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his best friend, letting the familiar words and the night wrap around him like a soft old blanket.
    After Evening Gathering, Katie Bell and I sat on my cabin porch talking and watching the campers wander up from the Bath. We were already a good way into the candy stash that Katie Bell had brought from home and that was supposed to last us five weeks.
    Katie Bell was convulsing, she was laughing so hard. “And then,” she gasped, remembering the time I’d been cast by my cabin as Austin Powers for an Evening Gathering game of “Guess Who,” although I’d never even seen the movies, “you did this awkward pelvic thrust when you said, ‘Yeah, baby.’” She stood up for a wildly spastic impersonation of me doing a spastic impersonation.
    â€œStop!” I pleaded. My stomach hurt from the deep silent laughter shaking my body. That Evening Gathering had been one of the more mortifying moments of my life.
    We were wiping our eyes and catching our breath, when Tattoo blew. Almost time for lights out. Heaving a dramatic sigh, Katie Bell tromped off to Cabin Nine with a “G’night, Hel.”
    She had just left when Winn, passing by on the way to her cabin, stopped in front of my porch.
    â€œHey,” she said.
    Behind me I could hear the scrape of my campers’ trunks and the squeak of their bedsprings as they got ready for bed. I had lit the old-fashioned kerosene lantern that hung from the center rafter so they could see, and Winn was bathed in the yellowish glow that escaped through the cabin’s open doorway and screened windows.
    â€œHey,” I said. “What’s up?”
    â€œI wanted to let you know that a few counselors are going down to the riflery range tonight,” Winn whispered in a low, confidential voice.
    â€œThe riflery range?”
    â€œSometimes we meet Brownies there to hang out after Taps.”
    We’d always wondered what the counselors did when they left us sleeping under the watchful eyes of the CODs (Southpoint code for Counselors on Duty—the two counselors who had to stay around the cabins after Taps in case something happened or a camper got sick.) But it was like thinking about what your parents did before you were born. You wanted to know, but maybe you kind of didn’t either.
    Now that I thought about it, the riflery range was the perfect rendezvous point. It was at the edge of both camps, where their boundaries met, and far enough away from the cabins and the Mansion that you wouldn’t have to be afraid of Fred or Abe or the campers hearing you.
    â€œIf you wanna come,” Winn offered, “I’ll swing by your cabin later. . . .”
    My heart spazzed in my chest. Of course I wanted to go. Ransome might be there.
    â€œI gotta get to my cabin,” Winn said, hesitating for my answer.
    â€œYes! Yeah, I want to go,” I stammered. “Will you come get me?”
    â€œSure. I’ll be by after Taps.”
    I nodded, and Winn slid away into the darkness.

Chapter 4
    A s my hiking boots slushed through the field toward the riflery range, my stomach churned. Other than camp dances, which totally didn’t count, this would be my first time hanging out with Brownies.
    I had guy friends at home, of course. And there were boyfriends. John, and Tyler before him, and a boy named Alex who lived in my neighborhood. But they weren’t Brownies. Brownies were a different species of male entirely. They were a lost tribe of boys who were much cooler, much hotter, and much more elusive than the ones who roamed the real world. They were more desirable for the fact that they were always present but out of reach. At least they had been—until now.
    Slightly ahead of me, Winn and Sarah bushwhacked their way through the overgrown grass. We’d left a jealous Lizbeth behind as a COD.
    In the near distance, under the squat silhouette of the riflery hut, red pinpoints of light danced in chaotic