It was a good thing that Janelle was the way she was. The art pavilion was ready. In fact, it was likely that in the entire history of the camp, the art pavilion had never been as ready as it was on that morning. Janelle had waited her whole life for this moment, and now it was upon her. These children had no idea what they were in for. They would craft like they had never crafted in their lives.
For a few hours, there was no case, there was no David. There were pipe cleaners and markers and rounded scissors. Stevie had glue stuck on her fingertips and paint on her arms and had helped make half a dozen flapping owls out of paper plates, several beaded necklaces, some kind of thing with paint and feet. During the short periods that the pavilion was free of kids, Janelle was sweeping around, an ecstatic glow on her face, as she was combining her loves of crafting, organizing, and cleaning into one geode of pleasure. Lunch came and went, then the entire afternoon. Soon there was dinner, during which Nate hid behind one of the dining pavilion pillars before vanishing entirely, and then the first day was over.
“I’m going to get set up for tomorrow and talk to Vi,” Janelle said. “Meet you back in the cabin.”
Stevie called David on the way back.
“Finally,” he said. “I wondered where you were.”
“There are so many . . .” She looked around nervously. “。 . . little kids.”
“At a summer camp? Holy shit, we need to tell someone about this.”
“Also,” Stevie said, “I have to make sure the head of camp doesn’t notice I’m gone. It may be harder now that kids are here. Kids see things, right?”
“How about I come there? I can kayak over. I was out paddling around on that side of the lake earlier, and there’s a stream deep enough to ride over on. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
This was a good plan. It took a long time to go around the lake, but going over the lake was quick and easy, and there were plenty of places to dock the kayak or whatever it was you did with them. Stevie had a vague sense that maybe this was not allowed, but a vague sense is not a clear, definite sense.
A purple twilight fell over the lake as Stevie sat alone, on the far side of the lake house. She could hear kids singing in the distance, and fireflies floated and twinkled all around her. There was a magical quality to the night already, when David came gliding along the dark waters in a yellow plastic kayak, beaching it （maybe that was the verb） next to her on the rocky sand.
“Pretty good entrance,” he said. “Right?”
Stevie could see at once that he had make an extra effort that night. His hair was tousled, but in a very artful way. He wore a fitted black T-shirt that she had never seen before, and she was immediately certain that he’d bought it just because
it fit him in exactly the right ways. He was wearing long swim trunks and flip-flops, but even these seemed to be part of an ensemble. He bent down and whispered low in her ear, “Do you live around here?”
Stevie actually shivered. Her body went loose, like the screws all fell out at once. She grabbed his hand and took him around behind the bunks, weaving out of the way of any lights or people, until they reached her cabin. For one extremely fleeting second, she thought about Sabrina and the others slipping into the woods way back when, the thrill of getting away with something at this dark, warm place alongside the lake. She felt herself understand something about them, and the understanding was deep and profound, and also gone a few seconds later. They had reached the cabin and shut the door. In the next minute, they were on the camp bed. The next thing she knew, there was a firm pounding on the door, and her eyes ached from the light when she opened them. She sprang up, straightening out her clothes. There was nowhere to hide David; the cabin had no closets. So she had no choice but to open the door and take whatever was coming.
Nicole stood on the step, looking grim. She glanced inside and sighed deeply.
“Who are you?” she asked David, who was sitting on the edge of the bed and maybe looking a little too amused.