Lily's Church Camp Adventure

Chapter One

Lily Robbins looked up from her suitcase at her younger sister, Tessa, who was letting both arms flop to the bed, over and over and over - and, oh yes, over. Lily knew Tessa would have been doing it with her legs if the body brace she was wearing had let her. It was what she did when she was afraid and wouldn't admit it.

"What are you scared of?" Lily said as she tried to cram one more Camp Galilee T-shirt into her already stuffed duffel bag.

"I'm not scared of nothin'," Tessa said, scowling. "I just said it ain't fair."

"Isn't fair."

"That's what I said!" The arms did a particularly hard flop. "It's not fair that I gotta stay here while you go to some dumb camp for two weeks."

Lily felt her lips twitch. "If it's dumb, why would you want to go anyway?"

Tessa's scowl deepened until Lily was sure her forehead was going to meet her chin. Nobody could scowl like Tessa.

"Besides," Lily said, "you're just now getting back on your feet since the accident. You'd have to sit and watch everybody else hike and rock climb and sail -" She stopped. Tessa's eyes were going into slits.

"Are you scared of being here without me?" Lily said.

"No, that's dumb."

"Are you scared you'll miss me so much you'll cry?"

"That's double dumb!"

Lily climbed on top of her duffel bag and squished it down while she pulled the zipper closed. The bulging sides puckered, and she could almost hear her clothes groaning. She swiveled to face Tessa, who was still trying to maintain the scowl. Lily could see her big green eyes misting up.

"Are you scared I'm not coming back or something?"

"No!" Tessa said. She slammed her arms down so hard that China, Lily's big stuffed panda, bounced two inches off the bed. Tessa turned her glare on him, so that all Lily could see was the wavy back of Tessa's short dark hair. "You're gonna forget about me while you're gone," she said. "That's what's gonna happen."

"No way!" Lily said. She scrambled up and sat next to Tessa on the bed. Otto, Lily's mutt dog, took that as his cue to join them and crawled out from under the bed and hopped up. Lily stroked his head and Tessa's at the same time. "I'm only gonna be gone two weeks," she said. "But even if I was gone the whole summer - or a whole year even - I wouldn't forget you. You're my sister."

"Adopted," Tessa muttered. "And I ain't even that yet. That dumb judge still has to make it - what's that word?"

"Official," Lily said. "But I don't need him to do that. You're my sister already, and I'm not gonna forget you, so quit talking like a freak."

Tessa turned to Lily and scoured her face with her eyes as if she were digging for traces of a lie. "Do you wish I was goin'?" she said.

"Well, yeah, du-uh!" Lily said. And she did. Tessa was still pretty rowdy and definitely stubborn, but she was nothing like the way she was when she'd first come to live with the Robbins family. Lily was having trouble imagining what it was going to be like not having Tessa tagging after her every minute, asking ten thousand questions. Tessa was what Dad called streetwise, but she didn't know a lot of stuff most nine-year-olds knew. Lily had taken it upon herself to teach her.

If I weren't so jazzed about this camp, Lily thought, I'd stay home and help Mom and Dad work with her. But her parents had urged her to go. They said they needed some one-on-one time with Tessa anyway - and Camp Galilee was the best Christian camp for girls in the whole eastern United States - or so everybody said. Mom and Dad were sure that if anybody would enjoy the special programs they had at Galilee, it was Lily.

Besides, the Girlz were all going - Reni and Suzy and Zooey and even Kresha. Their church had made sure Kresha got a scholarship since her mom didn't have a lot of money.

I have to spend all the time I can with my Girlz this summer, Lily thought. The end of August is gonna be here before I know it, and then I won't see them for a whole year. A whole year!

"You wanna go real bad," Tessa said. She was still studying Lily's face.

"Yeah, I do," Lily said. She had to be honest with Tessa. The kid had lie radar. "But I also wanna be with you. Too bad I can't be in two places at one time."

Otto gave a growl and wriggled away from Lily, squirming as close to Tessa's side as he could, and sighed himself in. So far, Tessa was the only other person in the Robbins family besides Lily that Otto would even allow to touch him. Ever since she had come home from the hospital, he had to be on the couch or the bed or the chair next to Tessa. The only exception was at night, when, as always, he crawled under Lily's covers like a mole and slept there.

"Look at him," Lily said. "I bet by the time I get back, he'll have forgotten about me and only want you."

"Not gonna happen," Tessa said - although the scowl did fade a little at the prospect. "I'll make sure he doesn't forget you." Her eyes suddenly took on an impish gleam. "And I'll make sure Shad Shifferdecker doesn't forget about you either."

Lily felt her blue eyes narrowing. "That's really okay," she said.

"You know he likes you," Tessa said.

Lily grunted and got up to go to the dresser, where she raked a brush through her mane of red curly hair. She could see her usually pale face going blotchy in the mirror.

"You like him too - you know you do," Tessa said.

"Shut up!" Lily said.

In the mirror, she could see Tessa grinning.

There was a knock on the door, and Art, Lily's seventeen-year-old brother, poked his head in. "Dad wants to know if your bag is ready yet," he said. "He's got the air conditioner going in the van, and he's ready to roll."

Lily nodded toward her duffel bag and finished the second pigtail she'd just tamed her hair into. She grabbed the khaki hat that matched her shorts and perched it on top of her head. She gazed at her Camp Galilee T-shirt in the mirror. She was a camper from head to toe.

"Good grief - what have you got in here?" Art said. His face went red as he hoisted Lily's bag up onto his shoulder.

"My stuff," Lily said.

"You're going to camp, for Pete's sake," Art said, grunting his way to the door. "All you need's two pairs of shorts and a couple of T-shirts."

"And underwear and socks."

"Nobody changes underwear and socks at camp."

"Gross me out and make me icky!" Lily said. "Just go - oh, wait - I forgot something."

"How could you have forgotten something? Everything you own has to be in this bag."

"Stop! I gotta put my journal in there!"

Lily stuck her hand between her mattresses and pulled out her Talking-to-God Journal and its special purple gel pen.

"Put it in your backpack," Art said as he maneuvered his way out the door. "I'm not picking this thing up again. I'm about to get a hernia as it is."

"What's a hernia?" Tessa said.

"Don't try to come downstairs by yourself, Squirt," Art said to her over his shoulder. "I'll come back and get you for the big tear fest."

"What tear fest?" Lily said, following him down the steps.

"You're leaving for two weeks," Art said. "You're going to cry."

"I am not. Why would I cry?"

"You cry over commercials for AT&T long distance," Art said. "Of course you're gonna cry."

Lily ignored him and jockeyed impatiently from side to side as Art made his way to the first floor and out the front door. Mom was waiting there, and Lily's ten-year-old brother, Joe, was on his knees on a chair behind her, batting at her ponytail like a cat.

"Can I have Lily's share of dessert while she's gone?" he said.

"Sure," Mom said, brown eyes dancing. "And you can also have her share of chores." Her mouth twitched in that way it did instead of outright smiling. Suddenly Lily felt a pang. She wasn't going to see her mom twitch her lips for two whole weeks. She'd never been away from her for longer than a weekend.

"I'm gonna go up and get the Squirt," Art said as he charged through the door and headed for the stairs. Although it was barely light out, his T-shirt was sticking to his back with sweat.

"Too late," Joe said.

Tessa was almost to the bottom of the steps. One more reason why she can't go to camp, Lily thought. She still doesn't do what you tell her to do half the time.

But another shivery pang went through Lily. She was going to miss that too - and Otto - and the horse Big Jake out at the ranch nuzzling her neck with his soft nose. She was even going to miss Joe, the absurd little creep. The wonderful absurd little creep.

"Let's go, Lilliputian," Dad said from the doorway. He was wearing a moustache of perspiration, and even his graying red hair was sparkling with sweat. "I wish I were going to Maine to sit by the bay for two weeks."

And I wish I wasn't! Not without all of you guys!

Lily didn't know where the thought came from, but as Mom hugged her and told her to have an amazing time and not to try to run the place the first day, Lily felt herself fighting back tears. She struggled to keep it from turning into a tear fest only because she didn't want Art to be right. Sniffing while Dad pulled out of the driveway and onto the street, she waved until Tessa was merely a dot on the front porch.

But the minute Kresha bounded out of her apartment building - clothes poking out of her duffel bag, sand-colored hair sticking out of a lopsided ponytail, and a grin spreading ear to ear - Lily's urge to cry disappeared.

"We are going to the camp, Lee-Lee!" Kresha cried. Lily grabbed her hands and jumped up and down with her while Dad shoved Kresha's bag into the van. I hope no one makes fun of her Croatian accent at camp, Lily thought before reassuring herself. Nah - we'll always be there to protect her.

They both climbed happily into the van, and the happiness built as they picked up each of the Girlz and headed north on the New Jersey Turnpike. They passed around a bag of Doritos to each other - since everyone had been too excited to eat breakfast - and switched seats a half dozen times. And, of course, their mouths ran nonstop.

"Okay - how cool is this gonna be, guys?" Reni said.

"You're not scared there won't be any other African-American girls there?" Zooey said. Her brow furrowed under her carefully curled bangs. Zooey was their worrier.

Reni raised an eyebrow at her. "Not that I was even thinking about it," she said, "but my mom checked into it, and there's ten of us."

"Besides," Lily said, "it's not gonna matter because we're all gonna be in the same cabin." She darted her eyes from girl to girl. "You guys did request each other on the form, right?"

"You asked us that eight thousand times," Zooey said.

"And I checked them all when we filled them out," Suzy said, nodding her shiny bob of dark hair.

"Then it's a done deal," Reni said. Suzy, after all, was probably more efficient than the school secretary.

"What we do tonight in our cabin?" Kresha said. She'd been practicing saying that word for two weeks.

"Pillow fight," Reni said.

"Unless it's against the rules," Suzy said.

"Let's not tell scary stories," Zooey said. "I won't be able to sleep."

"I say we play a game," Lily said.

Reni grinned slyly. "What kind of game, Lil?"

"I don't know. I'll think of something."

"You do always, Lee-Lee," Kresha said.

Lily nestled back into the seat and smiled to herself. This was going to be the best. She and her Girlz would be together for two weeks with nothing to do but have fun and "discover a relationship with God." That was what the brochure had said. I'm gonna be good at that, Lily thought. I already have one. She didn't cuddle in with China and Otto and her Talking-to-God Journal every night for nothing.

"You know what I love?" Zooey said.

"What?" Lily said.

"We're not going to have to worry about Chelsea and Ashley and all of them the whole time we're gone."

Reni grunted. "I don't worry about them."

But Lily knew what Zooey meant. Chelsea and Ashley and their friends were the popular girls at Cedar Hills Middle School, and they never let the Girlz forget that they were never going to be "popular." Even though the Girlz had stopped buying into that and were finding their own happiness, Lily had to agree that it was going to be good not to have to deal with it.

"What about Shad?" Reni said.

Lily snapped her a look. "What about him?" she said.

"Are you glad to be away from him too?" Reni said, dimples going deep into her cheeks.

Lily felt red blotches forming on her neck, like they always did when she wanted to hide her head in a hole. There was a time when she would have answered that question with a loud, "Gross me out and make me icky!" But Shad wasn't so icky anymore, and that was pretty confusing.

"Lily!" Zooey said. "You do like him, don't you?"

Only because Lily saw her father's ears practically coming to a point did she not shove an entire Rice Krispies treat into Zooey's mouth. Instead, she said, "Give it up, Zo. I'm not going there."

The scenery changed as the day went on and they wound their way through New England. Trees arched over them, creating a welcome trellis, and Dad told them to roll down their windows so they could smell the air. It was cool on their arms and made Lily want to breathe until her whole chest filled up.

That afternoon they could smell salty air and watch seagulls circling as if they'd been waiting to guide them to Camp Galilee near the ocean. The further they drove, the more clearly Lily could imagine the five of them and their counselor setting out on Penobscot Bay in sailboats with bright striped sails.

"I really want to go sailing," she said to the Girlz.

"Doesn't everybody get to sail?" Reni said.

Suzy shook her head. "It says it right in the brochure. Every cabin has a different activity."

"Ours has to be sailing," Lily said. "I've read three books on it."

She didn't add that she hadn't understood most of it. It still sounded like the most exciting thing she could imagine - and she had imagined some pretty exhilarating things in her time.

"I hope we get a counselor that isn't mean," Zooey said.

"Didn't the brochure say all the counselors were college students?" Lily said.

"Yes," Suzy said. "Right on page two."

"Is that what it said?" Dad grinned. "I think I'd better take you home then."

Dad was a college professor. He was always moaning about university students and their shenanigans. Lily didn't care whether they had shenanigans or not - whatever that was. It was going to be cool.

Continues.