Free The Lost Summer by Kathryn Williams Page B

over her shoulder.
    The boys laughed, and we disappeared into the darkness of the trees, thoroughly beaten but newly determined. The other counselors would hear about this. It was time to mobilize.
    â€œKatie Bell,” I whispered. “Katie Bell.”
    I was panting from the run up to the cabins and afraid the sound of my breathing might wake the whole cabin. I had even left my shoes at the door to avoid creaking on the old wooden floor.
    â€œKatie Bell.” I shook her gently. Like me, Katie Bell was a champion sleeper.
    I shook her harder. “Katie Bell,” I whispered more impatiently this time.
    â€œHuh?” She stirred. “What?” She raised her disheveled head and looked at me with heavy-lidded eyes that popped open in alarm as she came to.
    â€œShhh.” I laughed. “It’s me. It’s Hel. Come on, I have to tell you about tonight.”
    Katie Bell’s brain finally focused. Nodding, she pushed her covers aside and yawned. Her ponytail was matted against her head, half of it pushed up and looking like a bad hairpiece, and the other half falling out of its rubber band. I gestured with my head at the door, and Katie Bell grabbed her bathrobe off a nail and followed me out to “our spot” at the softball diamond behind the cabins. It was our unspoken rule that if one of us couldn’t sleep, she would wake the other up to come talk on the bleachers. It was usually me who did the waking. Katie Bell and I had spent several nights out there the summer my parents split, and the following summer when Katie Bell first got her period.
    She padded quietly behind me now through the rows of dark cabins. We didn’t speak until we were both seated on the metal bleachers. They were so cold they felt wet. I was glad I had stopped quickly at my cabin to trade Winn’s towel for flannel pajama pants and a long-sleeve T-shirt before retrieving Katie Bell.
    â€œSooo,” she said when we were surrounded by nothing but field and pine trees. Her hands were sandwiched between her knees for warmth. She was awake, and all ears. “What happened?”
    â€œIt was awesome . . . we went skinny-dipping . . . I saw Ransome naked, Katie Bell . . . and they took our clothes!” It all came rushing out in one breath. My body was buzzing with excitement, from my feet to my fingertips—one long twisted rope of kinetic energy.
    â€œSkinny-dipping?”
    I nodded, my eyes mirroring hers and growing wide.
    â€œLike, naked?” she asked.
    â€œYeah.” I laughed. “What other way do you do it?”
    â€œI don’t know . . . It’s just that . . . You ? Skinny-dipping?”
    Katie Bell knew I wasn’t exactly an exhibitionist. She might have grown up running around naked and wild in the country, but in my house, they were called “private parts” for a reason. Last summer was the first I would even take my bathing suit off in the showers. Still, her tone bugged me.
    â€œYeah,” I said again. “Me. Skinny-dipping . . . with Ransome. Did you hear that part?”
    She raised an eyebrow. “Just Ransome?”
    â€œNo,” I said, wishing she would just understand. “Remember how I told you about last time at the riflery range? Ransome said he was going to take me skinny-dipping for the first time—or said we were all gonna go before camp was over—whatever. You remember?” Katie Bell nodded. “Well, we did it!” I laughed again. “Me, Winn, Sarah, Buzz, Nate, and Ransome.”
    â€œAnd you saw him naked?” Katie Bell asked, crossing her arms against the chilly mountain air.
    â€œYes! Well, actually I just saw his butt.”
    â€œDid he see you naked?”
    â€œNo! I made him turn around in the water while I got in . . . but then—oh my God, Katie Bell, it was so embarrassing—some of the other Brownies snuck out to the dock and stole our clothes!”
    Katie Bell was confused.