19

I walked back to Cabin Tranquility deep in thought. Oliver was right. I had to tell Bells, and the rest of my cabinmates, the truth. It was time.

In my head I rehearsed what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. I would explain how fast everything had happened. How I hadn’t meant to cause any harm, just make friends. Bells would be hugging me in no time. They all would.

But then I pushed open the screen door. And froze.

The scene inside Cabin Tranquility came to me in pieces, like separate photographs.

Bells, Hazel, Shira, and Willa all gathered on my bed.

My notebook open on Bells’s lap.

Their faces peering down at an open page filled with my handwriting in blue ink.

I was too shocked to reach for my notebook. “What are you doing?” was the only thing I could manage to say.

Bells looked up. She closed the notebook and placed both hands flat on the cover. “Nothing,” she said. “Just reading. Isn’t that what you want people to do, Abby? Read what you write?”

Although Bells hardly moved, Hazel, Shira, and Willa stood up. The bed creaked with their shifting weight.

“That’s my private notebook.”

“Well,” said Bells, moving the notebook from her lap to the bed. “It’s funny that you should mention privacy. We know what you’ve been up to.”

“Up to? What are you talking about?”

Shira leaned forward as if she was going to interrupt. But Bells shook her head and continued. “We’ve all seen you scribbling away at rest hour. At first we thought you were just writing personal stuff in a journal, or maybe your next book. But you were so secretive about your work that we started to wonder what you were actually writing. And now we know. Are you a spy, Abby? Is that why you’re here? To sell our secrets to the tabloids?”

I had to separate Bells’s words to make sense of their meaning.

“A spy”—someone who pretends to be part of a group that they don’t belong to.

“The tabloids”—magazines like the ones I’d seen in the grocery store full of scandalous stories about celebrities.

Bells thought I’d been taking notes about everyone at camp so that I could share them with the world. What had Bells read? How many pages?

I lunged for my notebook, hugging it to my chest. “How could you do this to me? You took this from my backpack under my bed.”

“How could we do this to you? How could you do this to us? Besides, we only glanced at one page. But it was enough to confirm what I’d long suspected. Kai Carter’s tour name? Seriously, Abby. What were you planning on doing? Splashing the name change on the front page of every magazine?”

They’d read the page where I wrote about the Down Came the Rain tour. I couldn’t decide if that was better or worse than reading the pages from before camp.

“You don’t understand,” I said.

“Actually, I’m quite certain that we do.”

“Hold on,” said Shira. “Give Abby a chance to explain. I’m sure it’s all just a big misunderstanding. Right, Abby?”

Shira nodded at me, as if she was eager to write down my explanation and solve it like a math problem. Hazel had a similarly hopeful expression.

Willa was more difficult to read. Her arms were crossed, and her face had the same focused concentration as when she did her dance exercises.

“Go ahead,” said Bells, with a lift of her chin. “Prove it.”

Yes. I could prove it. I had the words all ready.

“I’m not a famous writer,” I said. “I’m not a famous anything. I’m just a totally regular kid who didn’t even know she was coming to Camp Famous until I got to the airport. I lied about being famous so I would fit in. Not to sell stories to a tabloid. I’m not even allowed to buy tabloids. I would have no idea how—”

“So you admit you’re a liar, Abby,” interrupted Bells. “I mean, assuming that’s your real name.”

“It is. My name’s Abby. Abigail Jane Herman. I’m telling the truth. I swear.”

“I don’t know,” said Hazel, taking a nervous step away from me, her hair falling in front of her face like a shield. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

“I’m not a spy, I promise. Look. You can read my entire notebook. Read the first pages. I wrote them when I was still at school. My totally regular school.”

Bells huffed. “Right. Like that proves anything. We all know how sneaky reporters are. Of course you had a whole story ready in case you got caught.”

“Ask Oliver,” I said, convinced I’d found the perfect solution. “We go to school together. He’ll tell you.”

“Isn’t Oliver a reporter, too?” asked Willa, looking to the others for confirmation. “You guys probably work together. Nice try, Abby.”

Willa said my name as if it was in quotations. As if it was fake.

“What? No!”

The air inside the cabin was suddenly too thick to fully inhale.

“You must really think we’re stupid,” said Bells.

“No, I don’t. Not at all. You have it all wrong.”

Bells rolled her eyes.

“I have to go,” I said, my heart pounding. “I need to talk to Joe.”

I paused, one hand pressed against the screen door, the other gripping my notebook. I waited for Hazel, Willa, Shira, or even Bells to tell me to stop. To say my name.

But they didn’t.

Not one single voice called out for me to stay.