Free Reunited by Hilary Weisman Graham

the largest drum circle Summer had ever seen, with dancers flailing and twirling all around it, hypnotized by the steady rhythm.
    Not exactly like the last time she’d gone camping with Alice and Tiernan back in sixth grade at the Girl Scout jamboree. Unless you counted the two-hundred-pound bearded guy in the Girl Scout uniform.
    Alice followed Toad and Phred’s beat-up Honda Civic to a quiet area at the far edge of the meadow. In the campsite nextto them, two bikini-clad girls stood in an inflatable baby pool, painting their bodies blue.
    “Welcome to the neighborhood,” Toad said, hopping out of the van and nodding at the blue girls. Apparently he and Phred had appointed themselves their personal tour guides for this circus sideshow.
    “You guys wanna check out the bonfire?” Phred asked.
    “Hells yeah,” Tiernan said, pulling her camera from her bag. She was never one to miss a party, even if it meant hanging out next to a raging inferno in hundred-degree weather.
    “I need to make a quick phone call first,” Alice said.
    “No worries,” said Phred. “We can wait.”
    Alice shook her head. “That’s okay. I’ll catch up with you.”
    “I think I’m just going to stay in and read,” Summer said, getting back in the van. She would have given anything to be back home in Walford right now, curled up in her bed, alone with her thoughts. But since she was stuck here, she figured she might as well nab the top bunk before Alice or Tiernan got the chance. It was her old spot, after all.
    “You don’t mind if I pop the top, do you, Alice?”
    “Go for it.” Alice said, using her hands to sweep the crumbs from Tiernan’s seat onto the grass.
    “Well, I guess it’s just us then, eh, boys?” Tiernan stood between Toad and Phred, linking her arms through theirs. Then the three of them skipped off into the night, with Tiernan leading them in an obnoxiously bad rendition of “We’re off to See the Wizard.”
    Summer tugged on the metal bar to release the pop-top, just like she remembered, but the roof wouldn’t budge.
    “Alice, I think it’s stuck.”
    Alice let out a sigh, tossed a Hostess Snowball wrapper into her trash bag, then came around to the back of the van. With one forceful tug, she pulled down on the bar, instantly transforming the Pea Pod from regular old van into a two-story living space.
    “Thanks,” Summer said as Alice snapped the pop-top into place. “And if I’m asleep by the time you get back, then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    But Alice just stood there looking at her. “You know . . . if you want to talk about it—”
    “That’s sweet of you,” Summer said, smiling, “but I think I just want to sleep.” It wasn’t a lie. Everything about this day had completely exhausted her. Not that spilling her guts to Alice was ever an option.
    “Okay, then,” Alice said. “I’m heading out after I check in with my parents.”
    Summer smiled just thinking of the Millers and the way they’d always doted on Alice. A total contrast to her own parents, who, when Summer had asked them if they wanted her to call them from the road, had basically just laughed in her face.
    Alice hopped outside to make her call and finally, blissfully, Summer had the van all to herself. She placed her right foot on the well-worn groove next to the sink, then hauled herself upto the top bunk. When they were kids, she’d clocked hundreds of hours nestled away up here, listening to Level3, or talking with Tiernan and Alice, even though all they could see of her was a pair of dangling legs. The top bunk had always been her special place, her cocoon.
    Summer unzipped the screen window in the unlikely event that there was a breeze somewhere in this stagnant West Virginia night. It also gave her a perfect view of the bonfire with its frolicking tribal dancers. There was one girl—long flowing dress, unruly tangle of hair—whose entire body was silhouetted by the fire as if she were the flickering blue