When it was my turn to introduce myself, last this time, Elvira’s mechanical-almost-close-to-human-sounding voice said for me, “Hey there. My name is Melody. This is my first time at camp, and I’m having more fun than I thought I would.”
Mom had loaded that message too, trying to anticipate anything I might need to say. She’d put in a phrase for just about everything. Thanks, Mom!
“Now that we all know each other,” Jeremiah said with a glint in his eye, “let’s really fire things up!” Before anyone could ask what he meant, he and Charles dashed off into the trees and came back with an armful each of pine cones. “Who wants to see nature’s fireworks?” Jeremiah asked.
At the chorus of “We do!” he tossed a handful of the pine cones into the fire.
Whoosh! Crackle! Wow! The fire flared. Who knew pine cones did that? I guess I did now. Then he and Charles handed each camper a couple of pine cones.
“On the count of three, toss them in!” he challenged. Then he skipped one and two and just shouted, “THREE!”
Everybody threw a cone in the direction of the fire. A few, like mine, fell way short, but many landed in the middle of the flames. Whoosh!
That was freakin’ awesome! The cones sparked with an intensity even brighter than the logs. Blue-green flames rose into the night sky. I loved how we were all seeing the same thing at the same time, all huddled together around the fire circle. For a few minutes, nobody even spoke. It was just us and the darkness of the night and the brightness of the fire.
Athena—a silhouette against the glow—lifted her fingers toward the pine-cone sparks. Her dark hair looked glossy in the firelight, and she seemed to be entranced. She looked beautiful.
Trinity nudged me with her elbow. “You want to get closer to the fire?”
I tapped “Yes.”
“Closer to our guests?”
I hesitated, then touched “Yes” again.
“You got it!”
She maneuvered me to the perfect spot where I could feel the warmth of the fire mixed with the chill of the night.
Then Cassie broke the silence—and the mood—with a crazy song.
“Schooool’s out for summer!” she hollered out.
And, almost immediately, we all yelled back, “School’s out forever!!”
I say we because in my mind, I was singing too!
I banged on my tray—just making noise. Woo-hoo! I was right there with them!
Next, Cassie started singing about hot fun in the summertime. And I realized that was exactly what we were doing!
I think we sang that one like ninety-two times.
Then Jeremiah walked over and handed Trinity a guitar. Who knew? She was actually pretty good! She led off with “The Banana Boat Song.” When she sang the refrain, “Daylight come and me wanna go home…,” I realized I was loving this, and I was not ready to go home! I glanced at Karyn. Her face was glowing, and she was wheelchair-swaying to the rhythm. (And yeah, that’s a thing!)
When Trinity was done, Cassie started up “A Million Dreams”—one of my favorites! It came from that movie about how the circus got started.
Oh, yeah. That’s me. The kid with the dreams inside. But here, somehow, when I looked up at the night sky, I could see my dreams up there, too.
Next, one of the guys in blue—the Badgers—told some second-grade knock-knock jokes that were so extremely corny they were actually hysterically funny. We were laughing our heads off. You know what’s cool about laughter? Funny is funny whether you can talk or not.
As the campfire glowed, cracked, and sparked, I watched the faces of the other campers. Jocelyn hummed a little song to herself. Karyn must have sensed me looking, because she caught my eye and poked me with her elbow. I was so glad she decided to stay. And I guess I had a new friend! I used to wonder how to make friends. Maybe all you need is moonlight and starlight, a bonfire, and… pine cones!
Gradually, the laughter and the giggles quieted. I looked up at the inky sky. Starlight now dotted it like crystals. Last night—fireflies. Tonight—diamond stars.
And more. One incredible thing more. When I looked back at the campfire, I noticed that kid Noah looking right at me. And smiling. Right at me.
How was this even possible?
CHAPTER 23
It was late. Everyone in our cabin was asleep. Karyn sometimes mumbled when she turned over. I smirked because Athena’s snores had actually become oddly comforting. I could hear crickets, and a new noise—sounded kinda hooty-hoot—maybe an owl? I was sleepy, but all the stuff stuck inside my mind twirled and twisted and kept me restless. The little lanterns dangling from each top bunk cast a soft glow, and I wondered how dark the cabin would be without them.
And this got me thinking about the time when I was around four or five—before Penny was born. A really bad storm swept through our neighborhood. Lightning crackled, and suddenly we heard a transformer blow. All the lights in the house blinked off. The current simply flatlined. Even the streetlights went dark.
No matter how many times Dad clicked the light switches, nothing happened. So we sat there in the dark, huddled together, waiting for the lights to come back on. There was nothing we could do. Of course, Dad found flashlights and candles in a kitchen drawer, but those were just tiny beams in all that darkness. The main power source had been cut off.
We waited a really long time. I remember being scared.
Eventually, the workers from the power company climbed up on poles and fixed the transformer, and the lights came back on—most of them. But some of the wires had gotten fried and they simply could not be fixed. There’s a light fixture on our back porch that Mom says has not worked since that storm. Electricians have come by to try, but it simply Does. Not. Work anymore. The fixture still has a beautiful crystal globe. I love the way it looks because I can see inside its intricate parts. But it has no power.