14

I settled into life as a fake famous camper, my name painted in red letters on the cabin plaque that we all worked together to fix. Every time I walked past the plaque—with its perfectly spaced stars, beautiful cursive letters, the names of my cabinmates, and the stray blob of blue paint from when Willa accidentally dropped her paintbrush in an attempt to swat away a bug—a flicker of joy sparked inside me.

The plaque was just like Hazel had explained.

It was so us.

Every morning when I made my bed and did my cabin chores, I hoped that Carly was taking notice of my neatly folded blankets and the way I scrubbed the toilet without making any gagging noises.

I really wanted to be awarded the cabin plaque.

Sometimes, like during the rare rest hour that we were actually quiet (no flying socks), I imagined Dad hammering a nail into the wall above my bed at home and Mom instructing him to hang the plaque perfectly level. They would be so proud of me. I could almost feel the squeeze of Dad’s arms. The brush of Mom’s lips against my forehead. In those moments, my small camp bed would feel impossibly large. But then the quiet of rest hour would end, and the fun of camp would begin again.

Every camper was allowed one phone call home, but I never asked permission to use mine. Partly because I knew I couldn’t reach my parents. They’d said a gazillion times that they would be out of cell phone range for the entire three weeks.

I could have called Grandma. I had her cell phone number on a piece of scrap paper that I kept inside my notebook. But Grandma had that way of seeing straight into me. Even over the phone, even all the way from Florida, she might ask some question that would lead me to confess that instead of being my regular self, I was pretending to be famous. Grandma would make fitting in seem like a crime.

Besides, before I ever got too homesick, the calm silence of rest hour would be shattered by Willa falling off her bed while doing a complicated stretch, or Shira’s slime burping its way across the floor.

The joyful chaos of Camp Famous would resume. I would quickly forget all about missing anyone. And the nights were just as exciting as the days.

One week into camp, we had our first evening campfire. Once the sun went down, we put on our warmest clothes. Bells and I stepped outside the cabin to apply stinky bug spray.

“I’m going to wear this to the next royal ball,” said Bells as she pinched her nose and lifted her chin to spray the front of her neck.

“The bug spray?” I asked. “Or that sweatshirt?”

Bells grinned. “I meant the bug spray, but the sweatshirt is a great idea. I’ll wear it over a chiffon gown and spritz this smelly stuff on my wrists like perfume. Mother would flip out!”

I laughed as Bells imitated her mother clutching her throat and gasping. “I think even my mom would flip out,” I said. “And she’s not a queen.”

Bells lowered her hand. “It must be nice to have a normal mother. Instead of one who’s even more famous than you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so. I don’t really know any different.” As always when the subject of fame came up, a warning signal flashed in my brain. I reminded myself to be careful with what I shared.

“Me neither,” said Bells. “Do you ever wish you could swap lives with someone? Just for a day. Or a week. Like they do in the movies.”

“Yes,” I said. “All the time.”

“Me too. But then I worry. What if the other person’s life was so much better than yours and you had to go back to your old life knowing that it could be different? Like, so much easier.” Bells shook her head, as if trying to send the idea away. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” I said. “It makes perfect sense to me.”

Bells rolled her eyes, but her lips raised into a smile. “Thanks, Abby. You’re the bestest.”

We sat on the front porch of Cabin Tranquility and waited for the rest of our cabin to join. Instead of leaving room for anyone to sit between us, Bells linked her arm in mine, not letting go even when Shira pretended to fall into us. We eventually stuffed all together on the top step, looking into the darkness for the procession of campers led by Joe.

Cabin Tranquility was the last in the row of cabins to be picked up. As the approaching glow of Joe’s lit torch glowed bigger and brighter, our normal fizzy energy began to quiet. We settled into a silence that was both warm and soft, like a blanket large enough to wrap around all five of us.

When we joined the end of the line, we held hands and swung our arms in unison as we walked.

The campfire site was at the end of a long path that wound behind the dining hall. Once everyone found a seat on the ground, Joe lowered his torch and lit the stacked wood. Sparks of light burst from the flames.

Bells, who was sitting next to me, leaned over and gave me a quick hug. I hugged her back. The fire was enchanting.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome to our first campfire of the summer, where we join in a tradition that dates back to the founding of Camp Famous eleven years ago.” Joe spoke in his normal pattern of three, but his voice was lower than usual. It wove its way between the crackling of the flames. He paced slowly, hands clasped behind his back.

“For thousands of years,” he continued, “humans have gathered around fires to share stories, strengthen communities, and, sometimes, fight off ghosts.”

We all scooched closer together. Bells, on my right, grabbed my hand and squeezed. Hazel, on my left, shivered against me. They had both mentioned that campfires were spooky. But they hadn’t said anything about ghosts.

Oliver was sitting directly across the fire from me, his knees pulled into his chest. When he noticed me looking, he raised one hand to wave, then returned it to his knees. I waved back, then threaded my hand through Hazel’s arm.

“In my pocket,” said Joe, “I have some ghost-fighting magic.”

Next to Oliver, Cameron Craze made the shape of a gun with both hands and began firing at the flames.

Joe shook his head. “Not that kind of fighting, Cameron. We are fighting our ghosts with a far more powerful weapon—words. Your counselors are coming around with paper and pens. I want you to think about your lives outside of camp. What experiences do you want to leave behind? What haunts you? What whispers in your ear at night?

“It can be anything at all. The scrutiny of being in the public eye, the expectations of those who rely on you, some way that you think you fall short. Whatever it is that you want to be done with, write it down. Then we are going to toss them in the fire and watch them burn, burn, burn.”

I slithered my hand free of Bells as a counselor named Ravi handed me a notecard and pen. They were both light as air, but I dropped them to my lap as if they had the weight of bricks. Ever since I’d begun filling the pages of my notebook, writing had come easily. The words flowed from my fingers. But right now I couldn’t write as the real me. With other campers so close, I had to write as the famous me in case one of them read my notecard.

What was she supposed to write? How did it feel to have all those eyes on you? To have people rely on you? I had no idea.

All around the campfire, kids were scribbling. Some balanced their notecards on their thighs. Others were hunched over notecards that they’d placed on the ground. Hazel had already flipped her card over to write on the second side.

I glanced at Bells. She tilted her card toward me. It said:

Knowing my brother will always be better than me no matter how hard I try.

I gave Bells a sympathetic smile. I doubted her statement was true, but I was certain that Bells felt that way.

I uncapped my pen. The real me would write that I wanted to burn the feeling of being left out. Set fire to the constant itch inside me that made my eyes skip from one person to the next, wondering what they knew that I didn’t.

But that wasn’t what Joe meant by “falling short.” He meant letting down the people around you who expected great things.

So I wrote the only thing I could think of that also happened to be true:

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write.

Bells leaned over and asked, “What does yours say?”

I showed it to her, tilting the card toward the flame so she could read the words, just like she’d done to me.

“Oh,” she said, seeming to read it twice. “I guess that makes sense.”

And I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d disappointed Bells in some way.

Everyone in my cabin was close, but over the past few days Bells and I had started to find moments when we broke away, just the two of us. Like on the porch with the bug spray. And she’d never once left me at free swim to go on the deep-water slide. Instead, we’d decided that our inflatable unicorns, Majestica and Bob, were madly in love and destined to marry. Shira had agreed that Quantifica would be honored to perform the wedding ceremony.

One rainy afternoon when everyone in our cabin made friendship bracelets out of colorful string, Bells made sure that we did ours in matching colors. She didn’t start a new row until she’d confirmed that I was doing the exact same pattern.

As Bells stood up to throw her card in the flames without checking to see if I was coming, I wished that I had written something more on my notecard. Something more me. The real me.

Because as my gaze narrowed to Bells’s back, I wanted nothing more than to set fire to the way my stomach sank and my skin tingled.

It was the distinct feeling of having messed up.

How I wished I could watch it burn.