d give him a chance. Oboe players are generally better humored than