Hit the Beach (8 page)

Aimee had posted a new blog, too. Madison started to laugh at it right away—even before she’d read anything.

08-9


My Top Ten Countdown of Reasons Why It Is :>( to Be in Far Hills W/O My BFFs (insert drumroll here)


10. No one to pick on me for being a ballet addict *ha ha*


9. No one to sneak off to Freeze Palace to share a Brown Cow milk shake


8. No one home @ Fiona’s big house (and it looks scary at night with that one porch light on)


7. Multiple sightings of Poison Ivy alone (RUN AWAY!)


6. Multiple sightings of Poison Ivy with drones (RUN AWAY FASTER!)


5. No Blossom walks w/Phinnie & Maddie (although I did walk w/yr mom, Maddie, and it was WAY cool)


4. TweenBlurt chat room withdrawal


3. No one’s shoulder to cry on when I don’t see Ben Buckley around


2. Hart looks sooooo SAD w/o Maddie being around (seriously, he does!!)


1. I’ve decided that if I had to choose between my BFFs and my toe shoes (a tough choice 4 me, you know), I would def. pick … THE SHOES! J/K xoxoxox


“Hey,” a voice called out from the doorway to Dad’s office. “Who’s in here hijacking my computer?”

“Just me, Dad,” Madison said. “I’m stealing all of your secret files. You know how it is for us government agents.”

Dad smiled. He kissed Madison’s head.

“So, Stephanie tells me the first day of camp was a roaring success,” Dad said. “Looks like you made it home in one piece. No shark bites.”

Madison giggled. She was thinking of the joke she had played on Mom.

“Thanks so much for finding the camp, Dad, and letting me come down to Florida,” Madison said.

“Anything for you, Maddie,” Dad said. “Your laptop crashed again, huh?” He lifted its lifeless shell of a body off the bed close to where Madison sat. “Maybe I should take this to the Tech Team.”

Madison gulped. She was afraid of ever handing her laptop over to someone else, even if the Tech Team was a famous team of computer-fixing rock stars. Madison figured that they probably did a good job—but what would happen if the Files of Madison Finn ever were
lost
?

Dad reassured Maddie that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her files. He promised her that he could get the computer repaired within the week.

“I should get to sleep,” Madison said, standing up and heading for the door.

Dad grabbed Madison’s arm and pulled her close.

“Having you here is like a gift,” Dad said. “Usually, these work things are endurance tests, but with Stephanie and you around—what’s to endure?”

Madison smiled and headed for her own bedroom. She fished through her suitcase for a T-shirt to wear to bed, since the one from the night before had gotten orange juice spilled all over the front of it.

Brushing her teeth in the bathroom, Madison heard a loud sound. She turned off the running faucet for a moment to listen more closely. Then she heard it again.

Someone was yelling.

At first, Madison thought it was someone outside the apartment. It wasn’t really that loud. But someone sounded angry.

Then Madison realized it was Dad and Stephanie. They were arguing about something.

It was the first time since their wedding that Madison had ever heard them argue with each other. She knew they got testy from time to time. Of course, every couple did that. But this sounded more than testy. It sounded more like the kind of argument that Mom and Dad had used to have, before the Big D had ever happened. Madison opened her bedroom door to see what she could hear. But the words weren’t really audible, so she shut it again. She felt weird eavesdropping.

After a few moments, the argument must have ceased, because the yelling stopped. The only sound was the drone of crickets outside. Madison finished brushing her teeth, combed out her hair, crawled into bed, and said good night to her pink walls.

Click.

The light went off, and moonlight poured into the room. The curtains were still open. As Madison rested her head on the pillows, she closed her eyes to block out the light and tried to clear her mind of the day’s events.

But instead of counting sheep to fall asleep, Madison counted pugs.

Each one looked exactly like Phinnie.

O
N TUESDAY, THE EGRETS
gathered at one of the outdoor picnic tables at the ELC building and read through the outline of the day’s activities.

“Oooooh, today we’re seeing Manateeeeees!” Ann cried. She seemed to say everything in a really high-pitched squeal that made Madison’s ears ring.

“Did you know those suckers were twelve feet long at least?” Logan said, reading information off the sheet. “That’s the same size as a Rodan craft flyer on
Space Raiders
.”

Ann giggled. “To you, everything is a relic from that show, isn’t it?” she cracked. “Who watches that anymore?”

Logan took her comment in stride. “There are those who understand and see the world as I do—and those who do not …” He was making his voice sound like a robot’s.

Suchita was laughing by now. No one wanted Logan to feel different from anyone else in the group, but it was hard—especially when he was doing the robot thing. Madison leaned over and begged Ann not to make another
Space Raiders
remark again for the duration of the two-week camp experience.

“Wait! Whoa! Did you see this point?” Teeny shouted. “The manatee eats more than a hundred pounds of aquatic plants a day! That is one big salad.”

Madison glanced away from the group. She wasn’t focused on the work sheet as much as everyone else was at that moment. She was way more focused on the fact that they’d be spending the day with actual, up close manatees.

The camp arranged to pick up campers from the ELC building and take them to a manatee-viewing area a few miles away, near the local power station. While they were on the bus—all six groups, from Alligators to Flounders—Leonard explained a little bit about the manatee-viewing.

“Now, we’ll be standing down by one of the canals alongside the power station, where viewing is optimum. There are also tourists sharing our viewing space, so please be courteous,” Leonard said.

Someone made a fart noise from the back of the bus.

“Very funny. I know who did that,” Leonard said, wagging his finger at the back row.

The bus pulled into a tight parking space, where everyone got out and headed for the edge of the canal.

Madison found herself next to Ann. It was only day two, and she always seemed to find herself with Ann. Suchita came along, too. It was girls on one side and boys on the other at the start of the manatee-viewing. Madison kept trying to elbow her way over toward the boys. She wanted to stand next to Will.

He’s just so interesting, she thought.

Madison tried to make excuses inside her head for why she was so drawn to this boy. She knew she should be missing Hart—not crushing on some new boy.

“Now,” Leonard continued, “the locals work very hard to keep motorboats away from this immediate area in order to protect the manatees and their cubs. If you look right over there, just there, by that dock, I believe you can see a mother manatee right now. …”

Madison, Ann, and Suchita began to shriek when they saw their first manatee move through the water. It moved with such grace. Manatees had always seemed to Madison as if they were having a hard time in the water, with their blubber and their funnily shaped heads. But this creature was moving like a ballet dancer—sort of. Madison knew Aimee would have loved seeing it.

“My grandfather used to bring me here, too, when I was a kid,” Will said as he stood near Madison and Teeny.

“Was he a fisherman?” Teeny asked.

“Nope,” Will replied. “He was a conservationist.”

“Oh,” Teeny said. “Did he save birds and stuff?”

“And fish. And land, too. He made sure that estuaries were maintained for the life down here by the ocean and rivers,” Will explained further.

Madison looked up at Will. She knew she was a little pie-eyed, but she liked hearing what he had to say.

“My grandfather once told me that when the Spanish explorers first reached Florida, they thought manatees were real, live mermaids. How cool is that?” Will said.

“Whoa!” Ann said. “That is cool all over!”

Madison wanted to cringe. Ann was being over the top again, waving her arms and smiling way too much. The boys snickered at Ann’s behavior, but she didn’t even seem to notice.

Madison looked away for a moment. The water was a little choppy because of a far-off motorboat, but the manatee seemed to ride in the wake, happier than happy to be there. Madison wished she could bottle the moment and bring it home with her—to be shared with his friends at a future date.

Most of the kids from the various groups stood silently along the guardrail, staring down into the water to catch sight of the manatee as it swam around. Then, from the bottom of the canal, a second manatee appeared, and then a third. Soon there were at least six, swimming around one another. Many of the campers pulled out cameras to capture the scene.

Madison was glad she’d brought her orange bag. She pulled out a mini-notebook to record her many observations.

Leonard stood in front of everyone and began to talk again about the survival of the manatee, and about manatees’ characteristics.

“Who can tell me about the way manatees eat?” Leonard asked.

Someone poked her hand into the air and waved it around. It was Ann.

“They only have two teeth that can grind food—and those teeth wear out and fall out a lot,” she said.

Will appeared impressed. “Wow, you’re really smart, aren’t you?” he said to Ann.

Madison frowned.
That was what he said to me.

Ann modestly accepted Will’s compliment and went right on talking about “manateeth” (which was what she called them) and other bodily facts and functions of the manatee. Madison wondered how Ann could have possibly known about how the animals held their breath, but she did.

“Does anyone know why manatees sometimes have a green glow in the water?” Leonard asked the group.

It was a tricky question that stumped even Ann. But Madison had a pretty good guess. She raised her hand.

“Is it because algae live on the skin?” Madison was answering Leonard’s question with one of her own.

“Yes!” Leonard said as he pumped his hand in the air. “Now, what do they eat?”

“Mickey D’s!” cried some boy from the back of the crowd, somewhere among the Crabs.

Everyone laughed.

“Although I am sure a manatee would just love a Big Mac, I’m afraid that’s the wrong answer. But you get a C for effort,” Leonard joked.

Madison knew the answer. It had been on the work sheet they had read back at the ELC. But she wasn’t quick enough with her answer: about seven other kids had their hands up, eager to respond.

“Manatees eat sea grass,” one kid said.

“And other aquatic plants,” said another.

“Yes,” Leonard said. “And what’s important about manatees for Florida is that they eat up all sorts of floating vegetation and plants that can build up and clog the waterways.”

Just then, a few of the manatees pushed through the water and made a splash. Everyone raced to see.

“Why do they hang out at a power plant?” someone asked.

“The water is always warm here,” Leonard explained, “by the outflow pipes. Manatees can find warm water here anytime, especially in winter.”

A loud, squawking bird flew overhead. Madison looked up. She saw an egret, too, in the air. Then she noticed another egret alighting upon the water in the canal several yards away.

“Look,” Madison whispered to Will. “Our namesake.”

Teeny heard what Madison said. “Go, Egrets!” he yelled. The birds flew off.

“Good one,” Logan grunted. “Zarloff of planet Zoltan would have
loved
you.”

“What?” Will had no idea what Logan was talking about. No one did. Logan’s geekiness quotient was skyrocketing with each new comment that came out of his mouth.

Suchita, however, laughed out loud in a gentle way at everything Logan said. Madison noticed that although she didn’t speak much, she had a great sense of humor. Suchita reminded Madison a little of Lindsay, except for the not talking. Lindsay was a bigger-than-big talker.

“Here’s something for you to mull over,” Leonard said. “Before we head back to the ELC, see if you can’t observe more of the manatee’s anatomy. I know it’s hard to see much in the murky waters here, but manatees have some interesting body parts. See what you can find out.”

“Like what?” a kid asked.

“Like fingernails,” Leonard said.

“So, do they get
mana-cures
?” Madison joked under her breath.

Ann heard her. “That’s hysterical,” she told Madison, slapping her on the shoulder and faking an outrageous, nasal laugh.

Will had heard Madison’s dumb joke, too. “It
was
funny,” he admitted in a low, low whisper so that only Madison could hear what he said.

The groups stood by the manatee-viewing area for another half hour or more. Then they loaded back on to their buses and headed for the ELC again. Parents would be coming back soon to pick everyone up for the day.

Once again, Stephanie showed up solo to get Madison.

Back at the apartment, Stephanie grilled Madison on day two at Camp Sunshine. She asked about the cute boy, of course, but Madison tried to avoid that subject. When Dad still had not returned by dinnertime and Stephanie couldn’t get him on his cell phone, she and Madison decided to order take-out Mexican food from a restaurant down the street.

After the food arrived, Madison noshed on quesadillas while Stephanie devoured chicken with mole sauce.

After dinner, Stephanie asked if Madison wanted to play a card game or maybe Scrabble, but Madison wasn’t in the mood. Instead, she escaped to Dad’s office. She hadn’t written in her blog for more than a day, and she needed to go online—now.

She’d been in the office for only a few minutes when she heard the front door slam.