Miss Hiss was pacing back and forth in front of her office as the campers assembled in front of the flagpole that stood next to the parking lot, a tattered and limp flag hanging from the top. Her eyes were wild, her hair uncombed. She looked like if she tried hard enough she could shoot fire out of her mouth.
Vivian had gotten out of bed as soon as Janet had rushed out of the cabin—they’d all been woken by a counselor from the Bluegills with a very sharp and loud voice, who had marched into the bunk without knocking and headed straight for Janet’s room. “Staff meeting,” the counselor had said gruffly. “In five minutes.”
All the girls in the cabin could hear Janet’s groan.
So once the announcement came over the loudspeaker, Vivian dressed quickly and joined Sasha and the rest of the Rainbow Smelts as the camp director began her tirade.
Even for Miss Hiss, it was a major display of outrage. And that was saying something.
“This is completely unacceptable!” Miss Hiss shouted, loud enough that some of the smaller kids covered their ears. A few looked close to tears. “Willful destruction of property! Campers out after hours! Massive rule violations!”
She whirled on the counselors, who stood huddled to the side of the building, afraid to come any closer to her fury.
“If any of you have anything you need to report to me, anything at all, about the antics going on at this camp, I strongly recommend you come forward this instant—or face the consequences!”
Most of the counselors looked at the ground. But heaving a big sigh, Amanda, the arts and crafts counselor, took a step forward and furtively put up her hand.
“What now?” Miss Hiss said. She seemed shocked that someone had actually responded to her request.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” Amanda said in a loud but robotic voice. “But there have been some items that have gone . . . missing from the arts and crafts storeroom.”
Vivian’s eyes widened, and her stomach dropped down to her knees.
“Items? What kind of items?”
Amanda sighed and shrugged. “A paint set, for sure. And maybe some fabric. And possibly some other things. I just noticed it last night. I’m not sure when they were taken.”
“A paint set?” Miss Hiss asked. “And you didn’t come and tell me right away?” She stepped closer to Amanda, who shrank back, as did all the other counselors and campers behind her. Miss Hiss was no longer shouting, but somehow, that just made her voice seem scarier.
“I wanted to make sure they were really gone,” Amanda said helplessly. “Double-check that some kids hadn’t taken the supplies by accident, or that I hadn’t misplaced them.”
“Oh really?” Miss Hiss said. “No wonder we’ve got this kind of behavior at this camp, when we have counselors who are apparently unwilling to inform me about THEFTS of IMPORTANT SUPPLIES.” She stepped so close to Amanda, they were practically nose-to-nose. “That’s it—you’re fired. Effective immediately.”
Amanda looked shocked, as did the rest of the counselors. “But—I didn’t do anything. I just told you what happened. Some things are missing—”
“I’m still holding you responsible,” Miss Hiss, well, hissed. “Hand over your keys and get your things. I want you out of here in fifteen minutes or I’m calling the police.”
The campers gasped. Amanda’s eyebrows rose. “You want the keys?” she asked in a strange voice. “The keys to the arts and crafts cabin?”
“Of course, those keys belong to the camp, and they’re the only set we have right now. Hand them over.”
Amanda took a deep breath, and then, glancing behind her at the counselors and campers, she gave them all a strange grin and said, “Well, why don’t you go and get them?” With a smooth motion she pulled the keys out of her pocket and with an admirable throwing arm, tossed them as far as she could into the woods behind the main building, which were still surrounded by caution tape—thanks to the bee infestation from Parents’ Day.
“Good luck,” she said, more to the campers than to Miss Hiss. And with that, she just walked toward the parking lot, almost like she taking a casual weekend stroll.
A few counselors looked like they wanted to clap, but then, shooting looks at their boss, clearly thought better of it.
“Come back here!” Miss Hiss shrieked. “You can’t do that with camp property, that’s—that’s . . .”
She didn’t finish her thought, but instead whirled on the group of campers and counselors still huddled around the flagpole. Her voice turned sinister. “I don’t know what’s going on here, and who is truly responsible for all this chaos, but I have some ideas.” Her eyes flitted over the crowd, and maybe it was Vivian’s imagination, but they seemed to rest for the longest time on Archie, who was standing only a few feet away. “And I assure you, I assure you I will find out. And when I do . . .”
The unspoken threat hung in the air like smoke from a dying campfire.
Then Miss Hiss wheeled around and walked back into her office, slamming the door so hard that the ancient wooden sign nailed to it that said CAMP SHADY BROOK fell and broke into pieces on the steps.
Vivian didn’t want to approach Miss Hiss’s office, but she felt a sudden urge to pick up the wooden bits of sign that lay scattered around the door. Lying there broken and abandoned, the pieces of wood felt more ominous than even Miss Hiss’s angry words.
But nothing that Miss Hiss said, or could have said, compared to the look Sasha gave Vivian.
“What did Amanda say?” Sasha asked slowly. “That there were paints . . . stolen?”
She asked it as a question, but Vivian could tell she had an inkling about what the answer was already.
“Just let me explain,” Vivian said quietly. “But let’s go back to the cabin. There are too many people around.”
“Explain what?” Sasha asked. “What happened, Vivian? Why is Amanda saying that about the paints? Did you . . . did you know?”
Vivian glanced around them, hoping the kids nearby couldn’t hear the conversation. But most of them were too engrossed in Miss Hiss’s temper tantrum to pay attention.
“Look, just, it’s complicated. I didn’t mean—it wasn’t like that—if you just come back to the cabin and talk to me, I’ll explain everything.”
The expression on Sasha’s face as the truth dawned was almost too much for Vivian to bear. And then Sasha snorted, and she didn’t even sound like Sasha at all. She sounded older, and meaner, like the other girls in their cabin who rolled their eyes at her normal enthusiasm.
“I think I’ve maybe had enough of your ‘explanations,’ Vivian,” she said in a very cold voice. “I think maybe I’ve had enough of you, too. Am I some kind of idiot? Is that what you think? Because I think you were the one who stole those paints. You were the one who took them from Amanda. And then you sold them to me and tried to take all my money. And now Amanda is gone, and the keys to the arts and crafts cabin are lost in the woods, and the only thing I liked about this stupid camp is probably ruined for the rest of the summer. And it’s all your fault.”
Vivian opened her mouth to reply. But she didn’t have time to say anything, because Sasha had already stalked off.