I rubbed at my cheeks, trying to erase the tear streaks from my skin. They were a visible reminder that my mom was the one person who could always make me feel totally worthless. As I pulled a brush through my hair, someone knocked at the cabin door.
“Hello?” I heard Bailey yell through the screen door. “Isabella?”
I snuffled one last time, making sure I was done crying. Tears weren’t going to help my cause with these people. Then I headed out into the living room, where Mom was already talking with Bailey.
“I’m sure she’d love to go canoeing,” I heard her say. “Izzy was just saying how much she wanted to do something with all of you.”
I stared at my mom, speechless. I was so not just saying that. My mom was making me look desperate. That I didn’t need.
“Oh, great!” Bailey chirped. “We need one more person for Canoe Wars, or the weights will be all weird in the boats. Which is totally not fair.”
“Sounds fun,” I grumbled, without any enthusiasm at all. I wasn’t going to act all chipper and let my mom win. “Let’s go.” I pushed through the busted front door and wrapped my arm through Bailey’s. Then I dragged my new friend—really, that’s what Bailey was going to have to be now that I didn’t have a phone—down the steps, along the path, and toward the lake.
Bailey followed behind me. Like a puppy. Pitiful.
“So what is Canoe Wars, anyway?” I asked, as we neared the lake.
Bailey grinned at me, totally oblivious to the fact that I was not at all happy. But even though her clueless grin bugged me, there was something mischievous in her smile that I found the tiniest bit intriguing. Bailey shook her head and said, “You’ll see.”
“Tell me what it is, or I’m not doing it,” I said.
Bailey raised her eyebrows. After a long pause, where neither of us said anything, Bailey laughed. Finally, she said, “You don’t have to do this, you know. I’m not going to force you to get in the boat.”
“No,” I said, softening. “I’ll do it. I just want to know what I’m getting into before I agree to do something stupid.”
“I already told you, you’ll find out.” Bailey reached down and scratched at a bug bite on her leg.
Fine. I would play by her rules. This once.
“And just so you know,” Bailey said, wrinkling her nose so her freckles all bunched up into a little cluster of spots in the center of her face. “It probably wouldn’t kill you to be a little nicer to everyone. We all know you don’t want to be here—but maybe you could try to have a decent time, just for the month? We’re all stuck at the lake together, and it’s going to be a lot more fun for everyone if you ditch the attitude.” She smiled, all smug. “When we get back to school, you can act however you want to act and be who you want to be. But for now, just try to be a little less awful. Okay?”
My mouth dropped open. That I was not expecting. No one—except my parents—had ever spoken to me like that before. I didn’t even know how to respond.
Suddenly, Ava bounded up beside us. “Oh, good,” she said. “You’re in?” She looked at me expectantly.
After a long moment, I nodded. I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to—Bailey’s request, or Ava’s question—but my answer to both was yes. Bailey was right. It was just a month, and there was no reason I couldn’t pretend to be friends with these girls for the month. It’s not like anyone at school had to know about anything that happened over the summer. Everything would go back to normal when school started. I’d make sure of it.
Ava and Bailey skipped the rest of the way down the hill and jogged onto the beach. Brennan, Madeline, and Zach were standing onshore beside two enormous aluminum canoes.
“What are the teams?” Bailey blurted out, strapping a life jacket on.
Brennan looked at me suspiciously. “The most important question is, who gets the new girl?”
“I assume you’re talking about me? My name is Izzy.” I tried to act like it didn’t matter that I was going to be the last person picked for their little teams. “How long have you all known each other, anyway?”
“Six years?” Ava said quietly, answering my question with a question instead of a confident statement. It was no wonder she was always getting teased and tortured at school. It was almost like she wanted people to think she was a total doormat. “At least, that’s when I first met everyone . . . I guess? But Bailey’s mom has been doing this summer retreat thing with the firm since before Bailey was even born.”
“My mom’s maternity leave—the summer she had me—was at the lake, actually,” Bailey said quickly. “So I’ve been coming here my whole life. Brennan and Zach’s mom just started working at the agency a year or two ago, so this is their second summer. Levi, who you met at the bonfire, comes every other year—he spent last summer at his mom’s house in Chicago, but this year his dad and stepmom got August, so he’s here again, which is super-fun. But he’s in town with his stepmom this afternoon, which is why we’re short one person for Canoe Wars.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to digest Bailey’s information dump. The girl really liked to talk. “O-kay.”
“So let’s do this!” Brennan said. “I call Zach and Madeline!”
“That’s so not fair,” Ava whined. “They’re the strongest. And, uh . . .” She glanced at me.
Bailey piped up, “But we’re the smartest. You’re going down, Bren.” She narrowed her eyes at him, and put her hands on her hips. She began to growl, which made everyone start laughing, and once again, I found myself sort of intrigued by Bailey. I seriously hoped she wasn’t trying to flirt with Brennan, though. Because if she was, she was going about it all wrong.
And also, if anyone was going to flirt with Brennan, it ought to be me.
“Get in,” Bailey instructed. “Sit in the middle.” She pointed, and I climbed into the center of one of the canoes while it was still pulled up onshore. Bailey and Ava pushed it out into the swimming area. When they were standing about waist-deep in the water, they got on either side of the canoe, lifted one leg into the boat, and climbed in.
“How did you do that without the canoe tipping?” I asked. It was pretty impressive. “I thought canoes were supposed to be super tippy?”
“They are tippy,” Bailey said. “That’s the whole point of Canoe Wars. But Ava and I have had a lot of practice doing this—as long as we climb in at the same time from opposite sides, our bodies cancel each other out and the canoe doesn’t tip. Teamwork.”
“Where are the oars?” I asked, looking back toward shore.
“Oars?” Ava snorted. “You mean paddles?”
“Does it matter?” I snapped.
“Kind of,” Ava said. She was still snickering. Apparently I needed to read up on whittling and canoe paddles. “Oars are for a rowboat. Paddles are for a canoe. But we don’t use either for this game. It’s all about sneakery.” While she’d been talking, the canoe had floated out to the far edge of the swimming area, near the buoys. I shifted, trying to get comfortable on the bottom of the boat. But every time I moved, the canoe swayed, so I felt like I couldn’t even wiggle my foot.
Suddenly, I felt something thump the bottom of the canoe. I screamed and jumped up, moving as fast as I would if piranhas were attacking. Were piranhas attacking? Did lakes have piranhas? I knew that lakes sometimes had creepy-looking brown fish with whiskers, and that was bad enough. I saw some at the zoo once, and honestly, they were spookier than sharks. I leapt up, eager to escape whatever it was that had knocked against me through the canoe. As I stood up, the boat rocked wildly to the side, thrown off balance by my sudden movement. I flung my hands out to the side, trying to regain my balance, but it was no use. My arms circled in the air, and I felt my body tipping until—
Splash!
The canoe and I both went over. As soon as I resurfaced, I gasped and screamed. “What was that?” My feet kicked at the surface of the water, and I flapped my arms to stay afloat. I was drowning, I was just sure of it.
That’s when I realized Bailey and Ava were both standing in water chest-deep beside me, smirking as they watched me freak out. “Brennan,” Bailey explained. “That was Brennan. And we just lost the first round of Canoe Wars.”
I was so confused. “No, I mean, something thumped the bottom of the canoe. Like, a catfish or a huge turtle or something. I felt it!” I kicked my legs wildly under the water, trying to make sure nothing would sneak up and bite me in the thigh. Suddenly, something did. “Aah! There it is again.”
I panicked, fear making me weak and wobbly and near tears (for the second time that day). But moments later, Brennan popped out of the murky water less than a foot away from us. He held up one of Levi’s whittled sticks in his hand, and poked it in our direction.
“That was you?” I spluttered, as embarrassment washed over me. It was then that I finally understood that Brennan was the thing that knocked on the bottom of the canoe. Not a turtle. Not a piranha. Lobster Boy.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever lost Canoe Wars that fast,” Brennan said, shaking his head. “Like, ever in the history of Canoe Wars. That was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”
I folded my arms tightly across my chest.
“Give us another chance,” Ava said, as she and Bailey worked to right our canoe again. I stood shivering in waist-deep water. After a few tugs, Bailey and Ava were able to turn the canoe upright again. But now it was almost completely full of water. Somehow, the thing continued to float even though it was still partially underwater. “You’re up one. Let’s do best of three.”
“This is a stupid game,” I announced, because it was the truth. “Brennan tipped our canoe. How is that fair?”
Brennan held his hands in the air, like he was a criminal under arrest. “I did not tip your canoe,” he said firmly. “You tipped your canoe.”
“But . . .,” I argued. “But you were under our canoe, right? You were thunking us, and trying to freak me out, and you totally tipped our boat.”
Bailey laughed, and I shot her a look. It obviously didn’t do the trick, since Bailey kept laughing. She covered her mouth, but we could all still hear her gasping laugh. Finally, she said, “Brennan would have to be seriously strong to lift our boat up in the air and tip us. Honestly, we went over because you got spooked and stood up. Don’t you know you’re never supposed to stand up in a canoe?” She scolded me like I was a child. “See, the point of Canoe Wars is to try to get the other team to dump without actually touching their boat with any kind of force.”
“Those are really vague rules,” I said, shivering even more. The sky had been filled with big cotton-ball clouds all day, but now they were getting darker, and one was parked right in front of the sun. Suddenly, it felt sort of chilly in the water. “So you’re just supposed to try to scare the other team enough that they just—whoop!—fall out of their boat on their own? Isn’t that sort of simple?”
“Well,” Ava said politely, “it’s not really supposed to be that simple. . . . No one’s ever actually just knocked on the bottom of someone else’s canoe and gotten them to fall into the lake. Normally, it takes a little more than that. Usually, we have to push people with paddles and make big waves and stuff. But even that usually isn’t enough to make a team tip.” Ava shrugged. She reminded me of a teacher, the way she was acting all preachy. “Most of the time, Canoe Wars doesn’t end until someone adds an extra challenge that makes it harder to stay in your own boat. Like, we all have to stand up and dance in our canoes or something.”
“This is a seriously stupid game,” I said, rolling my eyes. I could feel myself pouting, so I pulled my lower lip between my teeth and chewed.
“Then don’t play,” Brennan said with a shrug. “Obviously, Ava and Bailey are a lot better off with an unbalanced team than they are with you in their boat.”
Brennan stared at me, and I crossed my arms and stared back. I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought he was cute. What a jerk! He didn’t have to be so rude about everything. Eventually, I blinked and looked around at the others. Ava and Bailey were both back in our canoe—even though it was still half-underwater. They both looked at me, their faces filled with pity. Pity I didn’t need. Madeline and Zach were just sitting patiently in the other canoe, watching to see what might happen. Bailey tipped her head, as if to say, In or out?
“Fine,” I said sullenly. I was cold and embarrassed, but I wasn’t a quitter. “Best two out of three.”
“We’re so glad you’ll stoop to join us, Your Highness,” Brennan said with an arrogant smile. He gestured to the sunken canoe and bowed. “May I help you into your chariot?”