Give Me a Sign(50)

“Oi!” Oliver yelps, shaking his head and spraying droplets of water on us. “We’re ready. We’re ready.”

As the campers flock onto the beach, Mackenzie pulls our group aside. “Hey, girls,” she says and signs. “Line up here. I want to do a quick video.”

The girls seem intrigued. Honey waves for Mackenzie to hand over the phone, but Mackenzie shakes her head.

“I’m thinking, like, you all take turns saying your name and one thing you like to do at camp.” She holds out her phone with the reverse camera, and signs one-handed. “I’m Mackenzie and I love to dance,” she says and signs, followed by a painfully try-hard silly dance.

“Me! Me!” Honey raises her hand to go first, but Blake pushes her back.

“No, me first. I’m Blake, and I love to swim.” She tugs at Mackenzie’s sleeve. “Did you get that?”

“Actually, do that again with ASL,” Mackenzie says. “You know how to sign ‘swim,’ right, Blake?”

“Uh, Mackenzie?” I step forward between clips. “What’s this for?”

“A cute post for my story,” she answers while gesturing for Honey to repeat her line next.

I’m not sure about this. It feels wrong for Mackenzie to use the young campers to create content for her audience.

I step away and discreetly wave for Ethan. When he’s by my side, I ask, “Is it okay for campers to be recorded and put on the internet? Or does that require parent permission?”

“Huh?” Ethan says, busy fastening the straps of his life jacket. “Parents do sign a release, but that’s for the official camp YouTube page, and that we haven’t used in years. What recording?”

“Oh, well. Mackenzie’s making a video with the campers for her personal channel.” I’m standing with my weight on one leg and arms crossed like a tattling child.

“That’s not okay. Have you said something to her yet?”

“No, I told you first.”

“Okay, I’ll go talk to her.” He ties up his hair. “Just how fast did you run to find me to get her in trouble?” he teases.

“It’s not like that.” But I uncross my arms and shrug.

“Sure.” Ethan just shakes his head. “By the way, we might switch things up a bit, give you a chance to work with the older girls, too. I’m sure Simone could use an extra arm.”

“Is that all I am? An extra arm?” I joke.

“Technically, two.” He smiles. “I’ll get things sorted with Mackenzie and let Simone know you’ll be switching to her group starting next week. And isn’t that when your brother is getting here?”

“Right,” I sign. “Max should be here on the first. Wow, it’s that soon already?” I guess it’s obvious I’ve been a little . . . distracted lately. July will mark the halfway point of my time at Gray Wolf this summer.

I see Isaac, towel draped over his shoulders as he helps one of his campers onto the beach wheelchair. He raises his eyebrows and gives me a sweet little closed-mouth smile, reaching out to squeeze my elbow as he walks by, pushing the chair down to the sand.

* * *

Jaden and Mackenzie are on duty tonight, but Mackenzie is in the staff cabin, so Isaac, Natasha, and I join Jaden around the roaring campfire.

Isaac sits beside me on the bench and reaches into his backpack for his Nintendo Switch. “Wanna play?”

I nod, finishing my quick check of my texts and socials, which reminds me of my conversation with Ethan earlier today. “Also, wait, since when does Camp Gray Wolf have a Y-o-u-T-u-b-e?” I ask.

“We do?” Isaac sets his console down on his lap, searching for the YouTube channel on his phone, then shakes his head. “One video. Guess what year?”

“2012?” I’ve never signed a year before, and I hope I’m doing it correctly.

He shakes his head. “Nope, even older.”

“Seriously?” I raise my eyebrows.

“All the way back to 2010.”

“Wow.” I think for a second. “I mean, do you think Ethan knows the password?”

Isaac slides his phone back into his pocket. “Maybe he can find out. Why?”

“Well,” I say and sign, “Mackenzie seems to make a lot of money with her YouTube.”

“Yeah, it’s awful,” Natasha chimes in.

Jaden shakes his head. Natasha pulls up Mackenzie’s channel on her phone and leans over to show him. “Shit, that’s a lot of followers.”

“Right,” I say and sign. “So, I don’t know, maybe we can make a video to get money for camp? And maybe she can share it?”

“I don’t want to ——，” Natasha signs. I turn to Isaac.

“E-n-c-o-u-r-a-g-e,” he quickly spells, and I get the word right away.

“I understand,” I sign and shrug, growing nervous that I brought this up. “It’s just a lot of people, and we need money.”

“True,” Isaac signs, deep in thought. “We should definitely film something, though. And fix the website.”

“The website!” I sign, remembering that horrible nineties setup. “Even older than that video.”

“Sure, I’ll work with Ethan to get that fixed,” Isaac signs.