Maddie's Camp Crush (5 page)

Shannon blew her whistle again, and Maddie finally got on her feet and dragged the kayak back to the sand. Liza was waiting for her with a knowing smile on her face.

“He's cuuuuute!” Liza said.

Maddie just shrugged. “Oh, him?” But inside, her heart was smiling.

MADDIE COULDN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT
Gabriel. She thought about him during tennis, and her crazy serves kept going out of bounds. She thought about him during drama, when she was supposed to be pretending she was a piece of bacon frying in a pan, but she forgot to move.

“I need some more sizzle from you, Maddie!” the counselor yelled, and everyone laughed.

At lunchtime she absently stabbed at her salad with a fork and kept looking at the boys' side, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Gabriel noticed and waved to her, and she smiled back. Then she quickly stopped herself. Had anyone noticed?

“Veggie burger number nine,” Emily announced. No, things were back to normal.

After lunch, the girls headed back to the cabin for
siesta. It was a hot day, the kind of day where the air feels heavy, so the girls lazed on the porch steps, too sticky and tired to do anything but talk. Libby pulled out a notebook with a glittery pink cover and a purple pen.

“Okay, we're rating the Charles bunk now,” she announced.

Charles bunk? That was Gabriel's bunk. “Rating what?” Maddie asked.

“Boys, of course,” Libby replied.

Maddie was confused. “I thought you did that the other night.”

“Weren't you listening at lunch?” Libby asked. “Last night we were talking generally. Then we got the idea to rate the boys in each cabin.”

Maddie started to feel excited. Maybe now she could finally talk about Gabriel with her friends.

“Okay,” Libby began thoughtfully. “Charles bunk is Evan, Scott, Gabriel, Kyle, Ryan, and Seth.”

“Evan is definitely last,” Liza said.

“Why is he last?” Samantha asked, puzzled. “He's got nice eyes.”

“He's cute, but he never talks to girls, he only jokes around with the boys,” Liza pointed out.

“Then Scott should be on the bottom too, because he's really quiet,” Amelia said.

Libby nodded. “Good point,” she said, jotting something in her notebook.

“You can be quiet and still be cute,” Samantha said. “And nice.”

“Maybe,” Liza said. “But to be crush-worthy, you have to be friendly and talk to the girls.”

“That's why Gabriel should be number one,” Amelia said. “He talks to girls and he's super cute.”

Maddie was stunned. “What?” she asked, a little too loudly, and Amelia cocked her head.

“Oh no, do you like him too?” Amelia asked innocently.

Maddie blushed. It hadn't occurred to her that someone else would have a crush on Gabriel. But of course they would! He was amazing.

“He's really awesome,” Amelia pressed on. “You do like him, right, Maddie?”

Maddie couldn't speak. She didn't know what to say. It would be weird to admit that she liked Gabriel too, wouldn't it?

“Are you okay, Mads?” Liza asked.

“Yeah,” Maddie muttered. “Just tired.” Then she got up, walked into the cabin, and flopped down on her bed.

Maddie buried her head in her pillow. She didn't feel like crying, exactly; she just wanted to melt into the mattress and disappear, at least for a while.

She heard Amelia sigh. “All I said was that maybe she's not the only one to like him. Geez!” Then she heard Liza's voice float through the open window.

“You have to be careful around her,” Liza scolded. “Her dad just died. Just take it easy on her, okay?”

A swell of frustration rose up in Maddie's chest. It was cool of Liza to stand up for her, but hearing it made her realize that the death of Maddie's dad had been on Liza's mind all along. She thought everything was back to normal here at camp, that everyone was treating her like they always had. But maybe she was wrong. Had she been in some kind of bubble, not noticing the whispers and stares?

Maddie wiped a tear from her eye. It had felt so good to feel normal again—but now it felt like nothing would ever be the same.

AFTER SIESTA, MADDIE LEFT THE CABIN WITH HER
guard up, studying the campers and counselors to see if they were looking at her differently or whispering about her. But when she went to archery in the field near the boys' camp, she found that having to focus so hard on the activity took her mind off things. She listened to the counselor and breathed slowly and deeply each time she pulled back the bow, concentrating. The effort paid off, and she got three bull's-eyes, the most she'd ever got in one session.

At arts and crafts, she sat with Liza, Libby, Emily, and Samantha as a counselor named Kathy showed them how to make beaded necklaces. The room got quiet as the girls thoughtfully picked out which beads they wanted to use.

“Pink, pink, and pink,” Libby said, plucking beads from the organizer tray.

Emily started to choose one of every color. “I want to do a rainbow one,” she said.

Samantha held up a sparkly lavender bead. “Isn't this one pretty? Maybe I'll do all different shades of purple.”

Maddie and Liza reached for the blue beads at the same time. They grinned at each other.

“They remind me of the water,” Maddie said, and Liza nodded.

“Me too.”

Stringing the beads was nice and peaceful, and Maddie soon felt calmer and more relaxed. When she was done, she put her finished creation around her neck, and Liza did the same.

“We're like twins,” Maddie said with a grin.

“Right,” Liza agreed. “Only with different color hair and different color eyes.”

“Hey, twins don't have to look alike,” Maddie pointed out, and they both laughed.

Maddie felt even better as the day went on. Emily ate her tenth veggie burger, and Liza started joking around about drama class. She held up a piece of meatloaf on her fork.

“I can't believe that Alyssa keeps making us pretend
that we're bacon frying in a pan,” she said. “I bet she's going to make us act like meatloaf next.”

“How do you act like meatloaf?” Maddie asked.

Liza slumped back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Maybe like this. You just . . . loaf.”

Everyone started cracking up. Emily stood up perfectly straight with her arms at her sides. “I've got one!”

“What are you supposed to be?” Libby asked.

“An ear of corn!” Emily replied, and everyone cracked up again.

Maddie smiled to herself as the girls ate their dinner. It was nice just talking and hanging out and not having to worry about the boys or how they looked. It was kind of like how it used to be. Except, of course, that Maddie never really stopped thinking about Gabriel completely. She wondered if she gave him a bracelet she made, if he would wear it. There was a girl at school who gave one of the boys a friendship bracelet to wear and it was a pretty big deal. Maddie would never have the nerve, though. Would she? She picked at her food and thought about it.

At the evening program that night some of the counselors told a spooky story, and then Maddie and her friends headed to the mess hall to grab some milk and
cookies and hang in the quad. Maddie was about to settle down on one of the benches, oatmeal cookie in hand, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

She whirled around and saw Gabriel standing there.

“Hullo,” he said. “You did a right good job of beating me this morning. How did you get to be such a good boater?”

It took Maddie a moment to realize that he was actually trying to have a conversation with her, and she got a little flustered.

“Well, yeah, I guess, I've been, um, doing it a long time,” she replied.

Gabriel sat down on one of the large rocks in the quad, and it felt natural to Maddie to sit down next to him. She spotted her friends on the bench, pointing at them and giggling, and Maddie blushed a little, but she stayed put.

“Actually, my dad is the one who taught me how to kayak,” Maddie said. “He was really very good at it. Canoeing, too.”

“You're lucky,” Gabriel said. “My mum and dad hate the water. I learned how to row at school.”

“Wow, that's cool,” Maddie said. “We don't do anything like that at our school. Just basketball and soccer and stuff.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I still can't get used to the whole ‘soccer' thing,” he said. “It's always been ‘football' to me.”

Maddie wanted to ask him a lot. She figured he was from England, but then what was he doing here? And why did his mom sound American? But those questions felt kind of personal, so she steered the conversation back to boating.

“I remember I was pretty bad at first, but Dad showed me the right way to hold the paddles and how to keep my balance,” she said.

Gabriel nodded. “Balance is definitely key.”

They talked some more, but soon they heard the mess hall bell ring, the signal that meant downtime was over.

“Well, see you,” Maddie said shyly.

“Right. See you,” Gabriel said.

When she got to the bunk, all of the Hannahs were hanging out on the porch, waiting.

“Maddie!”
Liza screamed.
“He likes you!”

“Shhh!” Maddie said, but she was secretly pleased, and her friends didn't stop. The other girls joined in, chanting, “He likes you! He likes you!”

“And I knew you liked him,” Amelia said, pointing at her.

“Well, I guess,” Maddie said, and suddenly everything felt weird again. “I mean, we just talked, that's all.”

“But he doesn't talk to other girls alone like that,” Liza pointed out, and Amelia looked a little stung by the comment. “That means that he likes you.”

“All that means is that he wanted to talk,” Maddie said. “Like we're talking now.”

Libby dramatically put a hand to her face. “Ah! Zee poor girl! She is so blind!” she said in a bad French accent.

“Libby's right,” Emily said matter-of-factly. “He definitely likes you.”

“Okay, okay, he likes me, whatever,” Maddie said, hoping to end the conversation quickly. “Come on, we'd better go in before Tara gets here.”

Liza shuddered, pretending to be afraid. “Beware the wrath of Tara!”

The girls trooped inside the cabin and got ready for bed. Maddie got under the covers and closed her eyes as the nighttime sounds of chirping crickets and croaking frogs filled the cabin. Normally these sounds lulled her to sleep, but she couldn't help thinking about what her friends had said.

Maybe Gabriel did like her. But what did that mean?
How was it different from the way she liked her other friends, or the way she liked someone like Brandon, even?

It's all so complicated,
she thought, but the crickets and the frogs won out, and she finally drifted off to sleep.

DEAR MADDIE,

I hope you are having fun at camp. Things have been pretty quiet here except that the Taylors got a new dog, a Chihuahua, and it yips and yelps all day long.

Grandma and Grandpa told me that they've written you several letters. Did you get them? I know you are busy but they would love to hear back from you.

Curled up in her bed during siesta, Maddie read the rest of her mother's letter. The third week of camp had just started, and she hadn't written a single letter in reply to any of her relatives. Her mom was right—she'd been really busy. During siesta she always felt too sleepy to do anything useful, and she'd been using
most of her free periods to practice tennis with Libby. Playing tennis twice a day wasn't her favorite thing in the world, but Libby said she was getting better, and she knew she would impress her mom by the time summer was over.

Maddie groaned loudly. “I wish we could just text everybody. It's so much faster!”

“I don't know,” Emily said. “I kind of like writing letters. It's more personal.”

Liza looked up from her bed. “Still haven't written those letters yet, Mads?”

Maddie shook her head. “No, and now Mom's getting on my case.”

Liza sat up. “I have an idea. Remember a few years ago, we picked those flowers and squashed them, and then we glued them to cards? My mom went crazy over hers.”

Maddie nodded. “Those came out nice. Maybe we could pick some flowers today during free time. I saw some growing along the edges of the soccer meadow.”

“Tomorrow, okay?” Liza asked. “Emily said she'd help me finish up this birdhouse I'm making in arts and crafts. I'm trying to finish it before the end of the week.”

“Sure,” Maddie replied. “Tomorrow. That means I
can nap for ten whole minutes now and not worry about writing letters.”

Then she leaned back on her bed, putting the pillow over her head, and a folded piece of paper slipped out of the pillowcase. Maddie touched it—it was the note from her father. She still hadn't opened it. Sometimes she took it out at night to see if it smelled like her dad, but it didn't. But she could see a smudge of blue ink on one side of the note, like it always was with Dad's letters. He was left-handed, so his hand always had blue or black ink smudged on it.

It's one of the curses of a creative mind,
he would say, and Maddie smiled, remembering.

“Come on, Mads! Archery time!” Liza said, playfully shaking her, and Maddie quickly slipped the note back under the pillowcase. Maybe she'd read it soon, but not now.