Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 20192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 101(@200wpm)___ 81(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 101(@200wpm)___ 81(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
“Do you think he’ll show me his Eagle Scout badges this year?” I whisper to Isabel.
Famously, Dean earned all the patches available to an Eagle Scout. Every summer, without fail, one of the boy campers will beg him to show off the badges at the nightly campfire. But thanks to my mission of terror, Dean won’t let me come within ten feet of those stinking patches. I am literally the only counselor who hasn’t seen them. A fact that causes me physical anguish, because those patches are the most important thing he owns . . . and Dean is the most important person to my heart. Always has been.
He’s passionate about the earth. Patient with the kids.
Capable of fixing literally anything that breaks. Never, ever panics.
In other words, my polar opposite. And he wants exactly nothing to do with me.
Is this summer too late to change his mind?
A loud crash ensues from the bunk bed–lined cabin on the other side of the bathroom door, followed by squeals of laughter and several more crashes.
Oh, right. We’re counselors now. And we’re on the clock.
“I guess we should go see if anyone needs medical attention,” Isabel sighs.
“I’ll bring the first aid kit.”
With one last hopeful look at my lipstick, I push the tube back into my pocket.
Chapter Two
Dean
Istand in the center of Firefly Grove, listening to the swell of campers’ voices preparing for a yearly, traditional battle that has taken place since 1975. Relief at having kept the camp running for another summer drops some of the weight from my shoulders. Weight that I carry with me all year, though I’m certainly not complaining about the burden. It’s a privilege to keep Camp Firefly alive. I’m just always convinced that summer will arrive one year and no campers will show up.
Resolutely, I put that particular fear aside until the end of camp.
Because soon there will be no room for any distractions, except for one.
Margot Berry.
I sigh long and loud. Then I sigh again, etching a lightning bolt onto my clipboard.
As an avid student of the planet, I know there are some things humans are simply not meant to understand. Margot Berry is mine. Since age thirteen, she has been a yearly struggle, though the fabric of that struggle has changed. A lot.
At thirteen, she just confused me. And by me, I mean my body.
But it has been a few summers since my body was confused. It knows exactly what it wants from Margot now. If only she would stand still long enough for me to figure her out. When my mother was alive, she was obsessed with The Sound of Music. Would watch it every year around Christmastime, when the campgrounds were covered in frost. There’s a line from one of the songs about trying to catch a moonbeam in your hand.
That’s Margot.
She beams. She’ll burst into spontaneous tears over a camper’s art project.
She’ll dance in the dining hall when no music is playing. At breakfast, no less.
Most notable of all, she is never not plotting a prank. Against me.
I’m quiet. I study flora and fauna. I rock climb. I have a clipboard.
I hate pranks.
Last summer alone, Margot treated me to a frog in my bed. Gave me wrong directions on a scavenger hunt and faked a deadly snakebite. In the span of three weeks.
I haven’t spoken to her since the snakebite incident.
I’m surprised I can speak yet at all, I was so sure she was going to die. Probably because she sobbed, I don’t know, I think I heard it rattling before it struck, then proceeded to fake a seizure.
For all the chaos she emits, I genuinely can’t imagine a world without Margot.
I don’t want to even try.
As if on cue, I hear her voice coming down the trail from the girls’ side of Camp Firefly. She’s leading her campers in a familiar chant, which they echo back to her after every line. Early in the morning, when I was fast asleep, I heard a little birdie, going cheep cheep cheep . . .
Margot comes into view carrying one camper on her back, holding the hand of another girl who looks like she’s been crying. There’s always one camper who spends the first few days homesick, but I bet a hundred dollars that she’ll be cured by tonight’s campfire. It’s impossible for the girls to be anything but happy around Margot. She’s so . . . authentic.
And God, she’s so beautiful.
Her grandmother was a famous French actress named Colette Delacroix, and I often think it’s where her personality and looks get their sense of drama. Her chin is blunt and stubborn, the total opposite of her cheekbones, which are high and defined. Of course, they would have to be to compete with her eyes. Gray eyes that sparkle constantly, as if she’s right on the verge of spilling a secret. Her dark-brown hair is in a braid right now, down the center of her back, and she only takes the braid out for two reasons.