Free Wish Girl by Nikki Loftin

I’d have another shot like this morning. Dad didn’t expect me until lunchtime.
    I could cut cross-country, get to the camp . . . and find out why the two guys who lived here full-time didn’t think it was a Make-A-Wish camp.
    Had Annie lied to me? She was practically a stranger, after all. Maybe she was the crazy one, not the Colonel’s wife.
    But as I slipped under a strand of barbed wire and ran behind a line of trees toward the camp, I knew the craziest ones on this side of the hill were the ones I’d just left, carrying a dead vulture around with them.
    Crazy. And maybe dangerous, too.

Chapter 13
    I could hear the music before I could see the camp buildings through the trees. It was . . . lousy. Like somebody had learned to play the guitar in three easy lessons and thought that qualified them to inflict it on others. Sort of like my sister’s playing a few months back.
    I stopped sneaking and started walking more confidently as the buildings came into view; I didn’t want anyone seeing me to think I was lurking or anything. On closer inspection, the goat sheds weren’t sheds at all. Just cabins with metal roofs that needed a new coat of paint or three.
    The barn was where the music was coming from. It must have been where the campers were. I walked slowly to the big double doors, open to let the breeze in, and stood just to one side so my eyes could adjust to the darker room.
    There were long tables set up inside, covered with craft supplies—every size of popsicle stick and color of yarn imaginable, construction paper and newsprint in stacks, as well as a row of hot-glue guns, felt, and fabric scraps. The place looked like it could keep a kindergarten class in art supplies until the apocalypse.
    But the kids sitting at the tables were all older. Too old for popsicle-stick crafts. Third grade and up, I figured, from their sizes. And all girls.
    Ack. I hadn’t figured on this being an all-girls camp. I guess it made sense.
    â€œMay I help you?” The counselor—or at least the oldest person in the room—stood up and walked toward me. She looked strong—like she’d gone to college on a volleyball scholarship or something—but friendly. “Are you lost?”
    â€œNo, ma’am,” I answered. The girls at the table had all started laughing. Except Annie—she sat at the end of the table, sort of removed from the others. She was making something—the same thing the other kids were, I saw, except hers was finished. It was some sort of yarn thing, done on sticks. She didn’t look at me. Wouldn’t.
    â€œCan I help you?” the counselor repeated, stern now.
    â€œOh, n-n-no,” I stammered, then took a deep breath. “It’s just . . . I heard my cousin was in camp here this week. I wanted to say hi. I live near here.”
    â€œYour cousin?” She turned. “Is this someone’s cousin?”
    â€œI’ll be his cousin!” one of the girls shouted. The other girls all yelled, “Oooooo!” and I could feel myself blushing.
    Annie stood up. “I’m his cousin.” Suddenly, the table fell silent. The other girls stopped joking, wouldn’t even look at her. What had Annie done to make everyone hate her in just a few hours?
    Then I thought about her bossiness, her illness, and her bright, curly red hair and realized she probably didn’t have to
do
much at all. “Can she come outside and talk?” I asked the counselor. “I can’t stay long anyway.”
    â€œWell . . . he’s your cousin? Living all the way out here?” The counselor shook her head. “I guess for a few minutes. You’ve already finished your major art project for the day, huh?” She took Annie’s yarn thing, looked at it, and handed it back to her. “You’re quite the little artist, Annie Blythe. That’s the best God’s-eye I’ve