Five Summers (25 page)

“I know you said we couldn’t go back,” Emma said, looking at Jo, “but I think in order to move forward we need to start back at the beginning. I move that we renew the vows we made at the end of our very first summer.” She looked at the bottom of the sheet, under their loopy, childlike signatures. It was dated July 27. “Oh my God, you guys. We started the pact
exactly
eight years ago today.”

“It’s a sign,” Skylar said.

“I’ll start,” Jo said. “Rule #3: Best friends always share their candy.” She hung her head. “That is so poignant, you guys. I think I might cry.”

“It still applies,” Maddie said. “Especially if you consider Adam candy.” She winked, and Jo made a face.

“Well, maybe a Milk Dud,” Emma said.

“Or a Dum Dum!” Skylar added.

Jo handed the paper to Maddie.

“Rule #4,” she read. “Best friends don’t forget you when you leave camp.”

“Awwww,” the others said in unison.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but I was never a sap before I met you guys,” Maddie said, her chin wobbling. “You ruined me.”

“Rule #2,” Skylar read, putting an arm around Emma, “Best friends never take off their friendship anklets.” She held up her own bare ankle. “Well, that’s what did it, guys. Mystery solved.”

“Good,” Emma said, “we can share the blame.” She took the sheet of notebook paper and read her charmingly rounded ten-year-old print. “Rule #1,” she read. “Best friends never forget what brought them together.” She smiled. “I’d like to add, ‘or what pulled them apart.’ So it never happens again.”

“Seconded,” Skylar said.

“Deal,” Jo said.

“Aye, aye captain,” Maddie said.

Emma heard a thrush start singing and looked out the window. She’d been so distracted, she hadn’t even noticed that the rain had stopped. Jo noticed, too.

“Great,” she said. “Let’s re-up on this thing so we can get back to kicking ass today.”

“Can’t wait,” Maddie said drily. “Does anyone have a pen?”

Emma grinned and reached into her backpack. “I still have
the
pen,” she said, pulling out a Gelly Roll with a hot pink cap. She signed her name at the bottom and passed it back around the circle.

As the sun finally peeked through the clouds, they re-sealed the pact and climbed back down to finish what they’d started.

JO COULD TELL THEY WERE CLOSING IN ON THE BOYS’ camp. After so many years spent exploring the property end to end, she could identify her location by smell, and the boys’ side had a distinctive, pungent odor of dirty sweat socks and Doritos.

After they had climbed down from the treehouse and finally shared a much-needed group hug, Jo had applied eye black to all of them, and with their stringy hair, muddy clothes, and dazed expressions, they now looked like some sort of zombie football team.

“What do you do when we get close to the tree line at the southern end?” she quizzed Maddie now, as they batted through the brush, their faces slick with sweat and their arms covered in scratches.

“I climb the tree,” Maddie said, looking comically determined under her eye black, “and I look out and I tell you where everyone is positioned.”

“Good. And then Emma, what do you do?” she called back.

“Run through their base to distract them!”

“Right. And then?”

“Throw up from running too hard.”

Jo smiled. “Just aim for Mark Slotkin,” she said.

When they got within a hundred feet or so of the clearing behind the boys’ cabins, Jo tied Maddie’s hair up in an elastic and then covered it with her black bandana, like a skull cap. Then Maddie shimmied up the side of a tree like a squirrel until she was straddling a branch twelve feet off the ground.

“I think I’ve earned my merit badge in thigh chafing this weekend,” she yelled down.

“Shhhhh!” Jo whispered. “Do you see it?”

“Yeah.” Maddie leaned forward and peeked through the branches. “It’s gonna be a bitch getting to it, though.”

“Why, where is it?” Even though she was exhausted, Jo wished she had thought to climb the tree herself. She couldn’t stand not knowing exactly what they were up against.

Maddie slid back down the trunk and wiped her hands on her shorts. “It’s on the roof of the bathroom,” she panted. “They’re all just sitting up there trying to throw cards into a puddle.”

“Distracted and dumb, just the way I like them,” Jo said, smiling.

“But how do we get up there?” Emma asked. “I can’t exactly run across a roof.”

“Don’t worry,” Jo said. “There’s a ladder built into the side of the building. If we surprise them they won’t have time to run.”

“That’s the thing, though,” Skylar jumped in. “You know those guys, and they probably
will
run, and someone will fall off and break something. We can’t go up there.” Jo grimaced. Skylar was right.

“Then we’ll just have to make them come down,” she said.

Saying a silent prayer to her Abenaki ancestors to aid her in kicking some serious ass, Jo made her move.

When Jo came walking up through the center of the cabins, goose-stepping like a soldier in her riding boots, the boys on the roof sprung into action—which, for them, meant just standing up and looking confused.

“How’d she get past the well?” Bowen asked, elbowing Mark.

“Doesn’t matter,” Mark said. “She’s ours now. “Hey, Jo!” he yelled as he lowered himself onto the ladder, “You wanna bend over and give me that bandana or am I gonna have to chase it out of you?”

“Remember, no tackling,” Nate said nervously. Matt and Bowen cracked up.

“You are so whipped,” Matt said, slapping Nate in the back of the head with his bandana. Jo looked away. She felt bad for dodging him when he so clearly wanted to make amends. She knew they needed to talk eventually, and she wanted to tell Matt and Bowen that Nate was ten times
both
the men they could ever hope to be, but that would just embarrass him and make things worse. So instead, she stuck to the plan. She held up an apple, polished it on her shirt, and took a big, showy bite.

“Wait a second,” Adam said. Mark stopped his descent. “Where did you get that?”

“Dude,” Matt said. “Who cares? We have Doritos.”

“I’m not
hungry
,” Adam said. “That apple came from my trunk.”

“And that’s not the only thing,” Emma said, stepping down out of the Wawinak cabin, where the boys were staying for the weekend. “Turns out Adam is kind of a hoarder.” She held up a plastic bag full of condiment packets and fixed him with a steely gaze. “Either you really love mayo, or you’ve got a serious problem.”

“Get out of my stuff!” Adam cried. “I thought you told me to leave you alone.”

“I did,” Emma said. “I’m just acting as a concerned friend.”

A lightbulb finally went off in Bowen’s head. “They’re in our bunk!” he shouted. Jo grinned and kept chewing the apple. Who knew how long it had been in there, commingling with Adam’s ironic statement tees, but it was mighty good.

“Here’s something interesting,” Maddie said, peeking out of Wawinak’s door frame. “Tinactin: Fast-acting relief for jock itch!” She batted her eyes. “I won’t say where I found this, but I will say that this particular gentleman also enjoys a nice lavender sachet in his undies.”

“Maybe that’s what caused the jock itch,” Emma said.

“That’s it,” Mark yelled, jumping down to the ground. “Game over. You might as well just hand us your flag now.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be any fun,” Jo said. Mark was fifty feet away, but he was a quarterback, and even though he had a hundred pounds on her she knew he could move. She tossed the apple in the dirt and bolted for the woods just as Mark leaped for her.

Jo ran track in the spring, and her event was the four-hundred-meter dash, but she was used to sprinting in super lightweight sneakers and flimsy shorts, not jodhpurs and knee-high leather boots. She felt herself slowing down no matter how fast she pumped her arms, and she could hear Mark’s thunderous steps getting closer and closer. A few yards from the edge of the woods, she realized that she’d miscalculated the distance; she would never outpace him. If she wanted to stay in the game she would have to use her size to her advantage and get somewhere he couldn’t reach. She lunged for the nearest tree and started to climb. Luckily, the old oak had a split down the center, and Jo was able to wedge her hand in it, using her grip to hold her weight while she wrapped her legs around the trunk, pushing in toward the tree and out to the sides through either foot like Maddie had taught her. She frantically pulled up with her hands, feeling her fingernails tear against the rough bark, and finally swung a leg up and over the split just as Mark reached her. She angled her butt away from him so that he couldn’t grab her bandana, and kicked at his hands with her free leg, splattering mud all over his face. When she accidentally landed a blow on his jaw (against official capture the flag rules, but Jo reasoned he had it coming), he stumbled back long enough for her to climb out of reach.

Jo caught her breath and looked down at the scene below. All the boys except for Adam had left the roof. Matt Slotkin was taunting Maddie, shuffling back and forth in front of the cabin door with his arms outstretched as she pelted him with whatever she could find: balled-up socks, belts, Speed Stick deodorants. Bowen was chasing Emma around the bathrooms, slowed considerably by his choice of footwear, and Nate was hanging back, peering out into the tree line. Jo smiled. It impressed her that he was smart enough to realize there was one of them missing, but she still had to get him out of the way.

“Hey!” she yelled. Nate looked up and shook his head.

“Oh, so you’re talking to me now?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you want my help getting down.”

“I’m afraid to jump with Frankenstein here barking up my tree,” she said, glaring down at Mark. “But if you come over and help me, I’ll surrender.”

“Oh, please!” Nate cried. “That is such an obvious lie.” Even from a distance, she could tell by his body language that he was mad. “You’re on your own,” he said coldly.

Jo watched Skylar sneak out of the woods behind him and wished that she could enjoy it more, without the guilt that was creeping under her skin, almost making her want to call a time-out and talk things out with him.
Almost
.

“That’s okay,” she yelled. “A few seconds of your attention was all we needed.” Nate turned around, but it was too late. Skylar snatched his bandana and held it over her head triumphantly. Maddie let out a whoop and Matt looked up to see what was going on just as she beaned him in the head with a hacky sack. She scurried out of the cabin and tore his bandana out with a flourish, performing a series of grand jetés down the path. Mark glowered at Jo and raced off to defend the flag.

“Adam!” Mark yelled. “They’re coming up! Watch your ass!” Skylar reached the ladder just as Bowen and Emma rounded the corner but before Mark could make up the distance.

“What the—” Bowen cried, and Emma stopped short, tripping him. She grabbed his bandana and fell to her knees, grinning, just as Mark came thundering out of the woods, heading straight for her. Jo held her breath. He was going in for a tackle.

“Mark!” Adam shouted sharply from the roof, abandoning his post at the flag. “Don’t hurt her! It’s just a game, man!” He ran for the ladder but stopped short when he saw Skylar. Jo could see Adam looking back and forth between Emma on the ground and Skylar on the ladder, trying to decide what to do. Mark showed no signs of stopping, and Emma didn’t have anywhere to go other than into the side of the building. Adam finally turned and went for the lip of the roof.
He’s going to jump
, Jo thought, feeling sick. But Adam didn’t have time. Skylar got to the top of the ladder and lunged for him, holding him back by the shirt as she handily plucked the bandana out of the waist of his boxers. On the ground, Emma dropped and rolled, narrowly dodging Mark’s leap. He hit the grass with a thud and slid into the wall, where Maddie relieved him of his bandana.

“THAT’S RIGHT!!!” Maddie cried, holding her spoils in the air like a gladiator.

“Whoooooooo!” Jo yelled, climbing back down the tree and jogging out to join her friends in a sweaty embrace.
This is what it must feel like to win the Olympics
, she thought as the adrenaline flooded her system. She couldn’t wait to tell her dad that she had done it—not only had she brought her friends back together, but she’d led them to victory. “Get it!” she yelled to Skylar, who stood on the roof a few feet away from the bright blue flag, which was waving picturesquely in the wind. Jo wished she had brought her camera; she would have loved to put a picture in the Nedoba newsletter. The only thing that took some wind out of her sails was seeing Nate moping dejectedly by the bathroom door. But she would deal with him after the game, Jo decided. Plus, she was still kind of upset. She might have overreacted, but it was only because he’d jumped to conclusions about her, just like everybody else.

Jo looked up at the roof. Skylar should have been back on the ground by now; they would need to get going—they still had to make it back to base without getting tagged. But Skylar was circling the flag hesitantly, pulling her hair up into a ponytail and gazing off into the distance. “What are you waiting for?” Jo yelled, getting impatient. “Let’s go!”

“I call time-out,” Skylar said finally.

“Time-out?” Jo panted. “There are no time-outs in capture the flag!”

“Sorry, Jo,” Skylar said. “Time-out.” She looked down at the girls with a faint smile. “I think I have a better idea.”