Free Like Bug Juice on a Burger by Julie Sternberg Page A

lovable dogs,
    wagging their tails and licking those girls’ faces.

    Sometimes girls would see one another across the lot
    and scream
    and run toward each other
    and hug
    and jump up and down.
    I wanted a friend to run and hug and jump with.
    I wanted my best friend, Pearl.
    But Pearl goes to Oregon every summer
    to visit her grandparents.
    I also wanted a dog.
    I frowned at my parents,
    who kept crushing my dog dreams.
    Neither of them noticed.
    My mom was chatting with another mom.
    And my dad had started walking off.
    He stopped and talked to a woman with a clipboard.
    She flipped through some papers,
    then pointed across the parking lot.
    Finally, my dad came back.
    “Who was that?” I asked him.
    “The head of the junior unit,” he said.
    “She says you’re in the Gypsy Moth cabin.”
    “Gypsy Moth,” I repeated.
    “Isn’t it pretty?”
    my mom said.
    “I always wanted to be in
    Gypsy Moth
    when I was a girl.”
    “The
name
is pretty,” I said.
    “But aren’t gypsy moths ugly?”

    “They’re prettier than
cicadas
,” my mom said.
    “I was in the Cicada cabin
    my first year.
    Do you want to hear how creepy
    those
bugs are?”
    “No!”
my dad said, very quickly.
    My mom and I both laughed.
    Because it’s funny
    how much my dad hates yucky things.
    Then he told me,
    “I have more news.
    Your counselor is already at camp.
    She’ll meet you there.
    But there’s one other Gypsy Moth camper
    getting on this bus.
    Her name’s Joplin.”
    “Really?” I said.
    I’d never heard of anyone named Joplin.
    “Really,” my dad said.
    “She’s standing over—”
    He turned to point,
    then stopped and dropped his arm.
    “That’s her!” he said in a low voice.
    “With the red glasses. Walking right toward us.”
    The girl with the red glasses
    walking right toward us
    was very thin
    and very, very tall.
    “She’s
nine
?” I said.
    She was as tall as a seventh grader!
    “Yes, definitely,” my dad said.
    “I asked the same thing.”
    A second later,
    Joplin stopped right in front of us.
    My head barely reached
    her shoulders.
    We all said “Hi” and
    “Nice to meet you.”
    Then Joplin looked down
    at me and said,
    “Do you eat chocolate?”
    “Sure,” I said.
    I waited for her to offer me some.

    Because why else would she have asked?
    But instead, she said,
    “Good.
    A girl in my cabin last year said it gave her a rash.
    I never liked her.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    We were all quiet for a second.
    I wondered what that girl’s rash looked like.
    Then Joplin told me,
    “Gypsy Moth is a good cabin.
    It’s near the bathroom.
    So you won’t get lost if you need to go
    in the middle of the night.”
    “That’s good,” I said.
    I started to imagine
    being in my pajamas
    lost in the deep, dark woods
    with only a flashlight,
    scared
    and
    searching for the bathroom
    and
    needing to pee.
    Then someone called out,
    “There it is!”
    We all turned
    and saw a big silver bus
    with a sleek black top
    pulling into the lot.
    I stepped behind my mom when I saw it.
    It was gigantic!
    How was I supposed to get on that thing
    without either of my parents?
    “
You
have to drive me to camp!” I told them then.
    “In our car!”
    “You know we can’t,” my mom said.
    “All campers arrive by bus—that’s the rule.”
    “I hate that stupid rule,” I said.
    “We’ll pick you up on your last day, though,”
    my dad said.
    “We can’t wait to see you at camp!”
    You’ll have to wait
forever,
    I thought.
    Because I am
not
getting on that bus.
    I am
not
.
    I’ll stay
right here
in Brooklyn.
    Maybe my dad read my mind.
    Because he asked me and Joplin,
    “Would you like to sit together on the bus?”
    I held my breath.
    Of course I wanted to sit with her.
    But maybe she wanted to sit with someone else.
    Or by herself.

    She looked at me.
    Sunlight bounced off her red glasses.
    “Want to?” she asked.
    “Sure,” I answered.
    Then the head of the junior unit shouted,
    “Time to load