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thought as we went back to camp for quiet time. The way Pamela and Elizabeth were watching Ross, half our girls could have run off before they’d notice.

3
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Around the Campfire
    We spent the “quiet hour” not very quiet at all, settling some disputes about whose stuff was taking more shelf space and whose sneakers were smelling up the place.
    Gwen and I began to see a pattern: Ruby and Kim were the clingiest. When either of us sat down on the edge of our bunk, one or both of those girls were right beside us, leaning against us, stroking our arms, toying with our hair. Estelle was a troublemaker; Latisha, the oldest, the aloof one. Josephine was used to playing the “baby” role, with Mary, her sister, her appointed nursemaid and caretaker.
    Did I know what I was in for? I wondered as I got up to get some Kleenex from my bag, and instantly Ruby and Kim rose up on either side like appendages and moved with me across the floor.
    I could have been swimming at MarkStedmeister’s pool. I could have been going to the movies with Lester or ordering Chinese to eat at home with Dad. But I told myself it was only three weeks out of my life, and it would give Dad and Sylvia a chance to be alone. Besides, Lester would appreciate me all the more when I got back. Maybe.
    “I’m tired already,” Gwen confided when the Coyotes settled down at last to trade stick-on tattoos, which most had brought along. Gwen and I simply stretched out on our bunks to rest up for whatever lay ahead. We were too tired to even sit up.
    Dinner that night was chicken and noodles and a tossed salad. Josephine wouldn’t eat it.
    “She only eats fried chicken,” Mary explained.
    “Well, that’s too bad, Josephine, because this is all we’ve got,” I told her. “If you don’t like the chicken, eat the noodles.”
    “They look like worms,” said Josephine, which was about the first intelligible thing she’d said since she’d got here, and I wanted to throttle her.
    “Eeuw!” said Estelle and Ruby.
    “Worms!” said Latisha.
    “And they’re absolutely delicious. Eat!” Gwen commanded.
    Everyone ate but Josephine.
    The afternoon had been exhausting. After quiet time we’d had a relay race, followed by a volleyball game, followed by a swim, but most of the kids claimed the water was too cold. So the dining hall smelled not only of chicken and noodles and disinfectant, but of hot sweaty bodies and stringy hair.
    “Okay, campers, listen up!” said Connie when the cherry Jell-O dessert had been served. “At Camp Overlook we take our showers before we go to bed, not when we get up in the morning. The sheets are changed only once a week, and we want to be kind to our bunk mates and not stink up the cabins.”
    All the kids laughed and pointed at each other.
    “So here’s the plan,” Connie continued. “After dinner you are to shower, then put on your pj’s. Did everyone bring pajamas as the instructions told you to do? And then I want you—softly, silently, like deer in the moonlight—to follow your counselors to the campfire.” Her voice got very low. “I want you to come so quietly that, just like deer, no one will hear you coming. The others will turn around and there you are, just like that.”
    At first there was a lot of hooting and snickering at even the word “pajamas,” because pajamas are too much like underwear, and all you have to say to this crowd is “underpants,” and they practicallyroll on the floor in laughter. But the “silently, like deer in the moonlight” phrase made them pause, and we noticed that they were quiet already, just leaving the dining hall.
    Because the showers could hold only so many girls at once, two cabins were to go at a time, and when our girls were through, we were to knock on the doors of the next two cabins till everyone had a turn. Later, after the kids were clean and back in the cabins, the counselors got to shower, half of them at a time, while the others took charge.
    Once inside