Dear Lots-o-Fun Journal,
No rain today. We haven’t seen the bear again. Maybe he got lost in the woods.
We went swimming this morning. Chris said we should swim out to the raft. I told him that wasn’t a good idea. There are horrible things on the bottom of the lake. They look like weeds, but they aren’t. They are monsters with wavy tentacles.
I saw one of the monsters gobble up a giant fish. It swam into a big clump of tentacles. But it didn’t swim out the other side! When I told Chris about the monsters, he rolled his eyes. He does that a lot.
He’s going to be sorry if campers start disappearing. This afternoon we made pinecone crafts. Chris told us pine trees grow from pinecones. I had a fan-tabulous idea! I collected a whole bunch of pinecones. I’m going to plant them in our garden. Mom and Dad will be so surprised when they find a pine forest in our backyard.
Dinnertime. Got to go.
Hungrily yours,
DJ, a.k.a. Power Man!
At the group campfire that evening, there was a sing-along. DJ loved to sing. He sang louder than anyone else.
The rosy sunset faded into darkness. Faces glowed in the flickering firelight. Night closed in around them. Finally, Mike said, “It’s time for one last song.”
DJ sprang to his feet. “Can we sing ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’? I made up a new verse. Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. There’s a bear out in the woods and that will make us scream,” he sang.
Some of the campers laughed. Others glanced nervously at the woods.
At lights-out, the boys returned to their cabin. DJ woke up in the middle of the night. The cabin was pitch-black. He heard a humongous splash coming from the lake. Then another. What was out there?
DJ scrambled out of bed. He rummaged through his duffel bag. His fingers touched something soft. He pulled it out and climbed back into bed.
DJ wrapped his arm around his sock monkey. “Don’t be scared, Sockster,” he whispered. “Power Man will keep you safe.”
The next morning, before anyone else was awake, DJ tucked Sockster back into his duffel bag.
