Tug-of-War (18 page)

Bearnapping. It was kind of cute.

I rolled over and buried my burning face in my pillow. How embarrassing! Everyone else had laughed at the pranks that were played on them. Wayward had fallen completely in love with her new hat; Maggie had ruptured a vital organ, laughing over the gorilla socks.

Betsy had been so excited.
Somebody actually cared enough to play a prank on me!
Even Devon, who thought she was above it all, had been a totally good sport about her prank.

And then I'd blown a gasket.

My face felt like it was burning a hole in my pillow.

How could I face everyone after last night? What could I possibly say that would erase that scene from everyone's minds?

I listened to the sound of birds twittering outside in the trees. Betsy coughed, and I felt the bunk beds rock a little when Devon turned over below me.

It was just that the timing had been all wrong. I was already in a bad mood, and the “ransom” note had caught me completely off guard. I'd been suspecting for days that I'd be the next victim, but when it actually happened, it felt like it came out of left field.

Off in the distance, I heard the gong of the rising bell ringing. Across the cabin from me in her top bunk, Maggie propped herself up on one elbow and looked
around. Her hair was not exactly straight anymore, but it wasn't all curly, either.

“Hey,” she said to me in a rough, sandpaper voice, “did Melvin come back last night?”

I felt a little laugh come out of me like a hiccup. It sounded funny, like he'd run away on his own and he could find his way back again. “Nope. No sign of him,” I said in what I hoped was a completely bored tone.

Today my strategy would be to act like I didn't care, that it didn't bother me at all.

Wayward groaned as she stretched. “I love Sunday mornings.” The best thing about Sundays was that there was no inspection, so we didn't have to clean the cabin. Also, we got to go to breakfast in our pajamas.

Maggie climbed down from her top bunk and came over to me, her eyes level with the edge of my bunk. “Hey, Chris. Don't worry. We'll help you get Melvin back. Let's just play along with it and leave the ransom demands like the note said.”

I rolled over and let out a big yawn. “Whatever.” As casual as I was trying to be, my face still felt warm. I wondered if I was blushing.

I climbed down from my top bunk and slid my feet into a pair of flip-flops. I felt like everyone was watching me, waiting to see if steam was going to shoot out my
ears. I couldn't undo that little temper tantrum from last night, but at least I could try to act normal now. What if I laughed about it now? Was it too late for that?

“Oh, that's right! You missed it!” I heard Laurel-Ann's voice rising with excitement. “Last night Chris found a ransom note on her pillow. Her bear got kidnapped, and he's going to have all his stuffing pulled out bit by bit if she doesn't meet the ransom demands!”

I didn't look in her direction, just headed for the door so I could leave for breakfast as quickly as possible, but Gloria came up to me, a frown on her face. “What's going on?”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “It's no big deal. Just more pranks.”

Gloria glanced around at everyone. “Okay, who has the bear?”

I forced a laugh out of my throat. “Don't worry about it. I don't even care.” Then I slipped past her and walked out the door.

At breakfast Gloria gave everyone a big lecture about respecting each other's belongings, but Wayward kept telling us to “be Zen” and we'd all get along, so nobody knew how to react.

For the rest of the day, anytime anyone brought up the subject of Melvin, I tried to act like it didn't bother
me in the least. But nobody else would let it drop. The entire cabin was now completely focused on the “bearnapping.”

Sunday schedule was different from the rest of the week; we didn't go to regular activities. We always had a really big lunch, and then in the afternoon, there'd be crazy games with the whole camp: watermelon seed spitting contests, egg relay races, shaving cream fights, and water balloon battles.

I drifted through the afternoon activities, not really a part of Maggie and Devon's little circle, but not really separate from them either.

Late in the afternoon, right before supper, a bunch of us were in the cabin. It was getting close to six o'clock, the time for me to drop off the ransom demands, but I hadn't said a word about Melvin's disappearance since this morning.

“Chris, come on. Just do it,” Maggie begged, holding the crumpled note up to me. I was stretched out on my bed, trying to read
Brave New World.

“If you're so interested, why don't you get all those ransom demands together?” I asked her, not looking up from my book.

“Could I please see the list?” asked Kayla. Maggie handed her the wrinkled piece of paper, and Kayla read
the items off. “Eyedropper, mint-flavored dental floss, yellow-and-green-striped socks, Hello Kitty address book . . .” Kayla lowered the paper and looked around at everyone. “This is the strangest list of items I've ever seen.”

“I have an eyedropper,” said Maggie.

“I have a Hello Kitty address book!” Laurel-Ann yelled excitedly.

“Now how would the laundry ladies know that?” asked Boo with a shrug.

“Betsy has mint-flavored dental floss,” said Maggie. “And Chris has yellow-and-green-striped socks! Don't you get it? We all have one item on the list!”

“Hey, yeah!” Shelby stood at the end of the bunk beds and grinned at me. “It's like the scavenger hunt from evening program!”

For evening program one night a while back, all of Middler Line had had a scavenger hunt, and each cabin was given a different list of items to hunt down. We'd had to find two live tadpoles, a Batman toothbrush, a Connecticut state quarter, a 1980 Pine Haven T-shirt, and about fifteen other random, bizarre items.

The crazy thing was, Betsy actually did have a Pine Haven T-shirt from 1980 because her mom had gone here back in the day, but we couldn't find a Batman
toothbrush or a Connecticut state quarter, so Cabin Two ended up winning.

“Let's do it. It'll be fun,” said Betsy, grabbing a clean pillowcase from the shelf by her bed and holding it open so everyone could start putting the items in.

“Wait a second, everyone. Gloria said we need to respect each other's belongings. She might not like that we're going along with this prank,” said Laurel-Ann.

“Hyphen, who cares?” said Boo. “She and Wayward are at the staff meeting in Senior Lodge. Let's do it now while they're gone.”

“Yeah, we have to. Poor Melvin is out there all alone, pants-less,” said Maggie, and everyone laughed about that.

Meanwhile, I hadn't moved. I stared at the page in front of me, pretending to read. I'd kept my cool all day long, but now I could feel that hot lump of charcoal in my stomach flaring up into a glowing red coal again.

I was trying to be a good sport about this, but it wasn't fair. I really had been singled out. Everyone else's prank was over and done with as soon as it happened.

But not mine. No, mine had to be this elaborate, drawn-out
event
that involved everyone in the whole freaking cabin.

Maybe if I'd gotten the ransom note one minute and then found Melvin ten seconds later, the way
Betsy discovered her missing retainers, I might have laughed along with everyone else. But that hadn't happened. Why was I being picked on?

“Let me find my postcard from Myrtle Beach,” Shelby said, racing over to Side B to get her contribution.

“My SpongeBob washcloth smells mildewy, but I'll put it in,” offered Boo.

While everyone rushed around, I lay propped up on one elbow, my eyes scanning the page, but I hadn't read a single word.

Devon was behind all this. She had to be. It seemed like she was always nearby when each prank was first discovered. She'd been one of the first in the cabin that rainy day to find her “body.” She'd been in the cabin all afternoon reading on the day the laundry came back.

She'd probably played the first prank on herself to throw us all off track, then planned out every other incident. She was a real mastermind that way. If anyone could pull all these pranks off, she could.

She went to crafts a lot when Maggie and I were canoeing, so she'd probably made Betsy's red lips. She'd always thought Wayward was so cool in her plaid hat, and even though she swore she couldn't thread a needle, it would take only a couple of stitches to attach the socks to Maggie's jersey.

But why wouldn't she have let me in on it? I was her
best
friend. Or at least I used to be. She could've told me all about it that day we were playing chess. Melvin's kidnapping could've been
our
joke.

I'd asked her point-blank that day if she was responsible for Maggie's prank, but she'd denied it. And yet she'd had this sly smile on her face. Like she knew something I didn't know. The whole time, I thought she was just figuring out her next chess move.

“Please be careful with this. I do want it back eventually,” said Kayla, slipping a piece of her piano sheet music into the pillowcase.

I turned the page, staring so hard at the print that the letters seemed to vibrate with a pulsing movement. Devon had probably told Maggie her secret by now. I glanced at her standing there next to Betsy, a big smile on her face, her red locks hanging down in limp waves. Yep, she might even be in on this too.

And Devon. She sat perched on the edge of her bottom bunk, leaning forward a little. She seemed to love all the activity.
Look at this brilliant prank I've pulled off
, her expression seemed to say.

“The last item on the list is
Member of the Wedding
?” said Kayla, her voice rising in a question as she read from the paper.

“Oh, yeah! That's Devon's book she let me borrow,” said Maggie, scrambling up to her top bunk and grabbing the paperback from her shelf. “Here you go.” She tossed the book into the pillowcase Betsy held open, then turned around to Devon and gave her a fist bump.

“That's every item on the list,” said Devon, smiling at Maggie.

Maggie was reading
Member of the Wedding
? Devon had said I could read it next.

The lump of charcoal in my stomach burst into flames. That proved it beyond the shadow of a doubt. They were in this together.

Betsy held the pillowcase up to me. “That's everything, Chris. You should probably go to the lodge on your own, don't you think? We don't want to scare away the bearnappers.”

I sat up on my bunk and looked at them. “You're sure it's everything?” I asked calmly, but I could feel my heart pounding out a crazy drumbeat.

“It's everything on the list,” said Kayla. I climbed down from my top bunk and took the pillowcase from Betsy. The second I had it in my hands, I had no idea what I'd do next—walk down to the lodge and get my bear back, dump all the items out on the floor and start yelling my head off, or maybe even go to Lakeview
Rock and toss the whole pillowcase over the edge into the water below.

I honestly didn't know myself what my next move was going to be. I clutched the pillowcase with one hand.

“Okay, everyone. I have an announcement to make.” My heart felt like an atom bomb on the verge of explosion. “Devon's the one who's been doing this! She played the first prank on herself so we'd never suspect her.”

The second I said that, I regretted it.

Devon's mouth was open so wide she looked like she could swallow a whole tomato without any effort at all.

“I did not! Chris! How can you say that?” she gasped.

Good question. Why was I always doing this—getting mad about something and then saying something I regretted?

I wished more than anything that I could force myself to laugh, say it was just a stupid joke, and then go to the lodge and get my bear back. I wanted all of this to be over.

But it was too late. Everyone was watching us, waiting to see what would happen next.

I couldn't believe what I was doing. I walked over to my duffel, unzipped it, and placed the pillowcase inside before zipping it back up again.

“I'm not going along with this, Devon. Go ahead and send Melvin back, little bits of stuffing at a time. I dare you,” I said.

The whole cabin was silent, and I wanted more than anything for the cabin floor to open up into a big, yawning cavern and swallow me whole.

I clutched the empty canvas laundry bag, trying to decide if I really wanted to go through with this. I was all alone in the cabin. Everyone else was at morning activities, including Devon and Maggie, who'd probably gone to tennis together or something. They'd hardly spoken to me since Sunday.

Devon and Maggie were always together now, and I wasn't even following along behind them anymore, listening to their vegetarian discussions. I'd never felt so lonely in my life.