Chapter 8

“Who’s that?” Lily asks, scrunching up her nose like she’s just smelled something bad.

Mia clomps up to the front of the room, the tongues of her boots flapping as she goes. She noisily drags a stool across the floor, climbs onto it, places her guitar across her knees, and stares solemnly out into the faces of the curious, whispering campers.

Excitedly, I fumble for my phone and push record.

“What’s your name?” Yipsy asks.

“Mia,” she responds coolly.

“So, Mia, what are you gonna rock us out to?”

“It’s an original song,” she announces.

She strums her guitar with one hand, adjusting the knobs of the neck with the other, which makes the chords go all wonky. A few minutes pass, and kids start fidgeting.

“What’s she waiting for?” Simon says.

“Isn’t she awesome?” I say.

“She’s . . . something.” Simon frowns.

“Sing, sing, sing!” some kids begin to chant.

Finally, Mia begins, her warbly voice lifting into the eaves.

Out the window behind her, the early evening sky is turning another shade of gray, and the moon is low and full. Its crevices and shadows give the impression of a lopsided, smiling face on a flat white head. It makes a cool background shot for my short opus.

This time, Mia’s song is about the trees and rivers turning from green to mucky brown, about animals covered in sludge and dying with glassy eyes, and about the air becoming a wall of thick gray smoke. The last verse is about remembering to recycle, leading to a high note about nuclear waste. She strums another loud chord for emphasis, stops abruptly, and stares deadpan into the crowd.

“Yikes!” Tyler’s eyebrows arch into his forehead.

“Well, that was cheery,” Josh remarks.

Yipsy smiles, bobs his head up and down, and leads a few scattered claps as Mick Jagger barks and wags his tail.

Looking satisfied—oblivious to the farting noises, snorts, and sneezes of the word “loser”—Mia hops off the stool and returns to her seat, where her bunkmates have their faces buried in their phones.

Chairs scrape as everyone starts for the door.

My friends might think she’s strange, but Mia’s singing makes me feel tingly and new. Like when you accidentally pick up a dog’s shock collar by the electric fence. Or like when waves crash up on the beach and spray cold spikes of water, burning your sunburned skin like fiery pricks. Or like when you stand outside right before a storm and a tree branch whips into your face. Or like when unexpected thunder cracks so hard, you feel your bladder squeeze a little . . .

“Noah? Noah, are you in there?” Simon snaps his fingers in front of my face.

“Huh?”

“Time to go,” Josh says.

As my new friends and I file out of the mess hall, I shoot Mia a thumbs up. The corners of her mouth twitch into a smile before she turns away and bumps her chair closer to her bunkmates, who are huddled together, laughing about something.

As we amble across the clearing, Josh finds a glow Frisbee on the ground, and he and Tyler start whizzing it back and forth.

“I thought she was cool,” I say to Simon, who’s swiping his phone.

He doesn’t answer and he looks kind of somber and I can’t tell if he’s sad or just concentrating. I want to ask him more questions, like what his friends’ names are, what he likes about them, what kinds of things they do together, and if he thinks that we can ever be good friends.

But the only thing I can figure is that he looks like he doesn’t want to talk.

Now the sky is inky dark blue. Stars are popping like white pricks through a black cloth, and only the tiki lights along the path and the bright moon light the way. That space between night and day feels like something between different times and worlds. It’s like anything magical can happen, and Mia’s song loops over and over in my head.

Suddenly, I’m inspired!

“Hey, I have an idea!” I say to Simon. “I’m gonna put the footage of Mia singing into my short audition film for the DLFC extended summer program.”

Simon glances up as if he suddenly remembers I’m here. “Is that a good idea?”

“Sure,” I answer. “It’s perfect. And I can even, like, preview my film—at ‘Show Your Stuff!’”

“Noah . . .” he starts, but at that moment, a pigeon swoops down from the trees, circles around over my head, and lands squarely on my shoulder.

“Could that be the same pigeon from before?” Simon asks.

“Must be,” I say, blinking back from his flapping wings.

“Hold still,” Simon commands. “I’ve got to get a picture of this for my mates. Smile!”

He shoots and sends it. Within seconds, his phone pings back.

“My mates think your bird friend is brilliant,” he laughs. “They say we should give him a name.”

“Hmm. A name . . . that’s a good idea. How about Sal?” I offer, thinking of Pops’s singing buddy from the army.

“Sal.” Simon ponders for a moment. “I like it. Hold on now, Sal.” Simon gently reaches for the little ragged paper attached to his leg. But Sal keeps hopping out of his reach, turning, dancing down my arm and back again.

“I’ll hold him,” I say. I reach up, and he hops into my hand, cooing and vibrating as I stroke his chest.

Simon unties the note. We hold our breath in anticipation as I unfold it. “What’s it say?” Simon asks.

“It says, The clock is ticking! and Saving the world takes gumption!”

“What’s gumption?”

“It’s an old-fashioned word for courage.”

“Wait.” Simon moves toward Sal, who is still hopping around on my shoulder. “Looks like there’s a note on his other leg.”

Gently, he reaches in and unties that one. It reads, Got gumption?

“What in the ruddy world is he talking about now?” Simon mutters in way that sounds rhetorical.

Do I have gumption? Generally, I think I do. I mean, no one likes to think of themselves as cowardly. But if I were in a dangerous situation, what would I do? Run? Defend myself? Would I have enough gumption to save someone else? Or, in this case, would I have the courage to save the world, which is basically inhabited by a bunch of strangers?

I find the stub of a pencil in my pocket.

I scribble my answer on one of the tiny slips of paper, attach it back to Sal’s foot, and shoo him off into the night sky. I feel all tingly with excitement.

The note says, YES.