Luckily Sophie remembered what her dad did when he couldn’t make a decision. She felt in her pocket and found twenty cents.

‘I’ll flip this coin,’ she explained to the others. ‘If it’s heads, I’ll go with Megan. Tails, Alice.’

Megan and Alice nodded. This seemed fair. Sophie tossed the coin into the air and caught it. Heads!

‘Yes!’ said Megan, jumping up and down.

Alice shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ she said, walking away. ‘I’ll just find someone else to go with.’

Mrs Tran gave out the life jackets and showed them how to put them on.

Megan scrunched up her face. ‘I don’t want to wear that thing,’ she said, holding the life jacket away from her. ‘It looks horrible.’

Sophie sighed. There were lots of kids already out on the lake in canoes, laughing and paddling around.

‘It’s not supposed to look good,’ Sophie said. ‘It’s for safety. If you don’t put it on, I’ll go canoeing with Alice instead.’

So Megan put on the life jacket.

Sophie looked at her and laughed.

‘It actually kind of suits you,’ she said.

‘Really?’ said Megan.

Sophie nodded. It was typical. Even a life jacket looked cool on Megan!

Everyone else was on the lake by the time Megan and Sophie finally got their canoe into the water.

Mr Perelli canoed over to give them some tips.

‘Paddle in time with each other,’ he called out to them. ‘One stroke on each side will make you go in a straight line.’

Sophie got the hang of it straight away but Megan found it hard. She kept paddling on the same side as Sophie, and the canoe started going around in circles.

Sophie started to feel very frustrated.

But Megan wasn’t listening. It was like pitching the tent all over again.

Alice and Marie paddled over, looking like they’d been canoeing all their lives.

‘Isn’t this excellent fun?’ said Alice. Her face was glowing.

‘No,’ said Megan, grumpily. ‘It’s boring and stupid.’

Alice and Marie looked at Megan in surprise. Sophie was embarrassed — she wished Megan wouldn’t say stuff like that.

Suddenly, from nowhere, raindrops pattered onto the girls’ heads.

Sophie looked up at the sky, but it was perfectly clear. What was going on? Then Sophie heard someone laughing. It was a laugh she knew only too well.

Patrick paddled up beside them. He was sharing a canoe with Joel Haddon. When Megan saw him she smiled for the first time since they had arrived at camp.

‘Hi, Joel!’ she said, waving.

She opened her mouth to say more, but before she could speak the rain fell again. Except it wasn’t rain at all — it was Patrick.

He scooped his paddle through the water and another shower came pouring down on the girls’ heads.

‘Hey, no splashing!’ Sophie shouted.

Patrick grinned. ‘What are you going to do?’ he said. ‘Dob?’

‘What do you reckon?’ Sophie whispered to Megan. ‘Should I tell Mr Perelli?’

Megan shrugged. ‘Let’s just splash him back,’ she said.

Before Sophie could stop her, Megan started splashing the boys. But most of the water landed on Alice and Marie.

‘Hey!’ yelled Alice, and started splashing back at Megan.

‘Stop it!’ cried Sophie, and tried to grab Megan’s paddle. Somehow, in the struggle, she ended up splashing the boys even more.

None of them noticed that Mr Perelli had appeared beside them in his canoe.

‘Girls! What did we say about splashing?’ he said, sounding angry.

Sophie looked at him in horror. ‘It was an accident, Mr Perelli,’ she said.

‘It didn’t look like an accident to me,’ he said. ‘You heard the rules. You four will have to get out.’

Sophie felt tears welling in her eyes as they paddled to the bank. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ said Megan as they pulled the canoe out of the water. ‘I didn’t want to go canoeing anyway.’

Alice was beside her.

She looked mad. Really mad.

‘Maybe you didn’t want to go canoeing,’ she said, ‘but we all did. We were really looking forward to it.’

‘All you ever think about is what you want, Megan,’ Alice went on. ‘You’ve wrecked the whole camp for the rest of us.’

Megan looked shocked. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

Alice put her hands on her hips. She had more to say.

‘I can’t understand why Sophie is friends with you. All you care about is clothes.’

Megan folded her arms. ‘I do NOT just care about clothes,’ she said. ‘And I can’t understand why Sophie is friends with you. You’re so bossy!’

Sophie looked at her two friends yelling at each other. It was then that she realised she’d had enough. She was sick and tired of always being in the middle.

‘You can stop fighting about who I should be friends with, because I’ve decided for myself,’ she said.

Alice and Megan both went quiet. For once they were actually listening to her.

Sophie took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to be friends with either of you anymore.’

Then she turned and ran away.