Hailey Twitch and the Campground Itch

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2011 by Lauren Barnholdt
Cover and internal illustrations © 2011 Suzanne Beaky
Cover and internal design © 2011 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by William Riley/Sourcebooks
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
Fax: (630) 961-2168
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

Source of Production: Webcom, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Date of Production: March 2011
Run Number: 14825

 

Printed and bound in Canada.

WC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Aaron

Chapter One: The Long Weekend

Chapter Two: Maya Greenbert

Chapter Three: Magic at the Arcade

Chapter Four: Russian Spies

Chapter Five: A Very Big Amount of Trouble

Chapter Six: Mr. Tuttle

Chapter Seven: A Disaster Area of a Tree House

Chapter Eight: Maybelle Saves the Day

Chapter Nine: Time to Go Home

Bounce, bounce, bounce.
That is the sound of me, Hailey Twitch, bouncing all around. And I am bouncing all around because it is a long weekend. Hello, long weekend! A long weekend is something that only comes along once in a while. It is when you get a Friday
and
a Monday off from school. It is like four whole days for the price of two. And that is some very good math.

This long weekend is going to be the best long weekend ever invented. And that is because we are going to Lake Missoni! Lake Missoni is very fun. These are the reasons:

Right now I am supposed to be packing up my clothes. I am supposed to be packing two swimming suits, two sweatshirts, three pairs of pajamas, and lots and lots of underwear. Plus, some socks and some shorts and some long pants. My magic sprite, Maybelle, is helping me.

“Now, Maybelle,” I say. “Please go over there and bring me a pair of jeans out of my dresser.”

Maybelle goes over to my dresser and tries to pull out those jeans. But it is very hard for her. That is because she is very small, about one foot tall! That is only the size of one ruler. Also, she has beautiful long blond hair and gorgeous sparkly wings, and I am the only one who can see her.

Maybelle used to live in my dollhouse. She got sent to live there because she was not a very good sprite. She was not fun like sprites should be. So Mr. Tuttle, who is in charge of the Department of Magic, made her live in there as a punishment. But she got to come out! And that is not even the best part! The best part is that Mr. Tuttle gave Maybelle her magic back. And now she gets to try it out for two whole weeks. That is called getting a new responsibility to see if you are ready for it.

So far I do not think Maybelle is ready for it. Yesterday we did a school play of
The Gingerbread Princess,
and Maybelle accidentally knocked over the whole gingerbread house. But that does not mean she should not keep trying. Practice makes perfect!

But before Maybelle can try some magic on packing my suitcase, there is a knock on my bedroom door. And it is my mom.

“Oh, hello,” I say. “I am packing up just like you said.” I run and get those jeans right out of my dresser. Then I roll, roll, roll them up and then stuff, stuff, stuff them into my suitcase.

“Hailey, you cannot stuff your jeans into a ball.” She pulls them out of my suitcase and folds them nice and neat. And then my mom decides to tell me about something horrible. “Also, Maya Greenbert is coming to camp with us.”

“I do not like this piece of news,” I tell her. “And I am maybe about to have a good tantrum about it.”

“Maya is Kaitlyn's friend,” my mom says, “and so she is welcome to come camping with us. You are bringing a friend. You are bringing Addie Jokobeck.” Kaitlyn is my sister. She is fourteen and thinks she is the boss of me.

“Yes,” I say. “But Addie Jokobeck is nice and smart and has wonderful smooth hair, and
she is not mean like Maya Greenbert.” I think about maybe telling my mom about how one time Maya Greenbert would not let me share her bubblegum lip gloss. Maya Greenbert said that I would have too many germs on my lips since I am only in the second grade. But my lips were clean as a whistle!

“Hailey,” my mom says. “Maya is not mean.”

“Yes, she is,” I whisper to Maybelle.

“What's so mean about her?” Maybelle whispers back real soft.

“I will tell you a story about some lip gloss later.” I cannot tell her right now because my mom will hear me.

“Okay, Hailey,” my mom says. She is looking into my suitcase to make sure I have everything all packed. My suitcase is red and says G
OING TO
G
RANDMA'S
on it. Which is not very fun or funny. But it is the only one I have. So I have to use it. Even though it does not make any sense since I am going to camp and not even going to my grandma's house. “Now I want you to fold these sweatshirts and put them in your suitcase,” my mom says. “I am going downstairs to pack the food.”

Once she is gone, Maybelle starts flying all around my head. “Tell me about Maya Greenbert, tell me about Maya Greenbert!” she says.

“Well,” I say. “Maya Greenbert is a very big brat, and she—”

But then the doorbell rings.
Ding-dong.
“That,” I say, “is probably her. So you can just see for your own self.”

Maya Greenbert is already being one big, big show-offy show-off.

“Look at my new suitcase,” she tells me. “It is pink.” She is standing right in the hallway outside my room. And she is shove, shove, shoving that suitcase right in my face.

“That is a very nice suitcase,” I tell her, very polite. “But I am very busy packing now, so you should probably go to Kaitlyn's room.”

“That is so cute,” Maya says. “You are going to pack just like a big girl.” Then she reaches out and pats me on the head. One, two, three times.
Pat, pat, pat.

I feel myself starting to get mad, mad, mad. And that is because when someone tells you you are doing something just like a big girl, it really means they think you are a very big baby.

“Maya Greenbert,” I say. “You better not call me a big girl again!” And then I stamp my foot very hard. And then Maybelle points her
wand right at Maya Greenbert's suitcase. But nothing happens. So Maybelle swoops right down and opens that suitcase right up. And all of Maya's clothes go tumbling all down to the floor. Even her underwear! And I cannot help it. I start to laugh. Because it is very funny.

“That,” Maybelle says, “is what is called serving her right.”

“Kaitlyn!” Maya yells. “Kaitlyn, get over here right now!” Maya Greenbert is screaming her head off for Kaitlyn. But Kaitlyn is not the boss of me.

“Kaitlyn,” I say, “is not the boss of me.”

“What is going on out here?” Kaitlyn asks.

“Hailey opened my suitcase and dropped all my clothes on the floor!” Maya says.

“No, I did not,” I say. I am being very calm about all this. That is called keeping your cool.

But Kaitlyn does not get a chance to get upset. And that is because my mom is yelling
from downstairs. “Girls!” she says. “It is time to go pick Addie up and then get on the road for camp!” And so Kaitlyn and Maya pick up all those clothes. And then they go downstairs.

“Maybelle,” I say, “please finish folding my clothes with your magic.”

And then Maybelle looks right at those clothes and points her magic wand. But they all turn into one jumbled mess. I sigh. I do not think she is really getting the hang of this magic thing.

The car ride is very long. Three whole hours even! Here is how the seats go: my mom and dad in front. Kaitlyn and Maya in the middle seat. And me and Addie Jokobeck in the back. Sometimes I accidentally kick, kick, kick on Maya's seat with my purple sneakers. Maya does not like that too much. But she cannot prove it
is me. Me and Addie Jokobeck eat some snacks, like one apple and one granola bar and four celery sticks with crunchy peanut butter.

When we get to camp, I jump out of the car because I cannot even take it anymore.

“Snakes!” I yell. “If you are anywhere around here, you better get away right now!”

“Snakes?” Addie Jokobeck says. She climbs down out of the van behind me. She is looking very scared in her face. Addie Jokobeck does not do too good with things that are scary.

“There are no snakes around here,” Maya Greenbert says. She jumps out of the car and is looking very annoyed. She even gives her eyes a good roll. “Hailey is just using her imagination.”

Maybelle gasps. That is because she does not like it when people say mean things about my imagination running wild. So Maybelle points her wand at Maya Greenbert's suitcase again. But nothing is happening. So finally Maybelle
just swoops down and opens that suitcase right up. And Maya's clothes go flying all over onto the ground. Right into a mud puddle even.

“Oh, no!” Kaitlyn yells, jumping out of the car. “What happened?”

“Turns out that new pink suitcase is very much broken,” I say. “Either that or Maya is just a little bit clumsy.”

And then me and Addie Jokobeck go to check out the campsite.