"Here." Christy reached over to her backpack on the floor and pulled out a packet of tissues. "Try one of these instead of your pillowcase. You"re going to have to sleep on that thing tonight, you know."
Ruthie accepted the tissue and blew her nose. "You probably think I"m acting like a baby."
"Not at all," Christy said, handing her another tissue. "I think you"re a lovely young girl turning into a beautiful young woman."
The girl honked her nose loudly as she blew. "Sorry." She repressed a giggle at how loud her nose sounded.
"That"s okay," Christy said. "You feel better?"
Ruthie nodded and offered a smile.
"Good. Now what do you want to do this afternoon? You and I can do it together."
"I wanted to go out in a canoe, but n.o.body else wanted to go with me."
"I"ll go with you," Christy said.
"Are you sure?" Ruthie asked. "Wouldn"t you rather be withjaeson?"
"No, I"d rather be with you."
Ruthie sprang from the bed, her hope renewed, and led the way to the door. Christy followed, feeling pleased with Ruthie"s comeback. On the trail to the lake, Ruthie slipped her hand into Christy"s and gave it a squeeze. Christy squeezed back.
"How did you get so good at knowing what to do when a girl is crying?"
"I happen to be the pity party expert," Christy said. "When I was your age I used to cry about stuff all the time."
"And you don"t cry anymore?"
"Sure, I still cry, but not as much. I still have some of the same feelings that used to send me to my pillow when I was younger, but they don"t make me cry as much anymore."
Ruthie let go of Christy"s hand and skittered a few feet into the woods, where she picked a small yellow wildflower and brought it back to Christy.
"Thankyou, Ruthie." Christy slipped the flower behind her right ear. "And I really do like your name. There was a Ruth in the Bible, you know. There"s a whole book written about her because she was such a loyal friend. That"s how I"ll always remember you: Ruthie, my loyal friend."
Ruthie flashed a rare full smile, revealing her mouthful of silver braces. She looked like a different girl from the sullen one who had told Christy she hated the name Ruth.
They walked through the clearing onto the gravel beach by the lake. Ruthie was the first to notice that two of the other girls from their cabin, Sara and Jeanine, were there.
Christy knew if Jeanine was here, Nick probably wasn"t far away. Sure enough, Christy spotted Nick and his two friends at the boat shack, apparently getting a canoe.
"Why don"t you ask those two girls if they"d like to join us on our canoe ride?" Christy suggested to Ruthie. "I have a strong feeling at least one of them would like to."
Ruthie ran off to invite Jeanine and Sara while Christy headed for the boat shack. Not until she was in front of the shack did she notice that Jaeson was the one behind the window pa.s.sing out life vests.
"Christy, just the person I wanted to see. How do you feel about taking these guys for a canoe ride? I told Mike I"d fill in for him here until four."
"She"s taking us out," Jeanine answered, stepping up to the window with Ruthie and Sara.
"We could take one of the guys," Jeanine added, flashing a grin at Nick.
"Nope," Jaeson said. "Only four to a canoe."
Jaeson looked at his watch and then back at Nick and his two friends. "I probably shouldn"t do this," he said, "but you guys have gone out before, and you pretty much know what you"re doing. I"ll let you three go by yourselves. Christy, can you keep an eye on them and try to stay close to them out on the lake in case of any accidents?"
"Sure, that"s fine," Christy said.
"And I"ll be right here watching you guys," Jaeson added, handing out the life preservers. He caught Christy"s wrist when she reached for her preserver and gave it a squeeze. "Thanks. You"re a honey."
Christy"s campers heard him say it, and they huddled close to her as they walked over to the canoes.
"He likes you!" Jeanine declared nice and loud.
"Shhhh," Christy said. Then bending close to Jeanine, she asked, "How"s it going with you and Nick?"
"Okay, I think. He hasn"t hit me yet today."
"And you haven"t taken any more of his things, have you?"
"No. I gave him a bracelet like Jessica said, but he"s not wearing it."
"That"s okay." Christy gave her a little squeeze around her plump orange life vest. "I"m proud of the way you"re acting."
Jeanine beamed.
It took Christy"s troop longer to launch their boat than the boys. They suddenly had four captains and no mates. Jaeson came over and helped by giving their canoe a good swift push. Christy sat at the front with a paddle in her hand, Ruthie took the middle bench, and Jeanine and Sara insisted on sharing the backseat, each with a paddle in the water.
"Make sure you paddle in the same direction," Jaeson called out as they began to bob on the calm lake.
"Farewell!" Sara cried out dramatically, standing up and turning to wave good-bye to Jaeson.
"Sit down!" they all yelled at her as the canoe began to tip.
"Okay, listen," Christy called over her shoulder. "All of you follow my lead. If my paddle is in the water on this side, then you put your paddle in on this side. And the same over here." She demonstrated for them, hoping none of them would guess that she hadn"t been in a canoe since she was their age. Even then, it was with her Uncle Tom in Minnesota, and he had done all the paddling.
The crew followed orders, and everything seemed smooth. No problem.
"Let"s catch up with the boys," Jeanine said, eagerly paddling on her side. The canoe swerved to the left toward the sh.o.r.e.
"We have to paddle all together," Christy said. "Remember what I said? Follow my lead."
She dug her paddle into the water for three strong strokes on the left side of the canoe to straighten them out and at least point them in the boys" direction. Christy switched her paddle to the right side, but apparently the girls weren"t watching. Sara and Ruthie kept paddling on the left. It seemed they were getting nowhere.
Christy barked out more instructions. The canoe gently drifted toward the middle of the lake, no thanks to their efforts.
"Look at the ducks!" Sara said. "They"re coming right up to the canoe. Let"s sit here and watch them."
"No, we need to catch up with the boys," Jeanine objected. "Remember what Jaeson said. We have to stay with them, and they"re headed for the other side of the lake."
"What"s over there?" Christy asked.
"That"s where they have the counselor hunt on the last full day," Sara explained. "All the counselors row over in canoes and hide, and then we run around the edge of the lake to find them. Whoever finds their counselor first has to get their counselor"s sash and run all the way back to the boat shack."
"But the counselors get to try to beat them," Jeanine added. "They come back in their canoes and have to plant their flags by the boathouse."
"Sounds like a lot of fun," Christy said.
""Whoever loses has to serve the food at the banquet on the last night. We have team captains, and if the campers lose, they serve the counselors, who all sit together at one table."
"And if the counselors lose?" Christy asked.
"Then they have to serve all the tables."
"Well, I hope we win. I wouldn"t mind having dinner served to me," Christy said. "Paddle on the right, girls. We"re starting to drift too far."
They worked their way across the lake, improving as they went, until they almost caught up with the boys. Christy could feel strange muscle twinges in her upper arms. She never would have guessed paddling was such hard work or that this small lake was so far across.
"How are you guys doing?" Christy called out when they were within a few yards of the guys" canoe.
"We"re fishing," Nick said. He pulled his stick out of the water and revealed a brown string attached to it with a wiggly worm at the end. Christy thought their Tom Sawyer fishing pole looked quite clever.
"Ewww!" Sara said. "That"s a worm."
"Duh," said one of the boys.
"I hate worms," Sara said.
Nick dangled the fishing pole over toward the girls" canoe so Sara could look at the worm close-up. It came within a few feet of her face, and she screamed.
"Hey!" Jeanine yelled when she looked closely at the brown string attached to the stick. "That"s the friendship bracelet I made for you!"
"Turned out to be good for something," Nick said, laughing.
"I want it back!" Jeanine yelled. "I worked hard on that. You"re not supposed to use it for a fishing line!"
Jeanine stood up and lunged for the line, which Nick jerked away. Before Christy knew what was happening, Jeanine toppled from the canoe and into the lake.
"Jeanine!" Christy screamed, turning around and trying to steady the topsy-turvy canoe. Sara stood and tried to reach for the soaked Jeanine.
Ruthie leaned back to compensate for Sara"s weight being thrown to one side, but it was too much of a compensation. The canoe tottered to the left, dumping Ruthie into the lake, and then to the right, dumping Sara in after Jeanine.
"Girls!" Christy called out futilely. The canoe rocked back and forth, and Christy tried to steady it as the three drowned rats, buoyed up by their life vests, each tried to pull themselves into the canoe on opposite sides. The girls were laughing and didn"t seem to mind the dunking a bit.
"Wait!" Christy cried. "Stop! This isn"t working. We"re so close to sh.o.r.e, why don"t you swim in, and I"ll pick you up there?"
The girls, still laughing, willingly dog-paddled the short distance to sh.o.r.e and waited there for Christy, dripping wet and shivering.
The boys were laughing so hard that they didn"t hear Christy tell them to stay put while she went for the girls. They must have decided their best course of action was to get as far away from the girls as they could, since they knew retaliation would be on the girls" minds. The boys took off, paddling full speed back to the boat shack, leaving Christy to manage the rescue landing by herself.
The girls helped pull their canoe into sh.o.r.e and stiffly tried to get in. That"s when the laughing stopped and the complaining began.
"They made us fall in," Jeanine sobbed. Tm going to get back at them."
"I"m cold," Sara complained. "Didn"t you bring a towel?"
"It"s back on the other side," Christy said. "Once we get over there you can use it."
"But it"s so far," Ruthie moaned. "We"re going to freeze to death."
"It"s not that cold," Christy said. "Try sitting in the bottom of the canoe. You"ll keep out of the wind better that way."
"But there"s water in the bottom," Sara said.
"That"s okay," Christy coaxed them. "You"re already wet. It won"t hurt you."
The girls wedged themselves into the hull of the canoe and crossed their arms in front of them around their bloated vests, trying to keep warm. Christy, at the helm, tried her best to maneuver the canoe across the lake. It seemed impossible to move the canoe in the direction she wanted it to go. Without anyone paddling at the rear, the canoe floundered through the water, more motivated by the wind and waves than by Christy"s determined efforts with the paddle. She was definitely doing this the hard way.
Her complaining crew kept giving her advice about which side she should be paddling on and why she was doing it all wrong. Christy endured the remarks for ten minutes and then lost it. "Would one of you like to try this?" she barked. "It"s not exactly easy."
"I"ll help you," Ruthie offered. She rose to sit on the middle seat and stuck a paddle into the water on the same side as Christy"s. Together they plunged the canoe through the water and made some headway.
Ten minutes later they reached the sh.o.r.e. By then the girls were mostly dried out. The boys had landed a good fifteen minutes earlier and had long since disappeared.
Jaeson met them at the sh.o.r.e, wading waist deep in the water to help bring in their canoe. He lifted each of the girls from their floating prison and offered his hand to Christy so she could step out onto the gravel. She felt like an incompetent counselor, having dumped her girls and lost track of the boys. If she had fallen in herself, she might have felt better at this moment. At least she could have been another victim and not the responsible person.
Jaeson held on to her hand and drew her close. In a low voice he said, "Would you be interested in a free canoe lesson?"
A smile returned to Christy"s face. "Why?" she teased. "You think I need one?"
"It"s up to you," Jaeson said. "I thought you might want a little edge on the campers for the counselor hunt on Friday."
"Okay, you talked me into it. You say when, and I"ll be there."
"I"ll let you know tonight at dinner." Jaeson gave her hand a squeeze before letting it go.
At dinner, Jaeson and Christy sat back-to-back in what had become their usual spots at the tables. During the meal Jaeson leaned back four times to make comments in Christy"s ear. It was hard to hear him above the roar of the campers. But it didn"t really matter what he said. Just the attention was fun.
She did notice when dinner was over that he hadn"t mentioned a time for the promised canoe lesson. Maybe he had forgotten. Christy tried not to feel discouraged. After all, this was only Wednesday, and they had the whole next day to practice, since the race was on Friday.
"Come play softball with us," her girls urged, pulling her by the arms from the mess hall. ""We have to hurry! We only have a half hour free before the evening meeting starts."
Christy let the girls lead her out to the baseball field where some of the campers had already started up a game. When they saw her coming, they all insisted she be the pitcher. She was good at hitting the ball, but she wasn"t too confident that her pitching would win any awards.
Taking her place on the mound and winding up, she let the softball fly over home plate. Thump! One of the girls from Jessica"s cabin hit the ball, and it sailed to center field. Her teammates cheered, and the girl took a playful bow when she made it safely to first base.
Another windup, and the next girl made contact with the first ball Christy pitched. Same with the next hitter; the bases were loaded. A timid, skinny fifth-grader stepped up to the plate next, and Christy threw three of the gentlest, slowest b.a.l.l.s she could throw. The girl swung at all three and missed.
"One more pitch," a deep voice called out from the side of the field. It was Jaeson. He stepped up behind the discouraged little hitter, wrapped his arms around her, and showed her how to hold the bat the right way.