“Okay.” Winnie nodded, and Katie did too. After a few seconds, we headed back to join the others.
Harper was holding the sassafras leaf now, studying it with the same intensity she used when she read her beloved books. I watched her, thinking about this new information and going back through all the other events in my mind. Harper wasn’t here when Deborah and I were pulled under. But she was there when Cece and Kiki were . . . and she’s a good swimmer. She could have snuck away from the campfire when the sleeping bags were stolen, but that would be a lot for her to do, and get to the lake without being detected. . . .
As I was thinking, Harper looked up at me and smiled. Struggling to control my expression, I smiled back.
I don’t want to believe it could be her. But I need to look into this.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
True Confessions
“HEY, HARPER,” I SAID GENTLY after the hike, as we were all heading back to the cabin for a quick rest before a camp-wide sing-along. “Can we talk for a minute?”
A flash of fear crossed over Harper’s face, and I felt the heavy weight of disappointment. Did she really flood the cabin? If so . . . why?
“Okay,” she said hesitantly, looking from me to the cabin just a few yards away. “Um . . . where should we go?”
I nodded at Maya, to whom I’d given a heads-up that I needed a few minutes to talk to Harper. She was taking the other campers into the cabin to use the bathroom and get whatever they needed for the campfire. She gave me a thumbs-up and headed inside.
“Let’s go sit over here,” I said, leading Harper to a bench at the edge of the woods, a good distance from any of the cabins. I sat down and patted the bench beside me. It was clearing up after a cloudy morning, and I pointed at the puffy white clouds strewn around the sky. “Pretty, isn’t it?” I asked, pointing up.
“I guess.” Harper looked where I was pointing only for a moment. She sat down next to me, folded her hands in her lap, and stared at them.
“Harper,” I said after a few seconds of silence, “is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
She kept staring at her hands. She shook her head awkwardly but didn’t say a word. Still, her tense demeanor told me something was definitely up.
I tried to soften my voice. “The thing is, I know you went into the bathroom last night,” I said, “which would be totally normal, except this wasn’t too long before we discovered the flood.”
Harper still wouldn’t look at me. She unfolded her hands, though, and began picking at her cuticles. “Maybe I just had to go to the bathroom,” she said after a while, her voice breaking at the end.
“Maybe you did,” I said gently, “and I want to stress that either way, you’re not in trouble. I just want to talk to you about it.”
Harper looked up at me briefly. She looked very young all of a sudden, and very small.
Suddenly her face crinkled up and she started to cry. “I did it,” she whimpered, then broke into a sob. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody or damage anything. I just thought, if the cabin were flooded, maybe we’d all have to move out and I could go home.”
I reached over, gently pulling her closer and putting a comforting hand on her back. “Why do you want to go home?”
Harper leaned into me, resting her head on my shoulder as she took off her glasses and swiped at her eyes with her fist. “Nobody likes me,” she cried, her voice full of pain. “My parents wanted me to come to camp to make new friends, and I haven’t made any new friends. The other girls are just kind of okay with me. I think they think I’m weird.” She paused, sniffling. “I’d rather be home with my books and my parents. At least I know what to do there.”
I pulled Harper closer, and she let out a fresh round of sobs. I felt terrible for her. My instinct was to try to defend the other girls, who I felt had tried to connect with Harper, but I didn’t want to deny what Harper was feeling. How can I fix this?
“Harper,” I said nervously, “is there . . . anything else you want to tell me?”
She looked up at me, confused.
“Is flooding the cabin the only thing you’ve done to try to go home?” I added.
Harper’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes!” she said. “I wouldn’t . . . I mean . . . you must think I’m a monster!”
I shook my head rapidly. “No, no, no, Harper,” I said. “I just wanted to be clear. And I think the other girls do like you. Maybe they just don’t know you that well? You spend a lot of free time reading, which I know you love, and that’s great. But it doesn’t give the other girls a lot of opportunity to get to know you.”