Reach for Tomorrow Read Free Page B

normal while never losing sight of the truth.
    “If you have
any
question about a kid in your cabin, you come and tell one of the medical staff,” Richard Holloway was saying. “We can’t take chances. And we’re only minutes from a first-class hospital. We’re a lot smaller this year, but full, so you’ll have plenty to do.”
    He went on to tell them the camp rules, then opened the floor to questions. He assigned campers to cabins, which were all named after birds. Meg would have six charges in her Sparrow Cabin. Katie was in charge of Bluejay Cabin, Chelsea of Lark Cabin, Lacey of Redbird Cabin; Katie’s former boyfriend, Josh, who Meg thought was handsome, was in charge of Eagle Cabin. Another boy, Kevin, would watch over Hawk Cabin. Once all the information had been given out, Mr. Holloway announced, “Now we’re going to take a little trek over to the construction site. The crew’s knocked off for the day, but I do want you to see what we’re doing over there. Then it’s back here for a cookout, and to bed. Tomorrow the campers arrive, and it’s going to be chaos.”
    Meg shuffled out with the other girls and fell into step for the walk to the site. Cool mountain air rustled the trees along the trail.
    “You’re new here, huh?”
    Meg turned her head and saw the girl the others called Dullas. She was a small girl and wore a nose ring. “Yep. But I’ve worked in my hospital back home with sick kids for a few years.”
    “I hated it the first time I came, but I like it now. I got adopted in April. Kimbra’s my new mom. Now I’ve got brothers and a sister down in Tampa.”
    “Lucky you. To get an instant family, I mean.”
    “My old man’s in jail, and my mother split when I was just a kid. Kimbra took me home after camp last summer, and now I live with her. My last name’s changed to Patterson too, so now I belong to them.”
    Meg was amazed that the girl felt no shyness about the most personal details of her life. “Lacey told me you have leukemia.”
    “Had,” Dullas corrected. “I’m in remission, and I don’t plan to ever let that disease get out to torment me again.”
    “You can do that? Just wish it away?”
    “I can, and I have. For the first time in forever things are going good for me, and I ain’t going to let stupid old cancer mess them up.”
    Meg laughed. “Good luck.”
    Dullas crossed her arms and bobbed her head. “It’s called a positive attitude. And I got it.”
    Light glinted off a necklace around Dullas’s neck,and Meg commented on its beauty. Dullas’s hand flew protectively to her throat. “It’s a real diamond. It’s an earring, but Kimbra had it put into a necklace for me so I could wear it always. I’m sort of in charge of taking care of it for a girl who died. I didn’t know her, but Katie, Chelsea, and Lacey did. They told me to take care of it for her. I’m like, you know, its guardian.”
    Meg figured she’d ask the others about it later. And it hit her hard that this indeed was no ordinary camp—here campers could die. She said, “Well, I think it’s beautiful, and it looks as if you’ve taken good care of it.”
    “It’s my treasure,” Dullas said proudly. “I’m going to wear it forever.”
    By now they were rounding a bend, and the construction site came into view. The building loomed out of the woods, its steel girders catching in the late-afternoon sun. The group stood in a hushed semicircle, looking at it. “It’s like the phoenix,” Meg said half to herself.
    “The what?” a boy near her asked. His name tag read MORGAN . She knew he was in charge of the stables.
    “An Egyptian bird from mythology,” Meg explained. “It rose again from its own ashes after being burned up.”
    He looked at her so long that she began to feel self-conscious.
    Good move
, she told herself.
A guy notices you because you said something dumb
. Why couldn’t she be cute like Lacey, who was wisecracking and making others laugh?
    “You must read a