Lake Rescue (4 page)

“How do you know my name?” Chelsea asked, avoiding the question.

“I plan to teach gym and coach girls’ basketball next year at Abigail Adams—I hope. So I tried to learn all the students’ names.”

“You aren’t tall enough to play basketball.” Chelsea had only glanced at Ms. Meadows, but she wasn’t that tall. Basketball players needed to be tall.

“That’s what the coach said when I came into ninth grade and went out for the team. I proved him wrong. Sometimes doing something well depends on attitude rather than size.” Size. Ms. Meadows had probably been wondering
how she could introduce that word into the conversation, and Chelsea had just given her the perfect opportunity.

“So why are you here…have you been crying?” she inquired sympathetically.

“NO,” Chelsea answered a little too loudly. “I just hate gym. My doctor says I am supposed to lose thirty pounds–he said something about Type 2 diabetes. Whatever.”

Chelsea couldn’t believe that she blurted that out to a total stranger. The gym teacher could see that she needed to lose thirty pounds. Everyone could see Chelsea was “weight challenged.” Why did she have to broadcast it? At least no kids were around to hear how much weight she was supposed to lose, a relieved Chelsea thought. Then she looked up and added for good measure, “And Mr. McCarthy hates me.”

“I don’t think that is true, Chelsea. I think he only expects you to do your best, to at least try to participate,” the perky student teacher admonished. “Are there any games that you like in gym? How about volleyball?”

Chelsea raised one eyebrow. “I think I’ll pass on the volleyball. I’m not wild about the uniform, if you know what I mean.”

The student teacher bit her lip to keep from smiling. “I don’t know, Chelsea. You might like it. Lots of kids who hate other sports have fun with volleyball.”

Chelsea just shrugged her shoulders, and then…
trouble
. Ms. Meadows asked for her note from home.

Chelsea had begged and pleaded with her mother to please ask her pediatrician to give her a note so she wouldn’t have to take gym, but all her mother had said was, “You need the exercise.”

“Mom,” Chelsea had shouted. “Mr. McCarthy yells at me if I walk instead of jog. I hate to jog. And everyone looks at me funny. Why is everyone so obsessed about exercise anyway? I’d rather watch TV.”

Now Ms. Meadows was probably thinking the same thing as her mother. Gym teachers were so full of themselves, thought Chelsea somewhat angrily.

“I’m sorry, Chelsea, but I’m going to have to ask you to go talk to Mrs. Fields before you go home,” said Ms. Meadows.

“Go to the principal’s office? Just because I sat out gym class?”

Chelsea had never ever been sent to the principal’s office before. This was not good. In fact, things were getting grim. Mrs. Fields would call her mother (and she’d go home and get another lecture). Then her mother would make some low-cal boring dinner and tell Chelsea to take a bike ride. Yeah, that’d work, sighed Chelsea. Every time she did any walking or riding on the stationary bike (as if she was going to ride around the neighborhood all by herself), the activity only made her hungry, and eating seemed like the perfect reward for carrying out her mother’s wishes.

Reluctantly, Chelsea took the pink slip Ms. Meadows handed her and bit her lip as she headed down the hall.

At least maybe everyone would have gone home and wouldn’t see her reporting to Mrs. Fields’ office.

Whew! Luck was now on her side. The school secretary had gone home. Now, just maybe Mrs. Fields wouldn’t be there either….

Ruby Fields, cup of coffee in hand, walked up behind Chelsea.

“Chelsea, are you looking for me?”

How could Mrs. Fields remember every kid’s name in the entire school? Of course, Chelsea figured once anyone saw her, how could they forget “the big girl”? The boys used to tease her in elementary school a lot, but she had mastered the art of ignoring the junior high male. The occasional complete jerk still got to her every once in a while. But the girls…they were harder to ignore. The girls weren’t outright mean, but Chelsea knew they always talked about her behind her back. She had seen the looks, the whispering, and the pointing. And it had hurt…sometimes really badly.

Junior high was better than elementary school, even though it was lonely. Kids pretty much left her alone. The maturity thing, Chelsea thought without enthusiasm.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come into my office, and close the door behind you. I’m sure everyone but the custodian has gone home, but we’ll have some privacy. What’s the problem?”

Chelsea handed Mrs. Fields the pink slip, figuring she might as well get right to the point.

“I skipped gym. The new student teacher caught me. I tried to tell her that I had permission to sit out today, but—”

“And do you have a note to miss gym? From your mother? May I see it, please?”

Chelsea should have known Mrs. Fields was too smart for that lame excuse to work. “Well, I couldn’t find it. I guess—”

“Don’t you have an older brother, Chelsea? Seems like I remember him from a couple of years ago.”

“Yes. Ben. Big Ben.”

“He plays football at the high school, doesn’t he? Linebacker?”

“He’s a tackle. No one can get past him,” Chelsea said proudly.
Because
he’s so huge, Chelsea added to herself. It was all right to be huge if you wanted to fall on people and stop them from getting to your quarterback. She wondered if Mrs. Fields was going to ask her if she had plans to play football someday. “I’ve never been good at sports.”

“Why not?” Mrs Fields smiled, swung her chair around, opened a small fridge, and pulled out a bottle of water. She handed it to Chelsea without asking if she wanted it.

Chelsea’s throat felt as dry as the Sahara Desert. She opened the bottle and took a big swallow before she answered. “Thank you. I guess I was really thirsty. It’s not that I’m not good. I’m too slow.” Chelsea didn’t want to mention the weight word. Let Mrs. Fields figure that one out for herself.

“It’s hard always coming in last, or dropping the ball, or—”

“Yeah. It is,” Chelsea admitted.

“Do they laugh, or are you afraid they will?”

“Some of them laugh. They try to hide it sometimes, but they laugh.”

“What are you good at?”

Chelsea looked up at the principal. Mrs. Fields seemed to want to know. What the heck, thought Chelsea.

“Taking pictures. I’m a pretty good photographer. Sometimes I take pictures at parties in my neighborhood. You know, little kids’ parties, and pets. People’s pets. I get paid. Twenty dollars. That’s not much, but I like doing it,” she said emphatically.

Mrs. Fields rocked her office chair back and forth for a
minute. Probably thinking up what punishment Chelsea should have. Double gym periods for a month, probably.

“Would you bring some photos in to show me? Your favorites, or a photo album if you have one. You should make a book of your best photos to show people when you’re trying to get jobs.”

Chelsea took a slow sip of water and looked at Mrs. Fields. The principal seemed sincere…interested in seeing some photos. But teachers and principals were supposed to be sincere. They kind of got paid for that. But Mrs. Fields was smiling at her. So maybe she really meant what she said.

“Okay. I can do that.”

Mrs. Fields stood up, suggesting that the meeting was over. No detention, no running laps (Coach McCarthy’s favorite punishment), no calling her mom.

Chelsea hurried to escape before Mrs. Fields could figure out some heinous thing for her to do to make up for skipping class. “Thanks. I’ll stop by on a free period or after lunch someday.”

Just before she walked out the door Mrs. Fields called to her. Shoot. Chelsea clenched her fists. I’m busted.

“Chelsea, I expect to see you in gym class from now on. And for your information, Chelsea, we don’t tolerate name-calling or bullying in this school. If you are ever uncomfortable here, I want to hear about it.”

Chelsea nodded. She would never be able to skip gym again. Everyone would be on the lookout now for Chelsea Briggs for sure. She’d have to go to gym for the rest of her junior high existence. And the name-calling. She’d have to think about that.

By the time Chelsea got outside, she had missed the bus. She fished her cell phone out of her backpack and called her mother to tell her that she was walking home. She didn’t live that far, and walking would give her time to think. Her mom felt safe letting Chelsea walk down Harvard and onto Beacon. The street was busy, the neighborhood friendly and safe, and all the shop owners, especially Yuri, who owned the fruit store, kept an eye out for the Abigail Adams students.

Signed:

Chelsea closed her journal and sighed. It was easy to write about changing your life. But doing it was much, much harder.

Avery—There Are No Ghosts!

A
very yawned as she gathered her tangled black hair into a ponytail and secured it with her lucky hair tie—the one with purple soccer balls all over it. As always, her hair seemed to be going in all directions, but Avery couldn’t care less. When she sat down at the kitchen counter for breakfast, she wondered if a little brother like Maeve’s would be as much a pain in the you-know-what as a big brother. Specifically, Scott.

“Lake Rescue, hey, that’s a great place to go.” Scott looked into three boxes of cereal before he found one to suit him, or that wasn’t almost empty. Mrs. Madden wasn’t the type of mother who got up and made bacon, eggs, and waffles every morning. That was actually a good thing because Avery and Scott liked cereal anyway.

“You know, Ave, there’s really a ghost at the camp. I don’t think anyone knows who it is, but one theory is that it’s a seventh-grade camper left behind who starved to death before he could find his way home.”

“You don’t scare me, Scott. I don’t believe that for a minute,” Avery retorted as she took a bite of granola. “I’m sure there are phones at the camp, and almost everyone has a cell these days. Why didn’t he just call someone to come and get him, duh?”

“Duh, not in 1957, Ave. That camp is really old. Half the buildings are falling down. I’ll bet a bunch of them are haunted. But this ghost I’m talking about is the one everyone is afraid of.”

“How come?” Avery glanced over and carefully studied all the strange boxes and vegetables piled near the sink. Was her mother experimenting again tonight for dinner? Typically, if her mother wanted to entertain, she hired a caterer to bring the food.

Avery hoped she wasn’t still on her “let’s introduce Avery to every authentic Asian dish known to mankind” kick. Since she had been adopted as a baby, Avery figured her “ethnic palate” was Gerber’s baby food, strained peas, applesauce, chocolate pudding, stuff like that. Although, Avery did like bulkogi—it was her favorite Korean beef dish of all time. And, she had to admit that experimenting with new foods kept things interesting. One time her mother even brought them to an Ethiopian restaurant. Avery remembered how much fun she and Katani and Scott had had, scooping up all the tasty food with this really chewy bread. It had been so cool to eat with their hands instead of forks.

“Are you listening, Ave?” Scott kept on. “This ghost is real, believe me. One night I woke up to someone screaming and then a moaning sound. And then some creepy voice was crying, ‘Bring it back, bring it back.’”

“Yeah, I remember that story. ‘Bring back my head.’ I
heard it that time Mom sent me to that awesome Girl Scout camp. Everyone who has ever been to camp knows the story. And, I don’t believe in ghosts, Scott.”

“I don’t know, Ave. I think you should think…”

Avery watched Scott drink the leftover milk from his cereal bowl, put on his coat, and scoot out the kitchen door. “Later, Ave,” he called over his shoulder.

“Get pepperoni pizza tonight,” she yelled after him.

There couldn’t really be a ghost at this camp, could there? Avery sat sipping her tea, shivering despite the warm liquid. She tried to think only about hiking, climbing, and canoeing…not spooky apparitions wandering the paths at night. A lot of people believed that if you died when you were unhappy, your spirit might hang around for awhile. Avery had heard some kids complain because they had to go to Lake Rescue. She wondered if it was because they had heard about the ghosts.

Avery gathered her books and made sure she had her homework. As she walked past the hall closet to the front door, she heard a thump and then a rustling. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and her heart began to pound. Suddenly, the door burst open. Avery screamed at the top of her lungs and jumped back. She threw her bag at a tall, hooded figure.

“Oww! Avery. That thing hurts.” Scott pushed back the hood of his sweatshirt and rubbed his head.

“That’s not funny, Scott. You could have given me a heart attack,” Avery shouted at her brother.

“It was a joke. I feel sorry for the ghost if he runs into you.”

“What’s going on here?” Avery’s mom asked as she
walked down the stairs, a pile of clothing in her arms.

“Nothing, Mom,” Scott and Avery replied in their best angelic voices.

Maeve—City Girl Blues

“For the ten hundredth time, Mom, I don’t want to go to that camp. Can’t you please,
please
write me an excuse? I don’t mind staying in study hall or wherever they want to put the people who aren’t going. I mean really, can you see me climbing a mountain or paddling a canoe?”

Maeve looked at the wrinkled shirt she was going to have to wear. It was clean, but no one had taken it out of the dryer in time. She longed for the good old days when her mother kept all her clothes perfectly ironed and folded.

“Maeve, it will be good for you to go camping. All your friends are going. You don’t want to be left behind.”

“Yes I do. I’ll do some extra tutoring sessions. I’ll catch up on every class where I’m behind. I’ll even jog in the park every day. I’ll write an extra paper on—on, well, on children adjusting to divorce.”

“Maeve, that was uncalled for and you know it.” Ms. Kaplan looked like a stylish Wall Street businesswoman. No wrinkled clothes for her. Maeve figured if her dad saw Mom today, he’d beg to come back home.

“Sorry, Mom. But you know how much I hate snakes and spiders and anything that slithers or flies around buzzing. You or Sam will have to feed Buttercup and Westley. And their cage is dirty. I could clean it if I stayed home.”

“Buttercup and Westley?” Her mother looked puzzled.

“The guinea pigs, Mom. See, if you can’t even remember their names…”

“Maeve, I’m sure Sam can feed those guinea pigs, whose names you change every week, and you can clean the cage before you go. There’s plenty of time.”

“I wish I could go,” Sam said. “I could dress in my camouflage clothes and your friends could smuggle me onto the bus. Once we got to camp, they couldn’t send me home.” Sam was building a house out of shredded wheat biscuits.

“Sam, like no one is going to notice.”

“You think your clueless friends would figure things out?”

“My friends are not clueless. Katani and Charlotte are on the honor roll, for your information.”

“Maybe they can teach you how to make the honor roll.”

“Samuel Kaplan-Taylor. You apologize to your sister…right now.”

Sam knew he had crossed the line. Maeve’s struggles with schoolwork were off-limits in their sibling rivalry.

“I’m really, really, really, sorry, double sorry, Maeve.”

Maeve threw a piece of toast at him.

“Sam, you’re staying with your father when Maeve goes to camp,” Maeve’s mother said. “I’m going to have some time all to myself.” She looked kind of dreamy-eyed.

Maeve suddenly felt uneasy. Her mother had been acting kind of strange lately. What if she wanted time to herself so she could go on dates with other men? That would be completely awful. And how would it make her dad feel? This separation stuff was for the birds.

“Maybe Sam could stay with one of his friends and you and Dad could go on a date?” Maeve almost forgot begging
to get out of camp. “You’d have all weekend to talk about things. How your life was BK, you know, before kids.”

“Maeve, how I spend my weekend is not your concern. Maybe I’ll spend the whole weekend in bed reading and eating chocolates.”

Maeve almost wished for the days when her mother planned a rigid schedule for her, found her tutors for every subject, complained if she had any fun at all.

“You’re going to Lake Rescue, Maeve, and that’s my final answer. Don’t beg me to let you stay home again.” Ms. Kaplan walked out the door, leaving Maeve to get Sam off to school and lock up.

Maeve stared at her cold oatmeal and sighed. Maybe she would have to eat spider oatmeal at Lake Rescue.

Of course, there was always the dance. What if it was the social event of the year? I guess I could deal with a few spiders, as long as they weren’t too big, she reasoned.

Isabel—Bugs and Snakes and Everything Nice!

“Isabel, no self-respecting Martinez is afraid of bugs!” Elena Maria, Isabel’s ninth-grade sister, loved camping. Because they had recently moved to Brookline, Elena had missed going on the outdoor program. She and her father had camped a lot around the Great Lakes and it was her favorite thing to do. She was a little envious that Isabel was going to New Hampshire, a place she had never been.

“You know very well that even the word ‘spider’ freaks me out. Do you remember those tarantulas in Mexico with their big hairy legs? Too bad you missed out on Lake Rescue, Elena.
Deseas venir
?”

Elena Maria laughed. “Okay. I am a little jealous. You caught me. But, you can relax. There are no tarantulas in the White Mountains. I’m pretty sure of that…why don’t you just tell Mama you don’t want to go?”

“I don’t want to worry her, now that she’s finally feeling better. Besides, I do sort of want to go. I like being outside. I just wish we could sleep in a hotel instead of cabins. And, you know, I worry about Mama too.”

Since they had moved to Brookline the sisters had become very protective of their mother. They were both hoping that the famous Boston hospitals and doctors could help her MS—and they had. But living apart from Papa, even with Mama’s sister, was getting expensive.

“Mama, you’re looking
muy bonita
today.” Isabel ran to kiss her mother and help her sit at the table.

“I’m so glad I got to the table before you left, Isabel. Tell me more about this trip your class is taking.”

“It’s camping and hiking and stuff like that. ‘Outdoor education’ they call it. But you know, Mama, getting some of the things I’m going to need, like hiking boots, is going to be expensive. I don’t really mind missing it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think of letting you miss the trip. Aren’t all your friends going? You’ll have so much fun. Your father was able to send a little extra money this month. We’ll manage. I want you to write down everything you see, all the new plants and animals.”

“And such interesting bugs and snakes, spiders especially,” Elena Maria said innocently. “I’m late. See you tonight.” Elena hurried out the door. Sisters, Isabel sighed. They could be so sneaky.

“
Hija
, you will write about how the trees smell and describe the wild flowers. And the birds. You know how I love your birds. You’ll see some new ones, I’m sure. Draw pictures of all the birds and wild flowers. Take your colored pencils. If you do that, you can share so many details, and I’ll feel as if I’ve been on the trip with you.”

There was so much longing in Mama’s voice that Isabel felt ashamed. Here she was complaining about having to go on a trip just because of a few spiders, and her mother was only wishing that she could go along. Suddenly, the idea of going to Lake Rescue held promise. Maybe she could do a whole book for her mother. It would be fun. Talking with her mom had inspired her. She could see the title now:
A Little Bird Told Me
.

“Oh, I will, Mama. I will. I’ll draw a picture on every page of my journal and when you see them and I tell you what I saw and did, you’ll feel as if you really did go there, too.”

“
Buena, mi hija
. Someday, you will be a famous artist, I just know it.”

Isabel tipped up her glass of orange juice, drained it, kissed her mother good-bye, and ran out of the house. If she didn’t hurry, she would be late for school. She hated racing by Mrs. Fields’ office as the principal stood outside the door, tapping her watch at the kids who were late.

Katani—Older Sisters Are Useless!

Katani was sitting at the breakfast table with both hands waving in the air. She had just painted her fingernails gold and hoped they’d dry so she could eat and get to school on time. She had laid out her clothes last night, painted her nails, then this morning had changed her mind completely. No way could she have pink nails with the orange top she’d decided to change to.

“Paint mine,” her sister Kelley begged. “Gold fingernails are magic.” Kelley was fourteen, two years older than Katani, but she was mildly autistic, so often acted like a much younger child.

“No time, Kelley. Tonight, I promise. Tonight we’ll paint your nails and put little stickers on them.”

“I want SpongeBob stickers on my nails.”

“You got it, girlfriend.” Katani blew her sister an air kiss.

Her two older sisters—Candice, who was home from college for a few days, and Patrice, who was still in high school—hurried into the kitchen. Both carried an armload
of clothes, shoes, backpacks, flashlights—camping gear from their seventh-grade treks into the wilderness.

Katani would have none of it. “Never mind, guys. I’m not going on this trip.”

“What do you mean you’re not going?” Patrice said. “You have to go. Only if you were in the hospital or broke your leg or something, could you get out of it. You’re probably going to hate every minute of it—no place to do your nails—but it’s a tradition. Here are the shoes I think might fit Isabel. They belonged to Candice and were too small, so I had to get new ones. I think you can wear mine. What a waste. We only wore them once, or at least I did.”