“Begin Operation Fridge Fix,” I announced to the empty kitchen.
Five minutes and one first-class raid on my own fridge later I was back with a block of Cheddar, a loaf of bread, a jar of pickles, a half-full bottle of ranch dressing, a package of bacon, six cups of blueberry yogurt, seven apples, and a box of cherry Popsicles.
I was heading back for another round of kitchen pillaging when I bumped into Samson in my fort, nosing around near the link that led to Kelly’s.
“Oh, no, not you,” I said. Samson was my favorite cat in the world, but I was still angry and hurt over his owner. “You need to get back home now, buddy.”
Samson and his snagglepaw took some convincing, and in the struggle I squashed an elbow into one of the unlinked wall pillows. It toppled, and I suddenly found myself face-to-face with a green, cracked, leathery-looking pillow that definitely wasn’t one of mine.
“Ugh, really?” I groaned to the empty fort. “Again?”
Eighteen
So there had been a second secret link all along? That would explain another of the mysterious lumps on NAFAFA’s map of Camp Pillow Fort. I stared at it.
The new pillow was sitting one to the left of Kelly’s. If Abby had started her search the other day going the opposite direction, we would have found this one first. And then where would we be? Maybe Abby and I wouldn’t be fighting. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad right now. Maybe I wouldn’t be alone.
It was too late for maybes, though. Abby had gone the other way, charging off on her own like always, and here I was, and— Hey, you know what? She wasn’t the only one who could go charging into things. Maybe it was my turn.
I shoved the pillow, hard, sending it flying into the mystery fort. Bright light and bouncy electronic music streamed into Fort McForterson. I had a split second of triumph before the yell hit me.
“What the—!”
Oh, good. Someone was home.
Feeling gloriously reckless, I pushed my head and shoulders through the gap and looked around.
I was in a bedroom. A teenager’s bedroom, judging by the band posters and the clothes on the floor. Oh, and Caitlin my across-the-street-neighbor jumping up from a desk right in front of me.
I froze, assessing the situation. My lower half was still back in Fort McForterson, and my upper half was sticking out of a green fake-leather love seat with laundry piled on it. The pillow I’d punched was standing on one side, holding a sheet like a roof over my head. I didn’t see any sign of an organized pillow fort. This must have been one of those accidental forts, like Noriko had talked about in her letter.
I looked at Caitlin. She looked at me. The bouncy electronic music thumped along on its own. And then . . .
“Ha! I knew it!” Caitlin slapped the desk. “I freaking knew it!”
“Hi,” I said. What was she talking about? How was that a proper reply to someone bursting out of your sofa? “You’re, uh, probably surprised to see me.”
“Nope.”
“Nope?”
Caitlin shook her head. “I knew you were having awesome adventures this summer, Maggie. I told you so, remember?”
My brain felt just like the rest of me: only halfway there. “Kind of,” I said, thinking back to when I rescued Samson from the banner on her ice cream truck. It felt like years ago.
Caitlin came over and plopped down on the floor. “So, someone finally started a west coast network, then?” she said.
The world as I knew it went up, down, inside out, and sideways. Caitlin knew about the pillow fort networks? Caitlin? Then again, why not? In a world where Abby could walk out on me, anything was possible.
“Yeah,” I said, scraping together my remaining bits of reality. “I did. We did. But how do you know about that?”
“I moved here from Wisconsin when I was ten,” said Caitlin. “Before the move I was in the Great Plains Sofa Circle.” Holy pickle jar, she really did know about NAFAFA. “But when my network found out where I was going, they made me leave my token behind. I was cut off.”
“Why didn’t they let you just link back there from here?” Look at me, casually talking pillow fort theory with a high schooler.
“Oh, I argued for that, but my network head said it was against the rules to build a satellite fort in unclaimed territory, and if I tried to smuggle in a token and link in, they would shut me down anyway.”
“Huh. Seems like they’re always doing that.”
“Right? But now tell me everything. You really started your own homegrown network out here?”
“Yup. Noriko—she’s head of the Council right now—told us we’re the only kids on the west coast to ever have a network.” I couldn’t keep a curl of pride out of my voice. “It’s pretty cool being first. I just can’t believe other kids never found scraps of the First Sofa and built pillow forts before us.”
Caitlin quirked an eyebrow. “Oh, they totally did.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what this Noriko person told you, but my old network head told me all about it while I was trying to convince her to let me stay linked in. She said linkable forts have been popping up here and there on the west coast ever since the gold rush.”
“The gold rush? Seriously?”
“Sure,” said Caitlin. “It makes sense. A whole bunch of people moved west for that, bringing their pillows and blankets and things along. Their kids either came with them or showed up later, and ever since then some random kid on the west coast occasionally builds a fort that can be linked.”
“But—but Noriko and Murray both specifically said we were a special case. They told us we were the first functioning network on the west coast, ever.”
“Okay,
