I wasn't going to tattle on my friends. But Evergreen was my boss, so I forced a smile onto my face. "Sure," I said. "I'll let you know. But there probably won't be a problem, right? If you thought there would be, you wouldn't have brought him."

  Evergreen suddenly looked weary. "I suppose," she said, though she didn't sound sure of that, either. "Thanks. I knew I could trust you."

  Oh. Right. Trust.

  Was that because of my weight, or just because she thought of me as responsible?

  Evergreen backed away from the door, leaving it open. "And River? Don't yell through the door once the campers are here."

  "Okay," I said. Evergreen turned and walked away, her feet crunching down the path to the main road.

  I stared after her. Evergreen had just put me on an incredibly loose leash, between the permission to teach real art and the instruction to spy on Logan. She was treating me more like a co-worker than an employee—or at least one that was much, much less far below her than she treated the other counselors. Evergreen didn't extend trust to very many people.

  Now that I had it, I wanted to keep it.

  Either way, I needed to be more careful how I acted around Logan. Rumors burned through a camp of pubescent girls like flame through hair. I should know—one of my campers last year lit her ponytail on fire. Fortunately she didn't burn badly, but in the split second between when her hair went up and when my co-counselor threw a blanket over her head, her hair was reduced to a matted mess, and the smell was so bad we had to break up the campfire and send the girls to bed early. Her hair couldn't be salvaged. She went home with a pixie cut.

  Some of my summer had to be salvageable, though. If I couldn't keep Logan from wanting to use me as home base, the least I could do was play it off with grace. Otherwise, I really was going to learn something Evergreen wanted to know, and though I didn't really want to be her narc, I didn't want to disappoint her, either.

  The obvious solution was to learn as little about Logan as possible. Otherwise, my perfect summer was going to go up in flames.

  When I went down to meet Lindsey, I walked right by the camp offices instead of taking the road that approached the trailhead. I sat down on a stump near the parking lot to wait for the bus, and listened to the birds chirping in the trees above me . . . and the whine of what sounded like a power saw squealing from the direction of the trailhead. Through the trees, the sound was soft, but identifiable.

  I was glad when the buses bumped up the dirt road, engines humming, and drowned out his noise.

  Lindsey was sitting toward the middle of the first bus. When she saw me through the window, she jumped up and down and waved. Her long blond hair was tucked underneath a baseball cap, a ponytail hanging out the back. She looked a bit taller, but otherwise the same.

  Most of the other counselors came down the hill, ready to meet their girls. When Lindsey flew off the bus, though, she came straight over to me, waving a pad of paper.

  "Hey," I said. "I hear you're going to be staying with me on the weekends."

  She wrinkled her nose. "Not during the week?"

  "No," I said. "I'm running the art shack this year."

  "Ooh," Lindsey said. "I could be your helper."

  I smiled. I knew we were going to get along. "You can help me when you have free time. Or if you're missing your mom, or whatever. Just tell your counselors you want to come see me. Anytime."

  "Okay," Lindsey said. Her pad was still flapping from the end of her arm like a broken wing. "Hey, is it true that there's a guy in camp?"

  My smile faded before I could paste it back on. "How'd you hear that?"

  Lindsey pulled a pencil out of her pocket and scribbled something on her pad. "We heard some of the counselors talking about it on the bus. Some of the girls were saying there were guy counselors now, but I was thinking maybe he was a ghost. Like a folktale." She squinted at me. "Do you know what that is?"

  I glared at Pepper, one of the counselors who was ushering the girls off the bus. If they were chatting about this in front of the girls, those rumors were going to spread even faster. I could smell my hair burning already. "It's true," I said. "Not a folktale. Also not a counselor—he's just here building the new stage."

  Lindsey gave me a patronizing look. "Folktales can be true. They just have to get told a lot. Kind of like fairytales, you know?" She rethought that. "But like, true stuff, too." She knelt down, propping her pad on her knee and scribbling something on it.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  Lindsey grinned up at me. "I'm collecting your story."

  She looked overly proud of knowing to call it that, so I tried to look impressed. "What for?"

  "Duh," Lindsey said. "Because I want to."

  I couldn't exactly argue with that. I was beginning to think that was the only explanation I was ever going to get when Lindsey went on. "My teacher taught us about it, and made us find stories. I wished I could do it at camp instead. The stories are better here." She looked around at the trees. "Actually, everything is better here."

  At least we agreed on that. "Great," I said. "You can be the camp historian." That sounded like something Evergreen would go for, and also something that would keep Lindsey busy on the weekends.

  "Not historian," Lindsey said. "Do you know what a folklorist is?"

  She over-enunciated like she was even prouder of using that word. I smiled. "Yes. Folklorist, then."

  Lindsey looked mildly disappointed that she didn't get to educate me further about folklore. She bent over her notebook. "So the boy in camp. When did you first hear about him?"

  I raised one eyebrow. "I met him at the art shack."

  Lindsey's eyebrows furled. "You met him?"

  "Um. Yeah."

  Lindsey shoved her pencil behind her ear. And instead of sighing, she actually said, "Sigh. It's not a folktale if you were there. Someone needs to hear it from you."

  "You just did," I said. But Lindsey was already racing back toward the bus, where the other girls, untainted from firsthand Logan experience, were collecting their sleeping bags and backpacks to haul them up the hill to their campsites. She pulled off her hat, her blond hair streaking out behind her. I wished I'd had a camera on me—I would have taken a reference photo to paint her later.

  She looked over her shoulder at me once. "If you hear any good stories," she shouted, "let me know!"

  I sighed, though I refrained from saying the word aloud. I was pretty sure that she'd find enough stories about the guy in camp to keep her busy for the rest of the summer. And lucky me, I'd get to hear about them all.

  I couldn't help it. "Sigh," I said.

  Actually, using the word out loud was strangely relaxing.

  I shook myself. Get a grip, Bryn, I thought. It wasn't like Logan existed only to bother me. I loved camp, and I didn't have to let him poison it.

  Step one was to quit thinking about him non-stop.

  Four

  Operation forget-about-Logan was easier decided on than done. I was just headed back to the art shack to clean up my sand jar when Wednesday called my name from the mess hall.

  "River!" she shouted. "I have a question for you."

  She came over to me waving an envelope in her hand, but it was way too soon for me to be getting mail, if I was going to get any at all.

  "What?" I asked.

  She looked from side to side, as if someone might have snuck up on us to listen. Which, with the arrival of the girls, was actually totally possible. "I just heard Logan's been up at the art shack a lot, and I was wondering if you'd give this to him next time he comes by."

  I tapped a foot in the dirt. She'd heard, too? I took the envelope and turned it over in my hands. It was sealed.

  "He's been there twice," I said. "Not exactly a lot." Through the thin white paper, I could see that the stationary was decorated with flowers.

  Wednesday squirmed. "Still, he'll probably come back. Right?"

  She looked so hopeful, it seemed wrong to crush her. I waved the envelope at her. "What is this, anyway?"

  Wednesday looked embarrassed. "It's just a note. Don't tell him it's from me."

  Right. Not important at all, just take the secret to your grave.

  Letters and notes were a thing at camp—deprived of our cell phones and the internet, we had to resort to scribbling things on pieces of paper and sending them to our families through the mail like old ladies. Everyone had a mail box on the mess hall wall, carefully relabeled every week with each girl's name. The girls stuffed notes to each other into the boxes, especially during the first couple days of the session, when even the most diligent parents hadn't gotten letters out soon enough for them to arrive.

  But Logan wouldn't have a mail box.

  That didn't make me his courier. I held the letter out for her to take back. "I don't do love notes," I said. "Why don't you just leave it up at the office?"

  She winced. "Because Evergreen might see me." She was edging away, so I couldn't force the note on her. If I didn't take it, she'd probably send it up to the office with a pair of campers, which would induce even more giggles.

  At least then Wednesday would be the subject of the rumors, not me.

  But Wednesday gave me a pleading look. "I'll owe you a favor."

  I tapped the envelope against my leg. I didn't expect to need a favor from Wednesday. In fact, this was probably the sort of thing that Evergreen wanted me to report straight to her. But Wednesday looked thoroughly miserable. I wasn't heartless, and this wasn't exactly the kind of deep trouble that bore reporting.

  Especially if I conveniently forgot to give it to him. "Fine," I said. "If he ever stops by again, I'll try to remember I have it."

  "Thank you!" Wednesday backed away rapidly, before I could change my mind. I turned my back on her and hiked up the hill to the shack, rubbing the envelope between my fingers. I wondered if Celeste was in on this, or if every girl in the kitchen wanted a piece of Logan. Celeste was probably gabbing about him all day and whipping the other girls into a frenzy about him.

  Stupid, I thought. It wasn't every girl in the kitchen. It was every girl in camp.

  Except me, I added.

  Still, I had this weird itching urge to make sure that Wednesday's note fell into a tub of dye.

  When I reached the shack, I'd decided to shove it behind the bins of crayons instead. But when I opened the door, Logan was already sitting at the aluminum table, sketching with a colored pencil.

  I crunched the envelope against my hip. I let my jaw drop in mock surprise. "What is that?" I asked, pointing to his drawing. "Is it—art?"

  He hid the paper under his forearm, like a fourth-grader. "I wouldn't go that far."

  But then he continued to move the pencil across the paper, still hiding it from my sight.

  I glared. "What are you doing in here?"

  He didn't even look up. "Hiding."

  I smashed the envelope further. "From your mother?"

  "From the girls. Two of the campsites are right by the trailhead . . ."

  I nodded. "So you can't work without them gawking at you."

  "My mom's exact words were, 'don't make a spectacle of yourself.'"

  So Evergreen had told him to be scarce. Had she sent him here? I stepped into the shack and closed the door. "So what are you going to do? Build the stage under the cover of night?"

  "No. Mom says by tonight they'll all be aware of me, and things will calm down."

  I blew my hair out of my face. "Fat chance. They're already aware of you. The rumors spread on the bus. Plus, there'll be new girls every week."

  Logan nodded. "I guess all my Mondays will be spent in hiding."

  I sighed. "Can't you hide up at the office?"

  Logan just kept drawing. "Could," he said. "But then I'd have to deal with my mother."

  I raised an eyebrow. Their relationship must be pretty bad, if he found me preferable. I leaned forward, trying to get a look at his drawing, but he readjusted his arm to stop me.

  I rolled my eyes. "Forgive me for intruding upon your masterpiece."

  Logan grinned, like that had been a joke. "You're forgiven."

  This guy seriously could not take a hint. "How long are you planning to sit there?"

  He hesitated. "How long before they forget about me?"

  Never. I threw the envelope at him. It fluttered in mid-air and landed at his feet with somewhat less flourish than I'd intended. "Maybe that will tell you," I said.

  He bent down to pick it up, without moving his arm from the paper. "What's this?"

  "I suspect it's a love note," I said. "I was instructed not to tell you who from, but I probably will anyway."

  Logan held it at arm's length, studying it like the girls eyed spiders. "Can we just pretend you lost it?"

  "Sure," I said, motioning to the shelves of art supplies. "I was going to drop it behind the shelving, if you hadn't been sitting here."

  He put the envelope down on the table, his mouth turning up in an uncertain smile. "You weren't going to give it to me?"

  I picked up my half-full sand jar off the table, mostly to have something to look at besides him. "Why? Would you have been crushed?"

  "No," he said. "But I think I'm lost. Are you mad at me for something?"

  I could feel the rage building, my lungs puffing up with air until they burned. "No," I said.

  Logan didn't look convinced. He flipped his paper over drawing-side down, and scooted back in his seat. "Is this about the note?"

  I put down the jar again with a clunk. Because of the headroom in the jar, the layers began to sift together. "It's nothing," I said. "Except that you're always here, when I'm supposed to be getting work done."

  Logan stood. "Oh. Sorry. I can get out of your way. Or, if you need any help—"

  I put both hands on my hips. "No," I said. "I've got it."

  Logan brushed by me, leaving his note on the table. I picked it up and slit it open, pulling out the card inside.

  It had a heart drawn on it, and the words, Meet me by the waterfront at sunrise, if you dare.

  I wondered if poor Wednesday was going to get up every morning and wait, never sure if Logan had gotten the note yet.

  No. She was probably going to pester me about it, until I made up some lie about losing it, or told her the truth. That Logan hadn't wanted it.

  Of course, he'd have opened it, if I hadn't presented it to him the way that I did.

  And then what? Would he like Wednesday? Would they be the pair sneaking off in the bushes to make out? Would I be obligated to report them to Evergreen?

  At least if he settled with someone, Celeste and the others would calm down.

  I stepped out the door. "Wait!" I yelled.

  Logan had barely reached the road. He turned around and looked up the path at me. "Yeah?"

  "You forgot your note." I tromped down the path and handed it to him, torn envelope and all. "It's an invitation to a mysterious meeting at sunrise. Probably right up your alley."

  He looked at it. "This is funny, right? We should be laughing?" But he was looking at me uncertainly, and I realized I was scowling. I screwed up my face, trying to relax the muscles. So much for not wearing my thoughts on my sleeve. "Sorry," I said.

  Logan pinched the letter with two fingers, taking it from me and reading it over. "So, do you think I should go?"

  I shrugged. "Depends. Are you interested in Wednesday?"

  "As in, two days from now?"

  "As in Celeste's assistant at the mess hall."

  Logan looked up into his shaggy hair, like he was trying to remember her. "Can you point her out to me?"

  My cheeks grew hot. "Do I have to?"

  Logan smiled. "Hey, you brought the letter. Wasn't it supposed to be a secret who sent it?"

  I crossed my arms. "Leave me out of it. Go have fun with Wednesday. Or stand her up. I don't care."

  Logan bit his lower lip. "So . . . the note really isn't from you?"

  "No!" I said. I'd spoken too loudly, and I could hear a group of campers tromping up the main road. They were probably one of the very groups Logan was trying to avoid, heading over to campsite four, past the trailhead. "No," I said more quietly. "Of course it isn't from me."

  The corner of Logan's mouth twitched up. Had he been kidding when he suggested that? Or was it my reaction that made him smile?

  "Stop it," I said. "Don't make fun of me."

  Logan held up his hands in surrender. "I'm not. I swear. You just seem really upset about this."

  I dug my fingernails into my palms. I couldn't argue with that. "You probably should meet up with Wednesday. The faster you hook up with one of the counselors, the sooner the rest of the camp will stop mooning over you."

  His eyes got wide. "Mooning?" he said.

  "Please," I said. "You noticed."

  He held his hands up in defense. "Did you seriously just use the word mooning?"

  "Don't let it go to your head," I said. "You aren't even that attractive."

  Logan's mouth actually fell open, and so did mine. I could feel my whole face growing redder than the bark of the trees. He gave me a confused look which grew into a confused smile, and then a look of understanding, which made me want to slap him because I didn't even understand why I'd let that come out of my mouth.

  At that moment the group of girls rounded the bend, Pretzel and Roo leading the pack. Logan and I both turned to look, and several of the girls' eyes lit up when they saw him. These were the younger girls—probably the eighters, since Lindsey wasn't with them. One particularly little one on the edge of the group turned to whisper into another's ear.

  The rumors. Beginning already.

  I turned and stomped back up the path to the art shack, leaving Logan to deal with them himself. By the end of the day, there would be plenty of stories for Lindsey to collect, no doubt half of them featuring me. I could ask her for a daily report. A humiliation review. She'd love it.

  But my own words still rang in my ears. You aren't even that attractive. Why did I say that?

 

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