After cleaning me up
and covering me in Band-Aids
and telling me not to worry about
the three scary spiders I saw
dangling and crawling around me,
Hope took us to our cabin.
It was small and painted white on the outside.
Just like my mom’s, in her camp picture.
Do not think about that picture,
I told myself
very seriously.
Because it was too sad
to think about my happy mom.
I focused on Hope’s red sneakers instead
as I followed her up the cabin steps.
Those red sneakers saved me
from crying again.
The screen door creaked when we opened it
and banged behind us when we got inside.
“Home sweet home!” Hope said.
It didn’t look like home.
No rugs, no curtains, no lamps.
No couches, no armchairs, no tables.
No television, no stereo, no computer.
No colors on the walls.
Just brown wood, from floor to ceiling.
And four bunk beds, one in each corner.
And a few shelves and cubbies along the walls
under the windows.
Only my trunk was familiar.
It sat next to Joplin’s, in the middle of the floor.
I wanted to curl up inside it.
“You both have top bunks!”
Hope said.
“Eleanor, you’re there.”
She pointed to a bunk bed on the left.
“And Joplin, that one’s yours.”
She pointed to the right.
Then she said,
“I have to meet our other campers.
Can you start unpacking without me?”
Joplin and I nodded,
and the screen door banged shut again
behind Hope.
Great,
I thought,
looking up at my bed.
My hands started burning again
just thinking about it.
Meanwhile,
Joplin had opened her trunk.
She was shoving clothes and towels
into the cubby by her bed.
I did the same thing.
Then she took out her sheets and sleeping bag
and stood on the edge of the bunk below hers
and started making her bed.
I tried to, too.
But I’d never made a top bunk before.
It was impossible.
Whenever I got one corner of the sheet
around that thin mattress,
the other corner popped off.
And I couldn’t even reach the far side.
and crawled around
until I’d tucked everything in.
Then I climbed back down
and checked my bed
and saw
a disaster.
“Have bears been fighting up there?”
I looked over at her bed.
It was beautiful,
smooth and tight.
Just like my mom’s, at home.
“Don’t worry about it,” Joplin said.
“I got good at it last year.
Besides, it gets messed up anyway.”
I knew that.
But still.
That bed was my only space in the whole cabin.
In the whole world,
until I got home.
I wanted to like it.
Joplin looked at my face.
“Hold on a sec,” she said.
Then she stood on the bunk beneath mine
and, with her long arms,
until my bed was beautiful, too.
My heart felt funny,
watching her be so nice.
“Thank you,” I said
when she was done.
She shrugged.
“Don’t tell anybody,” she said.
Very serious.
“I don’t want to be making everyone’s bed.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“I promise.”
