It is important to be VERY, VERY LOUD in the mess hall when you are a Lumberjane. It helps with digestion. If you cannot chew loudly and/or burp loudly, you can also slam your cutlery against the table and/or sing a song, of which, if you are a Lumberjane, there are many. Like that song about the GOAT, the GIRL, and the GARGOYLE playing GOLF. A song that is curiously titled, “Miss Maggy Marple May’s Monday.”
At the table, Ripley, the smallest but mightiest member of Roanoke cabin, was not singing but defending her pancake record of 14¾. A day earlier, Sally Smithereen of Roswell cabin (who had the record for most milkshakes slurped, at six) came very close to breaking it, except Sally made the rookie mistake of adding a bite of veggie bacon to the mix, and it all went south from there.
As it will.
The key to any record, as any Lumberjane knows, is focus. Which Ripley had, when it came to eating pancakes. When she wasn’t eating pancakes, Ripley had a tendency to get distracted by sparkly things. Sparkly was one of Ripley’s top-five favorite adjectives, along with fuzzy, bouncy, shiny, and googley.
In addition to eating breakfast, Mal and Molly, two particularly inseparable Roanoke cabin members, were practicing on their accordions for their upcoming That’s Accordion to You badges. Successfully completing a badge for music meant performing for Drucilla Johnstone II, the ornery but lovable camp music director and master of multiple instruments, including the tuba, flute, drums, guitar, sitar, recorder, kazoo, harmonica, and violin. Drucilla avoided sunlight at all costs and thought disco was uniformly abominable, but she was a good teacher.
To receive badges, scouts had to play, for Drucilla, without mistakes, a song of their choosing, and three scales.
Music was definitely in Mal’s list of favorite things, in addition to problem-solving and being really into Molly. Mal’s mother and grandmother had been teaching her to play various instruments since she was old enough to breathe. One of her first stuffed animals was a fluffy drum named BANG.
Running her fingers over the buttons and keys of her accordion, Mal watched Molly, who was looking at her sheet music with great Molly-like intensity.
Before camp, music was not even in Molly’s list of favorite one hundred things, although she enjoyed listening to the radio. Before camp, Molly had never even tried to play a musical instrument, but she was kind of digging playing music with Mal, mostly because just about anything she and Mal did together ended up being way more fun than anything Molly did with anyone else. Molly liked it so much she was even thinking of joining Flute Club.
Flute Club, unfortunately, was difficult to join, because they were a very secretive club. And no one really talks about how or where you’re supposed to go to join.
Weird.
With Bubbles the raccoon, faithful pet and head warmer, snoozing comfortably on her noggin, Molly squinted at the notes on the page and tried to make her fingers go where they were supposed to go.
“What are you playing for your test tomorrow?” April asked. “Are you playing the classic Lumberjane ditty, ‘Miss Tawny Tooberang Tustle’s Tuesday’?”
“Is that the one about the hedgehog named Henry who hates horseradish?” Jo asked.
Molly shook her head. “I couldn’t find any sheet music for that, so I’m playing ‘Frère Jacques’ instead.” Molly braced her fingers on the keys of her accordion. “It’s about a monk who slept in.”
“I’m playing Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ ” Mal said, “which is about relationships.”
“Holy Siouxsie Sioux.” April flopped down on the bench with a plate full of cheese omelette and toast. “Isn’t that a really hard song?”
Mal shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, it’s a suite containing a multitude of sections that is considered the ultimate hard-rock classical slash prog-rock crossover. No bigs.”
“Dude,” April nodded appreciatively. “Now that is an operatic undertaking!”
“It’s gonna be athom,” Ripley said, grinning with a mouth full of pancake.
Jo raised an eyebrow at Ripley. “Hey, Rip. How many pancakes is that?”
Ripley held up all ten sticky fingers.
People have a habit of saying odd and interesting things, like, “Your eyes were bigger than your stomach,” which means you thought something was going to be smaller than it was, namely, that you thought a meal or a muffin or a buffet was going to be able to fit into your stomach, but it wasn’t. Really, this is a way of saying that your stomach is smaller than you think, because no matter what you eat, your eyes stay pretty much the same size. Maybe it’s not worth thinking about. Or maybe it’s the key to everything.
Jo had spent a considerable amount of time wondering about whether or not Ripley had an extremely large stomach, or whether she was burning fuel at such a rapid Ripley rate while doing Ripley things that she just needed more fuel.
“Hey,” Molly looked up. “Where’s Jen?”
“Working on Galaxy Wars, of course,” April said.
Galaxy Wars was Roanoke counselor extraordinaire Jen’s pet project, if by “pet” we mean “obsession.”
“Is it just me or has it been days since we saw her?” Mal wondered out loud. “She hasn’t even bothered to leave us a list of chores in, like, three days. Or to tell us to be careful. I don’t even know where my socks are anymore.”
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
“LUMBERJANES! LISTEN UP!”
Camp Director Rosie, Jen, and the rest of the camp counselors stood at the front of the mess hall. Rosie, holding up a massive cast-iron pan and wooden spoon, was doing the clanging.
“LISTEN UP!” Rosie hollered, her voice piercing and loud like freshly sharpened steel.
The din subsided to a low murmur of chewing and curiosity.
Rosie lowered the pan and adjusted her thick cat-eye glasses. “RIGHT! Tonight will kick off our First Annual Lumberjane Galaxy Wars, organized by your very own camp counselors, including Roanoke’s very own Jacqueline! Let’s give her a hand!”
A roar of volcanic proportions erupted in the hall as all the scouts stood up to applaud their hardworking counselors.
“It’s Jen,” Jen whispered, clapping while keeping her trusty clipboard tucked under her arm. “Always Jen.”
“YEAH, JEN!” Mal cheered.
“WOOT! WOOT!” Ripley yelled.
Jo just smiled, because Jo was less of a “WOOT”-er than her cabin mates.
Jen stepped forward, her counselor uniform crisp, smiling the rosy smile of a nerd about to see her dream take shape.
Jen had many dreams, including a recurring nightmare where she searched for her campers through a complex maze of thick ivy, all while dressed in a set of fuzzy footie pajamas and a baseball hat that said “HONK FOR JUSTICE.”
This wasn’t one of those dreams.
This was one of those dreams where you work really hard to make something happen, and then it does.
“All right, campers! We’re all super excited to bring you this incredible event full of amazing . . . EVENTS!” Jen’s eyes sparkled as she gazed out upon the crowd of campers about to take part in this amazing thing. This really amazing thing!
“Ahem,” fellow counselor Vanessa nudged Jen, who in gazing had forgotten to mention . . . the events.
“Right!” Jen looked back down at her clipboard. “SO! Galaxy Wars will consist of four days of activities, all taking place after sunset. The first night, tonight, will be a camp-wide scavenger hunt. Tomorrow night we will have a mystery contest.”
April’s eyebrows shot up as high as a person’s eyebrows could possibly shoot up.
Ripley sighed. “I hope it’s a dance off. Bubbles and I have been practicing our cha-cha all week.”
Bubbles, who was mostly Molly’s pet but also Ripley’s dance partner, chirped in the affirmative.
“The next day,” Jen continued, “there will be a trivia contest with a distinctly Lumberjane twist!”
Mal hoped it wasn’t anything to do with a lake. Or a river. Or water.
“And finally, the pièce de résistance, an all-out obstacle course!”
The mess hall erupted in a raucous cheer.
Because obstacles do not stand in the way of being an awesome scout.
Obstacles are what MAKE awesome scouts.
“The cabin that wins each event will receive twenty-five points; the second and third place cabins receive fifteen and ten points. The cabin with the most points at the end of four nights wins! The prize,” Jen grinned, “will be announced at the first event tonight.”
Jen held up a finger. “Get ready. These events are all night events, so bring your flashlights!”
“Okay, scouts,” Vanessa hollered, “you’ve got the rest of your day to get to your tasks and responsibilities and badges. Zodiac, you have stable duty!”
With yips and yelps of glee, the scouts flooded out of the mess hall.