Very Private List for Camp Success (8 page)

Maybe that was more important than having a best friend who would vote for her no matter what. Even if it gave Penelope a headache.

‘I can be fun sometimes, can’t I?’ she asked.

Bob nodded energetically.

‘The BEST fun,’ she declared. ‘
Nutso
fun!’

Penelope stood up and held out her hand. When Bob took it, Penelope yanked her upright. Then she gave Bob a (friendly) punch in the arm.

‘Let’s go and have some fun,’ she said.

It was just as well that Penelope and Bob found themselves sitting with Joanna and Eliza at dinner. If they’d had to sit with Rita, Penelope was not entirely sure what she would do. Ever since Bob had pointed out that she had been quite mean herself, Penelope felt a bit funny about seeing Rita again.

‘Maybe the best thing is to ignore Rita. She can do her own thing while we get on with making hut seven awesome,’ Penelope suggested to Bob.

Although Penelope strongly believed that best hut competition tactics should be kept private, she didn’t bother whispering. The dining hall was very noisy. Across the table, Joanna was picking up peas from her plate and very sneakily (so the teachers couldn’t see) tossing them over to where the boys were sitting. It was very distracting, but Penelope tried to focus.

‘I was thinking we could position our spare shoes in the shape of a heart outside the door. And clean up and stack all the bags in a creative way. I also think it would be quite unique to label the recycling bin –’

But before Penelope could finish her sentence, a glob of mashed potato flew neatly through the air and splattered on her cheek in a totally unacceptable way. Admittedly, Penelope could not imagine a glob of mashed potato splattering on her cheek in a way that
was
acceptable.

Before she could get too cross, though, Alex was right beside her.

‘I am so, so sorry Penelope,’ he said, so sincerely that Penelope had to assume it was either a freak accident or that Alex was having another very odd moment.

‘That’s OK I guess, Alex,’ Penelope said, wiping her cheek with a napkin.

But before Penelope could say another word, Alex was across the other side of the table
rubbing a glob of mashed potato into Joanna’s hair.

Joanna was just sitting there, letting it happen. Penelope decided Joanna must be in shock. Bits of mashed potato fell from her hair, covering the table in a kind of mini-avalanche.

Then Joanna proceeded to have a fit. Of
laughter.
If she didn’t know better, Penelope would even say that Joanna looked delighted.

Penelope was astonished. Why would having mashed potato rubbed into your hair be something to laugh about?

Her face must have shown her puzzlement, because Bob leaned in and cupped Penelope’s ear, whispering, ‘They’re crushing on each other so bad.’

Aha!
Penelope thought about Alex showing off at the challenge swing, and sticking Florence up his jumper and bumping into Joanna. Now that Bob had pointed it out, her explanation did seem possible. But if
crushing
involved such strange and unusual behaviour, Penelope hoped it would NEVER happen to her.

Still, she was grateful that Bob had shared this information. She would never have been able to figure it out without a very best friend to help her.

Penelope was also extremely glad that she’d had that talk with Bob. Having a very best friend with totally different opinions could be a bit puzzling sometimes. And, clearly, Bob sometimes understood things that Penelope didn’t. But Penelope was beginning to think this was a GOOD thing. Even though it made Penelope see things in a way that sometimes gave her headaches, it was also pretty important.

So when Bob told her she wanted to do bush cooking after dinner instead of coming to art with Penelope, Penelope didn’t make a big deal about it. In fact, she thought she was quite gracious about it.

Penelope stifled a yawn as she walked back to the hut with Tilly after art.

‘Wow,’ Tilly said, pausing to look up at the night sky.

‘Wow,’ Penelope echoed, stopping beside her.

The crescent moon hung above them, brighter and bigger than it ever looked in the city, and there seemed to be more stars in the sky than Penelope had ever seen before. It was a bit like the glow-in-the-dark planetarium ceiling in Grandpa George’s living room, but even more majestic.

‘It makes you feel small, doesn’t it?’ Tilly said. She nudged Penelope and giggled. ‘No offence. I mean for all of us, not just you.’

Penelope smiled. ‘No offence taken,’ she said. She breathed in the fresh night air. ‘It makes me feel like there are so many possibilities.’

Tilly nodded. ‘As though we’re a tiny jigsaw piece in something huge and special,’ she added.

The girls gazed upwards in silence. The funny thing was, it was not an awkward silence at all. Penelope hadn’t had much one-on-one time with Tilly before. She hadn’t known that Tilly was so good at drawing until tonight, and she hadn’t known that Tilly thought the same sort of deep thoughts that sometimes ran around in Penelope’s own head.

In a way, it had been good that Bob and Rita had chosen to do bush cooking, rather than art. In fact, it was quite lovely to find another friend who enjoyed art as much as she did. Penelope and Tilly had drawn six very lovely pictures between them. There was only one blank wall in the hut (because of the bunks and the doors), but Penelope was already visualising some excellent ways to arrange their artwork. Plus, spending some time with just Tilly had been nice. Penelope was now quite sure that Tilly wasn’t the type of girl who would steal someone’s very best friend.

Just then they heard a sound.

‘Woooo.’

The girls looked at each other. Penelope smiled and nudged Tilly (she thought about pinching her, but decided it might be a bit early in their friendship). Even if she didn’t know Bob’s voice inside out and back-to-front, the shadow that was cast on the wall of the laundry block was unmistakeable.

Tilly covered her mouth so she wouldn’t laugh out loud. ‘Maybe,’ she said, pausing. Then, ‘I think it’s the scariest kind of ghost. A Bob-shaped ghost!’

‘OK, you got me,’ Bob squealed, falling into step beside them.

She had a loaf of charcoal-coloured damper, which she offered to Penelope and Tilly. They each tore off a bit.

‘It’s not bad,’ Tilly said, ‘if you like things burnt to a cinder.’

‘Mmm, crunchy,’ Penelope added. Perhaps it was because she was overtired, but everything was making her giggly. And those giggles were infectious.

When they arrived back at hut seven, though, they stopped giggling.

The porch light was switched on. Two rows of their shoes, set in the same pattern either side, created a walkway from the steps to the door. Rita had stuck red cardboard along the wooden floorboards. The effect was something like a home-made red carpet.

‘That looks so cool!’ Tilly exclaimed.

She and Bob started to pretend they were movie stars, waving and blowing kisses at their imaginary audience.

Penelope agreed that the entrance looked good. Maybe even better than her shoe heart would have looked. But she was wary.

‘I thought Rita did bush cooking with you,’ Penelope whispered to Bob.

‘She did,’ Bob replied. ‘But she said she was tired and came back early.’

Now Penelope was even MORE wary. She followed the girls inside.

Rita
did
look tired, but she had obviously not been resting.

‘So, fellow hut seven-sies,’ said Rita, ‘what do you think?’

While the others told Rita how good the hut looked, Penelope made her own inspection. She could hardly believe how neat it was. All their bags and backpacks were stacked in order of size. The four camp booklets stood upright, fanned open in a neat row on the bench.

When Penelope saw that Rita had made labels for the recycling bin and the rubbish bin, and stuck them on with blutack, she was quite impressed.

But then she noticed that the drawer under the wardrobe was open, and empty. And that there was something stuck to the wall with blutack.