Camp Rules! Read Free Page A

lump in her throat.
    For the first time all day, Katie felt homesick. She let out a long, sad sigh.
    “What’s the matter, Katie?” Rainbow asked her.
    “I miss my dog,” Katie told her. “He always comes into bed with me at night.”
    “You’re so lucky to have a pet,” Rainbow said. “My parents think all animals should be free. But I think dogs like living with people.”
    “I think so, too,” Katie said. “Pepper sure likes living with us.”
    “We can’t have pets in our apartment building,” Chelsea said sadly.
    “I just don’t know if I’ll be able to fall asleep without him,” Katie told the girls.
    “Sure you will,” Gianna assured her.
    “Yeah, we’re all really tired,” Chelsea said. “You won’t be able to stay awake much longer.”
    “Besides, there are plenty of wild animals around here,” Alicia added in a nasty voice. “If you’re lucky a big old grizzly bear will crawl into bed with you.”
    Chelsea gulped. “There are bears here?” she asked nervously.
    “I’ve never seen one,” Gianna assured her. “And this is my third summer. Alicia’s just teasing.”
    “If you say so,” Alicia said. “Of course, if it’s not a bear, it could be a ghost,” she continued. “I did hear about the ghost of an evil camper who roams the campgrounds, looking for unsuspecting campers to haunt.”
    “Stop it!” Chelsea shouted from her bed. “I hate ghost stories.”
    “That’s all it is,” Gianna assured her. “Just a story. There are no ghosts here.”
    “I hope not,” Chelsea said with a shudder.
    “I can’t stay up another minute,” Rainbow told the other girls. “I’ll see you all in the morning.”
    A few minutes later, everything was quiet. Katie lay there in the darkness. She was pretty sure she was the only one in her cabin still awake. And that just made her feel more lonely.
    Just then, she heard a scratching noise coming from outside the bunk. It was the kind of noise Pepper made when he wanted to come into her room, but the door was closed.
    Katie’s eyes opened wide. What if there was a grizzly bear out there?
    For a minute, Katie thought about calling out to one of the counselors on duty. Then she changed her mind. There were no grizzly bears at camp. Gianna had told her that.

    The scratching was probably just her imagination.
    And imagine how badly Alicia would make fun of her if she made a counselor come into their cabin for nothing!
    Katie shut her eyes tight and stuck her fingers in her ears to block out the scratching. “There are no bears here,” she told herself. “No bears. No bears.”

Chapter 6
    The next thing Katie knew, the sun was shining in through the screened windows of the cabin.
    “Rise and shine, Bumblebees,” Shannon called out loudly. “It’s a beautiful day!”
    Katie rubbed her eyes and sat up in her bed. It was a beautiful day. She could see the sun shining above the rows and rows of pine trees in the woods.
    The woods! Suddenly Katie remembered what Alicia had said about the bears that lived there. She thought about the scratching noise she’d heard the night before.
    “Uh, Shannon?” Katie asked nervously.
    “Yes, Katie?” Shannon answered.
    “Are there any bears in the woods here?” Katie continued.
    Shannon shook her head. “I’ve never seen a bear. Not even a bear track. Why?”
    “Because I heard something scratching on the side of the cabin last night,” Katie told her.
    “My guess is you heard a raccoon,”
    Shannon told Katie. “There are lots of them around. That’s why you girls shouldn’t leave any food out in the bunk. The raccoons will come in and eat it.”
    “What’s wrong with that?” Rainbow asked her. “If the raccoons are hungry, shouldn’t we feed them?”
    Shannon shook her head. “Raccoons are wild animals. And they can bite,” she told Rainbow. “Besides, they really do have plenty to eat out there in the woods—the food nature provides for them, like berries and acorns and