Five Summers by Una LaMarche Page B

weekend. It’s bad enough we’re going to have the Sunny Sherman show over there.” The other four beds in Souhegan were empty, but Emma knew it was only a matter of time before Sunny, Aileen, Jess, and Kerry lugged their enormous suitcases up from the Green.
    “Give me some credit,” Emma said defensively. “I didn’t drive six hours to see Adam.” Old friends were great, she thought, except when they refused to see you as anything other than your old self.
    “Good,” Jo said. “So let’s make this a girls’ reunion. No boy drama.”
    “Sounds great,” Emma agreed. (It didn’t mean she couldn’t
talk
to him, she told herself.)
    Jo leveled her gaze at Skylar. “That goes for both of you,” she said, drying off her hair.
    “What about
me
?”
    Emma sat up to see Maddie standing in the doorway. She was as tiny as she’d ever been, barely five feet, maybe ninety pounds soaking wet. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun, but one rebellious curl had fought its way out of her headband and bounced merrily alongside her face. She grinned and put her hands on her hips.
    “Is that a
shrine
?” she asked, pointing to the framed photo. “That’s kind of creepy, you guys. No offense. I know you missed me and all, but show some restraint.”
    Jo, still pantless, got to her first and wrapped her in a bear hug, almost knocking Maddie down in the process. Skylar climbed down from her bunk and she and Emma wrapped themselves around the other two.
    “Hey,” Skylar whispered in her ear, “sorry if I was weird. I’m so glad you’re here.”
    “Me too,” Emma smiled.
    Everything felt instantly better now that they were all in one place. She felt sure that any tension she’d picked up on from Skylar and Jo had just been a side effect of the heat and the chaos of reunion arrivals. Besides, they would need a few hours to adjust to being around each other again 24-7, like friendship jetlag.
    She tried not to speculate on what Skylar had wanted to talk to her about before Jo interrupted them. Whatever it was, she figured, if it was important enough it would come out eventually.

Maddie
    The Fourth Summer ♦
Age 13
    Last Week of Camp
    “Friendship Rule: Best friends always send you a postcard no matter where they go.”
    “MAIL CALL!”
    Maddie propped herself up on her elbows and peered through the thin gap between the rolled-up tarp and the top of the window, the most scenic view possible from her top bunk mattress. It looked out on the picnic table in the cluster of trees near the bathroom entrance, which meant that on Tuesdays and Fridays it gave her a view of the milk crate full of envelopes and care packages that the girls’ side head counselor, Adri, doled out to the assembled masses at the end of rest hour. Every week Maddie held out hope that someone would decide it was much more efficient to deliver mail by individual cabin—or maybe even not at all. They had to live without cell phones; couldn’t they learn to live without letters? Think of all the paper cuts it would prevent! But every week, twice a week, Maddie was forced to climb down from her bed and face the speculation she had come to dread.
    “I bet you’ll get something today,” Jo said as they slipped on their shoes and walked the twenty feet to where all the girls were starting to gather on the grass. The littler kids played hand games and pointed excitedly at the biggest packages, wondering loudly who they were for, while the older girls feigned uninterest and braided each other’s hair.
    “Maybe,” Maddie shrugged. She’d gotten really good at pretending she didn’t care.
    “Where is she now, anyway?” Emma asked. “London?” Maddie racked her brain to remember the last lie she had told about her mom, who had been promoted from real-life grocery clerk to imaginary “executive consultant”—when she’d made it up on the spot at age ten, Maddie had no idea what that job meant, but she’d heard it on the radio and thought it