The Lost Summer Read Online Free PDF

metal pail with the words “Camp Southpoint” stenciled on it, filled with seeds and dried corn kernels. We knew the routine. Wordlessly, the entire camp lined up in front of Marjorie, so that every camper and counselor could reach into the bucket for a handful. One by one, we would file past the fire and reverently toss our seeds into the flames. We were “sowing our dreams for the summer,” Marjorie said. I always thrilled at the snap-crackle-pop that they made.
    After sacrificing my seeds to the fire, I took my place next to Katie Bell in the circle that was forming around the bonfire. By now it was burning brightly against the lowering dusk.
    When the last girl had gone, Fred and Marjorie threw their seeds into the fire and took the hands of the campers next to them so that the entire camp stood hand in hand in an unbroken circle.
    The older counselors nodded and, as one, we began to sing. First we would sing Southpoint’s official song, the one written by Fred’s father when his father started Southpoint. Southpoint girls had sung these lyrics at every opening and closing ceremony for fifty-seven years.
    â€œHailto Camp Southpoint, near our hearts to thee!” Our voices grew stronger and louder as we sang and the words flooded back from the corners of our minds, where they’d been stored all year. “The place where our hearts abide, a haven from the rising tide. Oh Southpoint, oh Southpoint, your friendship comforts me. . . .”
    First-year campers watched and listened, absorbing the words as the older girls sang by heart, making faces around the circle at their friends, and squeezing each others’ hands.
    When the final solemn verse was sung, it was time for the tearjerker—the other song we sang at both opening and closing ceremonies, “Friends.” Only, at the end of camp, the song’s words would be much more poignant, because we’d know it would be another year before we sang them again.
    Our volume swelled as the chorus started. Lips were trembling. My vision blurred as the tears welled, and when Katie Bell squeezed my hand, I was a goner. One lone tear tumbled down my cheek, followed in quick succession by a river of its fat siblings.
    If it had been only me blubbering like an idiot, I would have felt stupid, but directly across the circle I saw Winn, Sarah, and Lizbeth, all hand in hand and all crying. Knowing that others felt the same happiness and relief and sadness—that in just five short weeks it would all be over for another forty-seven—made me feel okay.
    At the end of the song, the circle broke as girls turned to one another, hugging and laughing and wiping the tears from their cheeks, reminding each other that this was the happy time we sang this song. We had a whole Southpoint summer ahead of us.
    It was growing dark now. The night was almost velvety around us. We took our seats again around the light of the campfire. A few counselors, including Winn, bunched close to the fire so we could see them as they led us in other, more boisterous, camp songs. We sang “Boom Chicka Boom,” “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” “Titanic,” “The Song That Never Ends” (it did, finally), “Have You Ever Gone Fishin’?” “A Boy and a Girl in a Little Canoe” (I loved that one), and “The Cutest Boy I Ever Saw.” All songs I knew by heart.
    Across the still darkness of the water, through the trees, I could just make out a twin to our fire, burning alluringly on the opposite side of the lake. It was Brownstone’s opening ceremony, and I found myself thinking of Ransome. I wondered if he had, like me, made a wish as he threw his handful of seeds into the fire. My wish, of course, cast him in a starring role, although I couldn’t imagine I’d play even a bit part in his. I wondered if the boys were also singing songs. I wondered if Ransome was leading, or if he sat, content like me next to