“Did I?” Abby stood up straighter. “It must have been all the tree climbing. And swimming. And hiking and everything and—” She grabbed my arm. “Mags, summer camp is the best thing everrrrrr!”
Wait. What?
“Oh, come on, you can drop the act,” I said. “You’re safe now. What was your code, anyhow? You better tell me right this second. I’ve been trying to crack it all summer.”
It was Abby’s turn to blink. “Code? What code?”
“The coded messages. In your postcards.”
“I never sent any coded messages in my postcards.”
We stared at each other. Something wasn’t adding up here. “But . . . you did,” I said. “Remember? All that I love camp and stargazing-in-the-canoe out on the sparkly perfect lake talk, and everything.”
“Well yeah, I wrote that ’cause I did love it. Obviously.”
The pieces of the summer puzzle I thought I was working on split apart and began swirling around in my brain, forming new, awkward shapes. “But . . . when you left you said you wouldn’t,” I said. “You promised to hate it.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t understand about camp back then,” said Abby, shrugging. She made it sound like a lifetime ago. “When I got there it turned out to be ah-may-zing!”
The sun was beating down on my shoulders, and Abby was right there in front of me, but for a moment I wondered if any of this was really happening. Maybe I’d fallen off the roof and hit my head after all. That would explain the spinning sensation in my stomach.
“But Abs, I really thought you were miserable,” I said. “I spent the whole first month planning out rescue missions to get you back.”
“Ha! That’s right,” said Abby. “You said in your letters. I’m glad you kept busy playing your games. I was kinda worried about you being all on your own here, to be honest.”
Wait, wait, wait. My games? Hidden hideouts and secret codes and daring island rescues were our games. And why on earth had she been worried about me? I was the one safe at home where I belonged.
Abby heaved an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “Seriously, Mags, I have so many stories to tell you. But first you have to tell me all about your summer. Oh! And where’s this fort-base thing you built?”
I hitched on a smile, determined to keep my cool. It was hard considering I felt like the ground was crumbling away beneath my feet, but I managed it.
“Come on, I’ll show you,” I said. “How’d you, uh, get all those scratches, by the way?”
“Oh, one of the older girls tried to bully me by throwing my backpack in the blackberry brambles.”
“Did you get it back?”
“Yup,” said Abby, with a grin I’d never seen on her sweet face before. “I might have left hers in there instead, though.”
She followed me into the living room, where my glorious fort took up most of the floor.
“Whoa!” Abby stopped dead. “This is awesome! How does your mom feel about it?”
I shrugged. At first my mom had been really unhappy about having her living room torn up, but after a few pointed comments from me about how it wouldn’t have happened if I’d been away at camp like we’d planned, she let me get on with it. I felt a little bad about making her feel guilty—she was super busy taking care of sick kids, after all—but not bad enough to give up my Fortress of Fortitude.
“Ooo!” Abby said, crawling in. “I love it. It’s so you.”
I looked around, trying to figure out what was me about it. It was a big fort—I’d definitely been ambitious—but other than that it looked like any one of my typical brilliant, well-organized secret lairs. One thing I’ve learned over the years: if you’re going to be taking part in epic adventures ranging from international spy agency wars to intergalactic dinosaur smuggling, it helps to start with a neat base.
“Aw, hey!” Abby said, reaching up and batting at the patchwork scarf hanging from the ceiling. “I made you this.”
“I know. I love it. And here, uh, somewhere . . .” I dug around in the arts-and-crafts corner and pulled out a bundle. “I made you this.”
Abby opened it. “A scarf! You made me a denim scarf. With gold tassels!”
“Old jeans and curtains. Sorry, I didn’t have any patchwork quilts to work with.”
“That’s okay. I wouldn’t have either without the craft bin at Camp Cantaloupe,” said Abby. “It’s crammed with all the things campers have left behind over the years. I found the quilt right at the bottom. But I love this scarf so much!”
She put the scarf around her neck—it looked ridiculous—and grabbed me in another hug. Hello, New Abby. Old Abby never hugged this much. She even smelled different, like woodsmoke and fruit punch and coconut sunscreen. My heart gave a pang.
“Oh, it is so, so good to see you,” she said, letting me go. “But why did we make each other scarves? It’s eighty-five degrees outside.”
“You started it.”
“That’s all they taught us how to sew before we moved on to candle making.”
“Whee. Sounds fun.”
“Ha!” Abby adjusted her scarf and leaned back against the sofa. She looked even older in the lamplight. “It was, actually. You have to promise me you’ll absolutely, seriously go next year. No matter what. I don’t even know how I’m going to wait that long. Camp Cantaloupe”—she raised her hands toward the ceiling—“is the beeeessssstt!”
My stomach lurched. This wasn’t cool. If there really had been no secret codes coming in from Abby, and no messages hidden in the presents she’d sent me, then that meant I’d wasted the whole first half of summer trying to figure it all out for nothing. That meant Abby really had had a wonderful six weeks without me. That meant I really had been alone. And that meant we needed to start the summer over, right here, right now.
It was time to put this camp business behind us.
“Yeah,” I pointed out, “you already said. But you’re home now! And I have the most amazing idea
