The Last Time I Lied(19)

I feel exactly like I did the first time I set foot inside this cabin. Na?ve. Tremulous. Unsure of what to do next as the girls stare at me expectantly. Well, Sasha and Krystal do. Miranda climbs back to her top bunk and spreads herself across the bed with a dramatic sigh.

“They did tell you I’d be staying here, right?” I say.

“They said someone else would be here,” Krystal informs me. “But they didn’t say who it was.”

Miranda’s voice floats from above. “Or how old you are.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I say.

“Are you our camp counselor?” Sasha asks.

“More like babysitter,” Krystal adds.

Miranda does her one better. “More like warden.”

“I’m an artist,” I tell them. “I’m here to teach you how to paint.”

“What if we don’t want to paint?” Sasha says.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

“I like to draw.” This comes from Krystal, already leaning off the bed to reach beneath it, where several tattered notebooks sit. She pulls one from the pile and opens it up. “See?”

On the page is a sketch of a superhero. A woman with fiery eyes and the bulging muscles of a weight lifter. Her uniform is dark blue and skintight, with a green skull emblazoned across the chest. The skull’s eyes glow red.

“You did this?” I say, sincerely impressed. “It’s really good.”

And it is. The hero’s face is perfect. She’s been given a square jaw, a sharp nose, eyes that blaze with defiance. Her hair flows off her head in dark tendrils. With a few strokes of her pencil, Krystal had conveyed this woman’s strength, courage, and determination.

“Her name is Skull Crusher. She can kill a man with her bare hands.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” I say. “Since you’re already an artist, I’ll let you draw while the others paint.”

Krystal accepts the deal with a smile. “Cool.”

She and Sasha continue to stare as I unpack, waiting for me to say more. Feeling extremely awkward, I ask, “So why did you want to come to camp?”

“My guidance counselor at school suggested it,” Sasha says. “She said it would be a good learning experience for me, seeing how I’m inquisitive.”

“Oh?” I say. “About what?”

“Um, everything.”

“I see.”

“My dad wanted me to come,” Krystal says. “It was either this or get a job flipping burgers somewhere.”

“I think you made the right choice.”

“I didn’t want to come,” Miranda says. “My grandmother forced me to. She said I’d only get in trouble if I stayed home this summer.”

I look up at her. “And would you?”

Miranda shrugs. “Probably.”

“Listen,” I say, “whether you want to be here or not, I need to be clear about something. I’m not here to be your den mother. Or babysitter.” I flick my gaze up at Miranda. “Or warden. I don’t want to cramp your style.”

All of them groan.

“What, don’t kids say that anymore?”

“No,” Krystal says emphatically.

“Definitely not,” Sasha adds.

“Well, whatever the current equivalent of that is, it’s not why I’m here. I’m here to help you learn, if you want. Or, if you’d like, we can just talk. Basically, think of me as your big sister for the summer. I just want you to enjoy yourselves.”

“I have a question,” Sasha says. “Are there bears here?”

“I guess so,” I reply. “But they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”

“I did some research before I left home and read that that’s not true.”

“It’s probably not,” I say. “But it’s nice to imagine, don’t you think?”

“What about snakes?”

“What about them?”

“How many do you think are in the woods? And how many of those are venomous?”

I look at Sasha, intimidated by her curiosity. What a delightfully strange girl, with her thick-framed glasses perched on her tiny nose, her eyes wide behind their immaculate lenses.

“I honestly don’t know,” I say. “But I don’t think we need to worry too much about snakes.”

Sasha pushes her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose. “So, we should be more worried about sinkholes? I read that hundreds of thousands of years ago, this whole area was covered by glaciers that left ice deep inside the earth. And that ice eventually melted and ate away at the sandstone, forming deep caves. And sometimes those caves collapse, leaving giant craters. And if you’re standing above one when it collapses, you’ll fall so deep into the earth that no one will ever find you.”

She finally stops, slightly out of breath.

“I think we’ll be okay,” I say. “Honestly, the only thing you need to worry about is poison ivy.”

“And getting lost in the woods,” Sasha says. “According to Wikipedia, it’s very common. People disappear all the time.”

I nod. Finally, a fact I can confirm.