Day 52—Monday

“This is bizarro,” Chieko announced, walking into our room with a stack of letters in her hands. “You each got mail with the same handwriting, and they all say ‘BUS LETTER’ all over the envelope.”

“Carly!” Jaida A and Jaida C screamed at the same time, then rushed at Chieko.

“What’s a bus letter?” Chieko asked as the Jaidas grabbed the mail out of her hands.

“I forgot about the letters!” Jordana said. She had moved out of clinic and back into our cabin yesterday but still wasn’t allowed to do much. “And I’m not allowed to read. And I’m not allowed to write,” she reminded herself aloud, panic rising in her voice.

“What’s a bus letter?” Chieko asked again.

“We’ll help you. Don’t worry,” Jaida C said right away.

“But you’re not on my bus, so you won’t be able to read to me. And you can’t help me write my bus letter to you.” Jordana was becoming distraught.

“You can get anyone on your bus to read to you,” Jaida C said. “And Jaida A will help you write my letter and I’ll help you write Jaida A’s and Vic’s and Chieko’s.”

“Carly’s not even here and she still did this—she’s the best!” Jaida A said, clutching her letter to her chest.

“WHAT ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH IS A BUS LETTER?” Chieko shouted.

The room went silent as we stopped in our tracks and stared at our counselor, her arms raised in total frustration.

Jordana took center stage by answering in a clear, calm voice, “It’s a letter. That you read. On a bus.”

Chieko’s arms dropped to her sides in total surrender. “Good God,” she muttered.

“Except for Vic,” Jaida C said, turning to me. “You’re gonna read your bus letters here, right? After we’re gone?”

I had told them about the after-camp-close-up plan. “Maybe I’ll bed-hop. I’ll read your letters on each of your beds, to make it more . . . authentic.” I looked at Chieko so she would note the use of a higher vocabulary word.

“You guys are total ding-a-lings,” Chieko said. “I’ve got more mail duty. I’ll be back.” She rolled her eyes at us and left the bunk.

When she returned a half hour later, she found us all sitting on our beds bent over stationery, furiously scribbling six-, eight-, ten-page letters to each other. And to other friends outside our bunk. And to favorite counselors. And to camp sisters.

“It’s your last rest hour of the entire summer and this is how you’re spending it?” Chieko couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “You look like you’re all cramming for midterms.”

No one even looked up.

The letters had to get done.

But I had to admit, the bus letter tradition always confused me.

A stack of bus letters from your closest, dearest friends was definitely fun to whip out and read when you were stuck on a boring, hot, hours-long bus ride. In the letters, we retold private jokes and memories and went on about how much we would miss each other until next June, and we wrote our phone numbers and addresses in huge print to remind each other to use them. But writing them was a complete drag. Instead of spending our last day enjoying each other’s company, we all spent the day alone, isolated like little islands of deep thought, writing until our hands cramped and our fingers went numb.

It kind of made no sense.

“So, you’re wasting your last bit of time together by writing about how much you’re going to miss your time together?” Chieko summarized, pity clouding her voice.

It obviously made no sense to her, either.

But still, I was going to write her one.

“How about the last Roses and Thorns? Is everyone’s thorn writing these endless letters right now?” Chieko prompted.

“Yeah,” we all answered in unison without lifting our heads from our papers.

“And your roses?” Chieko continued. “Would that be knowing you’re all getting a special stack of letters tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” we all echoed back again.

“Fantastic,” Chieko said. “The last Roses and Thorns of the season—done.” She made a big check mark in the air and left the room, shaking her head at us.

But that night, when the lights were out, and I was trying to close my mind to sleep, I saw Chieko at work on something under her covers with the light of her cell phone, which I guessed she felt she didn’t need to hide anymore. There was too much of a steady scratch sound for her to be reading a book. I was pretty sure she was writing a bus letter.

And I was pretty sure that it was for me.