Dark in the city and darkness way out in Penny’s “forest” were two different things. Here, it was like the dark had sucked all the essence from the day and taken hold, and like they said in horror movies, Darkness Rules! From a distance it was hard to distinguish trees from bushes, branches from brambles. Was I scared? Well, not really. It wasn’t like there were Penny’s lions or tigers waiting to pounce. And probably not even any squirrels or birds—they had to sleep sometimes too! But I did hear squeaks and squawks I couldn’t identify, as well as the scrurries of little creatures—maybe mice or possums? Hopefully, no skunks. They’re nocturnal; it was pretty rare that we met our stripy buddy yesterday. They had their business to do, and so did I—I wasn’t out looking for introductions!
I blinked hard at the purply-colored lights in the girls’ bathrooms, and I did what I had to do in a hurry—maybe I could still catch the last part of that sleep train.
We were halfway back when something darted across our path—a raccoon, maybe? And something fluttered past—a soft flutter, but it sounded big.
Trinity whispered, “Ohhh! I think that was a horned owl—it flew right by us!” Wow! That was extremely cool. I’d have to look that up, too. I needed to start me a “look up” list.
But then, another noise. What the heck was that—that scrape-and-thump, scrape-and-thump noise coming toward us? My brain jetted to one of the songs from The Lion King—maybe the lion wasn’t sleeping tonight! Maybe it was stomping tonight? Either way, if there was a lion in front of us, we were in trouble. Then I laughed at myself. That’d be a great story to tell Penny—how I scared myself silly in the nonexistent jungle at night at camp. Trinity heard something as well too, because she said, “Uh, let’s boogie out of here, Melody!”
But the sound got louder… and closer! Scrape—thump, scrape—thump!
I was so close to screaming, but I made myself hold it in. “Who’s there?” Trinity finally called out, spreading the full lights of the lantern and flashlight ahead of us.
“Just me! Gotta pee!” a male voice I immediately recognized replied. Noah! Jeremiah was right behind him.
Okay, so what was the first thing that went through my head? Yep: How messed up was my hair? Oh well—it was what it was at this point. And anyway, guys get bed head too—my dad sometimes comes down for breakfast with some serious hair issues!
So I waved at Noah quickly, glad for once that I didn’t have Elvira. I wouldn’t have known what to say to a boy in pajamas in the middle of the night anyway!
“G’night, Firefly Girl,” he said as he passed us.
I might have heard Trinity swallow a “mm-hmm,” but she thoughtfully made no comment as we hurried back to our cabin.
I wasn’t going to be able to get back on that sleep train in a hurry, that’s for sure!
CHAPTER 31
After our morning swim—and gee, who would have ever dreamed that I’d end up loving that?—and a quick zip line to make sure we were dry, I guess, Trinity called us together for a cabin chat.
“Okay, my Fiery Falcons,” she said, all kinds of dramatic, “let’s get ready to rumble!”
Say what? I gave a giggle.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“I’ve never rumbled in my life!” I tapped.
Everyone cracked up. And yeah, I pretty much loved that I made everyone laugh.
Trinity rolled her eyes at me half in jest and went on. “Well, Falcons, we’ve got an idea. And we’d like to know what you think of it.”
Sage took over. “Remember how I told you that I almost made the Olympic swim team and ended up helping them train? Well, I’m pretty good at running a competition.”
Competition? Where were they going with this?
“What do you guys think about having a sports challenge with our whole team—Gazelles, Badgers, Panthers, and of course, us?” she asked.
A challenge, eh? This could be interesting. Malik was so going to be into this.
“We talked to Cassie and some of the other counselors last night, and if you agree, we could have a sort of sports contest. Any of you ever play Balloon Ball?”
Hmm… What the heck is Balloon Ball?
I realized that Jocelyn had been staring out the window the entire time, so I thought she hated the idea. But, with a frown of determination on her face, she blurted out, “Do they know how fierce, fierce, fierce we are?”
Trinity gave a big uh-huh nod. “They better! If not, they’ll find out, right?”
“I can run faster, faster, faster than anybody I know,” Jocelyn asserted. “Let’s do it. Do it. Do it!”
I asked, “How do you play Balloon Ball?”
“Well, Balloon Ball is a little like soccer, but not really,” Sage explained. “The object of the game is to get balloons across the field and into the goals, and…” She thrust her hands with a who knows? kind of shrug. “See, balloons are notorious for not following any rules at all! They just float and glide and drift on the air….”
“And pop! Pop! Pop!” Jocelyn chimed in.
Sage nodded. “Yep, they pop, which makes the game so unpredictable. The best kicker doesn’t necessarily win. The fastest runner might not win either.”
Huh? We all looked a little amused and a little confused. For sure none of us ever had a class on the physics of balloons!
But then Athena declared, “Okay by me,” the rest of us agreeing.
“Great! We’ll need goals and signs and such, so let’s head over to the arts and crafts barn and see how creatively orange we can be! I’ll check back in with the other counselors, but we’ll aim for the games to start after lunch.”
Sage draped us in the plastic bags (good thing, because I had on a cute yellow outfit!) and we were on it.
“Do us proud!” she told us as Kim, Lulu, and Trinity led us out the door and to the paint.
The art room was a giant orange mess by the time we finished. I’d sloshed dabs of orange paint on a couple of sheets of poster board—I guess they were supposed to be balloons. They actually looked pretty good!
Karyn painted a giant bird—and you know what? Anyone who looked at it closely would be able to tell it was a falcon. It was perched as if it was about to take off in flight.
And Athena decided to paint an orange flag. Jocelyn sat next to her and made two more.
I gave them all a thumbs-up.
Trinity had grabbed us each two types of T-shirts from that box before we left the cabin. Now she held them up and asked, “Long-sleeved, or the short?”
Karyn eyed them for a second, then suggested, “Cut the sleeves off all of them!”