Tug-of-War

Tensions running high . . .

Once Devon had a seat, Maggie moved us away from the shore. I slid my paddle forward in the canoe so Devon could reach it.

“If you're sitting in the bow, you'll have to paddle,” I told her.

Devon didn't touch the paddle. Instead she sat perched on the canoe seat, thumbing through her magazine while Maggie was busy paddling with all her strength in the stern.

“Devon, you have to paddle!” I yelled. “Stop reading and help out!”

“Yeah, Ghosty Girl. I'm doing all the work here,” Maggie called from the stern. She swung her paddle forward and flicked the blade up so that droplets of water hit the back of Devon's shirt. “Come on, let's see some arm muscle.”

Devon flinched a little when the water drops hit her, but she didn't turn around. “If I feel another drop of water on me, you'll be flossing your teeth with that paddle,” she said coolly.

“Oh, yeah?” Maggie yelled. “How about I feed your magazine to the fishies?”

 

One Summer. One Sleepaway Camp.
Three Thrilling Stories!

Summer Camp Secrets

How far will Kelly go to hold on to her new friends?

What happens when Judith Ducksworth decides to become JD at camp?

Can Darcy and Nicole's friendship survive the summer?

 

TUG-OF-WAR

 

Summer Camp Secrets

by
Katy Grant

 

For Michael

Con mucho amor, mi amiga

The magic genie publishing lamp finally worked!

 

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ALADDIN
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
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First Aladdin paperback edition April 2010
Text copyright © 2010 by Katy Grant
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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The text of this book was set in Perpetua.
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Control Number 2009905998
ISBN 978-1-4169-9161-8
ISBN 978-1-4169-9911-9 (eBook)

 

TUG-OF-WAR

My dear friend Michael Ramirez, author and playwright, has been with me from the start of this series. We first met at an SCBWI conference in 1995. While I was having a manuscript critique of the novel that would later become
Pranked
, she waited for me outside the room to offer moral support. For this book, she helped me with the Spanish phrases, read an early draft, and as always, responded with prompt, insightful feedback. Over the years, she has been a great friend, critique partner, and, in many ways, my mentor.

Also, last year I was overjoyed to reconnect with an old friend from my own summer camp, Margaret Black. We have had a
ridiculous
amount of fun and laughs recalling our glory days through e-mails, phone calls, and photos. Her memory for detail rivals (if not surpasses) my own, and she has been an excellent resource for me while writing this book and the two that will follow it. Margaret and her daughter Betsy read an early draft of this book and provided feedback, something that thrilled me to no end, since Betsy now attends our old summer camp. Betsy is a third-generation camper, no less!

I also want to thank my eleven-year-old cousin, Sheldon Kappel, for help with writing the chess scene.
Sheldon has been playing for the past three years, and he competes in both individual tournaments and on his team at Lake Castle Slidell School. Sheldon was able to give this scene the air of authentic chess play that I could not.

And thanks to Liesa Abrams, whom I finally met face-to-face over lunch at Pizzeria Picasso. She has always helped to make the whole process smooth and easy, from the first grain of an idea all the way to the galleys. Now on to the next one!

Five minutes. We'd barely been at Camp Pine Haven for five minutes, and I was already tempted to push my best friend Devon into the lake.

We were standing on the edge of Lakeview Rock, this gigantic rock formation that loomed up over one end of the lake, giving us a great view of just about everything from up here.

Not only could we see the lake below us with the wooden dock sticking out over the water and the rows of canoes lined up on the banks, but we could catch a glimpse of the tennis courts nearby, slightly hidden by the trees.

Devon and I had just gotten off the bus, and since she'd hated every minute of the ride here, I decided
I'd give her a quick tour while our stuff was being unloaded.

Devon took a step closer to the edge and looked down, her arms crossed in front of her. We were about thirty feet high, I figured.

“I don't think this actually qualifies as a lake. Swamp, maybe. Why is it so green?” She crinkled her nose in disgust, as if the lake had a bad smell. It didn't.

Everything smelled wonderful up here—like pine trees and fresh air. I took a deep breath and got a whiff of wild honeysuckle from an overgrown vine growing around the trees below us.

“It's green because . . . lakes are always green.” I thought the lake was a beautiful shade of green, not slimy or mossy. It was the same color as all the trees around it. There's absolutely nothing swampy about Pine Haven's lake.

A group of girls and parents were walking around the opposite side of the lake, and I strained my eyes to see if I recognized any of them. I couldn't wait to see my old friends, especially Maggie. I hadn't seen her since last summer.

Devon let out a bored sigh. “Okay, nice swamp. Let's go check out the pool now.”

I gritted my teeth. “Devon, there is no pool. We swim in the lake. I thought you knew that.”

She turned her head slowly and looked at me, her mouth slightly open. The expression on her face looked like I'd told her a gigantic, girl-eating kraken lived in those waters. “No pool? There's . . .
no
. . .
pool
.” She emphasized each word carefully.