Five Summers (26 page)

“I HATE THIS GAME.” SKYLAR SAT DOWN IN THE GRASS on the edge of the north field and started picking wildflowers, nervously slitting the bases of the stems with her thumbnail and threading them into a wreath. She knew she didn’t have time to waste, but she was getting frustrated. It felt like they’d been playing manhunt forever. They’d started after breakfast, and now they were out in the woods at least half a mile from the cafeteria, the sun already so unforgivably hot that her hair was sticking to her neck in clumps. Plus, her legs were itching from wading through the bushes—walking in circles, as it turned out. But she couldn’t quit and go back for lunch, or jump in the lake to cool off, because Jo was gone, and they had to find her. The boys, who were the “hunters,” had tagged her and hauled her off to their “jail” when she had gone back to try to cover their tracks. Now it was up to the other girls to hunt the boys and free Jo.

Growing up, Skylar had never even been allowed to play tag because her parents said it was inhumane to call a person “it.” Instead, she had a Loop ’n Loom that she used to make dozens of potholders while her friends played outside. She felt comfortable in the wilderness—she’d gone camping plenty of times before starting at Nedoba, even once at Joshua Tree in California on a family trip—but the whole concept of hunting creeped her out, even if it was just a stupid game.

Maddie paced back and forth in front of Skylar, kicking at the dry dirt with her Keds, which were still white in spots since they’d only been at camp for two weeks.

“We’ve got to
do
something,” she huffed. “We can’t just sit here smelling the flowers.”

“I’m
thinking
,” Skylar said. But she knew Maddie was right. One of them had to step in and lead—but no one seemed to want to take Jo’s place . . . even though she wasn’t there. Skylar looked over at Emma, who was crouched on the ground planting a stick in the dirt.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to find true north,” Emma said. She took a step back and studied her work, wiping her hands on her jeans.

“It looks like you’re burying a hamster,” Maddie said.

“No, see?” Emma motioned to the grass. “I just mark off where the shadow falls with a rock, and then we just wait a while and see which way the shadow moves to figure out what’s west.” She smiled proudly. “I saw it on TV.”

“You’re like Map from
Dora the Explorer
,” Maddie said. Skylar smiled down at her lap.

“That’s great, Em,” Skylar said. “But I can tell you what’s west. The lake is west. If you listen hard you can hear people splashing.” Emma looked crushed, and Skylar leaped up, placing the daisy chain on her head with a flourish. “You get a Girl Scout badge, though.” Skylar hadn’t been allowed to join Girl Scouts, either. According to her father, the cookie business was “like a Ponzi scheme.”

“What are we waiting for?” Maddie said, balling her fists. With her unruly red curls and tiny limbs, Maddie looked about as intimidating as a cupcake, but Skylar knew it wouldn’t help to mention that.

“Lead the way,” she said, stepping aside.

Maddie hesitated. “You’re taller,” she said. “You can see farther.”

“But you have better shoes,” Emma pointed out. Skylar and Emma were both wearing flip-flops.

“How about we all go together?” Skylar suggested. She linked arms with both of her much shorter friends, feeling like a gangly Dorothy navigating the yellow brick road.

“Lions and tigers and bears—oh my!” Emma whispered. Skylar squeezed her hand. Emma always seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.

“Except instead of lions and tigers it’s just boys making armpit farts,” Maddie said.

“Well,” Skylar reasoned, “at least we’ll be able to hear them coming.”

Ten minutes later, they’d found nothing but a broken ping-pong paddle and a pile of what Emma identified as “probably deer poop.”

“This is the least exciting chase ever,” Maddie sighed.

“We’re not chasing them; they’re chasing
us
,” Skylar reminded her. It was hard not to jump every time a squirrel scampered up a tree. The boys could play rough sometimes, and Skylar didn’t want to put anything past them. Just the other day, Matt Slotkin had given Skylar an Indian burn on the lunch line for no reason. Her mother would have said that boys bothered her because they liked her, but Skylar knew that kind of teasing, and this wasn’t it. This was meaner. Wherever they were, she knew Jo was giving them more trouble than they’d bargained for.

“Look!” Maddie said after they’d walked a few more yards, pointing at the path in front of them. Skylar could see a little red dot mixed in with the dirt clods.

“What is that?” she asked, crouching down.

“A berry, probably,” Emma said.

“Nope!” Maddie reached out and plucked the red thing off the ground, brandishing it proudly. She pointed to a faint but unmistakable white
S
in the center. “It’s a Skittle! It’s a sign!”

“A sign?” Emma asked skeptically. “Of what, littering?”

“No,” Maddie said. “Jo left this for us to find. She’s leading us to her prison . . . like Hansel and Gretel!”

Skylar started to laugh, but then remembered that Jo had been known to stash candy in the pockets of her cargo shorts on more than one occasion.

“Okay,” she said. “If we find another Skittle, we’ll follow them.”

They found a purple one next to a log at the crest of the next hill, and soon they were closing in on the old toolshed near the lake, which had been abandoned for decades.

The shed looked like something out of a horror movie. Set in the center of a “clearing” that had since become overgrown with weeds and stinging nettles, it seemed to sag inward, dark and gray, with boarded-up windows and a fine, sickly green moss crawling all over its roof. The boys had barricaded the door shut with a rusty shovel. When she saw it, Skylar instantly thought of all those horror movies her older brother made her watch whenever their parents went out to dinner. A couple of young girls wandering into a creepy cabin in the woods . . . nothing good ever came of situations like that. Skylar felt chills. And the most disturbing thing about the whole scene was that the boys were nowhere in sight. The girls hid behind a thick oak and deliberated.

“It’s too quiet,” Emma whispered. “It’s a setup.”

“I know,” Skylar said quietly. “They’ve got to be watching us.”

Maddie started humming the music from
Jaws
.

“Do you think she’s actually in there?” Emma wondered. “I figured she’d be ninja-kicking the door or something.”

“The Skittles don’t lie,” Maddie said.

Skylar grabbed a pine cone off the ground, took aim, and lobbed it into the clearing. It ricocheted off the front of the shed and rolled off into the brush.

“
Hey, jerks! Are you still out there? Open the door!
” Jo’s voice was muffled but still sounded impressively angry.

“She’s in there,” Emma laughed.

“And the boys aren’t,” Skylar added. “If they were, they would have reacted. They must have doubled back to find us.” She was proud of herself. She had led them to Jo —with the help of some bite-sized candy, but still— and now they could break her out and spend the rest of the day on the dock eating ice-cream sandwiches.

“Two birds, one cone,” Emma said admiringly.

“Jo!” Maddie cried, running for the shed.

“Shhhhhh!” Skylar looked around for signs of life as she waded through the weeds, with Emma right behind her.

“
Maddie?
” Jo sounded confused.

Skylar and Emma moved to help Maddie lift the shovel out of the door handle, and within seconds they were reunited with Jo, who stood with her hands on her hips in the musty air, the light streaming in through cracks between the window boards, illuminating the dust particles that floated around like allergenic snowflakes. Skylar could see an old lawnmower in one corner and a wall full of shovels.
It was like they were in a horror movie
, she thought. Or a really boring episode of
Antiques Roadshow
. But Jo’s scowl disappeared as soon as she saw her friends.

“Wait, where’d the boys go? How did you find me?” she asked.

“We found your trail,” Skylar said.

Jo looked confused. “What trail?”

“Haha, we totally got you guys!” Adam Loring yelled, coming out from behind the shed. The Slotkin twins and Nate joined him, forming a circle around the girls.

Skylar arched an eyebrow at them and crossed her arms. “So, what, you guys were just hanging out until we came by?” she asked. “That’s a wimpy move.”

“So’s following a trail of candy,” Matt said, looking proud of himself.

“Stop talking to them,” Mark said. He drummed his fingers together like a cartoon villain. “They’re
all
our prisoners now.” The girls were trapped against the front of the shed.

“Stop being such losers,” Skylar groaned.

“You’ll have to tag us first, anyway,” Emma said. That gave Skylar an idea.

“Get inside,” she whispered to the others.

“What? No way, it stinks in here,” Jo said.

“Get in,” Skylar hissed. “We tagged you back in, and if we get in the shed and hold the door shut they can’t tag any of us out again.” She looked over at Emma, who gave her a supportive nod. “Go!” Skylar cried.

They all piled into the dank room and closed the door, throwing their collective weight against the inside of the door to keep the boys out.

“Hey!” Adam yelled.

“I told you we should have tagged them,” Nate said.

“I’m not sure this is going to work,” Jo panted.

“Trust me,” Skylar said. “The lunch bell is going to ring any second.”

It was quiet outside for a minute.

“Maybe they got bored,” Maddie said hopefully.

Just then they heard the sound of the shovel barricade being moved back into place. Skylar’s heart sank. She’d been a leader all right—and she’d led her friends right into a trap. The Girl Scouts probably wouldn’t take her even if she paid them.

“Hey!” Emma yelled, banging on the inside of the door with both fists. “This is not funny!”

“Yes it is!” Mark’s voice was thin, like he was farther away all of a sudden. “’Cause we’re going to go jump off the dock now. You guys are stuck. We win!” Skylar heard faint laughter from outside the cabin.

“That’s not how it works!” Jo yelled, grabbing a hoe and whacking the door like an action hero, nearly decapitating Maddie in the process. She dropped it on the floor with a clatter. “Great,” she sighed. “Thanks for the company, anyway.”

Skylar wiped an inch of dust off an ancient workbench and sat down, taking shallow breaths of the stale, metallic air as the lunch bell finally started ringing in the distance, just missing its cue. Emma sat next to her and tried to start a game of MASH, but Skylar wasn’t in the mood. Her afternoon was officially ruined. She hated feeling embarrassed. She hated being inside on days that were perfect for swimming. She kind of hated Jo for making them play manhunt in the first place, and she definitely hated the boys for making up their own stupid rules.
Why
,
she thought, tracing a curlicue into the dust by her thigh,
couldn’t the girls be the ones to make up the rules once in a while?

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” JO REPEATED, LOUDER this time. Skylar looked back at the blue flag rippling in the breeze. She looked down at her grimy knees and her muddy romper and her arms, which were latticed with faint scratches. She looked at the black dirt buried under her chipped nails. She looked down at Adam, who was sitting quietly by the edge of the roof where she’d tagged him, and at Emma, still on the ground after nearly being flattened by Mark Slotkin. She looked at Maddie, who was catching her breath, and at Jo, who was staring up at her like she was insane, the black smears under her eyes shimmering with sweat. Then she walked over to the ladder and climbed down empty-handed. She knew Jo wouldn’t—and maybe couldn’t—understand, but she also knew it was what she had to do for the JEMS to be able to start over. At a certain point, she reasoned, when things got bad you had to just let go. The way she’d finally cut herself loose from Adam. The way she knew she had to deal with her dad and his selfish, misguided attempts to steer her life in the course of his choosing. Some people didn’t change, Skylar thought, but she did. She
had
. And she wasn’t willing to waste another minute playing by someone else’s rules.

“Look,” she said, gathering the girls into a huddle. “We tagged them all out. They’re trapped here. And yeah, we could take the flag and crawl back through the woods and dodge more boys and make it back to base for a big win—”

“Which was the original plan
we all agreed on
,” Jo interjected.

“—but what would that prove?” Skylar asked. “That we beat them? Look around—we already have.” Mark and Bowen were splayed out on the ground, while Nate and Matt were busy picking up the toiletries the girls had tossed out onto the grass. And since Adam had been tagged all alone on the rooftop, that was where he had to stay.

“Let’s go to the lake and lie out in the sun and enjoy our last full day together,” she said. “We all deserve a rest.”

Jo looked crushed. “We’ve come this far,” she said. “That’s ruined if we forfeit!”

“No, it isn’t,” Emma said, stepping up next to Skylar. “Like you said this morning, the important thing is that we came together. I didn’t think we could, but we did, Jo—don’t you see how amazing that is? So who needs a bandana? Who needs a flag?”

“I’m glad we made up,” Jo said. “It’s not that I’m not happy about that, I just . . . I need this, too.” She looked around pleadingly. “Come on, guys. It’s my last summer. One more push, for old times’ sake?”

Skylar felt suddenly torn. She wanted nothing more than to abandon the game, but she also wanted to give Jo the victory she so desperately needed. Didn’t she owe her that, for being her (somewhat unwilling, but steadfastly loyal) rock over the past three years? Maddie was already tightening her ponytail elastic in preparation for the next battle. Skylar looked over at Emma, who frowned and shrugged, wiping sweat off her temples.

“I don’t know,” Skylar sighed. “We’re wet and sore and exhausted. I almost lost my best friends and now I feel like I can breathe again for the first time in three years. And frankly, no trophy is going to trump that.”

Skylar glanced up at Adam, sitting on the roof by himself. Adam was so rarely alone that he looked out of place, like a scarecrow that had been put up there as a prank. But maybe some time to examine his feelings would be good for him. With no one to flirt with or make witty asides to, Adam would have to figure out what he really wanted. Skylar knew it wasn’t her, that it would never be her, but she hoped it was something, or someone, who could make him better.

“We captured them, Jo,” she said. “But we don’t need them anymore.”

“I agree,” Jo whispered through clenched teeth—the boys, done licking their respective wounds, were all craning to hear what was being said—“but we are not just walking away.” Maddie looked up at the flag and narrowed her eyes. The sun was so bright now that even with the eye black they had to squint.

Skylar leaned forward and rested her palms on her thighs, which were practically vibrating from all the running. She didn’t want to admit that she wasn’t sure she could make it back across camp without collapsing.

“So, what, you’re not even taking the flag?” Mark said petulantly, pulling himself to his feet. “That’s such a girly cop-out.”

Maddie’s eyes flashed. “Oh, we’re taking the flag, Jock Itch,” she said, bounding over to the ladder. She climbed up to the roof, breezed past Adam, and pulled the flag loose with one hand. Then, just as quickly, she was back on the ground, jogging off down the path toward the lake. “Come on!” she called over her shoulder.

Skylar wasn’t sure what Maddie had in mind, but the direction she was headed suggested that whatever it was didn’t involve sprinting, and that was good enough for her. She linked arms with Emma and a slightly bewildered Jo as they followed behind at a somewhat slower clip.

“Hey!” Nate yelled after them. “When’s the game going to end, then? We can’t stay here all night!”

“Sure you can,” Skylar called back as they started down the path toward the shore, already feeling the breeze blowing in off the water, blessedly cool on her sweaty skin. “At least you’ve got a bathroom.”

But as the wide mouth of the lake came into view at the end of the familiar wooded path, Skylar felt her confidence start to falter. They’d reconciled after the big blowout that morning, but so far the whole weekend had been about old times. About trying, and failing, to be their old selves. Whatever new phase of friendship they were heading into was completely uncharted territory.