Hailey Twitch and the Campground Itch (6 page)

“But I was not trying to do any of those things!” Maybelle says. Now she is sitting right on my lap. She is very, very nervous. “It was an accident.”

“Yes,” I say. “It is very true that she did not do any of those things on purpose.” I quick give Mr. Tuttle a big smile. “So you can give her some more time with her magic. Now if we're all done here, I am in the middle of a very good game of shark.” I am getting very nervous to get back to that game. And that is because I can see Addie Jokobeck talking to that boy Hayden. They might even be becoming best friends without me.

“No,” Mr. Tuttle says. He gives a big frown, and his forehead gets lots and lots of wrinkles in it, just like the old man who lives across the street from me, Edgar Frisk. I think Mr. Tuttle might be very old. Forty-nine, at least. “It seems like Maybelle is having a very hard time getting her magic under control. I am very sorry, but I think I am going to have to take it away.”

“What?!” Maybelle screams. “No, no, no, no, no!!” She zooms all around.

“NO!” I yell. I stand up and shake my finger right at him. “Mr. Tuttle, that is not very nice!” A few people walking by on the beach turn to look at me. They think I am maybe very nutso in my head.

“Please,” Mr. Tuttle says. “You must both stop having tantrums. That was the deal we had.”

“But you said two weeks!” I screech. “And it has not been two weeks. It has only been about twelve days!”

Mr. Tuttle sighs. He looks back down at his clipboard. I hold my breath very tight. And so does Maybelle. And then Mr. Tuttle says, “All right. Fine. I will give Maybelle one more chance. But if she does not do something very good with her magic, then she will have to get it taken away.
Immediately.”

And then there is a flash of blue lightning, and Mr. Tuttle is gone!

Maybelle falls right down into the sand. And
she is crying. Very much crying, like I do when I am very, very upset about something that is very, very important.

“It is okay,” I say. I rub her back so that maybe she will feel better. Then I take part of my towel and dip it into the lake water. I put it on her forehead to try and make her feel calm, calm, calm. That is what my mom always does when I am feeling very sick.

“Do you feel calm from this towel on your head?” I ask her.

“No,” she says. “I feel very wet and dripping.”

“Hmm,” I say. That lake water is getting all in her hair. Usually when my mom does this she uses a nice washcloth. And some very warm water from the sink. But there are no
washcloths or sinks on the beach. And then Maybelle goes flying up into the air. She is dripping water everywhere!

“Please be careful, young lady,” I tell her. “You are dripping water all over my legs.”

“I do not care,” she says. “I am not allowed to have my magic back. I am a huge disaster with magic!” She sits back down on the sand and covers up her face with her beautiful sparkly wings.

“Maybelle,” I say. “You are not a huge disaster with magic.” That is called telling a very small lie so that you can make someone feel very better. Because if you want to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Maybelle is a very big disaster with her magic. Even more of a disaster than I am with not having tantrums.

“Yes, I am!” she says from under that wing.

“Maybelle,” I say. “It is time to look on the
bright side! You have one more chance! And one more chance is all you need!” I am very good at making the most of one more chance. One time I had one more chance to be good so that my dad would not have to take away all my TV time. And I did it.

“Yes, but Mr. Tuttle says it has to be something good,” she says.

“Maybelle,” I say. “Do not look so upset. We will figure it out.”

She looks up at me with her poor crying face. “We will?”

“Yes!” I say. “I will help you, do not worry. Because that is what friends do.”

When I get back in that water, Addie Jokobeck is talking to Hayden. They are talking away like they are having a very good time without me. I am feeling myself starting to get very, very jealous. I do not want Addie Jokobeck to be best friends with Hayden. She is best friends with me! Plus, I am in a very worried mood about Maybelle and her magic.

“What is going on over here?” I ask Addie. “Why are you talking to him?”

“He is telling me something very important,” Addie says.

“Also, I am taking your turn at being a
shark,” Hayden says. “And I won.”

I make my eyes go very small, small, small. And that is so Hayden knows that I do not want to be messed with, thank you very much. “That is not very nice,” I say. “To take someone's turn. That is horrible manners.” I look at him. “What grade are you in, please?”

“Third,” he says.

“Well, if you are really in third grade, then you should know that to take someone's turn is horrible, horrible, bad manners.” I shake my finger at him. Taking turns is something you learn in kindergarten even. I am very good at taking turns if I do say so myself.

“Well, you were being very slow up on the beach,” he says. “What were you doing up there anyway?”

“That is none of your business,” I say. Then I stick my nose right up in the air. “Come on, Addie.”

“But I am not done playing shark,” Addie says, looking very sad.

“That is just too bad,” I say.

“Wait!” Hayden says. He is swimming after us. But I am not in the mood. So I just take Addie's hand and walk right out of the water and onto the beach.

“I have a good secret to tell you,” Hayden says.

I stop. My one true weakness is secrets!

“What kind of secret?” I ask. I drop Addie's hand and turn around.

“A secret about a disaster area,” he says. And then he wiggles his eyebrows up, up, up, and down, down, down.

“I do not need to know any secrets about disaster areas,” I say. “Disaster areas are boring, and I already know about a lot of them.” This is a very true statement. One time I made a disaster area out of our whole kitchen by trying to make French toast in the toaster. And Kaitlyn's whole room is a very huge disaster area all of the time. So I do not need to know about those. I grab Addie's hand again and start to pull her away and right up onto the sand.

“Wait!” Hayden says. “This one is a disaster area of a tree house.”

“A tree house?” I stop right in my tracks. I love hearing about tree houses! It is my one true dream to have one of my very own. Also, the meanest girl in room four, Natalie Brice, has a tree house with a pink door and a window that sees right up to the sky, and she is very bossy about it.

“Yes,” he says. “It is in the woods, and if you meet me here tomorrow I will show it to you.”

And then I remember something. About Kaitlyn and Maya! And last night when we were playing Russian Spies! I'll bet that is where they were going! That is what they were whispering about that was up in one of those trees! I am about to ask Hayden all about this. But before I can, he is running over to his mom, and they are leaving right away. Geez. What a disaster of a secret teller.

“Me and Addie are prunes,” I say to my dad as we walk back to camp. I am wiggling my wrinkly fingers at him. There is a lot of stick, stick, sticky sand in between my toes and all over my flip-flops.

“Yes,” my dad says. He seems like maybe he does not want to talk too much. On account of missing his golf game and everything.

“Do not worry,” I tell him. “There will be
other days to play golf.” That is what my dad always tells me when I want to do something fun like practice gymnastics or hang out with my neighbor Mr. Frisk. But this does not seem to cheer him up.

“We should put away our shovels and buckets,” Addie Jokobeck says when we get to the camper. “And then change out of our swimsuits.”

This does not sound very fun or funny. But it is the right thing to do. So we put away the shovels and buckets. And then we change out of our swimsuits. I change into a blue tank top with a big pink heart and pink shorts. Addie Jokobeck changes into a tank top and shorts, too. But hers are black. On account of how all her clothes got black.

And then my mom and Kaitlyn and Maya Greenbert are back! And Maya Greenbert's hair is back to being yellow blond!

“Wow,” I say. “Your hair is not green anymore.”

Maya gives me a mean look. It is one of those looks I know all about. It is a look that means if parents were not around, she would say some mean things to me. But parents are around. So she does not.

The rest of the day is not very fun or funny. That is because my mom thinks we should have some quiet time while my dad finally gets to go play golf. Which means we have to read books and take naps. I like to read books. But I have already read all the very good ones that we have. And I do not like naps, not one little bit.

I try to get Maybelle to do some fun magic, but she does not want to listen. She just wants to lie around and be very sad. On the bright side, we at least get to have a very good campfire that night and make lots of ooey-gooey s'mores that are extremely deli-ciou-so!

The next morning I am up and at 'em very early.

“Good morning!” I yell to everyone. Maya Greenbert throws a pillow at me from her bunk bed. That is not very nice. So I throw it right back. That is called getting what you deserve. “It is time to get up and get to the beach!”

I am very much excited to hear what that
boy Hayden has to say about the disaster area of a tree house.

But my mom makes me go back to sleep. And we do not even get to go to the beach until nine o'clock in the morning! What a very late start to the day.

“I'm scared,” Addie Jokobeck says while we are walking right over there. She wanted to bring her cup of baby teeth with her to the beach. But I told her it might get lost. Addie keeps all her baby teeth in one cup, and that is what she holds on to when she gets very nervous in her mind.

“Why are you scared?” I ask. I am looking all around for Maybelle. But she is nowhere to be found. I think she is too sad to go to the beach this morning. On account of Mr. Tuttle maybe taking her magic away.

“Because,” Addie whispers so my dad will not hear, “I do not want to go into the
woods and have to look at a disaster area of a tree house.”

“Do not worry,” I tell her. “I will protect you.”

But when we get to the beach, we do not even have to worry. Because that boy Hayden is not there! I am upset at first, like maybe I want to have a tantrum. But then I decide to let it go.

“That boy was a big fat liar, anyway,” I say. Me and Addie are plopping right down in the sand and making a nice sand castle. The water is very freeze, freeze, freezing on our toes, so we are not going in there, thank you very much. “He did not even know his manners from kindergarten. He might be five even. Not really eight like he said.”

“Well, he was very nice when we were playing shark,” Addie says. “And he is very good at that game.”

“Addie Jokobeck, I am your best friend, not that boy!” I yell. I stand up and throw my shovel right down onto the sand. “Now you take that right back this instant!”

“Of course you are my best friend, Hailey!” Addie says.

“BOO!” someone says right into my ear. And then icy cold water goes rush, rush, rushing
and slide, slide, sliding right around my shoulders and all down my back even.

I scream and turn around. It is that boy, Hayden. He has thrown a big pail of water on me! And now he is running away. And I am getting up and chasing him! But he is very fast! And we go run, run, running all over
the beach. And Addie Jokobeck is behind us, running, too. But we are not as fast as Hayden. Probably because he really is in the third grade like he said.

We chase him all the way into the woods. And finally, when we catch him, he is looking up at something. The disaster area of the tree house! It is very scary! It is all falling apart, and it is up in a tree with wood hanging all down and a very high ladder with missing steps!

“Wow,” I say. “That really is a disaster area.”

“I know,” Hayden says. “And there is even a witch that lives up there.”

“That is not true!” I say. “There is no witch that lives up there.” But I look around just in case. It does seem very spook, spook, spooky. This looks like a very good place for a witch to live.

“Yes, there is,” he says. “She is very scary, and she puts spells on people.”

“What kind of spells?” I ask. It is too bad Maybelle is not around to hear this. She needs some good lessons about putting spells on people.

“Spells that turn people into monsters and vampires,” Hayden says. “And then they have to live in that tree house with her forever.”

“Hailey,” Addie says. She takes my hand. “I am very scared, and I think we should get out of here now, please.”

“Hailey!” my dad yells. I turn around to see him running after us. “What are you doing back here? This is very dangerous. You cannot just go running off like that.”